tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112927132024-02-28T06:22:11.449-08:00Kline OnlineSurely we must all recognize the search for truth as an imperative duty; and we ought all of us likewise to recognize that this search for truth should be carried on, not only fearlessly, but also with reverence, with humility of spirit, and with full recognition of our own limitations both of the mind and of the soul.
-Theodore RooseveltSteve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-39876512036923145462016-02-15T07:49:00.000-08:002016-02-15T07:49:55.853-08:00A Most Unbecoming Bicker <div class="MsoNormal">
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The steps of the Supreme Court were designed to optically elevate
the work of the Court above the partisan morass of an otherwise swampy
Washington. A grand illusion that rings largely true in the American political
psyche. The beauty of this ongoing American experiment with democracy is that
just about anyone can manage to get themselves elected to Congress, a fact reflective
of the body's very conception. Increasingly the same looks true for the
presidency. But the Court seems to possess a higher gravity. In a town where
just about everything has been co-opted by a PAC contribution, the Court gives
the impression of existing above, although perhaps just above, the daily fray.<br />
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Unlike so much else, Supreme Court nominations are the kind
of thing that senators and presidents seem to take seriously. A Supreme Court nomination
with the reek of cronyism is poorly tolerated. It is a matter of legacy for
both the Senate and the White House. Laws can be changed, but Supreme Court
justices and their decisions tend to persist. Roger Taney was appointed to the
Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836. His opinion in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dred Scott</i> case, decided fully twenty years later, was one of the motivating
forces of the Civil War. Jackson had been dead twelve years, but his Supreme
Court appointment was still influencing national political discourse. </div>
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And now a vacancy occurs on the Court, at what is also the
dusk of the Obama administration. The right honorable Justice Antonin Scalia,
the high priest of conservative jurisprudence has passed away. Agree or disagree
with his political frame of mind, his impact on the Court and on American political
life was outsized and would be difficult to overstate. On a Court that has
fallen into a generally conservative pattern, his absence as that Court's most boisterous
and straightforward conservative voice will be noticed.</div>
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The Constitution beckons. It's frosty 18th century language
ill-abides the abdication of a fundamental duty of any branch. A fully
functional Supreme Court represents a load-bearing column of the separation of
powers, a concept so primordial that it is practically woven into the sacred
parchment itself. For one branch to advocate a politically motivated delay in
order to curb the functionality of another branch, strains at the very foundations
of American democracy and as such is Constitutionally untenable. </div>
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While much of the President's agenda runs counter to my own,
the basic functionality of government must persevere. Barack Obama was properly
elected by the American people. His role as the head of the executive branch,
whose role itself in this matter is etched into the Constitution, is not a
matter for debate on the Senate floor, any more than it is a matter for debate
on social media. The Supreme Court is comprised of nine members, it currently
has only eight. It is the duty of both the legislative and the executive branches
to ensure a full complement of justices, so that democracy can carry on. It is
the role of the president to nominate. It is the role of the Senate to advise
and consent - hardly carte blanche for delay and dissembling. For the Senate to
demand the results of a future election before acting, ignores the conclusions
made by America's voters in the last presidential election, and serves to fray
the rightful bond of the electorate to its representative government. </div>
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Fealty to the Constitution is not a part-time affair, nor a
political expedient. It is difficult to imagine the man and the public servant
that we mourn today advocating to cripple the Court for baldly political
justifications, in stark violation of the Constitution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the Constitution is a document open to
interpretation, a role that the Court itself has filled since Justice John
Marshall, joined by a unanimous court, established the precedent in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Marbury v. Madison</i>. But what is not open
to interpretation is the Constitutional role of the Executive and the
Legislative branches in addressing a vacancy on the Court. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-53771056082776508202015-11-29T14:04:00.000-08:002015-11-29T14:04:47.004-08:00Water RetrieveIt has not been a great hunting season here in Maryland. Early waterfowl efforts were beset by unseasonably warm weather, which otherwise normal people seem to enjoy and encourage. But hunters need cold for success. Cold forces animals of all kinds to move, to find food and shelter, and ups the odds significantly that they'll wind up in range of our weapons. But warm weather makes game animals complacent and content to loll around with a noticeable lack of urgency. The geese of the Chester River on a seventy degree November day are a good case in point, they appear for all intents and purposes to have the mindset of midsummer beach-goers.<br />
<br />
The deer haven't been much more compelled, although their habits and their basic presence on the local landscape aren't quite as hardwired to the forecast. I hunted a warm early muzzleloader season in mid-October that saw visibility and shooting lanes limited dramatically by the leaves that were still in a September state of mind, having been bitten by only the lightest of frosts maybe once or twice. The deer in such a situation, unstirred by hunger, as yet unpossessed by their annual mating rituals, moved only sparingly.<br />
<br />
So with a hacking cough and a sore throat, I climbed the tree on the opening morning of modern firearm season with moderate optimism and an empty freezer. The two does I had killed last year all but consumed at the family dinner table. Almost as soon as I got settled in 15 feet high in my tree stand, I notice the gray outline of a deer popping out of the heavy brush that borders the bean field I am hunting. Far earlier than shooting time, I shoulder my slug gun to peer through the scope, instead of digging loudly through my backpack for my binoculars. The scope gathers what little light there is well, and I see the deer clearly in the scope. I watch this early doe poke around in the field for a few minutes before another deer walking briskly along the edge of the dense cover catches my eye. I notice the neck: it is huge. Legs that look too short for the animal's body. All the signs of a large buck.<br />
<br />
And as I put the scope on the animal to take a look, I saw that it was indeed a bruiser. Likely better than 8 points at the tips of tall tines, although it was still too dark to get a great look at him. He was the dominant animal, and his presence made the other deer nervous. And so was I, my heart racing in the hopes that he would hang around until legal shooting time, which was still 30 minutes away by the clock.<br />
<br />
But in order to get that big, a buck has to have some nocturnal habits; this wasn't a deer that moved around much during the day. And he never stopped walking for the minute or so I watched him, as he ducked right back into the dense cover 45 minutes before official sunrise, the place he would likely stay until the sun went back down.<br />
<br />
90 minutes later a small yearling doe popped out into the field and spent 20 minutes feeding alone without so much as a wink of caution. A second small deer, her twin perhaps, came out with her; they had the typical giveaways for young deer: the rounded look of the head, the short snout, and a belly that doesn't seem deep enough for a mature animal. But then two does that looked shootable entered the field at about 100 yards south of my stand, eyeing the two yearlings nervously. After a few minutes that felt more like an hour the two does started towards me at a fairly quick gait, but the larger of the two, stopped broadsides about 60 yards in front of my stand in a clear shooting lane. With the crosshairs of my scope just behind the front shoulder, I took the shot.<br />
