White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

Dos and Don’ts for the Next GOP Debate

by Leave a Comment

Dear Debaters,

I loved your show. At first, I thought I had chanced upon something affiliated with the Miss Universe Pageant. And I had an awful moment when I braced against the possibility of having to see Donald Trump mince across the stage in a Speedo.

When I got the two events untangled in my mind, everything was swell. I even enjoyed the warm-up version with jokes by Lindsey Graham. He is quite a cut-up for a war hawk. I am glad he traveled to the Middle East so often, but I wish he had told us what he learned there. Did he stay with the U.S. military or did he do a kind of Lindsey of Arabia, riding a camel and eating shawarma? Did he teach them the intricacies of South Carolina barbecue? We should be told.

As for that sly, former New York governor George Pataki, he sounded presidential when he chided those who would obey the law selectively. Trouble is George has saved himself from overexertion out of the gate, and now the field is in the stretch, while he is ambling up to the first turn.

In the main event, we all swooned — well, nearly — for dear, sweet Ben Carson. Such a nice man. Ready-made to be ambassador the Court of St. James’s (United Kingdom, that is) or president of Harvard, Ben would bring class to anything. But why, oh why, is he running for president of the United States? Clearly, he does not do foreign policy, banking or sanctions management. But thank you, doctor, for toning up the Republican Party. It needed it. Have you seen the Trump Tower? How gauche!

Carly Fiorina, you are quite an information sponge. Loved the way you tossed off those statistics about brigades, divisions and ships. Super! But did you have to simper over Bibi Netanyahu? You can love Israel without embracing Netanyahu who is, if you think about it, something like Israel’s Donald Trump, but more cunning. Swatting has served you well, Carly, but do not paint yourself in a corner with Vladimir Putin. Do not tell him what you will do as president. I would cozy up to him while rearming.

Talk to everyone and carry a big stick; John Kasich understands that. Wow, John, when you were talking about how you balanced the budget with someone from the other party, I guess you meant to say it was Bill Clinton, but it slipped your mind.

And then, The Donald. Could this be the beginning of the end? And those faces you pulled? Expect to see them in Democratic ads. Donald, if you make it to the next debate, read up on things outside of New York, Florida and New Jersey. There are aids for embryonic politicians that you can buy in a bookstore: they are called CliffsNotes. In no time, you will drop historical facts, mention faraway land masses, and quote Winston Churchill or Julius Caesar. Those pesky foreign names? Easy. Get The New York Times and read the foreign section on Page Two. In just one week, you will be conversant with the names of all kinds of demagogues, who are just waiting to deal with you. I promise.

Many of you are showing improvement from last time, especially Jeb Bush. He has graduated from looking like a schoolmaster all the way up to having all the savoir faire of a county bank manager. Can the White House be far behind? — For InsideSources.com



David and Goliath, or, the Sick and the Bureaucracy

by 10 Comments

Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker writer, has grown rich with a series of books exploring the sociological dimensions of success and failure. In his latest, “David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants,” Gladwell celebrates the many Davids who triumphed over the odds because they were nimble and resourceful.
 
If he wants to observe a classic David-versus-Goliath rumble, Gladwell might want to go to Washington on Tuesday (Dec. 10). He will see a frail woman go up against the federal government with a humble petition and a small following of mostly very sick people.
 
Her name is Susan Kreutzer and she suffers from the debilitating and mysterious disease Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, which is the name patients favor.
 
Kreutzer and others will begin their demonstration at 9a.m. outside the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services on Independence Avenue, where she will hand over a petition. Then she will move up the street to Capitol Hill to demonstrate and hand-deliver petitions to members of Congress. She will end her day of petitioning her government outside the White House.
 
Kreutzer has no idea how many, if any, demonstrators will join her, but she assures me she has the required permits to demonstrate. Another time, only six demonstrators turned out,, but they unfurled a huge banner and stood on he street telling the oft-ignored story of their suffering to anyone who would listen.
 
