Month: August 2013

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A cautionary tale

Some Republicans want to pass a comprehensive immigration bill and some voted to do so in the Senate.  And now two of them, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, will likely have challengers from the Tea Party wing.  Which brings me to the cautionary tale.  They should read some history and look at what happened to the Federalist Party.  They could begin by reading the very interesting piece in yesterday’s New York Times by James Traub.

Tea Partyers often style themselves as disciples of Thomas Jefferson, the high apostle of limited government. But by taking the ramparts against immigration, the movement is following a trajectory that looks less like the glorious arc of Jefferson’s Republican Party than the suicidal path of Jefferson’s great rivals, the long-forgotten Federalists, who also refused to accept the inexorable changes of American demography.

The Federalists began as the faction that supported the new Constitution, with its “federal” framework, rather than the existing model of a loose “confederation” of states. They were the national party, claiming to represent the interests of the entire country.

Culturally, however, they were identified with the ancient stock of New England and the mid-Atlantic, as the other major party at the time, the Jeffersonian Republicans (no relation to today’s Republicans), were with the South.

John Quincy Adams portrait. "John Quincy ...

John Quincy Adams portrait. “John Quincy Adams”. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . Retrieved September 4, 2009 . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And then came the Louisiana Purchase.

“The people of the East can not reconcile their habits, views and interests with those of the South and West,” declared Thomas Pickering, a leading Massachusetts Federalist.

Every Federalist in Congress save John Quincy Adams voted against the Louisiana Purchase. Adams, too, saw that New England, the cradle of the revolution, had become a small part of a new nation. Change “being found in nature,” he wrote stoically, “cannot be resisted.”

But resist is precisely what the Federalists did. Fearing that Irish, English and German newcomers would vote for the Jeffersonian Republicans, they argued — unsuccessfully — for excluding immigrants from voting or holding office, and pushed to extend the period of naturalization from 5 to 14 years.

They even thought about separating New England from the rest of the country.

,,,in the fall of 1814, the Federalists convened the Hartford Convention to vote on whether to stay in or out of the Union. By then even the hotheads realized how little support they had, and the movement collapsed. And the Federalists, now scorned as an anti-national party, collapsed as well.

Contrast that defiance with Jefferson’s Republicans, who stood for decentralized government and the interests of yeoman farmers, primarily in the coastal South.

They ruled the country from 1801 to 1825, when they were unseated by Adams — who, after splitting with the Federalists, had joined with a breakaway Republican faction.

In response, Jefferson’s descendants, known as the Old Radicals, did exactly what the Federalists would not do: they joined up with the new Americans, many of them immigrants, who were settling the country opened up by the Louisiana Purchase.

Their standard-bearer in 1828, Andrew Jackson, favored tariffs and “internal improvements” like roads and canals, the big-government programs of the day. The new party, known first as the Democratic-Republicans, and then simply as the Democrats, thrashed Adams that year. (Adams’s party, the National Republicans, gave way to the Whigs, which in turn evolved into the modern Republican Party.)

Will the Republicans disappear like the Federalists?  Traub doesn’t think so.  But hey are, like the Federalists, on the wrong side of history.

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The daughters of Nancy Pelosi

I’ve always thought Nancy Pelosi was one tough woman.  She would never have allowed her caucus to do to her what is happening to John Boehner and she knows how to count her votes.  I remember watching C-SPAN during the votes for health care – that was a cliff hanger – but I knew that before it came to the follower Speaker Pelosi had counted her votes.  Maybe it would be close, but it would pass.  I don’t know if she will want to stick around long enough for the Democrats to take back the majority again, but she has women coming up behind her.  I’m not talking members of Congress here like Patty Murray and Tammy Duckworth,  to name only two of many, but at the state and local level.

I was reminded of this by a story in the Daily Beast yesterday.    What first caught my eye was that one of the pictures is of my former boss and current Boston Mayoral candidate, Charlotte Golar Richie.

