Are You Listening, Mr. Prager?

 

One of the fascinating aspects of blogging to me is the way discussion threads can pick up and continue months (or more than a year, in this case) after the original post and thread were generated.  Such is the case with my post from March, 2009, taking AM talk jock Dennis Prager to task for stating that racism played no role in the incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent during  WWII.  I’ve had two recent comments to the post (which already has received more comments than most posts to my humble blog typically do) in as many months.  The latest  comment came in last week:  I’ve included it below.

As it turns out, Mr. P was on the radio again today as it happens, stating that anti-Hispanic racism in America, in his experience, simply doesn’t exist.  My only conclusion is that his experience with American Hispanics is limited, at best.  True story:  years ago when we moved into our new house my wife called the Chula Vista Penny’s to see about having a salesperson come out to the house to give us a bid on draperies we needed installed.  The clerk asked her what her  name was:  Jeanne Luna.  The clerk was silent for a moment, then proceeded to tell my wife how expensive window treatments could be and asked several times did she think she could actually afford them.  The clerk refused to make an appointment to send someone out to our house at that point, telling my wife to call back when she had thought about it more.   My wife was puzzled by the treatment until she connected the dots.  Last name “Luna.”  Calling from the Southbay.  Lightbulb goes on.  The clerk thought my wife must have been a Latina. (What else could a person in San Diego named “Luna” be?  Oh, that’s right.  Italian, in this case.)  Therefore she must be poor.  (What else would a Latina be?  Oh, that’s right, maybe middle class.)  My wife got really steamed, not at being confused with being Latina but with the treatment she got—or any person would have gotten–for being presumed to be a Latina.  She called the Penny’s manager, described the situation and got a vigorous apology and an offer of compensation for her treatment—discount coupons.  She thanked him but declined.  Penny’s lost our business that day.  That, Mr. Prager, was anti-Hispanic racism in practice.  Perhaps if Dennis’ last name was Martinez he would have a broader depth of experience on this matter.  But I digress.)

My point in my post was not that Prager was wrong in his macro-assertion that the US is one of the least racist countries in human history.  Indeed, given the amount of racial diversity in America, the  ability of this country to surmount its racial divisions is perhaps unmatched by any other society in the modern age.  My beef was (and is) that, in denying the role of racism in the treatment of Japanese Americans,  Prager basically was saying (and keeps saying) that there is no real racism in America at all.  That  argument does a gross injustice to those who have experienced real racism in American history, who continue to experience the consequences of racism today, and who have struggled and sacrificed  past and present to eliminate racism from American society.  JB, who posted her comment below, apparently agrees:

To accurately participate in this dialogue, I must tell you a story — a true story:
My father, a very young white male, marched out of Indiana and into Europe in August of 1944 — in October of 1944, he was surrounded in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France. Trapped for almost a week, they had run out of ALL supplies and their situation was desperate. Several prior unsuccessful attempts at rescue had failed when the men of the 442nd “Go For Broke” Regiment were sent in to rescue them. These men refused to give up until they had successfully rescued my father and 210 other men — it took almost a week of vicious fighting, some of it hand-to-hand, in bitter winter weather —- their casualties (KIA and wounded) would surpass the number of men they rescued. They accomplished what two other units of “white” soldiers had not been able to achieve —– why —- because they refused to give-up until their mission was completed —- because as one veteran told me: “They were fellow American soldiers and we were their last hope” Another 442nd Veteran told me that as they walked up into the mountains to rescue my Dad, they passed other soldiers walking down from the mountain who told them: “Don’t go up there — you will get killed” But, they marched on and because of their stoic dedication and bravery, my sister and I were able to know and love our Dad —- we still carry memories of him in our hearts —- memories that would not have been but for the bravery of the 442nd. The enormity of the gift that these men gave to our family still resonates some 65 years later. The moral of this story is this: Many of the men of the 442nd that rescued my Dad came from the concentration camps that you are discussing — yes — concentration camps — let’s call them what they were — it is important to do that — let’s not sanitize the word — they walked out of those camps to serve the very country that had turned it’s back on them. Shame. Shame. Shame on us and thank God for them. Today, these same men speak very little of their experiences — (they are dedicated to remembering those friends they left behind laying under the marble crosses in the Military Cemeteries in Europe) — these men came home, reclaimed their families from the afore-mentioned concentration camps, surveyed what little property and businesses they had left, and set about rebuilding their lives — over the past 65 years, their contributions to this country have continued as they have served all of us as lawyers, doctors, businessmen, farmers, teachers, artists, and, politicians and, above all esle, loyal American citizens —- the latter the title is the one that they covet above all else — they raised families without a hint or moment of bitterness — their stories left untold until just recently — stories that are difficult to tell and even more difficult to absorb —- such gallant men — so gentle — so honorable —- could we have done the same — would we have served so well? Let’s not devalue their contributions to this nation by sanitizing the words we use to discuss their situation — they were racially discriminated against — Period —— but, as a community they can teach us all a lesson in humility and loyalty — that is, for those of us willing to listen ——- Are you listening, Mr. Nolan —– Mr. Prager ???

I thank JB for her personal story.  And I must ask, are you listening, Mr. Prager?  Or the Pragerites who commented on this post?

Doing the Half-Latella

I was delighted that no less a figure than Lani “Tax This!” Lutar herself took the time to respond to my humble (and, as in this case, bumbled) blog. The Dean of San Diego Tax Dissers (that’s right, Dick Ryder’s only a deputy dean) wrote a comment on my blog about the SDCTA municipal pension plan report–401k(illed)–in her usual elegant, intelligent and reasoned prose. (And I am very sincere in this. The LL C(ool)EO of San Diego fiscal frugality is always elegant, intelligent and reasoned. Which really just annoys the heck out of me! I mean, who wants to argue with someone who is always so darn elegant, intelligent and reasoned! Now kitschy Bob Kittle—arguing with him was absolutely guilt-free enjoyment! Miss you, big guy. Arguing with LL is just uncool—especially when she’s right and I’m plain wrong. Or, at least, partially wrong.) I copy her response in its entirety below to save you time, dear reader:

Dear Professor Luna:

Thank you for highlighting our report in your blog. We welcome dialogue and debate on public pensions at any time, especially with those that disagree with our viewpoint.

Please allow me to clarify a few inaccurate statements in your post.

