Our Mississippi Primary Could Have Strange Results

Mississippi voters do not register by Party. When they vote in Primaries, they may choose to vote in either Party Primary. Most white candidates for local races run as Democrats - otherwise they will get no black votes. Black Mississippi voters will just not vote for a Republican - nor do I blame them. As Republicans have tried to take over our state, they have rarely had Republican Primaries. They couldn't afford to fight with each other. Consequently, most Mississippi voters chose the Democratic ballot - even if they were Republicans. That's where all the choices were - in many cases there were no Republican ballots.

This year is different. There are some very healthy Republican Primary races - but they're at the State level. The local races are still mostly Democratic Primaries. So what's a Republican to do? Which ballot do they choose? I'm predicting white voters will choose the Republican ballot in record numbers.

So what will that mean for the Democratic Primaries? The voters will be predominantly blacks and liberal whites. Some conservative white Democratic candidates may be able to convince enough of their friends to vote to eke out a win - but if they have a black opponent, they're in trouble.

Record numbers of black and liberal white Democrats will win Primaries - and in many races, that's the election. People (especially whites) will be shocked by the results - but you won't, now that I've warned you. When people express their shock, just ask them what Primary they voted in.

PS: Johnny Dupree wins the Democratic Primary without breaking a sweat. The General Election? That's a different story.

Frances Perkins - a Heroine

Do you know who Frances Perkins is? Don't feel bad if you don't - most people don't. Yet she has probably had more of an effect on the everyday lives of every American than any other woman - and most men.

The only thing I knew about her was that she was the first woman Cabinet Secretary - Department of Labor under FDR. The reason I know that much is because I remember when she died in 1965. I remember thinking how impressive it was that a woman had that position - I knew of no woman Secretaries at that point. Actually, in 1953, twenty years after Perkins was appointed, Oveta Culp Hobby was appointed Secretary of Health, Education, & Welfare by President Eisenhower - but I guess I was too young to remember her. I certainly never learned about either woman in school. It would take another 20 years for the next woman. In 1973, Anne Armstrong was appointed Counselor to the President (considered a Cabinet level position at the time) by Richard Nixon. I was well aware of her and all the subsequent female Cabinet members in every administration. (See Equal Representation in Government for a list.)

Last year, I came across a book about Perkins: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins written by Kirsten Downey, a Pulitzer winning journalist who spent eights years researching this book. Intrigued by how a woman pulled this off, I read it immediately. WOW! This woman was amazing! I could not believe how much she accomplished.

Perkins was trained as a social worker. In her first job out of graduate school, she witnessed the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and her life was never the same. At that point, she dedicated her life to worker safety issues. She began by working for nonprofit organizations, but in 1918 she was appointed by New York Governor Al Smith as the first female member of the State Industrial Commission, becoming Chair in 1926. When FDR became Governor, he appointed her as the State Industrial Commissioner. She was in the perfect position to see the Depression develop and predicted it ahead of time. She gave great thought to how to help workers. Therefore, she implemented policies never before considered, such as collecting employment data; employment offices to help workers find jobs; unemployment insurance; minimum wage; the 40 hour work week; elimination of child labor; and fire and safety standards, including no smoking, fire drills, sprinklers, fire escapes, building exits, occupancy limitations, washing and restroom facilities, clean water, and most importantly, with serious enforcement including factory investigations and penalties. Can you believe none of this existed before?

By this time, Perkins was considered the nation's top expert in employment. It's no wonder FDR took her with him to Washington when he became President in 1932. The truth was that he really had no agenda - but Perkins did, and she made his acceptance of it her condition for taking the job. He appointed her Secretary of Labor, a position she held for 12 years, longer than any other. I love this quote from the author - for one thing, it sounds so much like today.

"Housing prices had been pumped up by crazy new kinds of loans, and foreclosures of homes and farms were surging as borrowers faltered under the payments. Companies had enjoyed record profits and ploughed the money into machinery designed to boost productivity, cutting their workforces. The unemployment rate skyrocketed. Companies slashed the wages of the remaining workers, and asked them to work longer and longer hours. And then Wall Street imploded as the stock market crashed. This was the scenario Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced as he entered the presidency in 1933. An era of rampant speculation had come to an end. A women stepped in to put things right."

She was phenomenally successful in implementing the agenda she laid out for FDR. She started with a Labor Department that was a total disaster of real corruption and mismanagement and turned it into a model government agency - including a process of streamlining government purchasing that saved enormous amounts and was then used throughout the federal government. She knew that the key to relieving the Depression was to get money into the economy, and she did that through her Department. She took all the policies she had established in New York and made them part of the federal law - thus extending these protections to all Americans. But perhaps her most famous legacy was the passage and implementation of the Social Security Act. Please notice that all of her accomplishments are still in place today. She completed her entire agenda with one exception: national health insurance. If only FDR had lived a little longer, we wouldn't have to be still fighting that battle 70 years later.

