THE HEALTH CARE MOVIE II

"From Those Wonderful People

Who Brought You MEDICARE PART D"

The cast of characters is amazing and everyday the plot line of

"The Health Care Movie II" keeps changing.

Who knew Tom DeLay would join "Dancing With The Stars ?"

If you enjoyed the suspense of the original drama, read on.

You'll laugh. You'll cry.

This is a true story.

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act

(Pub.L. 108-173, 117 Stat. 2066, also called Medicare Modernization Act or MMA)

is a law of the United States which was enacted in 2003. It produced the largest overhaul of Medicare in the public health program's 38-year history.

The MMA was signed by President George W. Bush on December 8, 2003,

after passing in Congress by a close margin.

THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT

The chairman of the Commerce Committee, Representative BILLY TAUZIN (R-La.), coauthored the bill while negotiating a $2-million-per-year job as a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry's trade organization.

AARP, the (then) 35 million member senior organization, played a key behind-the-scenes role in engineering the legislation, helped by none other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. (Readers will recall that, at one time, Newt said that all entitlement programs should shrink away to nothing.) BILL NOVELLI, AARP's Executive Director, actually wrote an introduction to Gingrich's book on health care. Reportedly, more than 15,000 members resigned after the information about AARP's involvement became known.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader DICK ARMEY, an influential Republican working as Chairman of the limited government group FreedomWorks, wrote an op-ed the day of the vote in The Wall Street Journal opposing the bill.

THE ACTION ON THE FLOOR

The bill came to a vote at 3 a.m. on November 22. After 45 minutes, the bill was losing, 219-215, with David Wu (D-OR) not voting. Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader TOM DELAY sought to convince some of dissenting Republicans to switch their votes, as they had in June. Ernest Istook (R-OK), who had always been a wavering vote, consented quickly, producing a 218-216 tally. In a highly unusual move, the House leadership held the vote open for hours as they sought two more votes. Then-Representative Nick Smith (R-MI) claimed he was offered campaign funds for his son, who was running to replace him, in return for a change in his vote from "nay" to "yea." After controversy ensued, Smith clarified no explicit offer of campaign funds was made, but that that he was offered "substantial and aggressive campaign support" which he had assumed included financial support. ( former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Representative Candice Miller (R-Mich.) tried to bribe him with political favors to change his vote — an infraction for which the House Ethics Committee later admonished them.

About 5:50 a.m., the Republican leadership convinced Butch Otter (R-ID) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) to switch their votes. With passage assured, Wu voted yea as well, and Democrats Calvin M. Dooley (CA), Jim Marshall (GA) and David Scott (GA) changed their votes to the affirmative. But Brad Miller (D-NC), and then, Republican John Culberson (TX), reversed their votes from "yea" to "nay". The bill passed 220-215.

ONE MONTH LATER

... the ten-year cost estimate was boosted to $534 billion, up more than $100 billion over the figure presented by the Bush administration during Congressional debate. The inaccurate figure helped secure support from fiscally conservative Republicans who had promised to vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion. It was reported that an administration official, TOM SCULLY, had concealed the higher estimate and threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary RICHARD FOSTER if he revealed it.

IN JULY 2004, it was revealed that Thomas A. Scully, Medicare Administrator, had ordered Richard Foster, a Medicare actuary, to withhold information from Congress on pain of termination. Foster had projected that the bill would cost at least 139 billion dollars more than the White House was claiming.

EARLY 2005, the White House Budget had increased the 10-year estimate to $1.2 trillion.

THE HEALTH CARE MOVIE II, 2009

REPEAT PLAYERS

BILLY TAUZIN: Billy Tauzin was named president and chief executive officer of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 2005. In 2009, Tauzin is in negotiations with Senator Max Baucus, the business-friendly Montana Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff; Mr. Messina, his deputy; and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the aide overseeing the health care overhaul.

TOM DeLAY: Resigned his seat in Congress on June 9, 2006. He co-founded The Coalition for a Conservative Majority with former Ohio Secretary of State, Republican Ken Blackwell. You will remember that Blackwell threw out 1000's of Ohio voter registration applications because they were not on 80lb. paper stock.

Tom will join fellow cast members Donny Osmond , Kathy Ireland, Macy Gray and others on the "Dancing With the Stars" 9th season.

TOM SCULLY: Scully was never charged and became a lobbyist for a venture capital firm, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe who invest in medical devices. As a board member of Solantic, Scully is working with Rick Scott, the chairman, who has organized the angry mobs at the health care town halls.

RICHARD FOSTER: Continues in his office of Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mr. Foster is responsible for all actuarial and other financial analyses for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

AARP: AARP began 50+ years ago, before Medicare existed, as an insurance business providing health coverage to people 65 and older. As early as 1959, it was offering prescription drugs to its members by mail.

