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Alyssa

‘Downton Abbey’ Open Thread: War As Equalizer

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 9, 2012 at 8:48 pm

This post contains spoilers through the first episode of the second season of Downton Abbey.

So, caveat! I am almost but not entirely caught up on the first season of Downton Abbey, so I am relying a little bit on Wikipedia for backstory here. I will be caught up by next week, but for now, please be merciful.

I really am struck by the atmosphere of creative destruction in this episode, the way the war clarifies and distills the characters priorities. I agree with critics who say that Downton Abbey is predictable, more a product of its genre than a subversion of it. But it’s the rare thing that both can be qualified that way and that is executed so strongly that it’s a bracing reminder of why these cliches exist and are powerful. Even when I can see something coming from a mile away, whether it’s a hand injured in the war, a maid’s disappointment or a nobleman’s wrongfooting, it still lands like a blow to the chest. And there are enough surprises that are true to character that there’s fresh air in it.

The walls between the upstairs and the downstairs were already crumbling in the first season, whether in Lord Grantham’s tie to Bates or Carson’s confession to Lady Mary that “even a butler has his favorites” after he reassures her that her life isn’t over yet. But the war’s brought them down in force, with Isobel as something of an intermediary. First, there’s Sybil, who, after realizing bitterly that “Sometimes it feels as if all the men I ever danced with are dead,” decides she wants to try nursing, and by extension, learn how to be a functional woman rather than an ornament of the aristocracy. “Have you ever made your own bed, for example? Or scrubbed a floor?” Isobel asks her gently. The scenes of Mrs. Patmore and Daisy trying to teach her how to do the simplest tasks, including filling a kettle without drenching herself, are kind, revealing Sybil’s foibles but helping her work beyond them. It’s fascinating to see Violet and Lady Grantham’s response to her desire. Violet, surprisingly, sides with Isobel, insisting that “You can’t pretend it’s not respectable when every day we’re treated to pictures of queens and princesses in a Red Cross uniform.” And Lady Grantham’s concern for Sybil ultimately undoes her objections: her daughter’s emotional well-being trumps her concerns with propriety. “I was worried about Lady Sibyl. But I’m not worried anymore,” she tells the butler. “Carson, the cake will be a surprise whether you approve of it or not, so please don’t give it away.”
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Politics

Huntsman: Romney Firing Comment Renders Him ‘Completely Unelectable’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jan 9, 2012 at 7:49 pm

EXETER, New Hampshire — The Jon Huntsman campaign escalated its attacks on front-runner Mitt Romney the night before the New Hampshire primary, with Huntsman himself telling CNBC host Larry Kudlow that Romney is making himself “completely unelectable.” Romney is taking flak from all GOP opponents, in addition to Democrats, for his comments this morning that he “liked being able to fire people.” Huntsman said earlier that he prefers to hire people, rather than fire them, and his adviser had harsh words this afternoon for Romney when ThinkProgress interviewed him, but Huntsman’s statements on Kudlow represent the strongest attack from the candidate himself yet:

HUNTSMAN: First of all, you’ve got to get elected to office for heaven’s sake, and making statements like that you render yourself completely unelectable. Whether you’re referring to economic policy, it really becomes more of a political issue, when you’ve got the Chicago political machine and $1 billion bearing down on you. You make a statement like, you talk about pink slips, and pretty soon you’re going to lose the high ground.

Watch it:

NEWS FLASH

New Jersey Democratic Leader Predicts Equality Proponents Will Convince Christie To Enact Same-Sex Marriage | New Jersey state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) pledged that the state’s new marriage equality bill will go to key legislative committees “immediately’’ and said he anticipated that the Senate will vote on the measure by March. “It’s gonna be a fight. We expect it to be a fight,’’ Sweeney said. “The governor’s a decent person and I think we can work on educating him to the fact of what it means.’’ Christie supports civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, but opposes marriage equality. Sweeney also blocked a same-sex marriage bill in 2009 and has since described the decision as the “biggest mistake” of his career.

NEWS FLASH

Sentences For Georgia Drug Offenders Have Tripled Since 1990 | The state of Georgia has established a Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, which is working with lawmakers to reform the state’s criminal justice system with the intent of reducing the prison population (the state currently has the nation’s fifth-largest prison system). In an article about these reform efforts, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that the “average inmate released this year after serving time for drug possession, for example, spent almost two years locked up — more than double the average time served two decades ago. The average length of time spent behind bars for drug and property crimes in general has more than tripled since 1990.” Meanwhile, a whopping 60 percent of the state’s prison population consists of drug and property offenders.