Telling your story in Washington without a big-bucks lobbying firm or celebrity friends is not an easy assignment. Not only is there the high chance of being ignored but there is also the chance of being discounted as one of the apocalyptic “end of days” proselytizers, or those who believe the CIA has it in for them and who habitually assemble at the White House and elsewhere. In other words, it is easy to be dismissed as a “crazy.”
 
But Kreutzer, who will have a warm-up demonstration on Dec. 9 in San Francisco at the HHS offices there, believes in the strength of small voices, of a murmur in the cacophony of Washington petitioning. “I feel I have to do this,” she said.
 
This year, the victims of CFS are particularly upset with HHS and its dependent agency the National Institutes of Health. They are fuming at the decision of NIH to seek a new clinical definition of their disease, supplanting the Canadian Consensus Criteria, which has been the diagnostic gold standard for researchers who are deeply committed to finding a cure for a disease that affects as many as 1 million Americans and another 17 million people worldwide.
 
It is a disease that simply confiscates normal life and substitutes an existence in purgatory, where victims can be confined for decades until death. Sometimes they will be so sick they must lie in darkened rooms for months or years; sometimes they can function for a few hours a day, usually followed by collapse. Dysphasia — word confusion — increases. Lovers leave, spouses despair and the well of family compassion runs dry.
 
The first and major complaint of all those in researching the disease and those suffering from it is that NIH spends a trifling $6 million on this circle of hell that could have been invented by Dante.
 
The second and immediate source of anger laced with despair is that NIH has, apparently arbitrarily, decided to have the clinical definition of the disease reclassified by the Institute of Medicine and has diverted a precious $1 million to this purpose. Thirty-six leading researchers and physicians from the United States, risking retribution in funding, protested the move but were ignored. They were joined by colleagues from abroad, bringing the blue-ribbon protesters to 50.
 
Still nobody knows why the move to reclassify the disease. One school of thought is that NIH would like to abandon the current and well-accepted diagnostic criteria, known as the Canadian Consensus Criteria, in order to treat the disease as more of a mental one rather than a physical one.
 
I approached HHS for a comment and for a word with Dr. Howard Koh, the assistant secretary in charge, but have received no response.
 
Will this David, Susan Kreutzer, fell this Goliath, HHS? — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
 

The Scramble for a New Nuclear Reactor

by 1 Comment

You can build a car with three or four wheels. But mostly, you would want to do so with four for stability and marketplace acceptance. Basically, you need a wheel at each corner, after which you can do what you like. Flexibility comes in how you use the vehicle.
 
For nuclear power, the reverse of that truism applies. There are many, many ways of building a reactor and fueling it. But its purpose is singular: to make electricity. And making electricity is done in the time-honored way, using steam or gas to turn a turbine attached to a generator.
 
Around the world, some 460 reactors are electricity makers. Even allowing for events like the tsunami which struck Fukushima Daiichi, they are statistically the safest and most reliable electricity makers.
 
Yet they are large and built one at a time; one-offs, bespoke. They rely predominantly on two variations of a technology called “light water,” originally adapted from the U.S. Navy. This has left no room for other designs, fuels and materials.
 
Now there is a new movement to design and build smaller reactors that are not as wedded to the light water technology, although that is still in the game.
 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration calculates the demand for electricity will double by 2050, which means that the demand for nuclear-generated electricity with its carbon-free attributes should soar.
 
To understand the heft of a nuclear plant, which range from about 900 to 1,600 megawatts of electrical output (MWe), one needs a visual comparison. Most of the windmills that are now seen everywhere generate 1 MWe, or a little more when the wind is blowing. So it takes 1,000 or more windmills to do the job of just one nuclear power plant. That stark fact is why China, in environmental crisis, has the world’s largest nuclear construction program.
 
But the days of the behemoth light water reactor plants may be numbered.
 
The challenge comes from what are known as small modular reactors (SMRs), rated at under 300 MWe. Stimulated by a total of $452 million in matching funds from the U.S. Department of Energy, the race is on for these smaller reactors. Call them the new, improved, front-wheel drive reactors.
 