<br />
The deer jolted from what I knew immediately was a kill shot, and ran to the northeast, towards the woods. When I started to track her about an hour later I didn't think I would have to walk very far, but I didn't see her nearby. A clear, abundant, and very bright blood trail followed for about 100 yards, maybe even more, and ended, very frustratingly, at the banks of Southeast Creek. Where was this deer?<br />
<br />
I started to walk the boggy shoreline, expecting a dead deer at any minute. But the blood trail left me, and I was left to do little more than hope and scratch my head. As I looked up and down the shore, what on any other day would have struck me as a log, I saw what appeared to be a deer, dead, 30 yards from the shore in the middle of the creek. After a quick call, the boat from duck camp was zooming up Southeast Creek, and together me and a friend were able to lasso the deer and tow her to shore, where I could start the process of field dressing. In probably 25 years of deer hunting, I have never had to retrieve a deer from the water, let alone one that had somehow got out into the middle of a fairly large tidal tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.<br />
<br />
I am glad I was able to successfully find the deer and fill my tag, but the shot had me fretting. In years past I had shot a Winchester Partition Gold slug through an H&R Ultra Slug 12 gauge, which I had borrowed from my dad. I had kept buying the slugs he had sighted the gun in with, and deer never went very far after the shot. Indeed, the gun worked so well that this fall I had bought my own H&R Ultra Slug, and had sighted in with Hornady SST slugs in 2.75 inch, in order to attempt to cut down on felt recoil on the shooting bench, which was substantial with the fat Winchesters. <br />
<br />
The decision to hunt with the SSTs looks to have been a bad one, as what should have been a very rapid kill shot turned into a track of nearly 200 yards, that included the animal wading through the water for quite some distance, since I don't think any tide or current carried her very far. Upon inspection, the shot was true to the vitals, and at 60 yards, I think the old Winchester Partition Golds would have knocked her down for good on impact. While the Hornady SSTs were fantastic at the range, I think I have given up something in energy on impact and expansion. I am not in the ethical business of losing deer if it can be at all avoided, so it looks like a return to the big Winchesters may be in order. <br />
<br />
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-85863295558195667482015-11-26T06:59:00.000-08:002015-11-26T06:59:23.068-08:00Thanksgiving 2015: So Long, Facebook <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Each year at around this time, I
usually sit down to one of my favorite tasks, writing my Thanksgiving blog. In
the past, the blog has, maybe unsurprisingly, been reflective about all the
things I have to be thankful for: love, health, the peacefulness of my home, a
rewarding career; the foundations of what have long been a profound contentment
with the life I am blessed to have. These annual posts have been, without
exception, optimistic and positive. I must admit I am having trouble this
Thanksgiving season summoning that optimism. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am worried about my country. I see
candidates for leadership who reflect a base of fear, of cynicism, of bigotry;
not to mention a run-amok anti-intellectualism that denies the existence of basic
facts that it finds inconvenient or problematic to its preferred narrative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What once was Reagan’s ‘shining city
upon a hill,’ has become a place of hatreds fueled by fear. There are many who
seek to seal off America, turn this great nation into a vacuum against the
perceived threat of the things it does not know and does not seek to
understand; but they fail to recognize that the gravest threat is internal to
ourselves, the one which consumes our compassion, extinguishes the lighted
flame of our shared humanity and leaves us in the profound dark. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Turning away mothers, and fathers,
and children, who are seeking little more than the chance to stay alive, that
is not American. It can be rationalized, but in a nation whose foundational
documents prioritize over all else the protection of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, closing our doors to those whose life, liberty, and
happiness is in most dire jeopardy is not American. Those who seek to guarantee
their own safety by risking the safety of others harm both in the bargain.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the refugee issue is but a symptom
of a deeper cancer. We are Huxley's Brave New World come to life. Our culture
has come to be defined by our distractions: social media being foremost among
them. We've replaced meaningful connections with memes, thoughtfulness with an
anonymous and argumentative online existence. Perpetuated a profound narcissism
that threatens to define us offline, as it already does online. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So with that, sometime before
December 1, I am signing off of Facebook for a while, deactivating my account.
Not sure how long I might be away, a week, a month, a year, forever, it doesn’t
matter. I don’t delude myself into thinking that my presence on social media is
important. I do think, however, that pushing back against the meme-driven,
reductive, and argumentative society that we have become <i>is</i> important,
and for those of us who strongly object to the impacts social media is having
on ourselves and on our relationships with others, the easiest solution is to
sign off. To seek some other, more thoughtful and patient way to engage with
one another. I am not entirely sure what that means in the long-term, as I have
forgotten how, in the absence of status updates and hashtags, we actually
communicated. Although yesterday I actually picked up the phone and called a
friend to wish him a happy birthday. In the short-term, it means limiting the
distractions that have so often come between me and my wife, my kids, and my
friends. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It will do no good if thoughtful
people disengage altogether, and I want to be clear that isn't what I intend to
do. Maybe with the time I won't be wasting scrolling through status updates and
suggested content, I can blog more frequently, gather more actual information,
make more informed opinions, spend more time actually talking to the people I care about. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">It's worth a shot. <br /><br /><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">You can always reach me<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">, and I would love to hear from you, at stevenkkline(at)gmail.com. </span></span></span> </span></div>
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-29287094716706145672015-10-07T07:52:00.000-07:002015-10-07T07:52:15.457-07:00Visions of 1968: Bernie Sanders and Eugene McCarthy War raged in the jungles and rice paddies of Southeast Asia. More than a thousand American servicemen were dying in Vietnam each month, and unrest set the streets of the United States aflame. A profound generational gap separated young from old, and the racial divide was as complex and as violent as ever. Division defined the era. It is always easy to conflate the current hard time as the worst hard time, but things in 1968 looked especially bleak, as a war without end carried on, and American leaders were gunned down in Memphis and Los Angeles. Against today's politics-as-reality-television backdrop, 1968 appears dense with a wholly different sense of gravity.<br />
<br />
But there are relevant comparisons to be made, particularly in terms of the 1968 Democratic presidential race and the one that is shaping up for 2016. I think past is indeed prologue in this limited case.<br />
<br />