AARP has joined other centrist groups* in the Divided We Fail campaign that calls for a bipartisan solution and states that "all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care, including prescription drugs, and that these costs should not unfairly burden future generations." WASHINGTON (AP) — About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1, 2009 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul.

WILLIAM NOVELLI: AARP's CEO Novelli, 67, has broadened AARP's reach and increased its clout in Washington. He has expanded AARP's marketing to include 17 types of insurance. The association collects royalties on each of those products. Its membership rose to 40 million from 35 million, and its total revenue grew to $1.17 billion in 2007 from $520 million when Novelli took charge.

Mr. Novelli is a former public relations man who founded the Washington firm Porter-Novelli, a division of Omnicom. Democrats have accused him of being a ''closet Republican,'' citing his work 35 years ago on an advertising campaign to re-elect President Richard Nixon. Mr. Novelli said he is an independent, not a Republican.

According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Porter-Novelli received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts:

$14,786,313 in 2002

$7,495,188 in 2003

$7,019,145 in 2004

DICK ARMEY: Now chairman of the conservative group FreedomWorks. He is actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and senatorial town hall meetings.

NEW PLAYERS (added daily)

A partisan cast of 100's including the K street players, the White House and the always fascinating Blue Dogs.

THE NEW SCRIPT

HEALTH CARE MOVIE II has been through so many script changes and revisions that the release-date keeps getting pushed back. Naturally, the cost of producing this spectacle keeps going higher. And there is always the possibility of a conflict with the release of a new Terror or War epic.

THE END OF JAZZ ?

"Among college-educated adults,

the audience for live jazz has shrunk significantly,

to 14.9% in 2008 from 19.4% in 1982."

(from the National Endowment for the Arts’ latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,

the fourth to be conducted by the NEA

in participation with the U.S. Census Bureau since 1982.)

THE OLD FOLKS AT A JAZZ CONCERT.

A few weeks ago we went to hear songwriter, producer and keyboardist Dave Grusin (75) and his brother Don (68), also a superb piano player, in a Santa Fe jazz concert.

Dave created the original score and provided the piano music for one of the finest jazz films available, "The Fabulous Baker Boys." The soundtrack DVD is a big disappointment. It does not contain any of the brilliant improvisational piano playing that makes the movie so wonderful. What you liked about the movie isn't on the soundtrack! To "hear" what I'm saying, rent the film or buy it ASAP. It's that good. The reason I bring this up is that Dave and Don got to "noodling" on their twin pianos at this concert, late at night, just like in the film score, at the magnificent Lensic Theatre in SFe. And the audience would have remained with them as long as the two brothers kept playing.

Everybody in that rapt gray and white audience was listening. Unfortunately the theatre was only 3/4 full. Not enough people are listening to jazz.

The Wall Street Journal has always had excellent jazz coverage and in a recent posting, Terry Teachout writes that,"it’s no longer possible for head-in-the-sand types to pretend that the great American art form (jazz) is economically healthy or that its future looks anything other than bleak."

CAN JAZZ BE SAVED?

Terry Teachout is The Wall Street Journal's drama critic.

The versatile critic also wrote the libretto for the Santa Fe Opera's original production/adaptation of "The Letter". Remember the movie with Betty Davis.

Teachout is a big jazz fan and was interviewed on KSFR, the public radio jazz station in Santa Fe (FM101.1). His taste in jazz is very much main stream and classic but he observes in the August 9 edition of The Wall Street Journal:

"THE AUDIENCE FOR AMERICA'S GREAT ART FORM IS WITHERING AWAY"

By TERRY TEACHOUT

New York

"In 1987, Congress passed a joint resolution declaring jazz to be “a rare and valuable national treasure.” Nowadays the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis is taught in public schools, heard on TV commercials and performed at prestigious venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center, which even runs its own nightclub, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.

Here’s the catch: Nobody’s listening.

No, it’s not quite that bad—but it’s no longer possible for head-in-the-sand types to pretend that the great American art form is economically healthy or that its future looks anything other than bleak.

The bad news came from the National Endowment for the Arts’ latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the fourth to be conducted by the NEA (in participation with the U.S. Census Bureau) since 1982. These are the findings that made jazz musicians sit up and take notice:

• In 2002, the year of the last survey, 10.8% of adult Americans attended at least one jazz performance. In 2008, that figure fell to 7.8%.

• Not only is the audience for jazz shrinking, but it’s growing older—fast. The median age of adults in America who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 46. In 1982 it was 29.