The future for these is so alluring that eight U.S.-based manufacturers are competing for seed funding from the DOE for reactors that range in size from 10 MWe up to 265 MWe. Other countries are also revved up including Argentina, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and South Africa.
 
Whatever the design, one of the big advantages the new entrants will have is that they will be wholly or partly built in factories, saving money and assuring quality. Some designs, like those of Babcock & Wilcox (which won the first round of funding) and Westinghouse, are sophisticated adaptations of light water technology.
 
Others, like General Atomics’ offering, called the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM2, are at the cutting-edge of nuclear energy. It relies on a high operating temperature of 850 degrees Centigrade to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and even to use nuclear waste as fuel. It is designed to work for 30 years without refueling, relying on a silicon carbide fiber ceramic that will hold the fuel pellets.
 
“The ceramic does not melt and if it is damaged, the material tends to heal itself,” says John Parmentola, senior vice president at General Atomics, which developed the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and the electromagnetic launch system for aircraft carriers, which replaces the steam catapult.
 
Others designs include thorium fuel instead of uranium, the use of molten salt as a moderator and coolant. Three of them, including General Atomics' design, are so-called fast reactors, where a moderator is not used to slow down the neutrons as they collide with the target atoms. Think fission on steroids.
 
It is as though nuclear designers have thrown off the chains of legacy and are free to dream up wondrous new machines, similar to the start of the nuclear age. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

 

The Scramble for a New Nuclear Reactor

by 1 Comment

You can build a car with three or four wheels. But mostly, you would want to do so with four for stability and marketplace acceptance. Basically, you need a wheel at each corner, after which you can do what you like. Flexibility comes in how you use the vehicle.
 
For nuclear power, the reverse of that truism applies. There are many, many ways of building a reactor and fueling it. But its purpose is singular: to make electricity. And making electricity is done in the time-honored way, using steam or gas to turn a turbine attached to a generator.
 
Around the world, some 460 reactors are electricity makers. Even allowing for events like the tsunami which struck Fukushima Daiichi, they are statistically the safest and most reliable electricity makers.
 
Yet they are large and built one at a time; one-offs, bespoke. They rely predominantly on two variations of a technology called “light water,” originally adapted from the U.S. Navy. This has left no room for other designs, fuels and materials.
 
Now there is a new movement to design and build smaller reactors that are not as wedded to the light water technology, although that is still in the game.
 
The U.S. Energy Information Administration calculates the demand for electricity will double by 2050, which means that the demand for nuclear-generated electricity with its carbon-free attributes should soar.
 
To understand the heft of a nuclear plant, which range from about 900 to 1,600 megawatts of electrical output (MWe), one needs a visual comparison. Most of the windmills that are now seen everywhere generate 1 MWe, or a little more when the wind is blowing. So it takes 1,000 or more windmills to do the job of just one nuclear power plant. That stark fact is why China, in environmental crisis, has the world’s largest nuclear construction program.
 
But the days of the behemoth light water reactor plants may be numbered.
 
The challenge comes from what are known as small modular reactors (SMRs), rated at under 300 MWe. Stimulated by a total of $452 million in matching funds from the U.S. Department of Energy, the race is on for these smaller reactors. Call them the new, improved, front-wheel drive reactors.
 
The future for these is so alluring that eight U.S.-based manufacturers are competing for seed funding from the DOE for reactors that range in size from 10 MWe up to 265 MWe. Other countries are also revved up including Argentina, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and South Africa.
 
Whatever the design, one of the big advantages the new entrants will have is that they will be wholly or partly built in factories, saving money and assuring quality. Some designs, like those of Babcock & Wilcox (which won the first round of funding) and Westinghouse, are sophisticated adaptations of light water technology.
 
Others, like General Atomics’ offering, called the Energy Multiplier Module, or EM2, are at the cutting-edge of nuclear energy. It relies on a high operating temperature of 850 degrees Centigrade to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and even to use nuclear waste as fuel. It is designed to work for 30 years without refueling, relying on a silicon carbide fiber ceramic that will hold the fuel pellets.
 