“The only thing the report lacks is empirical proof of its basic thesis: that pension costs are driving tax increases in specific instances.”

If you read my quote in Calpensions (www.calpensions.com) I clearly communicate that pensions are not the only factor contributing to sales tax increase proposals. In both our press release and the pension report, we “link” pension costs and efforts to increase taxes. This is an observation—and nowhere in either document does it state that pension costs alone cause tax increases.

I will concede that we were comfortable highlighting the link between pension costs and tax increases because of fact-based knowledge from time series analysis we conducted in recent years for the cities with the highest pensions costs including El Cajon, La Mesa, National City and Chula Vista (all available on our website). We should’ve communicated this historical background more clearly within our report.

You also note our report is long on recommendations.

Actually, we have only two simple recommendations:
1. Cities should stop picking up the employees’ share of pension contributions.
2. Retirement benefit formulas should be reduced for new hires.

We never state anywhere in the report that defined benefit plans should be replaced with defined contribution plans (401k). And please stop putting words in our mouth: We do not claim that vested retirement benefits should be taken away from municipal workers.

You can argue that asking employees to contribute to their defined benefit plan is a backdoor way of asking for a pay cut. That is true. However, let me point you to page 26 and 28 of our report which debunks your notion that the only way public employees can contribute to their pension plans is via a 401k.

The purpose of our report is to shed light on the generous benefits and significant costs of public pensions provided to municipal employees. When pension costs alone consume 10% or more of a city’s general fund, everyone – city workers included – should be concerned about sustainability and solvency. An insolvent city or city on the brink of bankruptcy hurts communities and public workers.

Another important point you miss is that the majority of public workers contribute little to nothing toward their pensions and their retirement pay is boosted as a result of this practice. Rather than earning a $67,500 annual pension from a 3% @ age 60 formula in the example of a city administrator with 30 years of service, the employee would get an 8% increase in annual pension payments – or $72,900 – because they’re contributing nothing toward their retirement. Yes, you’re reading this correctly. In a bizarre twist, the less an employee pays into their CalPERS plan, the greater the benefit they receive upon retirement. Now that is lunacy.

Sincerely,

Lani Lutar
, President & CEO
, San Diego County Taxpayers Association

Good points, all. As to the point about empirical evidence in the report (or my allegation of lack thereof) I concede a split opinion. Lani concedes the report was not as explicit as it might have been in providing more detailed empirical support of the linkage between pension funds and taxes. I, in return, concede I should have written that the SDCTA was asserting that “pension costs are a causal factor” rather than “pension costs are the causal factor.” But demonstrating how causal a factor pension costs are in increasing taxes is not a minor matter. The SDCTA report calls on municipal employees to pay a price in increased pension costs. Not delineating how big an impact current pension plans have on municipal fiscal policy makes it more difficult to assess whether the pain thereby inflicted on the households of these employees is offset by likely gains to taxpayers, said gains being, I took and take it, the purpose of the SDCTA recommendations.

Lani also calls me to task for saying the report was “long on recommendations” when, if fact, it only had two. True dat. Mine is the guilt of fumbled rhetorical flourish. What I meant was that he report’s recommendations have significant—some might say profound—implications for municipal employees and the hiring of future, talented municipal workers. There might only be two of them but they have potential major significance.

More importantly, though, the LL points out I blew a big one in stating the goal of the report was to move municipal employees away from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans. I confess I misread the report. I went back to it and read and reread it and cannot find the paragraph I was so certain the report contained stating that future municipal employees should be moved from their current defined benefits plan into 401k style plans. I got that wrong, plain and simple. The report calls for changing benefit calculation formulas and requiring employee contributions, but not for an abolition of the current defined benefit system. Lani is right. (As were getreal and CJ) . I was wrong. Mea and Culpa.

Or, in the immortal words of Emily Latella,  “Never mind.”

I still, however, stick by my principal, philosophical objection to the SDCTA report. I agree with Lani that there may well be inequities within the current pension plan, such as some workers paying less into the system getting more.  (I’m still trying to untie that now and figure out just how it works). I would argue, though, that is an unfairness between current employees within the same system and not, expo facto, an unfairness in comparison with employees outside of the system. A fundamental assumption underlying the SDCTA report is that the current pension plans for municipal employees are unfair or inequitable compared to workers in the private sector because most municipal employees contribute less than most private-sector employees to their retirement and get more in return. I must differ.

The claim that municipal employees do not currently contribute to their pensions is wrong. They are contributing to their retirement plans, no matter how much is or isn’t taken out of their base or take-home pay to fund their retirement plans. They are contributing simply by the fact that they are working for the city. Their labor is their contribution. Their retirement plan is part of their compensation package for said labor, just like their take-home pay and health benefits.

As I wrote in the original post, it is true most private-sector workers don’t have the advantage of such a benefit package. To call the municipal employee’s pensions “generous,” however, is a subjective, not objective, comparison.  One might instead argue that most private-sector employees have ungenerous pensions compared wih the fair and reasonable pensions municipal workers have. The fact that far more private-sector employees used to have similar defined-benefit pensions and the fact that an increasing number of private-sector employees are finding their current defined-contribution plans wholly inadequate to provide for the retirement security they worked for and expected to receive argues, in my opinion, toward this latter observation.

So, I retract my statement that the SDCTA report called for the replacement of current defined-benefit municipal pension plans with 401k-style plans. I stand, however, by the basic point of my piece: the fundamental philosophy underlying the SDCTA report rests on the assumption that it is unfair to taxpayers for municipal workers to have pension plans better than most private workers. And this assumption is incorrect.

“You get what you pay for”—pay municipal workers less and you’ll attract less talented workers, as our local police and fire departments have reported. Saving taxpayers money by cutting back municipal workers pension compensation may save short-term monies but could also cost more in long-term performance and efficiency. Or is it only Wall Street CEOs making gazillions of dollars who respond to the incentive of better pay?

Moreover, I stand by my argument that calling the pensions of municipal workers unfair or too generous compared with private-sector workers is a reversal of the real problem. I contend it is unfair that private-sector workers have seen the value of their pensions (not to mention paychecks) decline for the past generation and that eventually giving everyone in America a retirement the likes of municipal workers would be a national good. Which would be better for San Diego taxpayers—reducing other people’s pensions or increasing their own, after all?