Dem WomenCharlotte is in the upper left.

The story by Patricia Murphy begins

They’re fierce, they’re fearless, and they’re shaking up races and state houses across the country. Meet the new breed of Democratic women who make no apologies for themselves, their beliefs, or their party.

The article says this about Charlotte

In 2000 The Boston Globe wrote, “People who matter in politics predict that Charlotte Golar Richie will be the first black mayor of Boston.” Thirteen years later the former adviser to Mayor Tom Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick, onetime state legislator, and nonprofit executive is finally making a run at the Globe’s prediction in a crowded Democratic field. At a recent campaign rally, she danced herself onto the stage and told the crowd, “If you really want to make change, you can’t be sitting on the sidelines, people! You’ve got to be in it to win it. And I’m in it.” As for the chance to be the first woman to run the city, Golar Richie said, “Women in politics have been dutiful followers. Now it’s my turn. It’s our turn.”

As with the two others in the top row with her, Alison Lundergan Grimes and Wendy Davis,  Charlotte is in a tough race.  Actually Davis hasn’t said yet if she is running for re-election as Texas state rep or will run for governor, but Lundergan Grimes is taking on Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Like Christine Quinn who is running for mayor in New York City (bottom right), Charlotte is the woman in a race for with a lot of the candidates – all men.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if New York and Boston both elect their first women mayors this year?  Nancy Pelosi will be proud and the Republicans who like to rail against her will have lost again.

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Digging in Boston

Nothing new here you might think.  Someone is always digging up a street, a hole for a foundation, or for planting in the park across my street.  But I’m talking about a different kind of digging.  Think Indiana Jones.  Boston City Archeologists have been digging in a backyard in the North End of Boston this summer.  Think Old North Church, Paul Revere, and lanterns.

The dig followed a decision by the Old North Church, which owns the Clough House, to build a new public walkway to the rear of the home. Under its deed, the patch of land must be studied by archeologists before work can proceed.

The city offered to do the dig for free, Bagley [City archeologist, Joseph] said, in a section of church property where archeologists had never dug before. “We knew we would find stuff back here, but we never expected to find so much stuff from the 1700s,” Bagley said.

I first learned about the dig a couple of weeks ago in an email newsletter from the City.  And I found out that archeology program has a Facebook page where they have been posting nice pictures of pottery shards.  The Boston Globe ran a story yesterday explaining more about the dig.

“This whole backyard was a trash dump,” city archeologist Joseph Bagley said, smiling as he walked gingerly around the site. “And back in the day, I think the backyard would have been just disgusting.”

In other words, perfect.

During two weeks of digging, Bagley and a crew of volunteers collected tens of thousands of items from the 1700s. The haul included long-ago leftovers of everyday life: animal bones, doll parts, and uncounted chips and fragments of dishes and cups that archeologists hope will reveal more about how Bostonians lived as a bustling city sprang up around them.

North End map

If you have ever visited the North End, you know that every square inch seems to be developed so an undisturbed backyard is very unusual.

The household debris came from a home built around 1715 by master mason Ebenezer Clough, who bought open land down the slope from Copp’s Hill. Clough also helped construct the Old North Church, which opened only steps away in 1723.

“He wasn’t hurting, but he wasn’t rich,” Bagley said of the mason.

The home, originally two stories, was passed down through the family and later used by a merchant, then a mariner, and finally a glazier before being expanded to three stories and converted into a tenement about 1808.

So far no Ark of the Covenant has been uncovered, but we will learn a great deal about life in Boston in the 18th Century.