What is so amazing about Perkins is not only WHAT she achieved but HOW she achieved them. First of all, she suffered such incredible sex discrimination that we can't even imagine. I shivered as I read about all the horrible things that were said and done to her. The Congress even tried to impeach her! She just ignored them and kept plodding away with her goals. She was the most persistent and patient advocate and never let an obstacle stop her. She had the most astonishing creativity in figuring out how to overcome adversity. Finally, the way she dealt with people showed her intuitive sense of just how to appeal to or overcome those with the power to achieve her goals. You know why we've never heard of her? We thought FDR did all this. She didn't care at all about receiving credit - and no men voluntarily gave it to her - she just wanted to get the job done. And this was a Washington bureaucrat! If only we had her now.

There is no way I can come up with enough superlatives to describe this woman to whom all Americans owed so much - and I've only scratched the surface of what she accomplished and how. You'll just have to read the book!

Elizabeth Warren - Obama's Test of Masculinity

Elizabeth Warren is really the only candidate to chair the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). If Obama does not appoint her, it will prove he has no balls.

Warren is a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Her entire career has been devoted to studying middle class economics, and she is a recognized expert in the field. I first heard of her in 2004 when she testified before Congress about the Bankruptcy Reform legislation - a bill strongly supported by banks and credit card companies to correct bankruptcy abuse that was allegedly widespread. Warren testified about the study she had done on bankruptcies of middle class families, half of which were due to unexpected medical expenses - and 75% of those families had medical insurance. Of course, the Republican Congress ignored her and instead listened to the banks and passed the bill - which has had a devastating effect on middle class families but was very beneficial to banks. Some of the perks it gave banks contributed to the massive bank failure.

Warren was appointed to, and became Chair of, the Congressional Oversight Panel that was created to investigate the US big bank bailout. In that capacity, she represented the interests of the public - and not the banks - and insisted on transparency and accountability. Her position did not give her power to actually do anything, but her reporting what was happening and what should be happening was, needless to say, not very appreciated by Big Banks or by the U S Treasury Department.

Warren is the mother of the CFPA. She has been lobbying incessantly for its inclusion in the financial reform legislation recently signed into law. Every time the Big Banks and Secretary Geithner thought they had it killed, Warren came roaring back. Without her, it would not have survived.

Warren is so obviously the only candidate for CFPA Chair. Aside from having created the Agency, she has the necessary knowledge of the arcane American financial system. She also has the credibility to protect the American people, especially the middle class. Plus, she is blatantly independent and not beholden to anyone - except the public. So who would possibly oppose her? Easy answer - Big Banks - and they have a lot of influence. But also the Secretary of the Treasury, who doesn't want anyone overseeing what he's doing - especially some uppity woman he can't control.

If Obama does not appoint her, he will confirm his lack of balls. All those voters who were so hot for him when he ran for President are going to discover he really is impotent. This will be the kiss of death for the Democrats in the 2010 elections - not to mention the end of any meaningful financial reform.

Hysterical Hypocrisy - Republican Style

Today Republican House Whip Eric Cantor introduced a program called YouCut. When I first heard of it, I thought it was very clever. It gives the public a chance to vote on what federal programs they want to see cut from the budget. However, when I went to the website, I discovered it wasn't clever at all - just the same ole crap we always see.

The website lists 5 programs for voters to choose. The choices are all typical programs that Republicans hate. So this is just a typical hypocritcal attempt to get email addresses - sort of like political phishing. It pretends to be seriously interested in your opinion, hoping to fool voters into providing personal information. It's the techy version of the old mailers that asked for your opinions on a survey. When you opened it, it asked typical partisan questions - and then said if you wanted anything to happen, you had to send money - right now.

The only question to be answered now is just how gullible are Republican voters? Will they fall for this scam? Probably.

If there was any integrity in Congress, someone could become an immediate hero to millions of voters by asking real questions. If we are going to really deal with a serious deficit, some very tough choices are going to have to be made. It's obvious no one in Congress has the courage to make these choices - they're too afraid of losing their next election. Wouldn't it be nice if one brave soul would step forward and present the public with the real choices and ask for their response?

Carrying Papers

I was thinking about those poor souls in Arizona that will always have to be carrying papers to identify themselves as legal. Then I remembered living somewhere overseas as a child where I had to always have my papers. I wasn't sure where it was, but I assumed it was Spain, because I lived there when Franco was dictator - and he was a pretty scary character. All I remembered was that it was thoroughly drummed into my head that I was never to leave home without my papers. I could also remember exactly what it looked like, and how terribly awkward it was to carry. I had a vague memory that I had saved this thing. I'm a pretty organized person, and I knew where it would be if I had it. And I found it! To my surprise, this was for when I lived in France, of all places.

As you can see, it was very long. But it did fold into a more manageable size - 3.5" X 5". But I was always having trouble finding places to carry it, since it didn't fit into any of my pockets. You can also see that it got a lot of abuse - it's torn and full of water marks and spots.