Lyndon Johnson was mired in the Vietnam War, to which he was committed, for better or worse. His social welfare programs, Medicare for instance, had been subsumed by a legacy of military failure and the growing sense that tens of thousands of Americans were dying in a place and for a cause with no strategic importance for the United States. Early in the war Johnson believed he could deliver both 'guns and butter,' his phrase for pursuing the war to a victorious end while also delivering Great Society domestic programs that would forever change Americans' relationship with their government. But the collective attention of American society focused by 1968 only on the war. Vietnam would be Johnson's legacy.<br />
<br />
Enter Eugene McCarthy, a progressive anti-war Senator from Minnesota, who in 1967 took the bold step (for an established politician, that is) of challenging his party's presidential incumbent for the White House. Generally speaking, incumbents do not draw credible opposition in their races for reelection to the White House, but Gene jumped in. He ran hard, inspired a clutch of young folks who volunteered for the campaign by shaving, putting on ties (getting 'Clean for Gene') and going door to door for their brave and bold anti-war candidate. And it worked. In New Hampshire, McCarthy came within a hair's breadth (7 percentage points) of beating Lyndon Johnson in the Democratic presidential primary. A scant four days later, the ground sufficiently prepared by McCarthy's bravery, Robert F. Kennedy joined the race and immediately became the odds-on favorite in the progressive/anti-war camps, much to McCarthy's chagrin. A few more days go by, and Johnson, reading the writing on the wall, becomes the first president in modern history to decline to run for a second term. <br />
<br />
Fast forward to 2015. There is no powerful incumbent to head the ticket for the Democrats, but there is someone with incumbent-like name recognition and fundraising capacity, Hillary Clinton. Since her loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary has been the candidate of inevitability, ambling with seemingly little effort towards what appeared to be shoo-in nomination amongst a field of lesser-beings. Her toughest competition in the primary race promised to be her own history, the pant-suit clad skeletons of her ample closet. <br />
<br />
But then Bernie Sanders, like a modern Eugene McCarthy, considered more or less un-electable by many in the mainstream of American politics, including those in the Democratic party, bravely dove in to the race. Like McCarthy, Sanders's populism has struck a chord amongst liberals, who have always looked somewhat dubiously at Hillary. Like McCarthy, young people have turned out with an especially high enthusiasm for Sanders. Like McCarthy, Sanders has become surprisingly competitive, especially in New Hampshire. Like McCarthy, Sanders has entered the race with passion and honesty, and with that passion and honesty he has made the inevitable vulnerable. And like McCarthy, Bernie Sanders won't ever be president. <br /><br />Because he has now cleared the way for an establishment candidate, just like Gene McCarthy did in 1968. Obviously tragedy struck that Democratic field with the assassination of RFK in Los Angeles the night after he won the California Democratic primary, but McCarthy, who assumed all the initial risk, took all the early arrows, was toast by then. McCarthy was third in delegates the night that RFK was killed, the candidate that looked so promising so early, who had chased an incumbent president from the field, was done. <br /><br />Bernie Sanders has softened the ground, made the race safe, for Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton, who a year ago looked inevitable enough to keep Biden out of the race, now looks eminently beatable to Biden, and Sanders (along with Clinton's poor handling of several issues) helped to prepare that ground. Clinton as LBJ, Sanders as McCarthy, and Biden as Hubert Humphrey. I suspect that Biden will enter the race, and that Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2016. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-65486932785601338622015-08-03T10:59:00.001-07:002015-08-03T10:59:08.084-07:00A Hunter's Perspective on Cecil Hunting is in the fabric of my being. Some of the earliest and fondest childhood memories I have were made afield, and it is my hope that my kids Alex and Emily will get the same chance, to head outdoors on frosty mornings and enjoy the immense range of experiences that Mother Nature offers. The shifting public perception of hunters compels me to tell you that there is not a single piece of taxidermy in our house. No guns over the fireplace, no deer shoulder mounts look down upon us, no ducks fly in dusty permanence on the living room walls. I eat what I kill, and kill only what I know I can eat. <br />
<br />
I have believed for a long time, and have stated it publicly, that the biggest threat to the future of hunting comes not from anti-hunting animal rights groups, but from hunters ourselves. In a time and place when every photograph or video can quickly become a viral phenomenon that loses all context, bad actors can come to define a whole segment of the population in the eyes of the public, who then make sweeping judgements that have real impact. <br />
<br />
And hunting, like all human pursuits, has its share of bad actors. We call them poachers or outlaws, and as any law-abiding hunter can confirm, lawbreakers are frustrating. They run the gamut from the less serious infractions: maybe they don't have a plug in their shotgun, to the more serious, and serial, offender, that regularly baits a duck hole, consistently kills over the limit, or hunts in places where no permission has been granted.<br />
<br />
Poaching tips the field in the hunter's favor in a way that belies what we consider the 'ethic of fair chase,' which explained simply is the notion that the result of the hunt is unknown, that the animal has at least a 50/50 (but usually much higher) chance of escape. The end result of fair chase hunting more often than not means that the hunt has not been 'successful' in the most utilitarian meaning of that word; the hunter has come back to the truck empty-handed. Not so the poacher, who has bent the odds in his or her favor by using unlawful means to ensure a certain outcome, whether that means the quantity or the quality of the quarry.<br />
<br />
It is imperative, for the very future of our passion, that ethical and law-abiding hunters do a better job of self-policing our community. We should be reporting incidents of poaching, refusing to hunt with those who won't follow the rules, and teaching new and young hunters that the point of a hunting trip is more, and more important, than simply filling a tag.<br />
<br />
Cecil the African lion is proof that the eyes of the world are watching, and they are making searing judgements about what it means to be a hunter, and not always with all the facts close at hand. This is a public that anthropomorphizes wild animals (not only does Cecil have a human name, but I have heard him referred to as 'personable' and 'charismatic'), that has a tenuous understanding of the impacts of hunting on wildlife populations and little knowledge of the fact that hunting and hunters are responsible for some of the greatest conservation victories in history. <br />
<br />
As the population of this country and the world grows, the population of hunters is getting smaller, and the connection of non-hunters to wildlife is ever-more distant. This is the reality we face, and as much as we may not want to admit it, the future of hunting is in the hands of an ever-increasingly non-hunting public who react to the actions of a single poacher by vilifying all hunters. Decision makers listen to that kind of outcry. By accepting the excuses of poachers, by tolerating the actions of a few and by not calling them out more forcefully, we risk being smeared with the same brush. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-53750706990795383452015-07-21T07:11:00.002-07:002015-07-21T07:13:55.270-07:00The Brilliance of Donald Trump. The headline on my copy of the Washington Post this morning blares: "Trump takes big GOP lead in poll." Trump now has a double digit lead over his nearest opponent, Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin. His mug litters my Twitter feed. People are shocked (shocked!) that Trump, he of the biggest in a field of big mouths, likewise leads the field in this latest poll.<br />
<br />