This beautiful piece of pink-bodied tin glazed ceramic was just washed. It dates to the 18th century and was found 70-80 cm down during the Clough House dig

This beautiful piece of pink-bodied tin glazed ceramic was just washed. It dates to the 18th century and was found 70-80 cm down during the Clough House dig

Map:  James Abundis Boston Globe

Photograph:  City of Boston Archeology Program

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Talkin’ Biogenesis and A-Rod

As I write this on Monday morning, Baseball Commissioner Bug Selig is expected to announce who is getting suspended for use of performance enhancing drugs.  One has to have some respect for Ryan Braun the 2011 National League MVP who has already started his 50 game suspension without a whimper.  Contrast that to Alex Rodriguez.  There are rumors of a suspension through the end of next season, but I’m not sure why he isn’t being banned for life.  He’s already been caught once.  Can you tell that I don’t much like the man?

George Vecsey has a  great piece in the New York Times today about A-Rod and the entire scandal.  Rodriguez’s father disappeared when he was nine – the excuse for his inability to grow up.

The singular event in the life of Alex Rodriguez is not his imminent suspension, or the career home run record that now will never happen.

The event that makes him so remote, so rudderless, took place when he was 9, when his father disappeared. This is not pop psychology to explain a man who blundered into the airplane propeller of adult reality. This is his own theory.

Back when he was a young major leaguer, Rodriguez would occasionally explain himself in terms of his missing father. His mother was strong and smart, and remains so to this day, but he expressed bewilderment that a father could just take off.

Many commentators have pointed out the we have a President who actually never knew his father.  While some consider President Obama to be aloof, he cannot be accused of not being an adult.  He also has what is from all appearances a terrific marriage and kids who love him and he loves back.  So can A-Rod really use this as an excuse?   Everyone is different and reacts differently to the same situation.  But here you have an intelligent, gifted man who has wasted his life

Now A-Rod is like the Zelig of baseball, showing up in the spotlight on the busy Canadian doctor, Anthony Galea, who helped bulk up American superstars. And now he is unable to bury his tracks leading to the defunct anti-aging clinic Biogenesis in South Florida. He was a five-tool player. Now he is a multitool cheat, rejected, like a badly grafted body part, by the main corpus of the New York Yankees.

I’ve never been a Yankee fan even before I moved to Boston.  They were the team my friends and I love to hate, but even I understand that there are guys who play for the Yankees and then there are Yankees.  (The same could be said about the Red Sox – just think about Carl Crawford.)

He swatted a ball from the glove of a Boston Red Sox pitcher, violating the rule, and he yelled at a Toronto Blue Jays third baseman trying to catch a pop-up, violating the code. You could vaguely sense Yankees heads jerking and eyes rolling, nothing you could prove, as A-Rod walked past.

In February 2009, Rodriguez made one of those ritualistic explanations of his adventures with drugs. Jason Giambi had staved off the posse in 2005, and Andy Pettitte had charmed us with his spiritual confession in 2008. Now A-Rod was supposedly coming clean. His old pal Jeter looked sick as he made the mandatory response to A-Rod’s comments about how common drug use was back in the olden days, a few years past.

“One thing that irritates me is that this was the steroid era,” Jeter said. “I don’t know how many people tested positive, but everybody wasn’t doing it.”

Alex Rodriguez with Derek Jeter in 2004

Alex Rodriguez with Derek Jeter in 2004

Too bad A-Rod had a falling out – of his own making with Jeter who is clearly a grown-up and someone even a Red Sox fan can admire.

By contrast, Derek Jeter has a father, Charles, who was a drug counselor, and a mother, Dorothy, who was an accountant, as well as a sister. The family seems to have sent him a message: Derek, whatever you do, don’t be a jerk. Which he never has been.

Rodriguez and Jeter discovered each other when they were teenagers, and in their early years in the majors offered the spare room on trips to Seattle and New York.

In 1999, the teams milled around in one of those baseball brawls, and Jeter and Rodriguez paired off away from the scrum, smiling and keeping each other occupied. A transient Yankee, Chad Curtis, criticized Jeter for waltzing with the enemy, but Jeter and Rodriguez were showing good sense in not risking their expensive talents.