• Older people are also much less likely to attend jazz performances today than they were a few years ago. The percentage of Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 9.8%. In 2002, it was 13.9%. That’s a 30% drop in attendance.

• Even among college-educated adults, the audience for live jazz has shrunk significantly, to 14.9% in 2008 from 19.4% in 1982.

These numbers indicate that the audience for jazz in America is both aging and shrinking at an alarming rate. What I find no less revealing, though, is that the median age of the jazz audience is now comparable to the ages for attendees of live performances of classical music (49 in 2008 vs. 40 in 1982), opera (48 in 2008 vs. 43 in 1982), nonmusical plays (47 in 2008 vs. 39 in 1982) and ballet (46 in 2008 vs. 37 in 1982). In 1982, by contrast, jazz fans were much younger than their high-culture counterparts.

What does this tell us? I suspect it means, among other things, that the average American now sees jazz as a form of high art. Nor should this come as a surprise to anyone, since most of the jazz musicians that I know feel pretty much the same way. They regard themselves as artists, not entertainers, masters of a musical language that is comparable in seriousness to classical music—and just as off-putting to pop-loving listeners who have no more use for Wynton Marsalis than they do for Felix Mendelssohn.

Jazz has changed greatly since the ’30s, when Louis Armstrong, one of the supreme musical geniuses of the 20th century, was also a pop star, a gravel-voiced crooner who made movies with Bing Crosby and Mae West and whose records sold by the truckload to fans who knew nothing about jazz except that Satchmo played and sang it. As late as the early ’50s, jazz was still for the most part a genuinely popular music, a utilitarian, song-based idiom to which ordinary people could dance if they felt like it. But by the ’60s, it had evolved into a challenging concert music whose complexities repelled many of the same youngsters who were falling hard for rock and soul. Yes, John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” sold very well for a jazz album in 1965—but most kids preferred “California Girls” and “The Tracks of My Tears,” and still do now that they have kids of their own.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music. But there’s no sense in pretending that it didn’t happen, or that contemporary jazz is capable of appealing to the same kind of mass audience that thrilled to the big bands of the swing era. And it is precisely because jazz is now widely viewed as a high-culture art form that its makers must start to grapple with the same problems of presentation, marketing and audience development as do symphony orchestras, drama companies and art museums—a task that will be made all the more daunting by the fact that jazz is made for the most part by individuals, not established institutions with deep pockets.

No, I don’t know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they should like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle. If you’re marketing Schubert and Stravinsky to those listeners, you have no choice but to start from scratch and make the case for the beauty of their music to otherwise intelligent people who simply don’t take it for granted. By the same token, jazz musicians who want to keep their own equally beautiful music alive and well have got to start thinking hard about how to pitch it to young listeners—not next month, not next week, but right now."

JULIA CHILD DISCOVERS DOVER SOLE

"the most exciting meal of my life"

JULIA CHILD AND DOVER SOLE

We have written about this "best fish story of them all" earlier this year. Apparently Julia Child discovered Dover Sole meuniere long before we did and her reaction is recorded in a mouth-watering scene in the new Nora Ephron movie, "Julie & Julia"

"Julia Child’s first lunch in France centered on Dover sole sputtering in butter sauce. It was, she wrote in her memoir, “the most exciting meal of my life.”

For that scene, Ms. Ephron — an accomplished cook who wrote the screenplay, directed the film and personally tested every recipe in the movie except the aspic — would accept nothing short of perfection.

“I wanted that sole to look to the audience the way it had looked to Julia when it caused her famous epiphany,” she said.

But hey, no pressure.

Susan Spungen, the movie’s food stylist, had spent a dozen years as Martha Stewart’s food editor. She had been a caterer before that. She understood pressure. But she knew she was in the weeds the moment she arrived at a Manhattan restaurant to shoot the scene.

For starters, the chef that Ms. Ephron had recruited to cook the sole was instead pressed into service as the scene’s waiter. That left Ms. Spungen uncharacteristically unprepared. The restaurant didn’t have a nonstick pan, and the chef forgot to tell her that the secret to the dish was a light coat of Wondra flour.

Worse, she had only about 10 of the expensive fillets to work with. That wouldn’t allow for many mistakes. And even if she cooked one perfectly, how was she going to make sure the big fillet sizzled enough so the camera would pick it up?"

LUNCH WITH JULIA CHILD, JAMES BEARD AND CECILIA CHIANG.

Lunch with Julia Child, James Beard and Cecilia Chiang.

WHO IS CECILIA CHIANG?

Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse fame, says what Julia Child did for French cooking in the United States, Cecilia Chiang did for Chinese cuisine in America. In 1968 she founded the Mandarin Restaurant in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. For almost 40 years, Cecilia presided over an elegant restaurant that achieved a national reputation. Visitors from all over the country came to seek authentic and fine Chinese dining. She held cooking classes that saw students the likes of Julia Child, James Beard, and Alice Waters. The restaurant closed in December 2005.