There is nothing absurd about this poll, or Donald Trump's place in it. There is absolutely nothing absurd about the Trump candidacy. This is simply the near-culmination of a national movement, comprised almost entirely of suburban and rural white folks over the age of 55, that has spoon-fed itself, quite willingly, a steady diet of fear, indeed has well gorged at the buffet of political fear. Fear has become quite an industry in the modern United States, and Donald Trump is the fear industry's candidate. Fear is a moneymaker - and it might be a kingmaker. <br />
<br />
Trump is not particularly creative with his outlandishness, he just reflect the language of countless American living rooms, where 24 hour news and blaring talk radio fill the domestic ether. From that standpoint, the Trump campaign is actually brilliant, tapping into a pulsing vein of the society it seeks to lead, like so many other successful presidential candidates have done over the years.<br />
<br />
Trump is the candidate of the anonymous online commenters, the meme generators, the Confederate flag wavers, the conspiracy theorists, and those who nurse a whole slew of phobias with tender care and feeding. Despite what may be the hopes of the political establishment, and of
thoughtful people generally, they are not a mere fringe and they are
unlikely to go away soon.<br />
<br />
His campaign blends two trademark American qualities, a run-amok disdain for political correctness with a penchant (one might even say a boastful pride) for being half-informed. To some it comes across as buffoonery, but it is the stuff of life for a significant stripe of the voting public. <br />
<br />
It would be a grave mistake for anyone to think that Donald Trump doesn't closely reflect the mindset of many, many Americans. <br />
<br />
<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-61536189109151282712015-03-11T06:26:00.002-07:002015-03-11T06:26:41.326-07:00More on Centreville election...The town did in fact communicate the upcoming election to the citizens via a <a href="http://www.townofcentreville.org/events/event-detail.asp?artid=1284" target="_blank">press release</a> and with a small advertisement on page 27 of the February 13th Record Observer. A February 26th town email newsletter also carried the election notice and filing deadline (that email was delivered <i>2 working days</i> prior to the filing deadline). There is no archive on the town site for either the press release or the email newsletter. <br />
<br />
With slightly more than 3 weeks before the planned April 6th election, however, the town has not made clear who has filed, how many candidates have filed, nor that there will not be a need for the April 6th election. The process by which the town can "formally" announce who filed as a candidate, and subsequently announce that there will not be an election, takes time. Both the Board of Elections and the Town Ethics Council need to review candidate filings; the Board of Elections was scheduled to meet last night.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the process has been slow rolled because only one person has filed, perhaps not. But if multiple persons had filed as candidates on the filing deadline of March 2nd, and another nine days passed before those candidates were made official, the voters would have a short three weeks to make their decision. This leaves little time for research, candidate forums or vetting by the press; and these candidates, if elected, deal with serious matters, making decisions with profoundly long-term impacts. The risks to the voters of not knowing who is running seem to be higher than maybe some realize.<br />
<br />
It is clear to me at least that a month between filing deadline and election, knowing the process that has to occur before a candidate can be made "official" by town entities, is too short of a time frame. I would suggest that the town either make the filing deadline a month earlier, or make the election a month later. The process should also codify that the Board of Elections and Town Ethics Commission will meet within 2 days following the filing deadline. The process should be clear, easy to understand, and it should be consistent. I would also suggest that the town post candidate filings as soon as they are submitted, and simply mark those candidates as "provisional" pending the completion of the town process.<br />
<br />
Elections are important, knowing who is running is important. There should be signs announcing <b>Town Election - April 6</b>, the election should feature prominently on all town communications, on the town website, and perhaps include an announcement with the utility bill, and all of this should begin well in advance. The town should have no qualms announcing who the candidates are, and no qualms about promoting the election. <br />
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<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-1860379652809698842015-03-10T13:24:00.003-07:002015-03-10T13:24:59.582-07:00Centreville Town Council Election UPDATE In the "news you (unfortunately) won't find in the newspaper" section, the filing deadline for running for the Centreville Town Council has come and it has gone. March 2nd was the deadline, and after confirming with town staff, I can report that current councilman, Tim McCluskey has filed for reelection, and no one has filed to oppose him.<br />
<br />
As such, per the recent change in the town's charter, there will not be a town election in April. McCluskey will simply be certified as the new council member at the April 16 reorganization meeting. A (fairly) comprehensive search of the town's website finds no hint, not a whisper, about the town election that no longer needs to be held, the town's online <a href="http://www.townofcentreville.org/events/index.asp" target="_blank">events calendar</a> has no entry for the March 2nd candidate filing deadline, and has no entry for the (now unnecessary) election. The next "town event" listed on the town homepage is the April 11 Project Clean Stream event. There is no news about who has filed as a candidate, and indeed, there is no announcement that the town election no longer needs to be held, due to a lack of competition for the council seat. Perhaps this information went out as part of the weekly email, but there is no archive of those emails on the Centreville website, and further, there isn't even a 'search' function for the town's website.<br />
<br />
A similar search of The Record Observer website also finds no mention of the Centreville election, proof that the press generally won't find something they aren't looking for.<br />
<br />
All of this strikes me as pretty amazing and somewhat worrisome. I have no issues with cancelling the April election, the outcome seems pretty clear and there is no need to be going through the motions for a foregone conclusion.But it is absolutely critical that Centreville town government should be making this information widely available. Press releases should have been sent about the approaching filing deadline, about who the candidates are, and when only one files, another press release should be sent announcing that there won't be an election. When you click on the <a href="http://www.townofcentreville.org/events/listings.asp?type=press" target="_blank">Press Releases</a> tab on the town site, you are informed in somewhat Orwellian fashion that "There is no News." No news? Really? An election doesn't qualify as news? The <a href="http://www.townofcentreville.org/events/listings.asp?type=news" target="_blank">Town News</a> tab also features nothing about the election. <br />
<br />
In a town with 4,000 people, your best kept secret shouldn't be about an election.<br />
<br />
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-33102181487414767772015-03-02T19:12:00.002-08:002015-03-02T19:12:52.475-08:00Book Report: The Power BrokerRobert Caro's <i>The Power Broker</i> is a bitch to carry around. It was
first published in 1974, and its scale, at 1162 pages (not counting the
acknowledgments, bibliography, notes, and index) and more than four pounds, is best suited for
transport in a 1974 Cadillac Eldorado. Which is ironic, because that big
old road beast was precisely the kind of car that Robert Moses built
his roads for. You can just imagine informed New Yorkers carrying this behemoth on the New York subway in the 70s and 80s, and maybe still
today, as the book is not published in any electronic formats. <br />
<br />
