Al Franken & The Curious Affair of the Minnesota Recount

I just read this WSJ piece on the contested election between Norm Coleman and former comedian Al Franken...

"Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome. Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor." More...

I honestly don't recall any significant "election recount" issues in the Seventies, Eighties, or Nineties. Either I was oblivious or there weren't any. Regardless, it seems that the U.S. has been mired in election controversies ever since the Bush vs Gore presidental election of 2000. What can be done to improve the election process? Why can't we get an honest, accurate count the first time? Can't we avoid litigation? I dunno, but I wish someone would come up with some bright ideas.

In this case, it does appear that some "strange things" have been occurring as part of the recount process. Everything went Franken's way? The incidents mentioned in the WSJ article should have lead to some questions being asked. But, that doesn't seem to have happened.

Norm Coleman's campaign has petitioned the Minnesota Supreme Court to require a bunch of additonal absentee ballots be counted. Unless that petition is successful by tomorrow morning, Democrat Mark Ritchie has said he will convene the Canvassing Board tomorrow afternoon and certify Al Franken the victor.

Sounds like the punchline to a bad joke...not funny.

Little Ditty About Jack and Diane

In 1981, John Cougar brought us a little ditty about Jack and Diane, two American kids growing up in the heartland.

That song, from his American Fool album, was a #1 hit for four weeks, and remains his most popular song to this day.

"Oh yeah life goes on,
Long after the thrill of livin' is gone...
Oh yeah life goes on,
Long after the thrill of livin' is gone."

A quarter century has passed since I first heard that chorus and it speaks to me now as it never did back then. Life has indeed "gone on"...time waits for no man. Some days, when things are tough, I do wonder whether the "thrill of living" is gone. Often, it seems that the tedium of day-to-day existence is a burden rarely lifted. The joys and passions of my youth seem distant. In their place, the sobering reality of providing for my family.

Juvenal, the Roman satirist, criticized the vanity of human wishes in his tenth satire. Juvenal suggested that "wrong desire" in importuning the gods for various blessings led to suffering. Stated early in the satire is this comment:

"Whole households have been destroyed by the compliant Gods in answer to the master's prayers; in camp and city alike we ask for things that will be our ruin."

Juvenal identified wealth ("riches and their increase") as the foremost petition of the gods. Juvenal pointedly noted the envy that such wealth inspired and the resulting fears of the wealthy (e.g., being poisoned in a silver cup). He quips:

"Though you carry but few silver vessels with you in a night journey, you will be afraid of the sword and cudgel of a freebooter, you will tremble at the shadow of a reed shaking in the moonlight; but the empty-handed traveller will whistle in the robber's face."

Juvenal also addressed prayers for long life, suggesting they were uninformed:

"Give me length of days, give me many years, O Jupiter! Such is your one and only prayer, in days of strength or of sickness; yet how great, how unceasing, are the miseries of old age!"

In demonstrating how such prayers, even when granted, still do not guarantee human happiness, Juvenal catalogues the woes of the elderly in unflattering detail. It is a stark portrayal of the potential infirmities of old age and still serves as a warning to us today, regardless of our technology, regardless of modern medicine.

"Look first at the misshapen and ungainly face, so unlike its former self; see the unsightly hide that serves for skin; see the pendulous cheeks and the wrinkles like those which a matron baboon carves upon her aged jaws in the shaded glades of Thabraca. The young men differ in various ways: this man is handsomer than that, and he than another; one is stronger than another: but old men all look alike. Their voices are as shaky as their limbs, their heads without hair, their noses drivelling as in childhood. Their bread, poor wretches, has to be munched by toothless gums; so offensive do they become to their wives, their children and themselves, that even the legacy-hunter, Cossus, turns from them in disgust. Their sluggish palate takes joy in wine or food no longer, and all pleasures of the flesh have been long ago forgotten"

Not a pretty picture of our "golden years". If a person reaches such a point in their life, I imagine they might feel that the "thrill of living" is not only gone, but has been replaced with the "misery of living".

