Category Archives: Random Blogging

Facts, Law and Mike Delph

A friend who uses Twitter sent me a series of Tweets from Mike Delph today. Most railed against “activist” judges (beginning with Chief Justice Marshall’s decision in Marbury v. Madison) and the “elites that control them.” Others were–frankly–incomprehensible, not to mention ungrammatical. The one sentiment that came through loud and clear is that Delph is highly pissed off that the courts would dare strike down provisions of his pet legislation. (Putting this as politely as possible, if he has even a rudimentary grasp of the constitutional architecture, that grasp was not on display in these tweets.)

I thought about Delph’s war on immigrants when I read a recent article from the Atlantic.

The article was titled “Safety in Diversity: Why Crime is Down in America’s Cities.” A couple of relevant paragraphs will give its basic thrust, but the entire article is worth reading.

In the popular imagination, crime is frequently associated with big, densely populated cities. Here again, we can separate fact from myth.  Primary cities and older high-density suburbs exhibited the largest decreases in crime between 1990 and 2008, according to the Brookings study. And the gap between city and suburban violent crime narrowed in two-thirds of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Our own analysis turns up no association whatsoever between metro size or metro density and the overall level of crime, though we do find a modest correlation (.25) between density and violent crime.

……

It might be hard to wrap your mind around this–especially with all the demagoguery about immigration. But the numbers tell a different story than our alarmist pundits and politicians do. “Since 1990, all types of communities within the country’s largest metro areas have become more diverse,” Elizabeth Kneebone, one of the authors of the Brookings report, wrote in The New Republic. “Crime fell fastest in big cities and high-density suburbs that were poorer, more minority, and had higher crime rates to begin with. At the same time, all kinds of suburbs saw their share of poor, minority, and foreign-born residents increase. As suburbia diversified, crime rates fell.” Along with their entrepreneurial energy and their zeal to succeed, immigrants are good neighbors–cultural and economic factors that militate against criminal behavior, and not just in their own enclaves but in surrounding communities as well.

Don’t you just hate it when the facts smack you down?

Appearances of Impropriety

Yesterday, following the announcement of the Recount Commission’s finding that Charlie White had been eligible to run for Secretary of State (or, more accurately, their conclusion that they couldn’t conclusively prove otherwise), I got a call from a reporter. Her question was not about the Commission’s conclusion; instead, she wanted to know whether the chair should have recused himself from the deliberations, since he had hosted a fundraiser for White, and his firm had donated $5000 to White’s campaign.

My answer, of course, was yes.

It is perfectly possible that–as he claimed–the contribution and prior support did not influence the chairman’s decision. But that is irrelevant. The facts of the matter raised an appearance of impropriety, and that appearance alone was enough to require recusal. Citizens have to be able to trust that their public institutions are operating impartially and fairly; otherwise, suspicion and cynicism will undermine our faith in the legitimacy of government and erode respect for–and compliance with–the laws.

Instances of what we might call “ethical insensitivity” seem to be proliferating: recently, commentators have reported on activities of Clarence Thomas (and especially his wife) that raise serious questions about the Judge’s impartiality. A couple of years ago, Justice Scalia shrugged off criticism of his cozy vacation with Dick Cheney during a time when a lawsuit against Cheney was pending at the Supreme Court.  Closer to home, we have the President of the City-County Council insisting that his vote to award a lucrative city contract to a client of his law firm did not constitute a conflict of interest.

In each of these cases–and many others–the person accused of a conflict insisted that the relationship at issue didn’t affect his judgment. Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn’t. But that isn’t the point. The point is that such relationships inevitably cast doubt on the integrity of the proceeding.

Think about it: If you were a party in a lawsuit, and you knew that the opposing party regularly played poker with the judge, and had supported him politically, how confident would you be that the Judge’s ultimate ruling would be impartial?   Wouldn’t you ask for a change of venue, or a different judge? If you were a taxpayer whose elected representative was voting to spend your tax dollars on a deal that benefited his brother-in-law, or a big client, how confident would you be that he cast that vote based solely on policy considerations?

And how reassured would you be if such public servants pooh-poohed your reservations?

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Teachable Moments

Sometimes, a gaffe or disclosure that is unimportant in and of itself will nevertheless offer us a useful insight. There were two examples in this morning’s news.

The first was a glaring grammatical error in the morning Star editorial about–of all subjects–education.  The paragraph in which it occurred read “Bennett needs public buy-in to ensure that the new operators, whoever they are, have the best chance to succeed. And that buy-in is more likely to occur if parents, teachers and community leaders think that they’re concerns were taken into account before an outside operator was hired to run one or more of their local schools.”