But the book is very much worth the reader's effort. This is a work of monumental importance, reflecting the kind of research effort on the part of Caro that typifies a deserving Pulitzer winner. <i>The Power Broker </i>took years to research, but the prose isn't the pale prose of the research library, it is the energetic prose of the journalist. The narrative flows in a way that makes complete sense. A thousand pages of rote detail about every Moses public works project would be difficult to stomach and unnecessary; but a narrative that tracks the gradual shift in Moses' approach to public works, his accumulation of power and the ways in which he used that power, is itself powerful. Moses started as the consummate progressive reformer, he wound up his career more than forty years later as the consummate grafter and politician. He made grand plans, subject to few whims other than his own, and then he made those plans come to life with an effectiveness seldom seen in public affairs, then or now. With an effectiveness that shared much in common with his beloved bulldozer.<br />
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Moses spent forty years defining the New York landscape. He opened some of the finest public beaches then known to man, incorporating whimsical architectural details into beautiful bathhouses built to fit in with the dunes on which they sit. In the process, he grossly underestimated the costs; knowing full well politicians would never appropriate the full amount he needed, he proposed getting the job done for much less than he knew it would cost, betting that no politician would ever not grant his requests to finish a half-built project. For decades, this tactic of 'putting a stake in the ground' helped Moses to build some of the most iconic public works in all of human history.<br />
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Of course his roads tore the heart out of communities, his slum clearance projects forced proud families to poverty, and created as many slums as they cleared. Where a block or two shift in a Moses route might have saved much heartbreak, he was unwilling to even consider the slightest change. Because he controlled massive amounts of toll booth revenue, and the subsequent bond authority garnered from those liquid assets, his power was virtually untouchable, he couched no compromise, feared no politician. But while the stories twists and turns are anything but formulaic, the product of his downfall: the unnecessarily ruthless exercise of his own power, becomes increasingly predictable. <br />
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As a reader of much serious historical non-fiction, I must say that it strikes me as unique that Caro does seem to have it out for Moses from the very beginning, indeed one cannot help but think that the book has an anti-Moses vendetta at its very heart. Generally speaking, works of in-depth research don't have such clear author bias, perhaps especially in a field such as biography, where one hopes to strike a balance of presentation. Moses was certainly no saint, and Caro leaves no stone unturned to prove his motives were base virtually from word one. The conclusion drives the narrative, not the other way round, but perhaps in this case it could be no other way. <br />
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But there are profoundly meaningful (and modern) lessons to be learned in this 40 year old book about a man born more than a century ago. It is the tale of what happens when elected politicians aren't paying attention to the laws they write and how entrusting too many of the various levers of power to one person is always an incredibly bad idea; it is a tale of how effective the politics of personal destruction can be when used by a master. Most importantly in my view, particularly in today's environment of politically tailored news outlets, it is a loud warning as to what happens when the media doesn't do the kind of independent research required to get at the heart of stories about public issues, when they just regurgitate the press releases from whatever side they happen to be in the can for. <br />
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There are a few books that I consider required reading for anyone interested in United States politics, even generally. <i>The Power Broker</i> joins that list immediately. Every American Politics 101 student in college should be required to read it front to back, and any American who votes should likewise, Hell any American citizen ought to do our society a favor and run to your local used bookstore, and buy a copy of <i>The Power Broker</i>. The book draws conclusions not in hypothesis, but in stone, in concrete. <br />
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-6464723226162179472015-02-25T12:55:00.003-08:002015-02-25T13:06:05.300-08:00DHS: Whole Lotta HubbubThe <i>National Journal</i> website has a ticker counting down the seconds to a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, when funding for the Department runs out at midnight on Friday, February 27. Counting the October 2013 full government shutdown, if Congress can't reach agreement on some kind of funding package for DHS, this would be second shutdown of the Department in less than 18 months due to legislative brinksmanship.<br />
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But while that brinksmanship might make good beltway newspaper copy, in practicality, the shutting down of DHS will have little meaningful impact on the day to day function of the various agencies under the Department's purview. Essential functions, like the TSA folks who screen your person and your packed bags at the airport will all report for duty; likewise the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. According to the Congressional Research Service, and as reported in the <i>National Journal</i>, 85% of DHS employees continued working during the 2013 shutdown.<br />
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The optics on this appear terrible for Republicans, who eight weeks ago were talking a lot about "showing the American people we can govern." Generally speaking, governing would not include the (semi) regular shuttering of entire government departments. And to confirm that past is indeed prologue, while they controlled just one chamber of Congress in 2013, they took the majority of blame for that shutdown. With control of both chambers in 2015, I believe they will take virtually <i>all</i> of the blame this time around; and as Charlie Dent and Lindsay Graham (Republicans from the House and Senate, respectively) have indicated, I am not the only one who feels this way.<br />
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So the question remains, if the department will carry on fairly normally, and the polling indicates Republicans will take the lion's share of the blame, why does the path forward on keeping DHS funded seem so murky; why won't the GOP simply decide the juice is not worth the squeeze, pass a clean funding bill, and then move to consider a standalone piece of legislation to undo or dramatically reform the President's December 2014 immigration executive order?<br />
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Indications are that the Senate will do just that, probably at the last minute, after spending a full month of floor time to achieve nothing except a very predictable outcome. So predictable in fact that when DHS was left out of the long-term funding agreement passed in December, you didn't have to be Lyndon Johnson to figure out that this was going to happen, and what I mean when I say 'this' is: roughly 8 weeks of progressively high-volume posturing followed by a meek as a mouse agreement to keep DHS funded. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we can count on the Senate to do the right thing, after it has exhausted all other options. <br />
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Which leaves the House. With the Senate perhaps clearing the way for a clean DHS funding bill, Speaker Boehner and his leadership team need to make the decision whether to bring forward a clean bill, and likely pass it with all the Democrats, and moderate Republicans; or do they abide by the Hastert Rule, and decline to bring anything to the House floor that does not have the support of a majority of the majority?<br />