By Zaid Jilani on Jan 9, 2012 at 6:20 pm

NEWS FLASH

Huntsman Adviser Slams Romney As ‘Out Of Touch With Average Working People | NASUHA, New Hampshire — John Weaver, a senior strategist to former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R), slammed Mitt Romney for saying that he “liked being able to fire people,” calling Romney “out of touch” and “unelectable” at campaign stop in Nashua, New Hampshire this afternoon. “The bottom line is…here’s a guy who’s out of touch with average working people,” Weaver told ThinkProgress. “His ties to Wall Street, the fact that he’s taken $32 million from Wall Street, the picture with his Bain partners looking like some Richie Rich guy with money falling out of his pockets…and on top of that, he has an inability to connect with average people.” Touching on the anti-Wall Street sentiment in this election cycle, Weaver added, “I just think he’s unelectable against Barack Obama in this environment.”

Health

Romney Praises Government-Run Health Care…For Veterans

By Igor Volsky on Jan 9, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Mitt Romney pledged to increase funding for the government-run Veterans Health Administration during a town hall at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating, in Hudson, New Hampshire this afternoon. Without specifically mentioning the highly efficient veterans health care system, Romney told an attendee, “I want to be able to support our veterans with the care they deserve. I want to take our savings from waste and inefficiency and care for our veterans and make sure in our hospitals, in our clinics, to make sure they get the care they need. I will not cut our defense budget so we can in part take care of our veterans.” Watch his remarks:

The fully integrated veterans’ health care structure of doctors and hospitals actually provides veterans with benefits that are the envy of the rest of the health care system — including private payers and providers (which Romney regularly touts as a better alternative to government programs). A study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.”

Romney has previously floated the idea of partially privatizing the veterans health care system, but eventually backed away from the idea. “We have a VA system that needs to be improved and I’ve got no plans to change that other than to make it better and to invest more money in providing for our veterans,” he said.

NEWS FLASH

Salt Lake Tops Advocate’s Quirky ‘Gayest Cities’ List | The Advocate has published a list of the “gayest cities in America,” but it reaches interesting results by using some very odd criteria. In addition to having LGBT elected officials and transgender non-discrimination protections, cities got points for having WNBA teams, nude yoga classes, and concerts by Gossip, the Cliks, and the Veronicas. As a result, Salt Lake City ranked the highest, followed by Orlando, Cambridge, Fort Lauderdale, and Seattle. Check out the full results for more details on the criteria and LGBT culture in the ranked cities.

Security

Allen West: Military Leaders ‘Should Be Very Careful About Blindly Following A Commander-In-Chief’

By Ben Armbruster on Jan 9, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Last week, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that President Obama didn’t consult with the military when formulating the new global strategy he announced last week. “I have heard some rumination” that Obama ignored military leaders, West said (of course this is not true).

The next day, talking with right-wing radio host Mark Levin, West went a bit further, saying that military commanders should consider whether or not they follow the president’s orders:

LEVIN: Seems to me if I’m one of the highest ranking generals or admiral in the Navy, and this was being done to my force structure – that is, to my men and women in uniform, I might think about stepping out. You know what I mean? Moving on to another career.

WEST: I absolutely understand what you’re saying. And you know I’ve had a lot of people ask me about that because the responsibility of our senior generals has to be to the men and women in uniform. They have to be very careful about blindly following a commander in chief that really does not have the best intent for our military. And I think that when you understand that President Obama said he was going to fundamentally transform the United States of America, you’re seeing him destroy our economy, and now you’re seeing him destroy our military capability.

Levin stepped in and tried to save West. “What we’re saying so you’re liberal haters don’t screw this up,” Levin said, “we’re saying is they should consider stepping down.” “Well yeah,” West responded, “What you’re saying and what I’m saying is that your silence is consent.” Check out the clip here:

Of course, military leaders are constitutionally bound to follow the president’s orders, unless they are illegal. Otherwise, failure to do so without resignation “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Economy

How Taxpayers Finance College Football’s Biggest Bowl Games

By Travis Waldron on Jan 9, 2012 at 5:45 pm

This is the second part of a three-part series on college football’s bowl system, the Bowl Championship Series. You can read the first part here.

Bowl season, college football’s month-long end-of-season extravaganza, generates millions in revenue and often millions in profits for the organizations that run each bowl game. But because many of those bowls are classified as nonprofit charities, they often pay little, if any, taxes on those earnings.

The largest bowls — the five that make up the Bowl Championship Series — dole out huge salaries to their CEOs and send executives on lavish trips. At the same time, several of them have received millions of dollars in tax subsidies from the states that play host to them, and the taxpayer-financed public universities that play in the games often lose money by participating. That has fueled questions about why the bowls are classified as tax-exempt nonprofits and whether they should be in the future.