“The ceramic does not melt and if it is damaged, the material tends to heal itself,” says John Parmentola, senior vice president at General Atomics, which developed the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and the electromagnetic launch system for aircraft carriers, which replaces the steam catapult.
 
Others designs include thorium fuel instead of uranium, the use of molten salt as a moderator and coolant. Three of them, including General Atomics' design, are so-called fast reactors, where a moderator is not used to slow down the neutrons as they collide with the target atoms. Think fission on steroids.
 
It is as though nuclear designers have thrown off the chains of legacy and are free to dream up wondrous new machines, similar to the start of the nuclear age. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

 

Hearing from Those Who Suffer Mostly in Silence

by 12 Comments

 

“There have been some medical schools in which somewhere along the assembly line, a faculty member has informed the students, not so much by what he said but by what he did, that there is an intimate relation between curing and caring.”

So remarked Ashley Montague, the British-American anthropologist and humanist.

The millions who suffer from what is termed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the United States, and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis in the rest of the world, await day that the medical establishment cares enough about the disease to cure it.

They await that day with an anxiousness that is unimaginable to those who have not been afflicted by the disease.

The two commentaries on CFS/ME that Llewellyn King wrote for the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate (and posted on this Web site) have elicited a terrible cry from the afflicted, including a woman who called herself “an unburied corpse.”

These cries called out for a special edition of “White House Chronicle” on CFS. That edition, featuring Deborah Waroff, a New York author, and Dr. Paul Plotz, a National Institutes of Health clinician scientist, first aired on television Oct. 8, 2010.

“I hope the television special and my syndicated columns push the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, and its political masters, to take action on this life-robbing disease,” said King, executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle.”

Here are some of the viewer responses to the CFS/ME special that we have received so far:

From: Terry

Thank you so much for your broadcast featuring ME/CFS.

I am a Canadian ME/CFS patient who has suffered from this disease for over 12 years. I am involved in research looking to see if there is a connection between the newly discovered XMRV retrovirus and neuropsychiatric disease in my child. The thought is XMRV may have been passed onto my child by me and played a role in expression of her condition.

I am waiting for general XMRV research to learn if the retrovirus played a role in cancer I was diagnosed with four years ago as well. I am wondering if I will develop other cancers and wait anxiously to learn more about ME/CFS and cancer.

I would like to state here, in my experience, CFS/ME is not biologically benign, and highlighting CFS/ME on your show is significant. Perhaps you may help move research forward and thank you in advance for this.

I am immensely appreciative, since as you can imagine, I am anxious for research to help my family understand our poor state of health.

I am a most grateful U.S. neighbor.

 

From: Melinda

I can’t thank you enough for the attention you have brought to ME/CFS suffers.

I have had to deal many times with the ignorance and intolerance towards this illness. It is such an isolating illness and it is well and truly about time that more attention is given to it.

It would be so much easier to deal with if we had understanding and support.

Again thank you!

From: Cheryl


Thank you so very much for your willingness and openness to bring new light to ME/CFS on your show.

We need you. We are desperate to have our voices heard. I can only tell you from my experience that no one would want to have this horrible, life-stealing illness.


I was a very active social worker and church and community volunteer before contracting a virus in 2004 that never went away. It took so long to get an accurate diagnosis that by the time that I did, I was completely bedbound, not being able to leave my home for weeks at a time.

I have to travel over 1,000 miles for medical care, since I am unable to find a doctor here that believes me.


In January of this year, I had to crawl out of my bed to fight breast cancer. With a compromised immune system, I worry about it coming back and not being strong enough for more treatments.

Cancer was a breeze compared to the battles of ME/CFS–and I do not say that flippantly.


Please continue to bring this horrible illness and the injustices to the public. It is a crime against humanity to be made to suffer like this with no answers.


God bless you, Mr. King.

From: Karen

How is “epidemic” defined at the White House?