I remain, however, flattered that Lani took the time to comment on my blog at all. Hope to hear from you again, LL C(ool)EO.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Hi reader gangos of mine.  Now that I’m back blogging more regularly for a while let me put a challenge out there for you – particularly those of contrary views to mine.  How about we see if people writing comments can try and  generate a few dozen (or a few hundred) words that form real content and demonstrate (as I would expect from my students) evidence of critical thought?  Unlike the last couple of comments posted by others to the blog, for example.

Don’t get me wrong:  I appreciate ANY comments.  It means someone is reading this stuff and I’m not just spray painting the ozone with my punditical forays.  I’m just asking you if you could up the amps a little bit.  Don’t just tell me I’m a pompous jerk (heck, that’s a given—who else but  us PJs spend their precious time blogging, for heaven’s sake?  We’re pompous enough to think anyone gives a flying fig….).  Don’t just tell me you are laughing your posterior off.  Tell me and the other readers WHY this is the case.  What’s the logic?  Where’s the evidence?  With a little thought I’m sure that some of you out there should be able to really eviscerate me.  Heck, I  find holes in my logic all the time. So let’s engage in, at least on occasion, something approximating  thoughtful and civil discourse.  ‘kay?

And, if you don’t want to—if you prefer the polemical and the pungent—well, then, keep on commenting anyway.  But do know I might be pushed to the point of dropping the big ‘ol “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” bomb on you from time to time.  (I apologize to any of my readers of tender heart whom I may have offended with such coarse language.)

Where’s Papa?

Taking  a break from my summer break to query my two readers .  A Politico reporter asked me if I knew what Duncan “Used to be all over the news but then I retired and my kid inherited my seat (so much for every man is equal democracy) and is now hogging the limelight” L. Hunter is doing these days.  I don’t.  Nor can I find hide nor hair of him in the papers, analog, digital or funny.  Anyone know what our former “Strides the Halls of  Congress Like a Leviathan” Hunter is up to in retirement these days.  Or, more to the Politico point, I’m sure, any idea of how he’s cashing in on retirement?

Summer Song

 Broke my long hiatus from punditry today with an article on the city’s faux-budget. Read it, hot from the pages from CityBeat Analog, here. Haven’t written since my last, aptly named entry, “Last Hurrah” back in April. Don’t really plan to write any more until the end of August. I’m not teaching this summer, for the first time in around 20 years, so I’m taking the summer off from my usual concerns–teaching, administrating, teaching, punditrying and, of course, teaching–to pursue other pursuits (beach, patio, other writing projects, beach, patio and, above all, five o’clock proseco time in the gazebo. I’m not kidding. We have a freakin’ gazebo and, every summer day at 5, adjourn there for a glass of cold proseco. It’s a good life.)

In any event, what is there to say right now that’s worth saying? At the local level things in June, 2009 are not really all that different than in June, 2000 or 2001. The city continues to muddle along with the usual mediocre municipal mundanity: precarious finances, feckless leadership and a gentle diminishment of America’s finest city to just another over-extended, under-repaired American town. Frye will be off the council soon, Jerry will be off to gentlemanly retirement and DeMaio will be Mayor—so it has been written, it seems, so it will be done. The Tribe of Five Old White People will continue to dominate the County. The Airport Authority will continue to plan billions of dollars in new projects that will never be spent for an airport that will never be adequate or replaced. The Chargers will continue to lobby for their new stadium which will inevitably be built with public monies (my suggestion, alas, that they build it beneath a three trillion dollar convention center expansion—which, I think, around the amount the convention center really dreams of spending) whether it takes another year or ten. Only the decline of the UT and the tantalizing possibility that the new owners might realize that if Kittle and Kompany continue to dictate editorial viewpoint the paper’s circulation will continue to shrink to the sixty-five and older north of Mira Mesa Boulevard crowd offers some hope for a break in the local monotony. Who knows – by fall the UT may have a new crowd (albeit probably a bunch of twenty-somethings paid minimum wage) flogging the pagewaves. Couldn’t hurt.

Of course, things have changed dramatically in Sacramento. Six years ago we had an unpopular second-term governor disowned even by his own party presiding over massive state deficits, declining services, increasing taxes, unrestrained partisan warfare with absolutely no realistic solutions being offered by the legislative leadership lugs. Oh, how times have changed. (Dramatic pause for sarcastic effect.)

And, at the national level, we have our Obama moment, Act One. Tobacco has been regulated. Some form of healthcare reform is on the way. The economy is no longer sinking. Yay. Except that the tobacco reform is about two generations too late to really matter, the healthcare reform is going to be delightfully watered down and any leveling off of economy we’re currently seeing is actually a consequence of actions taken last fall before Obama came into office. It takes around six months or more for policy decisions in DC to trickle into the real economy—the Obama stimulus won’t really begin to be felt until late summer and, by then, will be revealed, I fear, to be too little. Unemployment continues to rise – my bet is it eventually hits 11%-12%. Foreclosures continue to mount and the other shoe of the real estate debacle—the commercial side of the house—is caving. (Count empty storefronts and commercial “For Rent” signs next time you’re out.) At some point Obama’s love affair with Wall Street and Wall Street types has got to end and more aggressive Keynesian tactics aimed at homeowners and consumers have got kick in. According to retail experts, it’s going to take ten years, at this point, to get back to consumer spending levels in 2007. If everything starts turning around now. Obama keeps going the path he’s going and he runs the risk of becoming the American Kiichi Miiyazawa, (the Japanese Prime Minister who helped keep Japan from falling into depression back in 1990-1991 but, instead, ushered in a decade plus of stagnation.) The world can—and did—survive a stagnant Japan. It won’t survive, with any stability, a stagnant United States. Meanwhile national discourse has degenerated to a nasty level that simultaneously makes dock workers blush and insults the intelligence of second graders. I’m taking the summer off from Fox, MSBNC and the entire AM dial. I haven’t heard one original thing said (Obama is a radical, communist-socialist-muslim-American-hater and Republicans are Rush Limbaugh) in months by any of my brethren (albeit it far more lucratively compensated kin) in punditry. My bet is, come September 1, I turn on Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews after a two-month hiatus and I won’t have missed a beat. Maybe, by end of summer, democracy will have come to Iran. (Which I doubt. Erstwhile president Ahmadinukejihad will emerge from this ultimately stronger, probably having co-opted the authority of the religious clerics and, thereby, regressing Iran back to a standard authoritarian model.) If democracy does triumph, however, people are going to (oh, it gives me gout right down to my little toe to write this) reassess the Bush-Cheney theory of viral democracy. Look at Lebanon. But that’s a debate for another month.