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I am not sure how many times John Boehner, an eminently reasonable and results-oriented fellow, who has been known to refer to some in his own caucus as 'knuckledheads,' can roll his caucus and maintain his hold on the Speaker's gavel. But for a huge portion of his caucus, those Republican House members who come from the reddest districts and who will face zero negative push back for a DHS shutdown (but who would get immense push back if they don't take action against Obama's E.O.), there is nothing Boehner can offer to keep them in line and collectively the will force his hand. This will be the paradigm John Boehner faces for at least the next two years, if he can hang on that long. <br />
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Assuming the Senate clears a clean DHS funding bill, Boehner will have to make the tough call: roll the caucus now, or roll them once the blame has been assigned. No one envies the Speaker these days.<br />
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<i>Updated @ 4:04PM on 2/25</i>: After not speaking to one another for 2 weeks, Speaker Boehner was seen entering Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office this afternoon. Boehner has said that the House would not move forward until the Senate path became more clear. The Senate is set to vote on a clean DHS bill tomorrow, Thursday 2/26. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-64499339561268894082015-02-19T13:45:00.000-08:002015-02-19T13:45:06.120-08:00Carter Farm Growth Allocation Public Hearing TONIGHT Centreville - There is going to be lots more here on this topic in the coming weeks, but tonight the Centreville Town Council will be hosting a public hearing on the growth allocation for the development of the Carter Farm in northwest Centreville. <br /><br />First, you might be asking: where is the Carter Farm? Well, its the property that surrounds the large pillared home on Chesterfield Avenue, (it will be on the right if you are headed to Doc's from downtown Centreville). The development in question would border Chesterfield Avenue past the Carter Home, and would widen out like a fan behind the Carter home, filling the field that you currently see just beyond the white split-rail fence.<br />
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The Carter Farm site is just under 47 acres, and the current proposal for the development would feature 138 total residences, including 93 single family detached homes, 44 townhomes, and the existing residence (i.e. the Carter house). <br />
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It is likely worth noting that the current proposal for the Carter Farm is a reduction from an earlier proposal, wherein condominums were removed and replaced with single family homes and townhomes; the development was also scaled back from 195 units to the current 138 units. <br />
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You may want to pay attention to the ongoing development of the Carter Farm property. If fully built out and with an average of 3 persons per household, the Carter Farm development would add approximately 400 residents to Centreville, a nearly 10% increase in population for the town.<br />
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The meeting of the Town Council is tonight, February 19, 2015 at 7PM in the Liberty Building.<br />
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Developing...<br /><br />
Contact: StevenKKline(at)gmail(dot)com Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-28984488121248575782015-02-18T11:35:00.000-08:002015-02-18T11:35:20.091-08:00Hibernation As some of you might have noticed, Kline Online took a bit of a hiatus from about Thanksgiving until, well, until right now. What even fewer of you realize is the reason was largely legitimate and not linked to my overall laziness or lack of gumption: I was asked to be a member of Governor Hogan's Department of Natural Resources Transition Team in December, and out of respect for that process, and out of deference to Governor Hogan's prerogatives, I decided to stop blogging and focus on that endeavor without public comment or opinion. That process has now concluded, and while I certainly hope to remain active in the ongoing decisions that Governor Hogan and DNR Secretary-designee Mark Belton will make in the field of Maryland's natural resources, my formal role in that process has concluded for the time being. <br />
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Of course, I also got stomped like a narc at a biker rally (tip of the hat to Dennis Miller for that illustrative reference) on Election Day, being one of only two Republicans in all of Queen Anne's County to lose an election. (And I didn't just lose, I <i>lost</i>. With emphasis.) But that was mostly because no one knew I was a Republican (Board of Education is a non-partisan race) and not from any obvious personal shortcomings. Indeed, I got a lot of pretty positive feedback from my performance at candidate's forums, but about 1/1000th of one percent of voters attended those forums, so it was not what one would call a target rich environment. It's hard to get folks to pay attention to a Board of Education race; but the election taught me a lot of valuable things; things I may or may not ever blog about, but may just pepper into other posts about other things. <br />
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And there are lots of other things. The Department of Natural Resources is considering legalizing the commercial sale of wild venison; striped bass management seems to be an ongoing question, major residential development may be coming to Centreville, Governor Hogan has staked out his positions on the "Rain Tax" and the Phosphorous Management Tool, Congress might well take up (for the third time!) a Bipartisan Sportsmen's package, and of course the 2016 election season bears down on us like an inevitable gray cloud mass on the Western horizon, inching ever-closer with its gloom. So like I said, there is lots to write about.<br />
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I have thoroughly missed this. I take this writing more seriously than you might imagine, I use it as a way to glean knowledge: less about informing others, more about informing myself. Navigating around a story, learning its ins and outs, talking to folks, becoming familiar enough to write the story, and often to craft a thoughtful and defensible opinion, is as much for me about personal discovery as it is about convincing anyone of anything. I lobby for a living; this blog is not meant to lobby anyone, there are much better ways of doing that.<br />
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In the last 18 months, my words have appeared regularly in publication under someone else's name. I have been remunerated well for those services, but would be remiss if I didn't point out that writing for others' attribution bears a stunning resemblance to the world's oldest profession. I am proud that my writing is fit for publication, proud that it can help to pay the bills, and it certainly has helped as the family has gotten larger. But this blog, appearing under my own name, has been incredibly therapeutic for me for years, as a way of going on the record and taking a firm stand on the issues I find important. Perhaps this blog in its frankness, in its disregard for popularity, is a liability to my ambition, but perhaps this blog, this unvarnished writing, should be a bigger part of my greater ambition. That is a standing question that every day I get closer to answering.<br />
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Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-51523689899185283062014-11-27T05:44:00.000-08:002014-11-27T05:44:28.968-08:00The 2014 Thanksgiving Blog Our lives are an accumulation of accidents. Powerful momentums naturally exist, but seemingly miniscule events: a web search for Eastern Shore real estate, a chance graduation announcement in the Dundalk Eagle, can conspire to have an incredibly powerful impact on our lives. Today, on this the annual day formalized for marking our thanks, lets take a moment to be thankful for all those turns, all the lefts and the rights, the u-turns and the dead-ends, that we have taken in our lives that have gotten us where we are today. Some perhaps seem accidental, little more than a moment's consideration, but some of them have had a monumental impact on our lives.<br />