The Bowl Championship Series was formed in 1998 as a consortium of the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and the University of Notre Dame. At the end of the season, 10 schools send teams to the five BCS bowls — the Rose, Orange, Fiesta, and Sugar Bowls and the BCS National Championship game. 57 of the 67 schools that make up the six major conferences that receive automatic invites to those games are public universities that depend on taxpayer funds. But many of them lose substantial sums of money from expenses incurred traveling to and participating in BCS games.

In 2011, Virginia Tech’s athletic department lost more than $420,000 from the school’s appearance in the Orange Bowl. Had the Atlantic Coast Conference, of which Virginia Tech is a member, not helped cover its losses, the school would have lost $1.3 million in 2008, $2.2 million in 2009, and $1.6 million in 2011, all years in which it appeared in a BCS bowl. Tech isn’t alone: over a three-year span, universities lost an average of $331,137 in BCS bowls, according to the Arizona Republic. The average loss in non-BCS games in 2011 was $139,604.

The BCS does, in theory, provide money to schools in other ways to help them make up those losses. Athletic conferences that have a participant in a BCS game receive payouts from BCS bowls — the six major conferences will split a total of $145.2 million this year — that is then divided between the schools. But as HBO Real Sports found during an investigation into the bowl system, those payouts often aren’t as lucrative as the bowls claim.

In an interview with HBO, a tax adviser to 23 bowls set up as charities said most bowls “pay out 75 to 80 percent of all revenue to schools.” HBO’s investigation, however, found that reality was much different. Out of 16 nonprofit bowls that provided complete records, none gave 75 to 80 percent of their revenue back to schools. The average percentage payout was in the mid-50s, and the Humanitarian Bowl (which is not affiliated with the BCS) gave less than 30 percent of its revenue to schools.

At the same time, multiple bowls take taxpayer-financed subsidies from state and local governments, including the Sugar Bowl, which tonight will host this year’s edition of the BCS National Championship. The Sugar Bowl has taken $11 million in subsidies from Louisiana since the BCS began, including $1.4 million in 2009, even as the state cut spending on many public programs to fill a budget gap. Such deals faced scrutiny from local lawmakers and residents and have since stopped. Tempe, Arizona, meanwhile, will pay the Fiesta Bowl $6.45 million through 2013 to host a smaller bowl game, the Insight Bowl.

The BCS and its advocates counter that bowl games provide economic boons for the cities that host them. An Arizona State University study found that Tempe saw a $355 million economic boost from hosting the Insight Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and BCS National Championship in 2011. Still, the arrangement begs the question: at a time when states are cutting spending to vital programs, including funding for state universities, are taxpayers getting a fair shake from bowls that utilize tax-funded universities and, at times, public subsidies to earn millions in profits that are often tax free?

Climate Progress

Colorado Sees Worst Snow Drought Since Early 1980s, Foreshadowing Water Shortages And Potential Wildfires

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jan 9, 2012 at 5:30 pm

This is not the scene at some ski slopes right now in Colorado.

Last year, Colorado saw a record snowfall, with 525 inches falling during ski season. But this year, while massive snowfalls in Alaska have collapsed roofs, the state is suffering from the worst snow drought since the early 1980s. “For the first time in 30 years, a lack of snow has not allowed us to open the back bowls in Vail as of January 6, 2012, and, for the first time since the late 1800s, it did not snow at all in Tahoe in December,” said Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz.

The state’s ski industry is hurting, but a coming water shortage caused by the lack of snow could be worse, according to the Colorado Independent:

Ski industry woes aside, state water watchers and firefighters are nervously eyeing the miniscule mountain snowpack, which supplies so much of the water used by Front Range cities. As of Dec. 30, snowpack in the Colorado River basin was 44 percent of last year’s record level and just 63 percent of the annual average.

“[The drought] will make the beetle epidemic even more severe,” said state Sen. Gail Schwartz, a Snowmass Democrat who’s introducing a bill in the legislative session starting Wednesday that’s aimed at reducing the fire danger from a mountain pine bark beetle epidemic that has killed millions of acres of Colorado lodgepole pines. “What doesn’t burn down will blow down.” [...]

The last time Colorado’s high country was even close to this dry in mid-winter was during the 2001-02 ski season, which was followed by the worst wildfire season in the state’s history. June of 2002 saw the massive Hayman Fire scorch nearly 138,000 acres of land in the mountains southwest of Denver, darkening Front Range skies and loading key water storage facilities with debris from subsequent erosion.

Auden Schendler, vice president of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, points out that the NASA global temperature anomaly maps show that December just keeps getting warmer, which creates the extreme swings. “It’s key to remember that warming might actually bring bigger storms to the Rockies due to there being more moisture in the air,” Schendler said. “At the same time, because the atmosphere can hold more water, it can suck the land dry of more water than before.”

And as greenhouse gas pollution continues to warm the planet, people will continue to face — and have to prepare for — unseasonably warm weather in January in one area and extreme amounts of snow in another.

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