“They’re” should obviously been “their.” Oops! Perhaps Gannett’s decision to cut copy and proofreading personnel was a bit too hasty?

The second was a brief report in the IBJ of an exchange between Greg Ballard and Amos Brown. During a discussion on his radio program, Amos asked the Mayor whether he had ever met with the head of the NAACP. Ballard replied that, while he had not had a face-to-face meeting with “him,” he had been at a breakfast meeting with “him.” The problem, of course, is that the head of the NAACP is a woman.

This could, of course, be shrugged off as a simple case of “mis-speaking.” But I think it is a particularly vivid example of Ballard’s most unfortunate flaw: an inability to admit–evidently even to himself–what he doesn’t know, or hasn’t done, and a corresponding need to try bluffing his way through.

When Ballard was campaigning, it was painfully obvious he knew very little about urban policy and governance. Having spent much of the preceding 25 years in the Marines, he also didn’t know a lot about what had been happening in Indianapolis. Those gaps wouldn’t necessarily make him a bad mayor; lots of people go into positions unprepared, recognize their deficits, and work to correct them. Understanding what you don’t understand is the beginning of wisdom. Those who ultimately succeed despite lacking the requisite knowledge or skills are those who are willing to say “I don’t know” when they don’t.

Those who fail, try to bluff their way through.

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Appreciating Our Assets

My husband and I just returned from the Phoenix Theatre’s production of “Avenue Q.”

We had seen the show on Broadway a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so we had a pretty good basis for comparison–and this show was every bit as good as the production we saw that night in New York. The singing, acting, stagecraft–all were absolutely first-rate. It was just a great show.

Sometimes we forget how much talent we have right here in Indianapolis–and how important it is to support our local cultural assets. The Phoenix was the first local professional theater to produce cutting-edge new plays and emerging playwrights, and it has consistently been intellectually provocative and technically excellent. The IRT, another important community asset, provides more mainstream fare, and over the years both theaters have been joined by several others–not to mention various other performance venues.

City leaders talk a lot about the importance of science and technology to economic development and the local economy, and it is undeniable that efforts like Bio-Crossroads and Internet II are vitally important to growing our city. But a flourishing arts community is equally important. A vibrant arts community–galleries, theaters, festivals, poetry readings, Fringe festivals–contributes to a good quality of life, and that in turn appeals to what Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, which in its turn contributes to job creation and economic development.

On a more mundane level, world-class entertainment helps fill local bars and restaurants and generates foot traffic for retail venues. (Studies suggest that those who patronize the arts add much more to the local economy than do those who attend sporting events–although public support for the latter is many times the support we give the arts.)

The Phoenix was sold out for the Sunday matinee, and evidently tickets are going fast. If you are lucky, you might still be able to see this fabulous performance of “Avenue Q.”  And if Indianapolis is lucky, we will continue to attract people like the Phoenix’ founding director Brian Fonseca–people who enrich our community and add immeasurably to the quality of our urban life.

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Plotzing

Yesterday, Dana Milbank’s column in the Washington Post began as follows:

The Israeli tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth came out on Wednesday with a shocking report: Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann would join Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) at Glenn Beck’s rally in Israel in August.

It turned out that much of the report was wrong. The three candidates quickly said they had no such plans – a sensible decision. Beck’s hateful shtick encouraged even Fox News to end his show later this month. But, incredibly, another piece of the report was true. “I’d love to participate,” Lieberman confirmed when The Post’s Felicia Sonmez found him in a Capitol hallway. “It’s just going to be a rally to support Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Never mind that Beck, a Christian Zionist, supports Israel because the return of Jews to that ancient land is a necessary condition of the Rapture, during which Jews who refuse to accept Jesus and convert will be consumed by fire–a biblical prophecy with which Lieberman might be presumed to differ.

Milbank noted that Lieberman’s willingness to make common cause with Beck made him “plotz” (a word that very roughly translates into “‘become agitated.” The full meaning of “plotz” is probably appreciated only by those of us with Jewish mothers and grandmothers).

Milbank was astonished that Lieberman, who wears his religion on his sleeve,  would embrace Beck, one of the country’s most prominent anti-Semites. He failed to understand that what Lieberman and Beck share is far more than unwavering, uncritical political support for Israel. Both men lack any hint of self-awareness. Both are supremely confident that they own the Truth and have a duty to lecture everyone else about that Truth. Both engage in smarmy self-righteousness. Both are narcissists.  Both, in a word, are zealots–blinded to any worldview beyond their own and utterly convinced of their own moral superiority.

As the character of Yenta in Fiddler on the Roof might have put it, “It’s a perfect match!”