Cecilia's son Philip hooked up with a friend to open up a successful chain of restaurants that are doing well in these rough economic times - P.F. Chang’s Bistro.

FOOD MAVEN'S AT THE MANDARIN

About 10 years after the Mandarin opened, four of us, on a business trip to the west coast, walked into the restaurant for lunch. As I recall, Madam Chiang, herself, seated us. Since we were all "foodies" and had picked the Mandarin for its excellent menu, it took no time at all to spot the huge figure of James Beard at the next table. He was really big with a dome-shaped bald head. Seated next to him was Julia and there was no mistaking that voice. Next to her, according to our waitress, was Julia's sister, Dorothy. Everybody at the table was supersize. Later I found out that Dorothy McWilliams was 6' 4" and Julia was 6'2'' (size 12 shoes). The two other normal size women at the table, we guessed, were either food editors or (as we learned later) sales reps. for Rice-A-Roni.

A nice looking young woman asked if we would like to participate in a consumer food test and we, of course, said yes. Each of us was given a small portion of rice and a separate container of Chinese sauce - which we ladled on the rice. Then we answered a questionnaire about that special sauce with a (throwaway) question, at the end, about the rice. Now they served another portion of rice, another different sauce, another questionnaire. We learned later - after 4 different sauces - that each portion of rice was prepared differently. That was the real test. We didn't know that Rice-A-Roni was doing a food test at the Manderin that day.

Now it was time to order lunch. When the waitress asked for our order we pointed to the Beard, Child table, where Madame Chiang was hovering in the background and said cleverly, "we'll have what they're having". "Sorry", the waitress replied, "they're having a special lunch menu." Expletive!!!

HIDDEN COMMENTS FROM BEARD AND CHILD

It's taken me 30 years to find the autographs I got from James Beard and Julia Child. After our long-g-g-g lunch I approached M. Chiang and got a copy of her book, "The Mandarin Way", which she autographed to my wife, Shirley. I walked over to the Beard/Child table where lunch was still in progress with many, many bottles of wine on the table. Cecelia Chiang was right behind me. "Of course", bubbled James and Julia, they would be delighted to sign Madam Chiang's recent book. Since the title page was already filled, they flipped to the back of the book, the recipe index page and - assuming I was a member of staff - signed the book as you see above. Those comments have been hidden in the back of the book until the recent blast of publicity for Nora Ephron's Movie, "Julie & Julia" motivated me to find them.

GREAT MAGAZINES THAT NEVER MADE IT. MUSE

MUSE: Exploring the World's Museums 

MUSE is part of my collection of magazines that are long gone and out-of-print. The cover of the Premier Issue of MUSE featured a haunting bronze portrait of Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar. According to the notes about the cover, the portrait composed of metal fragments was acquired in 1902 by Henry Walters, son of the founder of Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery. In 2000, the Walters Art Gallery changed its name to the Walters Art Museum to reflect its image as a large public institution. The following year, the museum reopened its largest building after a dramatic three-year renovation. 

Thirty years after the defunct Museum Magazine was published by McGraw-Hill (1979), I tried unsuccessfully to find the original cover art at the Walters Museum website. There is a similar head composed of fewer pieces but not the subject of the cover photo. The bronze portrait bust like the magazine has disappeared.

THE EDITOR

Otto Fuerbringer was the Editor of this one-and-only issue of MUSE. According to the New York Times obituary (7/30/2008), "He (had been) a hard-driving, conservative-leaning managing editor of Time magazine during the political and social upheavals of the 1960s" and "brought a vibrancy, and a degree of controversy, to what had long been a rather taut, tartly written publication". Fuerbringer was noted for "Time’s lead story on April 8, 1966, (it) had no portrait on the cover, just a bold-red headline on a black background that asked, “Is God Dead?...The article set off a backlash by religious conservatives."

In the Editor's letter for MUSE, Fuerbringer said, " Museums are a part of almost everyone's experience. Museum-going is learning and enjoyment, intellectual refreshment and emotional release. It stirs curiosity and enlarges one's vision."

"By founding Muse magazine we hope to keep enlarging the museum experience. We will convey the excitement of current shows and the richness of permanent treasures. we will describe, judge and (when justified) exclaim! The world's museums are our province, and we will help our readers discover them." 