In short, I go into the summer feeling crotchety and persnickety about all things political. By summers end, though, batteries recharged, feelings reinvigorated, I’ll be back to pound the punditry pages. Hopefully in a reformatted format—one of my summer projects is to try and upgrade and integrate this blog into more comprehensive website that can be useful to both my students and you, my faithful reader. (If there are any of you left – alas, even poor Mlaiuppa has bailed on me given my niggardly natterings. ) As such, a bid you summer time adieu. Look for me when the dog days are over, if you care to.

Positive Some Game

Found this (click here)   in my in basket today from a group called Project Win Win, a  new online non-profit organization  working on a bill to “restore representative government.   You can take their survey here.

Another off-the-wall group?  Visionaries?  You decide.  Then again, if Rush Limbaugh can emerge as the legitimate  voice of conservatism,  anything must go.

Heeee’s Baaaack

Hello Reader(s)  (the plural being more than a bit optimistic on my part.)

Took some time off from the blog after a very busy fall of classes and a few dozen media interviews and community presentation.  I was politicked out by November 5.  I’m back to refresh my little piece of the blogosphere, though under slightly different terms.  I’m going to try and contract and regularize my postings from here on, looking to publish one piece a week on Thursdays.  I figure a regular schedule will force me to actually write and let you know what and when to expect.  We’ll see how it goes.  Expect the first entry next week.  Until then just a little taste:

Recent headlines concerning our city’s new, erstwhile City Attorney,  Jan “the Uncrusader” Goldsmith:

Council’s allowance for autos affirmed: One member blasts Goldsmith’s opinion .

Goldsmith files suit without council OK: As a candidate, he held opposing view

Layoffs in Goldsmith’s Office

Goldsmith’s Guillotine 

 Gee, it’s nice to see things get back to normal at the CA’s office now, isn’t it.

 And question for the day:  Given Barack Obama’s affinity for all things Lincoln, would he want to join the San Diego Lincoln Club? And an even bigger question: Would they have him?

Summer Reading III

And, to keep you entertained, dear three readers, a little more summer reading lite: Installment 3 of my unpublished best-seller “And to the Republic.”  Click here for the first installment and here for the second.

And To The Republic
(A work in progress by Carl J. Luna.)

Chapter 3

Travis waited a minute or two after Mars left his office before he looked away from his monitor.   He leaned back in his chair, pivoting to look out his window at the college quad below and the bluffs and ocean beyond.  It was early spring but, being southern California, all the trees were fully garbed in green, the sun shining brightly as it dipped towards the horizon and the sea beyond the cliffs.   He might be a minor functionary at a large community college, he thought, but he had a kick-ass view.

And he wouldn’t be a minor functionary for long.

Mars was an arrogant prick, to be sure.  But he was easy enough to manipulate.  Offer him a little relief on one thing, and he was more than willing to stick it to that older, even more arrogant prick, Franklin.  If Travis could nail Franklin to the wall, bust him and drive him out of the college, it would be a warning to all the other pricks on campus that he was now the undisputed big man on campus.

Better yet,  it would be a signal to District that he was more than ready to move up.  District CIC.  Then, maybe, off to Sacramento in a few years to work in the State CIC’s office.   Or even, maybe, he smiled,  the State CIC spot itself.  And from there?   Prove yourself to the powers that be in the biggest state of the Union and the possibilities were endless.   Demonstrate loyalty to the cause and the necessary ruthlessness to support it and promotion was inevitable.  Loyalty was what the new age was all about. Loyalty to the nation, loyalty to its leaders and, most importantly, loyalty to those with power.
Hanging one old fart would be the final step in moving up and out of the backwater school he was trapped in and the first step in entering the bigger, badder arena he always should have been playing in.

And if he could take Mars down a deserved peg or two in the process, well, that was a two-for-one offer he couldn’t refuse.

His lips contorted into an unpleasant smile, he leaned over and turned on the faux 1950s model radio his mother had given him for his birthday the previous year.  Rather than providing music to accompany his moment of triumph, the radio was permanently set to Travis’ favorite AM talk radio station.   Radio Freedom.  The “Ronald Lewis Elder Show.”

Now that guy told it like it is, Travis thought.  Always did, even before Spokane.  Before 9/11.  Before Clinton and all the misery he was.  “Listen to your Elder” was a motto Travis had lived by for almost two decades now.   How many times had he endured the derisive jeers of his colleagues over “right-wing radio?”  Not that he had ever admitted to anyone—until a few years ago, at least—that he listened to Elder.  Or Hannity.  Or   Savage.  Or any of the other prophets of the airwaves.  He would have been pilloried, tarred and feathered in the politically correct – read pinko neo-commie liberal—world of the very recent past.  But now Elder was absolutely triumphant, everything he had preached in the wilderness of a complacent liberal society now validated.  The Clinton ’98 impeachment had validated his message of the corruption of liberalism.  9/11 had validated his message of the weakness of liberalism.  Spokane, though, had obliterated all opposition to his message.  His and all the other right thinking people out there.

And Travis was right thinking.  And right-thinking would take him far.
He listened to Elder for a few minutes, nodding his head in agreement.  Then he turned back to his monitor.  Faculty time sheets.  And it looked like some of the faculty had been ditching a little early.

Tick.

Chapter 4

I threw my over the shoulder computer case into the mini van.  Literally threw it.  Not wise, throwing a computer.  But I was seriously pissed.  And it was the college’s computer, anyway.  They could just buy me a replacement.  Serve them right for all the grief this job gave me.

I slammed the sliding side door shut, slipped into the driver’s seat and slammed the driver’s door shut.  If I had a sunroof I’d have slammed that shut, too.  But, while my five year old blue mini-van might have a spoiler on the back – the “sports” model, the buying of which was my mid-life crisis equivalent of buying a Porsche–it wasn’t souped up enough to sport a sunroof.  So I slammed the key into the ignition and slammed the transmission into reverse.

Like I said, I was pissed.

At Travis.  At a college that could make a guy like Travis my superior.  At a world that could produce a college that could make a guy like Travis my superior.  And at myself.  Most of all, at myself.

I backed up into the road and then headed off towards the College gate and the surface streets and highways that led home.