When is National XMRV Testing Day?

How much longer do you think I can hold out before Chronic Fatigue Syndrome induced dysautonomia shuts down a vital central nervous system?

Put the Kettle on, Sarah Palin

by Leave a Comment

 

 

Sarah m’dear, it’s not about the party. It’s about the tea.

For those of us of the British persuasion, tea is black tea. It was the tea on which the British built the empire.

It was also, I might add, the tea that Margaret Thatcher served at No. 10 Downing Street. I enjoyed some with her there. A Conservative traditionalist, she served it with milk for certain and sugar as an option.

Thatcher did not ask her guests, as bad hotels do now, what kind of tea they would like. Tea to Thatcher was black tea, sometimes known as Indian tea, though it might have been grown in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka. It was neither flavored nor some herbal muck masquerading as tea.

The former prime minister knew that good tea is made in the kitchen, where stove-boiled water is poured from a kettle onto tea in a pot, not tepid water poured from a pot on a table into a cup with a tea bag.

Boiling water in a kettle, or pot, on the stove is important in making good tea. In a microwave, the water doesn’t bubble. Tea needs the bubbles.

While the Chinese drank green tea hundreds of years before Christ, the British developed their tea-drinking habit in the 17th century. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted permission for the charter of the British East India Company, establishing the trade in spice and silk that lead to the formal annexation of India and the establishment of the Raj.

Initially, tea was a sideline but it became increasingly important and started to define the British. The coffee shops–like the one that launched the insurer Lloyds of London around 1688–continued, but at all levels of society tea was becoming the British obsession.

By the 18th century, tea drinking was classless in Britain. Duchesses and workmen enjoyed it alike.

Tea was the fuel of the empire: the war drink, the social drink, the comfort drink and the consolation drink. Coffee had an upmarket connotation. It wasn’t widely available and the British didn’t make it very well.

Also as coffee was well established on the continent, it had to be shunned. To this day the British are divided about continental Europe and what they see as the emblems of Euro-depravity: coffee, garlic, scents and bidets.

Although tea is standardized, the British play their class games over the tea packers. For three centuries, most tea has been shipped in bulk to various packing houses throughout the British Isles. But the posh prefer Twinings to Lipton.

Offering tea with fancy cakes, clotted cream and fine jams separates the workers from the ruling classes. One of Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting, Anna Maria Stanhope, known as the Duchess of Bedford, is credited as the creator of afternoon tea time; which the hotels turned into formal, expensive afternoon “teas.” The Ritz in London is famous for them.

The British believe that tea sustained them through many wars. “Let’s have a nice cup of tea. Things will get better.” I’ve always believed that America’s revenge against the British crown was to ice their beloved tea. Toss it into Boston Harbor, but don’t ice it. If you should have the good fortune to be asked to tea at No. 10, or at Buckingham Palace, don’t expect it to be iced.

Incidentally tea bags are fine, and it’s now just pretentious to serve loose tea with a strainer. Of course, if you want to read the political tea leaves you’ll have to use loose tea.

If you’re serving tea to the thousands at your tea parties, Sarah, remember that unlike politics, tea is very forgiving. It can be revived just with more boiling water.  –For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

The Health Care Fix That Dare Not Speak Its Name

by Leave a Comment

 

Workaround is a made-up word that came to us from the computer industry – at least, that is how it came into general usage. In that industry, a workaround can be a crafty piece of engineering to get the results you want without infringing on someone else’s patent.

 

Watching President Barack Obama at last week’s prime-time news conference, one had the feeling that he was engaged in a workaround. He was selling a vague health care reform proposal. His spiel was very long because he was selling something that is still a work in progress. Worse: Whatever Obama gets is not going to be the real thing. It is going to be a workaround.

 

One has the feeling that congressional pusillanimity has the Democrats and their leader working around what at heart they know is the only solution to the challenge of health care – a strong federal role. Call it the solution that dare not speak its name, like Oscar Wilde’s love.