GREAT MAGAZINES THAT NEVER MADE IT. MUSE (2)

MUSE: Exploring the World's Museums (Part 2)

GREAT DISPLAYS

McGraw-Hill, the publisher of MUSE, the long-gone magazine devoted to museums, thought they had a solid creative idea. The premier issue contained articles about the Getty Museum, the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, the Air and Space Museum in D.C., and (for the time) exciting color spreads of museum exhibits. "For too many centuries, too many museums were scholarly warehouses, gigantic filing cabinets, even, in the telling nickname of the Smithsonian, 'the nation's attic'...display artists (now we would call them "exhibit designers") have become as important to museums as they are to department stores. And for similar reasons: to "sell" the merchandise, to help the customer-visitor grasp the virtues of the materials and their relations to others like them.

THE COST OF CREATING AN EXHIBIT.

In 1978-79, the East Building of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., designed by Architect I.M. Pei was new. According to a major article about "Great Displays" and specifically, "From the Pacific", MUSE said that a 17,000-square-foot exhibition space was stripped bare and rebuilt. On display were masks and figures, weapons, musical instruments, delicate utensils and vibrant textiles from Hawaii in the east to New Guinea in the west. The exhibitions total cost, including transportation of the objects, came to to almost $500,000". Wow! What a difference thirty years can make.

FRANK LEGO WRIGHT

This Just In From the L.A.Times

A Lego spokeswoman says this Fallingwater will be available Aug. 1. It will sell for about $100 at Lego stores and at www.brickstructures.com, which also has Lego sets of the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Space Needle in Seattle and Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The museum, by the way, has an exhibition on the architect running through Aug. 23.

GREAT MAGAZINES THAT DISAPPEARED

GREAT MAGAZINES THAT DISAPPEARED OR NEVER SURVIVED.

There was a head-hunter (executive search firm) in Chicago named Jack Baxter. His motto was "Jack Baxter Knows Advertising and Advertising Knows Jack Baxter". His consulting firm is long gone but I will never forget his waiting room.

There was a large table, in front of the comfortable leather chairs, carefully arranged with only magazines that were long gone and out-of-print. Of course you remember the original Colliers and Saturday Evening Post? Do you remember Blue Book, Argosy, Portfolio, Eros, Avant Gard, Moneysworth, Fact,  Show, Muse, Geo, and Flair - to name a few? I do not have a copy of Flair but I remember the cutouts, fold-outs, pop-ups, removable reproductions of artworks and paper stocks of different sizes.

FLAIR

Fleur Cowles, who created Flair, died at age 101 on June 5, 1909. According to the New York Times, "(she) rose from modest beginnings in New York to become a well-heeled friend of the powerful and famous and the creator of one of the most extravagant and innovative magazines ever published, Although there were just 12 issues of Flair, published from February 1950 to January 1951, the magazine caused a sensation and is still admired for its coverage of fashion, décor, travel, art, literature and other enthusiasms of Ms. Cowles’s. But Flair...was simply too expensive to produce, even though it sold for 50 cents a copy when Time and Life were selling for 20 cents."

GENTRY

Gentry, a fashion magazine for men, was also notable for its ambitious production tricks and inventive covers. Published through 1957, it sold for two dollars a copy. In 1952 the "Board Of Editors" included Alvin Lustig, a dynamic young American graphic designer.  In 1944 he became Director of Visual Research for Look Magazine. He also designed for Fortune, New Directions and the Girl Scouts Of America He went blind from diabetes in 1954 and died in 1955.

My copy contains an article by Albert Camus and a portfolio of fashions with fabric swatches carefully tipped on the page. "Farming For Horse Owners", an article on the advantages of growing one's own feed contains, tipped onto the page, a sample of plump, clean and nutritive oats ready for feeding to your horse.

An H.Freeman & Son (Hickey Freeman) Advertisement features a sports coat with a blend of rabbit's hair, Australian wool and Llama fibre. About $50.

OMAHA BEACH REVISITED

Over ten years ago we drove to Omaha Beach through the small back roads of France. It was a delightful countryside. We were headed for the 1944 D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, France. Along the way we were surprised to see a number of small German, French, English and Australian World War I cemeteries . Each site was meticulously cared for. The larger cemeteries often contained a plain concrete building with dark windows. I  found out later that these were Ossuary building or a "bone repository" for the unclaimed skeletal remains from the Great War's battlefields.

These small roadside cemeteries cast a rather disquieting spell over our touring group. The collection of international roadside grave plots in France were too close in a timeline to Omaha Beach. European history suddenly comes alive and you remember that all of France was a war zone. By comparison, the U.S. seems relatively untouched. There are major battlefield sites, like Gettysburg, or the Little Big Horn, but they are separated by geography and a more distant past. Memorial Day was a big deal when we were young. I remember a silent parade to the local cemetery. We shuffled along to a drum cadence wearing our Scout uniform to plant flags by the veteran's grave sites.