Shortly after I found this, I ran across an article in The Atlantic about French ID cards, which they apparently still have, although they rarely ask for them. The only people who are asked to show them are youngish, African or Arabic looking males.

"As far as I understand, such identity checks have been a long staple of police work in France going back to the Revolutionary/Napoleonic era wherein the State underwent a reinforcement of its prerogatives over the citizenry."

Wait until the conservatives in Arizona hear about this. They'll be horrified to be compared to the French!

Vegetable Soup in Paris

After avoiding the flu all winter, I finally succumbed on Sunday night. Earlier in the day a scratchy throat I blew off as allergy related and I worked in my yard -- carrying two large bags of mulch from car to front, weeding, planting, and mulching. The harder I worked the more hopeful I was in beating back this menacing virus. It was not to be.

By Monday morning I didn't bother to make my pot of morning tea; I simply fed the two cats and the dog, and I shuffled back to bed. So overpowering was the pressure in my head, I had to squint my eyes -- too painful to open. Thankfully, I had soup on hand because I was in no shape to drive. One lentil (Wolfgang Puck brand) and a southwest black bean, the latter, not appealing when sick, but what lingered in my memory always, I ushered forward -- a simple, as simple can be, vegetable soup prepared for me in Paris by Madame DuBois when I was ill.

I was working as an au pair in Paris for M. and Mme. DuBois who had a three year old son, Fabrice. Well, this was not truly in Paris, I learned when I first made the trek from the left bank to a suburb called Courbevoie. The small apartment was in a modern high-rise and it was not how I envisioned my life in Paris, but the DuBois were a charming young family. Monsieur was a doctor and his wife, Catherine, a stay-at-home mom. She had a weaving loom in the living room where she weaved shawls, blankets, and such. Catherine wore long skirts, boots, and knitted shawls draped perfectly around her shoulders; she was full-figured, but healthy and so cheerful and lively. She wore her light brunette hair up, in a bun, nothing severe -- simple. Catherine always had a bar or two of Swiss chocolate sitting on the coffee table and she'd break off a piece every now and then. It was so tempting. The only chocolate I had eaten, in the US at this time, during the 70s, was Hershey's and Baker's.

After living with the DuBois family, for a month or so, I fell ill; it was similar to how I'm feeling now. Madame let me stay in bed, which was a true luxury. The French simply do not get sick. I think it's seen as a sign of weakness. I recall once my American friend, Joanne, told me her boyfriend, Dominique, who was sick with fever and chills, refused rest in bed allowing himself to be pampered, no, he took off in the elements to run in the park, until he could "sweat it out." I can't recall if his strategy worked, but it is the way of the French.

So, I was lucky to have one day in bed to rest. That day Madame prepared for me, a large bowl of vegetable soup which she brought to me in bed. She would never open a can; she simply roughly cut vegetables fresh from the outdoor market that morning: carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and leeks, and simmered in water. This was the most simple, the most pure, and the most comforting soup I'd ever eaten. I don't even think salt was added. We were still eating Campbell's with its over-salted mushy vegetables and creamed soups in the US. Oh, my mother did make vegetable soup and it was delicious, but it had so many ingredients including stew meat. This was different.

In honor of Madame DuBois, by the the third day of my illness, I bravely tackled a trip to Walmart. I picked over the sad limp vegetables choosing organic carrots, a large white onion, celery, and potatoes, along with a carton of organic vegetable stock; Catherine had only used water. I don't think it would've mattered. The soup was simply okay. It was soothing, nourishing -- I'm sure, but, not at all like the bowl of vegetable soup, made for me one fall morning in Courbevoie, -- thank goodness.

I'm Randy, let me in

I was finishing up a Natchez mystery last night, The Turning Angel by Greg Iles. In it, he mentions the Eola Hotel:

At seven stories, the Eola Hotel is the tallest building in Natchez. Built in 1927, the year of the great flood, the Eola has weathered booms and bust to find itself on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Eola has such a strong place in my childhood memories -- it was our grand hotel -- that when I got married, even though I was poor, I wanted to spend a couple of nights there with my new British husband, Mel.

I was telling him how gracious and refined the South was, and the Eola was a fine representation of that tradition. It had been totally refurbished when we got married in late 1985, so Mel was suitably impressed when he stepped into the grand lobby:

We were asleep that first night when we were disturbed by a man banging on the door next to ours and shouting:

"I'm Randy. Let me in!"

As the man continued to shout and pound on the door, Mel observed that the South didn't seem so refined if you could just shout out to someone in public that you were horny and wanted sex and then try to force your way into their room. (No one is named Randy in England. It's unheard of. Maybe someone is named Randolph, but it's never shortened to Randy. Randy means you want to have sex with someone -- it's an adjective describing your current state of mind.)

I laughed when I realized that Mel didn't understand that this man's name was Randy. The shouting and beating of the door continued, and we started to worry, so we called down to the lobby to get someone to intercede.

The next morning, we opened our door to find the door of the next room had been totally smashed in.

"So much for Southern politeness and refinement," Mel observed.