However, being concerned about the future to the detriment of enjoying the present is not healthy. Carpe diem, you say? "Seizing the day"...living for the moment...it has its attractions. John Cougar may have had "carpe diem" in mind in this verse from our little ditty:

"Gonna let it rock,
Let it roll,
Let the Bible belt come down
And save my soul .
Hold on to 16 as long as you can,
Changes comin' round real soon
Make us women and men."

But, I don't think the philosophy of carpe diem is the key to maintaining the "thrill of life". To me, the key is finding balance in all our endeavors, in all aspects of our life. Enjoy the here and now, while learning the lessons of the past, and planning for the future as well. And, don't let the tough times keep you down. As someone famously said, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you have to keep moving."

Best wishes for a long and thrilling "bicycle ride"...

Bread & Circuses

From Juvenal's tenth satire, variously referred to as "The Vanity of Human Wishes", "The Futility of Aspirations" or "Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering":

...iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses...

Translation: "Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things----Bread and Circuses!"

Bread and circuses...food and entertainment. The Roman republic decayed over time and eventually succumbed to the tyranny of empire. Juvenal was born in the middle of the first century and wrote into the early second century. Thus, Juvenal lived not long after the end of the Republic, in the early Imperial period.



In his tenth satire, Juvenal notes that the masses, the poor, care only for their Bread and Circuses. He notes that in the past these people, the former plebeians, had conferred power by election. Now no one needed their vote. Emperor Tiberius extinguished the plebeian assemblies in the first century, abolishing the last vestiges of popular representation. Thus, the Roman people had given up the birthright of political freedom that they had earned by replacing the early kings of Rome with elected officials.


Has the United States, our own republic, become decadent over time? Have we, the American people, fallen victim to a "bread and circus" mentality in our primary concerns are simply food and entertainment? I think you could certainly make a compelling case that we are traveling a similar path.

Citizens do seem to increasingly look to the government as a direct provider of basic benefits. Aren't we seeing right now a very populist mentality towards wanting the government to take action to ensure "jobs" exist for us? As for entertainment, the American culture increasingly seeks "spectacle" whether it be "reality TV", violent movies, or erotica.

The United States of today is not Rome at the end of its republican period. But, it is scary to see parallels. For example, there is a pervasive political apathy in American. Yes, I agree there was a certain level of excitement about Barack Obama. But how much of that was the "spectacle" of the first person of color being elected President? Has there really been a wellspring of new political participation? Let us hope.


It has been famously said that "all politics are local". And yet, how many of us vote in local elections? Political corruption is as old as politics itself, but it is still our duty as citizens to watch our elected officials. And yet, how many of us shrug indifferently at political corruption? Or, worse, view it as simply more "entertainment"?

It is our right as citizens to elect our own government. Representative democracy is the best form of government, but it only works as long as there is participation by the people. Our right to vote isn't being threatened, at least not yet. But are we simply tossing this most precious gift into the trash heap by sheer indifference toward participating in the political process?

In October 1974, a British MP named Sir Keith Joseph gave a speech at the Grand Hotel in Birmingham, England. The speech was not focused on "bread and circuses" it was about Conservative Party leadership in difficult times. However, Sir Joseph did make this remark:

The populist rulers of Rome thought they had hit on a foolproof method of achieving a permanent curb on their patrician rivals when they created a dependent proletariat relying on them for bread and circuses; but in the end it destroyed the political stability of Rome, and so Rome itself fell, destroyed from inside.

More recently, in August 2007, our own former comptroller general of the GAO, David M. Walker, made these remarks as part of a presentation entitled "Transforming Government to Meet the Demans of the 21st Century":

America is a great nation, probably the greatest in history. But if we want to keep America great, we have to recognize reality and make needed changes. As I mentioned earlier, there are striking similarities between America’s current situation and that of another great power from the past: Rome. The Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, but only about half that time as a republic. The Roman Republic fell for many reasons, but three reasons are worth remembering: declining moral values and political civility at home, an overconfident and overextended military in foreign lands, and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government. Sound familiar? In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.

Recall our discussion of Janus from yesterday. Seek to learn the lessons of the past so that the same errors are not committed in our time.