It was dusk when we arrived at Omaha Beach, the tide was out and the only sound was the surf. Hunks of concrete stuck out of the sand. We noticed the beautiful green velvet hills in the distance as we walked on the beach. There was no one else in sight.

LANDING ON OMAHA BEACH

Compare this U.S. Coast Guard photo of soldiers disembarking from a Landing Craft on the morning of June 6, 1944 with the more recent Omaha Beach photo in color. Through the smoke and battle haze you can see hillside as a reference point. There were films of the D-Day landing. One of the most effective depictions of this historic event is the opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan.

Another very dramatic recreation of the landing can be seen at the Cantigny War Museum in Illinois. You, the viewer, are seated in a landing craft similar to the WWII version. The front of the craft is a rear-projection screen that shows newsreel footage of the landing. When the war footage ends, the front of the landing craft lifts and you walk out onto a life-sized section of Omaha Beach with appropriate battle sounds, smoke, wreckage and bodies. 

EXPLAINING OMAHA BEACH

New museums, monuments, conferences, tours, signage and exhibits about the D-Day landing are added each year. As the number of old soldiers who landed at Omaha Beach declines, the interest in what happened there continues to grow. The metal plaque above the beach shows in simple terms who landed where.

THE AMERICAN CEMETERY AT COLLEVILLE ON OMAHA BEACH.

The 172.5 acres at Colleville contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. The graves face westward, towards the United States. The linear placement of each Marble Cross or Star of David is precise. As the shadows on the grass lengthen from this vast collection of individual graves, so many markers, so perfectly aligned, it is impossible to remain unmoved. Your eyes fill with tears.

HOW TO SECEDE IN POLITICS

THE 

FEDERATED 

STATES OF 

AMERICA

In a fascinating New Yorker article of May 4, 2009,  

So Long Pardner, writer Hendrik Hertzberg gave reality to Gov. Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas might end its association with the United States of America and strike out on its own.

Hertzberg called the potential affiliation of Texas and, "any other parts of the old Confederacy that might wish to accompany it - the Federated States ("Confederate"being a word that remains a little too provocative)." 

So Long Pardner is a must-read article,humorous and scary.

Perhaps Gov. Perry's April 15 "tea party" speech was prompted by prior legislative action in two other states, Georgia and Alaska.

On April 1, 2009, the Georgia State Senate passed Resolution 632 (SR632)[status “Affirming states’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.” The vote was a resounding 43-1, with 12 not voting or excused.

On April 6, 2009, the Alaska House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed House Joint Resolution 27 [HJR27][status page] which “claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States” The final vote was 37-0, with 3 not voting.

If that piqued your interest you will enjoy these news items. Somewhere in this same time frame the South Dakota house passed a similar resolution, 51-18, and an Oklahoma version passed that state’s house, 83-13, and its state senate, 25-17. Oklahoma’s Democratic governor, Brad Henry, vetoed it, noting dryly in his veto message that it “does not serve the state or its citizens in any positive manner.”

Now for the fun part. From Hertzerg's article, "Although Texas itself has been a net contributor to the Treasury—it gets back ninety-four cents for each dollar it sends to Washington—nearly all the other potential F.S. states, especially the ones whose politicians complain most loudly about the federal jackboot, are on the dole. (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 on the dollar, as compared with Illinois’s seventy-five cents.)"

These figures came from The Tax Foundation, a non-profit organization that explains these  numbers as, "Federal Taxes Paid vs. Federal Spending Received by State, 1981-2005."

Further, The Tax Foundation explains, "States send federal taxes to Washington and receive federal spending in return. However, some states benefit more from federal taxing and spending policies than others. Some "beneficiary" states receive a positive return from Uncle Sam, making other states "donors" who pick up the tab. The most important factor determining whether a state is a net beneficiary is per capita income. States with wealthier residents pay higher federal taxes per capita thanks to the progressive structure of the income tax. Other factors include whether states have powerful Members of Congress, the number of federal employees present in a state, and the number of residents receiving Social Security, Medicare and other federal entitlements."

I was concerned that the 2005 figures would surely have changed during this calamitous calendar year so I called William Ahern, Communications Director of The Tax Foundation for help.

His answer: "(In short, we haven't updated the study.)"

 

"The annual project got derailed when the Census went almost 3 years without publishing the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (our source for spending by state). Now they've made up the time with rapid-fire publication of 2 issues and a third to come out shortly. But in the meantime, the economist here who had taken ownership of that project took a job at PriceWaterhouse, and the remaining staff is preoccupied with other projects. However, because those ratios change at a glacial pace, essentially reflecting demographic changes on the spending side, and slowly rising progressivity on the tax side, the '05 data are probably correct for fiscal 08 within a few cents."