 

One had the feeling in the East Room last week that the president wanted to lay down the burden of political gamesmanship and say, “National systems work from Taiwan to Norway, Canada to Australia; why, oh why can’t we face this reality?”

 

The first answer is that no one has the courage to face the Banshee wails of “socialism” that already echo from the right and would intensify to the sound of a Category 3 hurricane. Politically, it would be seen as a bridge too far. Had Obama said in the presidential campaign that he was for a single-payer option, the Democrats on Capitol Hill might have had the temerity to investigate what works remarkably well in Belgium and Japan, among dozens of other countries.

 

Globally, the single-payer option – or, let’s face it, nationalization – has brought in universal coverage at about half of what the United States spends today; let alone what we will spend with the clumsy hybrid that the president is selling and Congress is concocting.

 

Under nearly all state-operated systems, private insurers have a role. My friends in Britain and Ireland all have private insurance for bespoke medicine above that available on the state system. Sure, state systems are criticized, especially in Italy (along with everything else), but not one country that has a state system has made any political move to repeal it. State systems are popular.

 

In Britain, where I have had most experience with the National Health Service, it is the third rail of their politics. Even the great advocate of free enterprise, Margaret Thatcher, did not dare to even think of touching it. Every British Tory wants to make it more efficient, but none wants to repeal it. Thatcher repealed anything that had the whiff of socialism about it and privatized much, including the railways, but the health system was sacrosanct.

 

The issue should not be whether we can keep every insurer alive and whether we should continue to burden employers with the health care of their staffs and their families, but whether a new system will deliver for all Americans at reasonable cost.

 

It is probably too late to rationalize the system all at once. There are too many interests, too much money at stake and a pathological fear of government, fanned by the loud few. No matter that the Tennessee Valley Authority works well, that the Veterans Administration is a larger, and probably better, state program than those in many countries. It is not just in health care that Congress and the administration are engaged in workaround. Cap-and-trade in energy is another piece of avoidance.

Utility chief, after utility chief, after utility chief–among them, John Rowe of Exelon and James Rogers of Duke–has said that a simple carbon tax would be more effective and cheaper than cap-and-trade. But the same people who yell “socialist” get severe arrhythmia at the mention of “tax.” Workaround.  –For North Star Writers Group

 

 

 

 

Letter to the Editor

by Leave a Comment

Your article this morning (“Requiem for U.S. newspapers,” Commentary by Llewellyn King, Nov. 1, 2008, The Providence Journal) rang a bell here! Your article should be compulsory reading for all sentient humans. Opinions are worthless if there
is nothing real to base them upon.
Well done.

CHARLES ANDREWS
East Greenwich, RI
The writer is chairman of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations

Barometer: Heatwave Edition

by


Tom Tancredo: Bomb Mots

He would deter Islamic militants’ nuclear attacks on the United States by threatening to bomb Mecca and Medina. Mexicans should start practicing duck-and-cover. Foul/Falling

Joe Biden: Talking Guy

Good new book, but what a title to frighten away the punters. Also Joe knows he talks too much, but he can’t shut up. Something to do with his childhood stutter? Rain/Cloudy

Barack Obama: Treading Water

He’s in the foreign policy deep-end, and Hillary Clinton is trying to push him under. Don’t worry, Barack, she’s the one who voted for the war. Obama wins on points. Fair/Rising

John Edwards: Our Crowd

Poor little rich boy is trying to be a populist. But he’s not gotten through to the minimum-wage crowd. They suspect a trick. Only his hairdresser knows for sure. Rain/Cloudy

Rudy Giuliani: Magic Date

Did you know he was mayor of New York City on 9/11? If you didn’t know, he was mayor of NYC on 9/11, you should know he was on deck on 9/11. Let the angels sing: “Giuliani was mayor of The Big Bagel on 9/11.” Sing we now. Foul/Falling

Mitt Romney: Moving Target

Mitt has flipped to please the base, and the base hasn’t responded. All that Massachusetts liberalism leaves it mark. Rain/Cloudy