As they always do, a host of after the fact should have saids flooded my brain. I’m always much more brilliant ten minutes or so later than the actual event.  Too bad life doesn’t come with a time delay.

What I should have said to Travis was to mind his own business. I should have told him to shove his little hand written summons up his ass.  I should have told him  I’d appoint whoever the hell I wanted to Teddy Franklin’s evaluation and he, Travis, could go pound sand.  I should have told him if he continued to meddle in things outside his job description I would go to the Vice President of Instruction or even the College President.

Of course, that would have been so much posturing.  Both of them feared Travis more than they liked me.  He might not officially occupy the highest tote on the campus totem pole, but no-one wanted to get on the wrong side of a CIC.   He sends one email – so and so is a non-complier, so and so is not following DHS-E protocols and so and so is undependable—up to District, and so and so’s career is headed into the toi toi.

And, while I increasingly loathed my job, having no other options I was not particularly keen on flushing it down said toi toi.  I wasn’t ready to pick a fight with Travis – I no longer had the energy or umph to pick a fight with just about anyone.  Except for Mary.  But I didn’t have to pick fights with her.  Those just seemed to evolve as part of the natural genome of the day.  And if Mary seemed increasingly less than happy being married to a nobody college professor with no real future prospects, being married to an unemployed and unemployable former college professor with absolutely no prospects would really tick her off.  Possibly enough to send her back to mom and dad and their great big RV and all their  “We told you so’s.”

No, I wasn’t going to cross Travis.  Not even for Franklin.  Not while Travis was big man on campus.

That’s the way a one party state works.  The party man – whatever his official rank—pulls rank on everyone else.  Like the political officer in the old Soviet Red Army being able to override the colonels or generals in the name of the party.

Of course, we weren’t really a one party state.  There was another party, cowed and whipped though it was.  And Travis, like all his like-minded kindred, wasn’t appointed by a party.  He didn’t act in the name of a political party.  He acted in the name of the people of the state of California and the people of the United States of America.

At least the ones who voted for the right party.

No, we had not degenerated into a one party state yet.  But we could, and probably would.  Within a matter of years.

There are patterns in human societies—as a political scientist, that was what I had been trained to discern, study and analyze.  You can rejoice all you want in the glorious uniqueness and cultural diversity of mankind.  But you’ve got to ask yourself just how much variation are you going to find among a bunch of bipedal, binocular vision humanoids preoccupied with the biological drives of consumption, defecation, procreation and inebriation, though not always in that order or in equal amounts.  You can change the architecture, couture and cuisine but, beneath it all, we’re all just people.  And people respond the same everywhere in similar circumstances.

Man find’s his woman with another man, he reaches for a knife.   Woman finds a higher-order predator eyeing her kids, she screams and drives it off.  People feel fear–the fear deprivation is on the way, the fear that the bad men are coming or have come–and they cling to a strong government and even stronger leader to protect them.

People may say there is nothing people desire more than freedom.  People may say it as much as they like.  But, at the end of a very bad, dark day, after which looms and even badder, darker night, what people really desire is security.  The freedom from fear.  And to get that particular freedom,  they are usually willing to surrender a lot of other petty little freedoms – like freedom of petition, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of  speech or freedom of thought.

And the American people feared both the bad men, who had already visited their country several times, and deprivation, which seemed to be camped out on the national doorstep just waiting a chance to slip through the slightest crack. And they liked their strong government and loved their strong leader more and more.  Once everyone agrees on the core things, there no longer is a need for rival parties to duke it out.  One party would be just fine.  Spokane had just about guaranteed that eventual piece of political fallout.

The traffic wasn’t heavy on the connector to the freeway, and the freeway traffic was comparatively light for midweek,  but I was still irritated by it.  And irritated with my self.  Yeah, that’s the way  a one party state works.   The oppressed end up loathing themselves even more than their oppressors.  They end up becoming obedient and docile not out of fear of punishment but out of the evisceration and evaporation of their own self respect.

I reached over and punched on the car radio.  With three hundred channels on the satellite system, I could while away my commute home lost in whatever auditory world I chose:  Pre-war jazz – a particular favorite of mine—a little Jelly Roll Morton or Jack Teagarden–lull myself back into the days of my optimistic youth.  Laugh to comic tracks of years past—a little Cosby on family or Seinfeld on the stupidity of man.  So, with a world of escape to choose from, my fingers automatically punched up the channel most guaranteed to further raise my blood pressure and depress my mood.

Ronald Lewis Elder.

What can I say.   I’m a masochist of ego and intellect.  I sat back in my seat, flowing with the traffic.  The radio was on a commercial—something about constipation or debt relief of constipated debt relief.  At least it wasn’t another erectile dysfunction commercial. From what I could tell of talk radio commercials, the listening audience was predominantly constipated, broke and flaccid.  I fit right in.

I looked over at the car passing me on the driver’s side – a new Toyota AG sedan, and was momentarily startled to see the driver was reading a newspaper, hands fully off the wheel.  Those new automatic guidance cars still took getting use to.  Sensors and servos replacing neurons and hands might be all well and good, but I didn’t fully trust turning my life and the lives of others over to the same technology that periodically caused my desktop to crash.  At least a computer crash seldom took a van load of Cub Scouts down with it.  And I also couldn’t afford buying an AG equipped car, anyway.  Which might have been a major contributing factor to my dislike of them in the first place.

My cell rang.  Being at least able to afford complete handsfree voice activation for my mobile, I  responded  “Identification.”

“Brother,”  my phone’s little voice answered.  My phone sounded like a bored, slightly angry middle aged woman.  In that I was already married to one of those, I found the phone voice both annoying and redundant.

“Answer,” I commanded, followed by “Hi Yanni.”  I hoped my lack of enthusiasm for talking with my big brother when I was in my dark cups was not too apparent.

“Hey little bro.  Mom’s ticked you haven’t called her lately.”

My brother, Johan (our parents had something for odd, vaguely continental sounding names) was the self-appointed keeper of my maternally-related guilt.  He always called to remind me of pending birthdays, holidays and other dates of familial interest, never trusting me to have committed such facts to memory or day planner.

“Been busy, Yanni,” I replied, this time making no effort to keep the lack of enthusiasm under wraps.  As usual, he brushed aside the verbal slight with his own little dig.

“What, big things brewing at Harvard-on-the-Pacific?”

I sighed.  “No, Yanni, just the usual small college crap.”