Peace be with you.

Happy New Year

Today marks the first day of 2009 as well as the first day of the month of January. The old year has ended, the New Year is begun. It is a time of endings and beginnings.

The early Romans venerated a deity named Janus. Janus was a sky-god, ancient even to the Romans. Ovid described Janus as both primordial Chaos itself and the first deity personified when the discord of Chaos led to creation of the universe. Thus, Janus was associated with beginnings and endings, especially as symbolized by doors and gates. The Romans believed Janus opened the gates of heaven each dawn to let out the morning and then closed them at dusk to end each day. In the first role, Janus is called Patulcius "the opener". In the second role, Janus was Clusius "the closer". These roles also figure in the original office of "janitor" (ianitor in Latin) or "doorkeeper". (Note that even to the present day a janitor is often the custodian of many keys...)

Janus was the doorkeeper, the opener and the closer, indeed he was the door, the gateway, the passage itself. As each ending is also a beginning and vice-versa, Janus was represented as having two faces, with the ability to see both forwards and backwards, into the past and into the future, through both sides of “the door”. Thus, I find it very appropriate that January is named after Janus. However, January was not always the first month of the year.

The ancient Roman calendar had ten months beginning with March (Martius) and ending with December (Decembris, literally the "tenth month"). The winter period after Decembris and prior to Martius was not marked by months. The legendary Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome after Romulus, allegedly added the months of Januarius and Februaris. Plutarch wrote that Numa Pompilius also changed the beginning of the year to January rather than March (Martius) because Pompilius emphasized peace over war (Martius being named in honor of Mars the god of war).

Tradition and the idiosyncrasies of inter-calendary periods proved too challenging to the calendar of Numa Pompilius. By the time of Julius Caesar this calendar had become quite confused. Thus, Julius Caesar finally fixed the first day of the year as January 1 in 45 BC and aligned it with the “tropical year” in what became known as the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar stayed in effect until the sixteenth century when Pope Gregory XIII instituted the current calendar system. Even calendar systems have beginnings and endings.

So what endings and beginnings do we celebrate on this New Year's Day? For one, it is an ending and a new beginning for this blog. Vociferatu is now in its third incarnation. The previous two attempts were failures, quite frankly. Starting anew on January 1st is highly symbolic for me and I hope it proves auspicious.

This month will also see the end of one presidency and the beginning of another here in the United States. One face of Janus looks back over the tenure of President Bush. The other peers into the future of President-elect Obama. I ask for well wishes and blessings upon both. One has served his country and another will soon begin to serve.

Many have laid our current woes as a nation at the feet of President Bush. He has become the "scapegoat" in its ancient sense. It is unfair, but then life is full of unfairness. As with every President, indeed with every person in each role they perform, President Bush has had failures and mistakes. According to my fellow citizens, President Bush has either been the worst president ever or a great president sorely misunderstood. More likely, his performance lies somewhere between those polarized views.

Personally, I think President Bush is a decent man who rose to the occasion in the aftermath of the September 11th terror attacks and then became too entrenched in the "with us or against us" viewpoint. Still, I thank him for his leadership, his strength in the face of adversity, his service, and his accomplishments. In the perspective of history, I believe President Bush will be seen more kindly than his current political opponents would acknowledge.

Mr. Obama will soon end his role as candidate to undertake the office of President of the United States of America. It is a daunting task in itself, but Mr. Obama also bears the burden of being the first President "of color" in our history. And these are difficult times with economic challenges at every turn, an unpopular military role in Iraq, and political corruption dogging his steps even before his inauguration. My political views do not frequently fall into line with President-elect Obama, but for his sake and ours, I wish him well and give him my support.

Endings and beginnings. Calendars and the marking of time. Does the ever-present “now” hide the fact the each instant is a passage from the past into the future? Keep Janus in mind and look both forwards and backwards, seeking wisdom from the past to guide you into the future. We are our own doorkeepers. Be careful what doors you open...and what doors you close.

Best wishes to everyone...may you have a wonderful, rewarding, satisfying 2009.