In March 2001, A-Rod moved to Texas for that infamous contract of $252 million for 10 years. Just as infamous was an interview with Esquire in which Rodriguez blabbered that Jeter was “never your concern” when playing the Yankees, and that Jeter “never had to lead” his team. They patched it up superficially, but they never waltzed after that.

Jealously?

Vecsey ends on this sad note.

During the 2007 World Series, Rodriguez opted out of his contract, making himself available to other teams, but the Yankees re-signed him to a higher infamous contract, the one ticking over the team today. His broken marriage and his escapades are well known. So is his testing of the Yankees’ front office. All that is left now is for Rodriguez to save as much as possible of the approximately $95 million that remains on his contract.

He is heading for the dreaded Sargasso Sea of sports, where banished athletes wait, becalmed, hoping for winds of pardon. Shoeless Joe Jackson, who never ratted on the plot to throw the 1919 World Series, never reached the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose hobbles around on his aging, stumpy body, paying for being a knucklehead when baseball caught him betting on his team’s games, as a manager. Lance Armstrong is downsizing his life in Texas. Many behemoths of the past generation are hoping baseball writers forget why they aren’t voting all those fantastic career statistics into the Hall. And good luck with that.

Alex Rodriguez, just turned 38, is about to fade away. He never had that stern voice in his ear that said, “Alex — don’t!”

I don’t know if he will ever play again and if he does if he can play at his all-star level.  What a waste.

Photograph: Barton Silverman/The New York Times

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American defectors: life for Edward Snowden in Russia

Now that Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia (I suspect they mostly just wanted him gone from the airport.), it is not so certain he will have an easy life.  No matter how terrible you think surveillance is in the United States, I can guarantee that it is worse there.  And he likely has nothing more to trade to get better treatment.  NPR ran this story a few days ago.

If NSA leaker Edward Snowden is allowed to leave the Moscow airport and enter Russia, as some news reports suggest, he’ll join a fairly small group of Americans who have sought refuge there.

So how did it work out for the others?

In short, not so well. Some became disillusioned and left, like Lee Harvey Oswald. Others were sent to Josef Stalin’s gulags, where they served long sentences or were executed. Some lived out their days in an alcoholic haze.

“There’s little evidence from historical records that [Snowden] has anything good to look forward to,” says Peter Savodnik, a journalist and author of the upcoming book, The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union. “Essentially, nobody from the U.S. who has defected to Russia has gone on to think that’s a smart decision.”

In the 1920s and ’30s, hundreds of American leftists moved to what was then the Soviet Union, motivated by a desire to build socialism.

Alexander Gelver of Oshkosh, Wis., was taken there by his parents. But when the 24-year-old wanted to return to the U.S., he was stopped by Soviet police outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He was arrested and disappeared. Only in the 1990s did his fate become clear: He was executed in 1938, one of Stalin’s many victims.

The Associated Press documented the case of Gelver and 14 other Americans who disappeared in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and ’40s. All were either imprisoned or executed. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of other Americans, met a similar fate during the rule of Stalin, who suspected that foreigners were spies.

A famous case in the Cold War era has parallels to Snowden. William Martin and Bernon Mitchell, cryptologists at the NSA, defected in 1960. But they came to regret their decision and became alcoholics. Martin died in Mexico in 1987. Mitchell died in Russia in 2001.

One defector who did return was Oswald. He left for the Soviet Union in 1959, returned to the U.S. three years later, and became infamous as the assassin of President Kennedy in 1963.

Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker seen here in a photo taken in July, has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. Thursday, he left Moscow's airport for the first time in more than a month.

Let’s hope that Snowden has better luck.  It will be tough not knowing many people and not speaking Russian.  Personally, I don’t think he made a good choice or got good advice.  I have never understood why he couldn’t go directly from Hong Kong to South American someplace.

Photograph:  Tatyana Lokshina/AP

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