“Figured.  Hey, we need to do lunch.  How about tomorrow, noon at the Dockside.”

“Gee Yanni, love to but I’m pretty booked this week.”  Yes, I’d love to have lunch at an expansive bayside restaurant, the tab of which my big brother would insist on picking up, paying for it with his platinum business card.  I’d love to spend lunch being reminded how going private sector instead of academia had made big bro both rich and influential.  I’d love to be reminded between the snow crab salad and the Muscovy duck breast just how deep the vat of self pity I was wallowing in of late actually had become.  “Maybe we can get together next…”

“We need to talk about Jason,” he brushed aside my brush off.  At that I paused.  Why did my brother want to talk with me about my son? What would he know about my son that I didn’t?  Of course, given the general lack of discourse between Jason and me, that could be a lot.  And Jason liked Johan.  More than he liked me, I sometimes felt.

“What about Jason?”

My defensiveness must of shimmered in the syntax, because he responded with a soothing, now-don’t-get-your-feathers-all-ruffled-voice.  “Nothing critical.  Just an opportunity I want to run by you. Tomorrow. Dockside at twelve.  Gotta run.”

The connection was broken before I would respond.  Wonderful, I thought.  Command performance for the mighty and all-powerful Johan. Wondering what topic concerning my son might be served up along with the poached salmon, I absentmindedly flicked up the radio volume, only to be momentarily startled by the utter familiarity of the voice coming from the speakers.

“And if Senate Democrats can’t be anything but obstructionists, they should be obstructed from even entering the Senate.  It’s war, dammit.  What part of “war” don’t these liberal yahoo morons get.  And another thing…”

I took my eyes off the road to look at the radio for a moment, half expecting it to have, like Scrooges’ knocker,  taken on the contours of a face from the past.  My past.

Ronald Lewis Elder.  Conservative Talk Show Titan, master of the airways, prophet of the revolution.

And, in a different life a long time ago, once my best friend.

Chapter 5

“And another thing,”  Ronald Lewis Elder huffed, skooching his slender frame forward to the very edge of his custom Herman Miller Aeron Chair, “When is the AG’s office gonna get serious about enforcing Carter?  Aide and comfort people, that’s what it is, pure and simple.  I’ve told those whinning liberal whackoos to shut the hell up for years.”

Elder leaned into the mike, his lips only centimeters from the windscreen.  He was gearing up for his trademark “Ronald Rant,” which had propelled him to top radio ratings, national fame and influence and incredible personal wealth, in addition to inspiring millions of devoted “Ronald Ranters” to hang onto and regurgitate his every utterance.

“ Now its time for the Administration to finally get up the gumption to play hardball with these obstructionist, enemy loving, freedom hating liberals.  Carter’s been on the books for two years now.  Two years!  And not one – absolutely not one of these licentious liberal legislators—,” he paused almost imperceptibly to savor yet another one of his brilliant alliterations, “– I don’t care if you’re talking Congress, the California statehouse of the Seattle city council—not one of them has been reigned in by Carter.  Oh, they’ve been losing at the polls, all right.  But not fast enough.  There’s still enough of them to do damage to the nation.  And that’s what they’re gonna do.

“Take the Satanist Senatorial Seven.  The President sends down a necessary transportation bill—we’re talking national security here, folks.  The country needs that bill.  Needs the appropriation.  Needs to protect the transportation system.  But the triple S—and that’s what they are, folks, a bunch of stupid s-holes!—pull some stupid procedural gimmick to bottle the bill up.

“Pork, they’re screaming.  That bill’s got as much pork in it as my left butt cheek.” That was another of Elder’s favorite lines, though he alternated cheeks from time to time.  Five foot nine and maybe one hundred forty pounds, Elders’ lean physique was legendary.  As was, at least for those who knew him or dined with him, his seemingly infinite appetite and his legendary ability to slake that appetite while remaining wiry.

“The Satanic Seven are blocking that bill just because they can.  They don’t give a damn about the country.  They don’t give a damn about you or me.  They don’t give a damn that, by blocking the bill, they are leaving millions of Americans tied up in traffic, delaying emergency response times to terrorist incidents, leaving our country vulnerable to more attacks.

“They don’t care that they’re risking another Spokane.  They want another Spokane.  They hope it happens again, just to make the President look bad.  That’s all they care about.  They’re so consumed by their hate for the man that they can not beat in any other way that they’ll sacrifice the national interest to scratch that itch.  They just as soon leave this country stripped naked of all its defenses—stripped as naked as the White House walls were when the Clintonistas left town.”

While Clinton may have been out of office for over a decade, Elder knew throwing his name in from time to time always helped pump up the faithful. Especially after ’08.  Focus groups had proven that.

“Well I’ve had enough of it.  And you’ve had enough of it.  It’s time the Administration and the Attorney General have had enough of it.  Invoke Carter.  Throw Munsington or Vaulter into the clink for a while – like a hundred years.  At least bash that blowhard Getty.  She’s their ringleader.  Bust her and you bust them all.”

Elder paused, noticing that the show’s theme music was slowly rising.  He looked up from his mike.  His engineer was waving at him through the sound booth window.  The end of the show had crept up on him. He looked back at the mike, the center of his universe.

“Well, my friends,” he sighed.  “If the Administration won’t act, at least you can.  Send the bums letters and let them know just how much you hate them and their anti-American liberal ways.  Email ‘em.  Call ‘em.  Shut down their phone lines and computers with your righteous anger.  Check out our website, w-w-w dot Ronald’s right for the contact info.  And don’t forget to sign up for our premium content, including the RLE newsletter.  We’re outta time, gotta run.  Talk to you tomorrow.

“And in the meantime, remember, listen to your Elder.”

Elder pushed back from the mike, “God Bless America” now playing loudly in his headset.  He pulled the headset off and dropped it on the teak console, rolled his chair back, stood and stretched. Show three thousand, eight hundred and forty six was now history.

The paneled door to his studio opened and his producer, Mary Beth Bates, walked in, smiling as usual.  She carried his customary post-show cup of Earl Gray tea with honey and lemon that he drank religiously after each broadcast to soothe his tired vocal cords.