10 Biggest Receivers (I added 5 more)

1. New Mexico $2.03

2. Mississippi $2.02

3. Alaska $1.84

4. Louisiana $1.78

5. West Virginia $1.76

6. North Dakota $1.68

7. Alabama $1.66

8. South Dakota $1.53

9. Kentucky $1.51

10. Virginia $1.51

15.Oklahoma $1.36

16. South Carolina $1.35

31. Ohio $1.05

31. Florida $1.04

34. Georgia $1.02

10 Biggest Donators

1. New Jersey $0.61

2. Nevada $0.65

3. Connecticut $0.69

4. New Hampshire $0.71

5. Minnesota $0.72

6. Illinois $0.75

7. Delaware $0.77

8. California $0.78

9. New York $0.79

10. Colorado $0.81

THE BEST FISH STORY OF THEM ALL

ENGLISH DOVER SOLE

This is about one of the best tasting meals in the world - if you can find it? Dover Sole, actually English Dover Sole, is expensive and you won't find it in your local fish market unless you live in a large coastal city. If you can find the real thing in a fine restaurant it will be the most expensive entre on the menu ($40-60).

In America, flounder is often mislabeled as fillet of sole- a misnomer because all of the fish called "sole" (except for imported European Dover Sole) are actually varieties of flounder. 

Dover Sole, technically speaking, is the only authentic member of the sole family sold in this country. The name derives from the English port of Dover, a major market for the thick, meaty fish. Dover Sole used to be sold frozen, but jet transportation now makes it available fresh in restaurants and markets, although for a hefty price.

In my opinion, the only way to cook the real Dover Sole is Sole Meunière. Since I doubt that you can find Dover Sole in your local fish market, I include these cooking tips only to show you how a good restaurant will prepare this simple, elegant meal.

Don't let this toney title turn you off. Sole Meunière is a classic French dish consisting of a filet of sole served with a brown butter sauce and lemon. Sole has a light, flaky texture when cooked and has a mild flavor. Since sole is a flatfish, a single fish will yield four filets rather than the two filets that a roundfish will produce.

The basic recipe is hardly a recipe at all. It's just a simple saute (sometimes called pan-frying in English). After dredging the fillets in flour, pan fry in olive oil and butter. You can add lemon, capers and shallots if you wish. The brown, roasty flavours on the outside go beautifully with the delicate, nutty flavour of the sole.

The cooking process will be quick. Because there are so many variables (heat, size of pan, thickness of fillets), more specific guidelines are almost useless. For home cooks, the challenge will be to dare to get the pan hot enough to brown the fish evenly without overcooking.

(Dover) Sole used to be one of the least expensive dishes on European menus. It was, when we drove through Belgium 20 years ago. When I discovered that plain "sole" on the menu was Dover sole, I ate nothing else. Overfishing and skyrocketing popularity elevated this ugly flatfish to it's current exalted pricey position.

Vladimir Horowitz, the late piano grand master, married to Arturo Toscanini's daughter, would eat nothing but Dover Sole for dinner.

According to Peter Gelb, at that time , President of Sony Classical Records," his (Horowitz) fears about his diet appeared to be the major hurdle to realizing his dream of returning to Russia. At the time, his evening meal consisted of fresh Dover Sole and asparagus, a routine repeated night after night for several years, all faithfully recorded in his bound red book."

"Horowitz only agreed to his historic return to Moscow after I had set up a highly commercial worldwide television broadcast of his concert (and promised to air lift to him a daily supply of fresh Dover sole—the only food he would eat for dinner)."

"Ambassador and Mrs. Hartman offered to turn over their spacious living quarters in Spasso House to Horowitz and, even more crucially, agreed to engineer the first Dover Sole and asparagus airlift into Moscow. Hartman organized his fellow ambassadorial corps -- the British ambassador was to be responsible for the sole, the Italian ambassador for the asparagus, the French ambassador for the Dom Perignon rose that Mrs. Horowitz preferred -- and the Hartmans' chef was in charge of obtaining copious quantities of fresh caviar on the black market. Members of Hartman's staff who greeted the arriving food flights wore T-shirts imprinted with the words "Dover Sole Air Lift." 

COLONEL "BERTIE" McCORMICK & THE 1934 CHICAGO TRIBUNE CARTOON

There they are, in a cart, careening down a cash covered road while

 Democrats: Ickes (Herald Sr.), Henry Wallace, and Donald Richberg shovel more sacks of money out of the donkey-powered cart. 

Rex Tugwell, head Brain Truster flails away at the Democratic donkey symbol. 

A Trotsky-esque figure completes a Plan Of Action For U.S. Poster. SPEND!SPEND! SPEND!

