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The odd bits that don't really belong on HowardOwens.com

Things I learned from Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A ManifestoOctober 31 2008

• OK, I knew Bush was against nation building, but these quotes are worth repeating: “Let us have an American foreign policy that reflects Amercian character. the modesty of truth strenght. The humility of real greatness.” and “I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say’ This is the way it’s got to be’ … I think one way for us to end up being viewed as ‘the ugly American’ is for us to go around the world saying, ‘We do it this way; so should you.’”
• In 2007 (I wasn’t paying attention to this issue then), the National Intelligence Estimate reported Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
• We have troops in 130 nations; 700 bases around the world, and our $623 billion military budget is the largest since World War II.
• Article 43 of the U.N. Charter did not authorize Harry S Truman’s “police action” in Korea.
• Ronald Reagan opposed registration for the draft.
• The National Endowment for the Arts received 121 million in taxpayer subsidies in 2006.  Private sector contributions — which tend reward merit over grant writing ability — totaled $2.5 billion.
• Seventy percent of the welfare budget goes to paying for its bureaucracy.
• Personal income tax accounts for 40 percent of the Federal budget. To imagine what the Federal budget would look like with 40 percent less in revenue, you need to go all the way back to 1997.

Bill Kauffman’s Look Homeward, America encourages us to turn away from empireSeptember 12 2008

I grew up in an America very different from the one Bill Kauffman tells me about in Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front Porch Anarchists.

The America of my public school education celebrates the presidents who presided over unimaginable numbers of deaths in wars (wars Kauffman argues were largely unnecessary and tragically altered our republic), who subverted the values of our founders and usurped our most cherished ideals.

My school system ignored the presidents Kauffman finds most fascinating, such Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore, while celebrating those who suspended habeas corpus, enforced anti-sedition acts and imprisoned American citizens because they were Japanese.  When these strange acts of anti-liberty were reviewed in school, our teachers never questioned – nor were we encouraged to question – our heroic presidents on the wisdom of subverting the Constitution.

Kauffman doesn’t care much for Empire, but when I look at U.S. history as presented by my teachers and

Fall coming to Rochester, and Clune helps us appreciate itSeptember 1 2008

Summer’s denouement has arrived in Western New York with splendor — crystal blue skies, soft breeze, cool, clear air. It’s a big shift from the clouds and rain that darkened several days every week of June, July and August.

Days like these are more glorious in Western New York, where they are infrequent enough to mean something, than they could ever be in San Diego.

Now, however, our nights and evenings are tinged with a crisp bite. Fall beckons, which makes this passage from Henry W. Clune’s Main Street Beat appropriate to share:

Autumn was a time of lively stir in the city. A re-awakening after the torpor and somnolency of summer; a period of contentment and well-being — if the harvest had been good — in the country. The frost got on the pumpkin. There was a champagne-like piquancy in the air. The leaves fell and the smudge of their burning was clean and out-doorish and one of the pleasures of the season.

With little dread of the coming of winter city folk aired the mothball odors from their heavy underthings, looked to their stock of blankets, replaced screens with storm windows, saw to their coal bins. There was a good philosophy about the change of the seasons, and the transition was accepted merely as one of nature’s immutable laws. Autumn was not a period of gloom, gray, bedraggled, a time to lament the parting of summer’s brilliant glories. Eagerly city dwellers made plans for evenings whist; for dances, lodge

A mostly affectionate response to Bill Kauffman’s ‘Muckdog Gazette’August 19 2008

I am, I have discovered, a localist.

It is probable that I have always been a localist, though until I discovered Bill Kauffman, I never knew it.

A localist is a person who believes societies thrive through strong communities, and communities are things made of families, neighborhoods, towns and small, local governments. All decisions should devolve to the smallest unit first and only graduate to the next bigger unit as required.

The family — not the village — is responsible for raising a child. The neighborhood is the first and best defense against crime. The town folk band together for socialization and commerce. Meanwhile the civic government fixes pot holes, collects the garbage and prevents any disorder that threatens the common good. Responsibilities only branch upward when issues become too complex to be solved by the more nuclear unit. Societies fail when individuals and groups look outside themselves for solutions.

Too often we’ve entrusted local decisions to state and federal bureaucracies far removed from a communities’ unique concerns, cultures, histories and environments. Rather than distrust such bureaucracies, we’ve called on them to build our factory schools (dehumanizing and demeaning o

MP3 Caravan now lives hereAugust 11 2008

History: For a while on howardowens.com I did “MP3 of the Day” — I linked to free MP3s I found on the web. People complained that they didn’t come to my site for music, but for my posts on news media (ah, how times and audience change … once people came to my site for music … ) …

So I started MP3 Caravan. Great idea. Too hard to get attention on that crowded musicphere and it was a lot of work. So I stopped.

With my web hosting, I can only have five active domains, and I need to free up space on my account, so I’ve imported all of those MP3 Caravan posts here. I’m keeping the domain, and it will point to this site (I love the domain name), but the posts now live on HBO3.com.