“Great show, as usual, Ronny,” she cheerfully chirped, setting the tea on the edge of the grand teak office desk that stood behind the broadcast  console.   Elder’s broadcast studio had been configured to look like a study in a grand English manner house that he had once visited—and subsequently bought.  Indeed, it was that very study, transported in it’s entirety, right down to the hearth stones of the working fire place that dominated one wall of the twenty by twenty room.  Installing a working fireplace on the twenty-eighth floor of a forty story modern Los Angeles office building had been no small or cheap affair.  But he was Ronald Lewis Elder and  if he wanted to work inside an igloo, the  MultiCom suits would have had to figure out how to keep the ice from melting on the equipment.

He was Ronald Lewis Elder. And Ronald Lewis Elder got what he wanted.

Like that English manor house.  Elded only bought the house to loot it of the various furnishings and architectural ornamentation he liked.  Then he sold it to some wealthy Arab, simply to piss off the less wealthy English aristocrats who lived nearby.  He hated England and the stuck up English and had no desire to live there, or anywhere else besides his cherished United States of America.

But they did have cool stuff like this study.  So he simply took it.

He also liked the idea of noble titles.  Lord Elder, for example.  But he hadn’t been able to take one of those.  Yet.

Elder stretched again and turned on Mary Beth, scowling.  “Great show my skinny ass,” he snapped.  ‘A transportation bill?  I have to prattle on for two hours about a lousy goddam transportation bill?”  He crossed over to his desk and brusquely snatched up the cup and saucer, causing tea to spill from the former to the later.

Mary Beth instinctively backed up a few paces towards the bookshelves.  They were crammed with expensive first editions and folios which, like the room itself, had been acquired—at MultiCom expense—to satisfy Elder’s voracious appetite for things.

“I thought you did an excellent job detailing the problems with the bill,” Mary Beth soothingly said.

Elder was having none of it.  “A goddam trasportation bill!  That’s the best your incredible staff of pinheaded researchers could come up with for today?  Stupid road construction?  No one is going to get their blood pressure up over a goddam transporation bill!  And if their…,” he gesticulated towards the microphone console, as if all his fifteen million listeners were somehow contained within its smooth, mahogany paneled frame,   “ …blood pressure are low, so are my ratings.  And if my ratings are low…,” he rounded back on her, waving his long, thin, bony index finger at his increasingly cowering producer, “ you’re professional prospects are low.”  He paused, savoring the power he could exhort at will over his supplicants.

Mary Beth, clearly shaken, tried to soothe her boss.  While she received at least one of these tirades a week, she hadn’t expected one today, after a good, if innocuous show. “I’m sorry, Ronald,” she placated him, “ the research staff has gotten a little slack.  We’ll find you something much better for tomorrow.”

“Like,” he growled.  He had her on the run, which is how he liked to keep his subordinates.

“Like, a…,”  she crossed over to his massive desk and punched in a few numbers on his phone/intercom.  Part way into the first ring the other end answered.  No-one let Ronald’s line ring more than once.

“ Yes Mister Elder, Perez here.”  Perez was a 28 year old  Ph.D. candidate in government from the Kennedy school, taking a semester’s internship in the intellectual sweatshop of the great Voice, which had become, for conservative academics, something akin to clerking for a supreme court justice.  Only more prestigious and important.

“ Michael, this is Mary Beth.”

“Oh hi, Mary Beth,”  Perez’s voice noticeably relaxed. “I thought you were…”

“I’m with Mister Elder,” she hastily interrupted, least Perez be impolitic enough to say anything less than absolutely glowing about Elder.  A man who could accuse the Pope of being soft on the devil, Elder was notorious for being intolerant of anything but the highest exaltations by anyone—friends, family, associates or enemies included.  “We wanted to know how things were shaping up for tomorrow’s show.  Hot topics?”

There was a pause as Perez could be heard tapping on a computer keyboard.  “Our top five are the flu vaccine bill, subversive messages in the networks’ mid-season reality shows,  clips from Maria Getty’s speech to the DNC banquet tonight, subversive messages in the networks’ news broadcasts, and the President’s trip to Canada.”

Mary Beth turned to Elder, hoping he would be pleased.  He wasn’t.

“Canada?” Elder practically screamed.  “Freakin’ Canada? Home of the neo-socialists, land of the spineless?  What’s he,” meaning the President, whom Elder knew on a first-nickname basis, “ doing going to that shithole?  And how am I supposed to fill three hours of airtime talking about beaver-loving Canucks?”

Perez, no doubt envisioning his career being smothered in its crib, was deathly silent at his end of the line. Mary Beth looked from Elder to the phone.

“Er,  thank you, Michael. I’ll get back…”

Elder strode to the desk, almost shoving Mary Beth out of the way.  With both hands palm down on the gleaming desktop, he starred at the phone.  Now he was shouting.

“Look, Perez or Paris or whatever the hell your un-American name is.  You want to keep your job, you get me something good.  I want dirt on precious Maria Getty banging the goddam DNC, not giving them some limp-wristed pep talk.  I don’t even ever want to hear the word ‘Canada’ again.  I want Tehran.  Get me what’s happening in Tehran.  Do you understand me, Perez.  I want stuff on real, breathing, oozing enemies of the Republic.  I want stuff that will scare the hell out of people and get their backs up.  Make them want to kill, goddam it, kill liberal scum.  Do you understand me Perez? “

“Yes, Mister Elder,”  Perez prattled, nerves rattled, “ Right away, sir.”

“Good!” Elder yelled.  He punched the disconnect button with a sharp, knife-like jab, then turned on Mary Beth yet again.

“And you better ride them like a hot one night stand until they come up with something good.  Enough of this transportation crap.”

“Yes, Ronald,” she gulped.  On the Elder scale of tantrums,  in which punching people in the gut was a one and garroting them a ten, this one was about a seven.  Which was pretty bad so early in the week.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes. Then he looked at her—hard, but less threatening.  “You know, it’s hard being the only competent person in this organization.”  He walked around his desk and sat in his  Neiman Marcus Private Retreat executive  chair.   Mary Beth remained at attention, a few feet away.

Maybe a six.  She risked a question.  “Tehran?  Why do you want stuff on Tehran? Nothing is going on in the news?”

Elder gave her a piercing look.  “The news?” he spit.  “Of course there’s nothing in the news.  There’s never nothing in the news.  All is hunky-dory in Tehran. And Baghdad.  And  Damascus. And Beirut.  But I don’t get the news.  I get the facts.”  He leaned forward, ruffling through files on his desk.  He took out one, opened it, and pulled out a sheaf of papers.  Mary Beth could not fully read them, five feet away and upside down, but she could make out “Department of Defense” and “Top Secret.”