WHY DID THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE JUST PUBLISH THIS 1934 CARTOON AGAIN?

OK, I get it. The Democrats are screwing up "the soundest government in the world" while the "pinkies" from Harvard wield the power bottle. We used to call them "commie-pinkos" when Sen.Joe McCarthy was around. He hit the power and the bottle. It destroyed him.

This cartoon has been e-mailed to me several times by my concerned conservative friends. There is a tag line at the end of the e-mail, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905.

That got my interest so I looked up "the past".

WHO PUBLISHED THE CARTOON?

Colonel Robert "Bertie" McCormick owned The Tribune for most of the first half of the 20th century. He was, like Warren G. Harding, a good newspaperman, but his personal viewpoints often were at odds with the rest of the world. Harry Vaughn, actually General Vaughan, President Truman's Military Aide in the White House said this about Bertie:

VAUGHAN: Bertie was, yes. He was a little to the right of Louis XVI. You know it was his paper (The Chicago Tribune) that had that headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." I got a copy of it on the wall there.

Perhaps we should include the famous photo of Truman holding up the Tribune with that headline beside the Santayane quote.

McCormick disliked Truman but he hated FDR. Franklin Roosevelt was a prep school classmate and nemesis of Bertie. FDR's New Deal politics and global ambitions represented nearly everything McCormick abhorred.

There are those who said that Bertie bought his military commission in the Illinois National Guard. McCormick’s military title was fully earned, according to a fascinating book, The Colonel: The Life & Legend of Robert B. McCormick, 1880-1955, by Richard Norton Smith.  The book also states that he fought bravely and successfully on the Western Front with the First Division. Indeed, he renamed his family home for a desperate battle in which he and his troops withstood a massive German attack (at Cantigny, France). When he died, he was buried in his faded khaki uniform. Cantigny is also a must-see museum with super-detailed life-sized dioramas that you can walk through. The reconstruction of the World War I Cantigny site is particularly impressive

After his military service, Bertie became an "Isolationist". (From the book) He resolutely opposed American action, except in defense of the homeland. He was an imperious, at times capricious, employer, capable of extraordinary rudeness and generosity. He was, at once, comically self-important and self-deprecating. Never happier than when riding to hounds, he championed, indeed romanticized, the American yeoman, and bemoaned the snobbery and decadence of the rich. A stalwart advocate of what we would today call family values, he had the lifelong habit of pursuing married women. So much for the publisher of the cartoon.

WHO DREW THE CARTOON?

"The one-eyed Cartoonist, Carey Orr, does not hate Franklin Roosevelt either, simply considers him "despicable like a snake." He likes to picture the President as a Red, a would-be Hitler, a gorilla-like monster of Fear, Doubt and Ruin. Other cartoonists consider Carey Orr an exponent of "brute force, which gets reaction not converts." Nevertheless Publisher McCormick continues to play his product day after day on the front page." Oct. 26, 1936 Time Magazine

Orr was a semi-professional baseball player while a teenager, and he worked as a player long enough to save enough money to put himself through art school in Chicago. After working in Nashville, Tenn., Orr came back to the Chicago Tribune where he stayed for 50 years. He taught night classes at the Chicago Institute of Art where one of his students was Walt Disney. Disney never made it as a cartoonist but he did scribble "apologies to Orr" on a panel of rough sketches.

Carey Orr (1890-1967) was always a conservative editorial cartoonist blasting FDR and Communism. 26 years after the "flying money cart" cartoon and toward the end of his career, he received a Pulitzer Prize for an editorial cartoon, "The Kindly Tiger" (published in 1960). In that cartoon about the "Congo crisis", a tiger whose stripes spell Communism licks his chops as he watches an approaching black African on "a long trek to freedom". Attached to his tale is a tag, "Krushy's Kat". "May I Give You A Ride?" he asks.

COULD ANYONE COME UP WITH 

A MORE FITTING DESCRIPTION 

OF WHAT IS GOING ON NOW?

(this was the question attached to the top of the e-mailed 1934 cartoon)

Of course. First, tell me exactly what is going on now, or better, where it will end? If you can, we will be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. I don't trust the Democratic or Republican spinmeisters. Copy these loaded words from the 1934 cartoon like "broken (busted) government","capitalist failure", "junk the constitution" and "dictatorship". And don't forget "the resources of the soundest government in the world" Give the words to Pat Oliphant, Mike Luckovich, Glenn McCoy, Mike Ramirez, or Mike Peters to name a few of our best Editorial Cartoonists. Tell them to take the events of 2008/2009 and combine with these words to make a new political cartoon. Watch out, right, left and center.

Read my earlier blog on editorial cartoons: 

OBAMA IS A CARTOON