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I struggle sometimes to think about where my powerful conservation ethic comes from. I was not one of those young hunters subject to fatherly harangues about taking care of the land, but for some reason an idea took root in those youthful days afield, that this great American outdoor legacy, this earliest and perhaps most important classroom of young boys, deserved the dedication of a lifetime's effort. Seared into my subconscious, unknowingly as I walked the logging roads of Green Ridge State Forest, was the idea that my kids ought to be able to do this, too. <br />
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I'll give thanks for the last minute acceptance to St. Mary's College, when a commuter existence at Towson State was growing ever more inevitable; the admissions office envelope that did it's part to put me in Dorchester 3rd Right, with Niall O'Dougherty freshmen year. To the envelope that saw me in a townhouse senior year with Kent Wilson, a man I am proud to still call a great friend, and one of the 'good guys' in Washington D.C. I am thankful for giving up on the English major, the switch to Political Science, and the gears that decision got rolling; it seemed inconsequential at the time, it has proven to be anything but.<br />
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Thanks to job offers from mortgage companies and investment brokerages that I didn't take, opting instead for an (much less lucrative) internship with Ducks Unlimited's Government Affairs office in Washington, that set the stage for a career that I am incredibly passionate about. At the time it seemed an incredible gamble, but now the choice seems obvious. Instead of cold calling folks to sell mutual funds, I get to work the halls of Congress advocating for waterfowl habitat and sportsmen's access. I get to work with guys like Joel Webster, Ed Arnett, Geoff Mullins, Tim Kizer, and Chris Macaluso, whose collective affection for fine bourbon whiskeys is eclipsed only by their love of wild places, where a man can still come face to face with God and a bull Pintail.<br />
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Thanks to Tom Sadler, who gave me my first full-time job in Washington. Just a year and a half later, when he told me he was moving on in his career, to the Trust for Public Land, I thought I was coming to my own personal crossroads; but what I thought was a disaster in the making, provided me with the opportunity to work with Tom Franklin, a legendary sportsmen-conservationist in his own right. I consider both Toms my mentors in this business, veritable lodestars in my career. <br />
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To a simple real estate listing on the web, that led to a visit with an agent, that has since led to five years on the Eastern Shore, and making connections with some of my favorite people on earth, like David Dunmyer and Austin Reed. "Why don't we go take a look at this house?" has become a place to raise a family, to follow the rhythm of the seasons, to welcome back the Canada geese.<br />
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To the neighborhood newspaper of my youth, who put my college graduation announcement right next to the graduation announcement of Kimberly Fales, my high school sweetheart. Today, she is my wife, the mother of my children, the light of my life. I cannot but think that the stars had aligned to bring us back together, after years apart and out of touch.<br />
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To Thompson Steel's Sparrows Point Plant shutting down in 2000, which at the time was deeply unsettling to the fabric of my being. But ultimately, it allowed my dad to get away from 33 years of swing shifts and to embark on a career that has given him the freedom to move to the Eastern Shore himself, to be closer to his grandchildren. If you would have told me this 15 years ago, I would have called you crazy. <br />
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Like me, you are the sum of similar accidents and spur of the moment choices. Lay your plans carefully, but know that you cannot begin for a moment to plan the surprises and good things that your life has in store for you. Be thankful for not knowing the full course of things. We can all laugh about yesterday's mistakes, shake our heads at what might have been, but know without a doubt that it is those things that have not happened, as much as those that have, that shape us, that comprise the core of our lives. It can be overwhelming to think of how accidental our lives are, but a deep reflection isn't entirely necessary; rather, just smile at the knowing. <br />
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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. <br />
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<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-36506860446925737872014-11-18T07:12:00.001-08:002014-11-18T07:12:13.383-08:00Keystone Pipeline explained, in less than 400 words.Imagine that you own a 300 acre farm, bordered on the south by a railroad track, and on the north by a large fertilizer plant. Your little paradise lies smack in between these two necessities of rural life: nothing grows without fertilizer, and nothing moves grain more efficiently than the rails. Your farm inevitably benefits from the existence of both the factory and the railroad, as do dozens of other farms across the region.<br />
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Then one day, the fertilizer company approaches you about building a fertilizer pipeline across your farm and to the railroad. They want to create a fertilizer rail head to make it easier for them to send their products over the rails, reduce transportation costs, and expand the market for their product. Right now, they happen to be producing more fertilizer than the local market will bear, so they really need to get this stuff out of here, why there is practically a fertilizer glut! The railroad sends you a letter saying they'd like to have the fertilizer pipeline, because more freight means more business. It would be unpatriotic to stand in the way of the pipeline. <br />
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The fertilizer factory promises to use your brother-in-law's construction company to build the pipe, but once it's done being built, they can't promise much. You'll still have to buy your fertilizer on the market, subject to all the same variables as every other farmer; there isn't going to be a fertilizer spigot extending from the pipeline to service your needs. And because the fertilizer that is made right next door to your place is now being shipped further and further away, you are competing with farmers from much further away than ever before for access to that supply. Indeed, instead of a glut of fertilizer at the local place, there might now be a local shortage, as the fertilizer plant has entered into guaranteed minimum freight contracts with the railroad, so the railroad, and not the local retail customer base, is the preferred outlet for the fertilizer. And because traffic has increased on the railroad, freight rates are up as empty cars become harder to find, making it more costly to move your harvest. <br />
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Canada is the fertilizer plant. The Gulf of Mexico is the railroad. The midsection of the United States is your 300 acre farm. The Keystone XL pipeline, explained. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of NPR</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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For a very good summation of the salient points of the Keystone XL pipeline issue, please visit <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364727163/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline?utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=buffer98a4b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">this</a> NPR News article.<br /><br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-53582813634725812622014-09-08T05:50:00.000-07:002014-09-08T11:53:13.806-07:00The Ravens Do Not Have to Repeat Roger Goodell's MistakeAt the time Roger Goodell made his decision to suspend Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games for domestic violence, most everyone thought the punishment was too light, too forgiving, particularly as other NFL players were suspended for much longer for much lighter offenses. Now that the video from inside the elevator has been leaked, the fact that Ray Rice is guilty of a brutal assault and that Goodell made an egregious error, have been made absolutely clear.<br />