He picked up the documents and waved them at her.  “I get the real news.   I know as much as he does.  I’ve got connections.  I’m permanently in the loop.”

Mary Beth eyed the documents with apprehension.  She, of course, knew all about Elder’s personal pull in getting inside information.  He flaunted it to her at least once a week.  And, while it was not common knowledge, she and a handful of his handlers knew he was briefed periodically by cabinet secretaries and even the President himself.  All in secret, of course.  Just like his ability to, every now and then, harass a particularly harsh critic by sic’ing the IRS on them–a little favor thrown his way by the Administration as much for the fun of watching those critics squirm through months of audits as for actually silencing voices no-one really listened to anymore.  He’d boasted they’d shared laughs on more than one occasion in the Oval over such hijinks.

But DoD secret documents, left on his desktop?  That could not be wise. She looked over at the engineer’s booth – the glass was still open and people were working on the equipment.

“Ah, Ronald,” She nodded towards the glass and then towards the documents.”

He looked over, saw the engineers, then grunted.  “Right.”  He pushed a button on the phone console, and a shutter slid down from the wall recess, sealing off the window.  “Anyway,” he re-waved the documents at her.  “I know things aren’t all puppy dogs and ice cream in Iran.  They’re dog shit.  We just got hit in the Zagros mountains.  An ambush. Lost two hundred.  And guns are pouring over the borders.  Bought with Saudi money. Bought from the Chinese. The goddam Chinese.”  He slammed the documents down.

“We let them have Korea, and our reward?  Treacherous slant-eyed bastards. And you know why we keep getting kicked in the chops?”  He pushed on before Mary Beth could inadvertently respond to the rhetorical question.  “Because we’re too soft.  We don’t want to make waves.  Well we gotta make waves.  Or, better yet, Mushroom clouds.  We oughta nuke Riyadh, for starters.”

“But Ronald,” Mary Beth interjected, concerned.  “ You support the administration on Iran.  You always have.”

“Yeah, right.  I support him.  But sometimes he needs a kick in the ass, and I’m gonna give it to him.   They all lead him to water, but I’m gonna make him drink.”

“But don’t you run a risk of running up against Carter?”

“Carter?!  Me?  No-one would have the balls.  No, dammit.  Things have become too relaxed around here.” He looked around the paneled room. “Around the entire goddam nation.  I’m gonna stir things up a bit.  And you just watch those ratings fly.  And then the corporate assholes will really have to cough up the dough.”

Mary Beth was all too well aware that Elder was heading into new contract negotiations with MultiCom, which owned his syndication rights and pumped him out to 15% of the nation’s radio channels.  She also knew that Elder always got a little crazy around such negotiation time.  She’d gotten her job three years before when Elder had felt her predecessor had done too little boost ratings into the negotiation run up.   But jumping on Iran?  Taking on the Chinese and the Saudis?  That was pushing things, even for Ronald Lewis Elder.  She needed time to think this through and figure out how to handle it—and him.  So she distracted him.

“Speaking of Corporate,” she said, remembering a useful item that had just popped up for Elder’s schedule that afternoon.  Upstairs wants to have a quick chat with you.

“What,” he frowned.  “What do those pantywaists want?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, hesitantly. “Bob Nelson’s office called down and asked if you could come up after today’s show.”  Nelson was senior  VP for production for Starnet, the syndication company which owned Elder’s show but which, in turn, was owned by MultiCom.

“Bob Nelson?  That little prick wants me to come up to his office?  Tell him to kiss my skinny little ass.  He wants to talk to me he can come down here—no—tell him the formal office.  And at seven.  After I’ve had a sauna, a shower and a couple of big cocktails.”

“Nelson’s office was pretty insistent…,” she began, but was cut off by Elder’s glare.  “Yes sir, I’ll call them.”

“Good!”  Having made the world kneel before him, Elder was now in a more pleasant state of mind.  He stood up and made toward the door, stopping just inches away from Mary Beth.  At five ten, she was taller than Elder, something heels only made more obvious; she usually wore low ones.

“We on for dinner at nine?”

“Yes, Ronald, of course,” she replied, smiling.  A false smile. Her stomach had been tied into knots by his little tirade, which took the smiles out of her.”

“Good,” he leered, caressing her buttocks as he slipped by her and out the door.

She loved the power of her job.  And the pay.  But there were some parts of it she really hated.  That was one of them.

She paused for a moment, watching him leave.  Then she went to the desk, picked up the top secret documents and crossed to the bookcase, where she opened Elder’s safe –tackily concealed behind a painting of a fox hunt–and locked them away.

Like most men, she sighed. Elder was still a child who left his toys everywhere when he was done with them.

She stored the incriminating documents and closed the safe, swinging the painting back in to place.  Wall safe behind a painting in a faux study.  Gauche. Turning away, she slipped her Blackberry out of her pocket and made a call.

There were still some parts of her job she really loved.

Just Say No

Mike Aguirre is, once again, probably right. Under the strong Mayor system of Government the Council will have to, today, vote yes, no, or defer on the Mayor’s strong-armed proposal to end the City’s defined benefit retirement plan for new City employees. The plan will save a paltry (and, in the Pension deficit scheme of things, $49 million over eleven years is small fiscal potatoes, indeed) at the expense of souring whatever sweetness is left in the municipal waters sipped by management and labor. It will drive any ambitious and qualified person seeking municipal employment to other municipalities within the county and state. And the two-tier pension system will bring even more discord to City Hall as animosity grows between old hands still covered by the defined-benefit plan (like Jerry Sanders) and the newbies. It’s bad policy, through and through.

Jerry Sanders has cast his lot against the much maligned municipal employees and their unions. He’s also cast his lot against good governance. The Council shouldn’t throw him a life preserver and try and modify (probably illegally) his labor plan. Jerry’s a strong mayor now. It’s time for him to swim or sink on his own.

Let’m sink, City Council.

Just Say No.

Where Oh Where Has Our Task Force Gone?

Last Sunday, May 4, the Marine Amphibious assault ship Peleliu and its Task Force departed San Diego for points unknown (or, at least, undisclosed) in support of the war on terror. Might someone have an idea where such points unknown in the war on terror might be? Perhaps a Place that is spelled like “Iraq” but for one critical ending consonant change? The Peleliu is the point at the end of the Marine spear. Where might it be inserted next?