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The Ravens do not have to repeat or perpetuate Goodell's mistake. Baltimore team owner Steve Bisciotti should immediately release Ray Rice from the team. If Ray Rice patrols the Baltimore sideline in two weeks as the Ravens take on the Cleveland Browns, it will be an embarrassment to Bisciotti, to all those associated with the Ravens management, Ravens players, and of course the people of Baltimore, and perhaps most profoundly, an acute insult to every woman who cheers passionately for this team. <br />
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There can be no professional tolerance for domestic violence. This Ravens fan wants to go clearly on the record that I will not buy another piece of Ravens merchandise and will not attend another Ravens game until the Ravens part ways with Ray Rice.<br />
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I also believe that if Roger Goodell had access to this video as he determined the Rice punishment, the calls for his resignation should be loud and repetitive, and those calls should resound from the desks of ESPN, the NFL owners, the NFL Players Association, and from NFL fans.<br />
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Let's rid the NFL of Ray Rice, and the domestic violence enabler Roger Goodell.<br />
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Start with Rice. The ball is in Bisciotti's court. <br />
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<i>Update!</i> As of 2:51PM Eastern on September 8, 2014, the Ravens have indeed released Ray Rice. Kudos to Steve Bisciotti for this decision. Further, the NFL has decided to suspend Rice 'indefinitely.' <br />
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<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-65920133035434605552014-06-17T06:07:00.001-07:002014-06-17T06:07:20.517-07:00Political PollutionWe, the citizens of Queen Anne's County, have the good fortune to live in a beautiful place, with vistas that seem stolen from postcards and where the wildlife can seem almost ubiquitous. But it seems that every four years, when local elections approach, dozens of those hoping to be elected lose all sense of scale and reason, and litter our county with countless plastic signs. It seems that 2014 has been the worst yet, with signs starting to pop up when voters were still thinking of what Christmas gifts to return. We should not have to be subject to low-grade roadside politicking for ten straight months.<br />
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So early on in my campaign for the Board of Education, I made a pledge to myself, never to put a sign in a public place, never to put a sign anywhere I had not secured explicit permission, never to put my signs in a place clustered with many other signs. In short, my promise was only to put yard signs in the yards of my supporters. I never intended to print a large highway sign. Never thought much of putting dozens of signs up at the early voting locations, or at the polling places on Election Day.<br />
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Looking back, I am glad that I made (and kept) this pledge. Because the county has been turned into a trash heap of political signs. Gas stations, off-ramps, business parks, and most notably, the Kramer Center in Centreville and the Kent Island Library, both of which have been turned into embarrassing displays of political pollution. Any individual candidate gets lost in the crowd of literally hundreds of signs.<br />
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Now some local politicians and political hopefuls have heard the outcries of the voters who are dismayed with what they've seen our county become, and they are suggesting discretion when it comes to placing political signs. That is really great of them, and I would suggest that it is about time.<br />
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The voters deserve to know that some candidates, including this one, opted not to plaster political signs on every grassy surface. I find political signs to be the equivalent of shouting into a bullhorn. Effective? Perhaps. Annoying? Almost certainly. Much like you, I've never made a single voting decision based on who had the most signs. And while I am a candidate, I am a voter and a citizen first, and I felt the same way about all those signs on the roadside and at the polling place as you do, which compelled me to keep my signs where they belong.<br />
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Typical politicians think that political signs are a key part of a campaign, they are just something that has to be done in order to win. Now that the public reaction has soured, those candidates will agree to remove some of those signs. Sometimes leadership requires you to do something before everyone else thinks of it, I am proud of the fact you won't see a single Steven Kline for Board of Education sign on the side of a highway, at a gas station, on public property, or at a polling place. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-61980622082845927802014-06-11T07:01:00.000-07:002014-06-11T07:01:44.269-07:00Reasonable People Should Not Applaud Cantor's DefeatOn February 11, 2014, Eric Cantor voted yes. He joined John Boehner, and only 26 other of his Republican cohorts in the House to raise the debt ceiling without condition, ending years of debt ceiling brinksmanship. Eric Cantor, as of this morning still the Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, is not a moderate. He is a conservative, which rankles some, but he is reasonable. He is the kind of Republican who, under the right circumstances, can vote for a Farm Bill, for a bipartisan budget deal, for a Highway Bill, can even entertain discussions about immigration reform (indeed The Hill newspaper is already <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/208946-cantor-loss-is-immigration-reform-death-knell" target="_blank">reporting </a>that immigration reform is likely dead with Cantor's defeat).<br />
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So it is dismaying to see so many reasonable people take to social media to celebrate Eric Cantor's demise. Regardless of what happens in Virginia's 7th Congressional district come November and Election Day, the Republicans will almost certainly retain control of the House, which means that Eric Cantor will be replaced as Majority Leader, likely by someone like Kevin McCarthy (CA) or Paul Ryan (WI). And for their efforts yesterday, Virginia's 7th District voters will be represented by someone with astoundingly less clout.<br />
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Mike Simpson and Mitch McConnell, a member of the House from Idaho and the Minority Leader of the Senate from Kentucky, respectively, are establishment Republicans who fended off strong Tea Party primary challengers just a few weeks ago. At the time, I thought that was a good sign, because it could begin to make reasonable Republicans once again feel comfortable that they could indeed <i>be</i> reasonable, with less fear of opposition from an extremist wing of the Republican base. In short, they wouldn't have to defend their flank with extremism.<br />
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But the Cantor race is a monumental setback in the effort to restore a sensible Republican Party. Now, every member of the Republican Party who is up for reelection, anywhere and at virtually every level of government, will be compelled to steer inevitably to the right. Towards hardened, inflexible positions that steel them from substantive primary challengers and accusations of being "too liberal." Eric Cantor is not even a shade liberal, he has been stubbornly unwilling to deal on many issues, has been an obstructionist at times. On the surface, to the untrained eye, his removal from the helm of the GOP ship means that his strain of political obstructionism is on the wane. That would be a mistake. His loss means that government shutdowns, bond rating reductions and general stasis will become more likely, not less. In short, his strain of obstructionism has been replaced by a more virulent strain. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-14452567958849778482014-06-09T17:09:00.000-07:002014-06-09T17:57:13.624-07:00A Hat Tip to Hard WorkThere is a stronger than normal force pulling me incessantly back to Elm Street these days. The photos of my two kids and my wife that sit on my desk in Washington, the photos Kim texts me of the kids being silly throughout the day that appear regularly on my phone. For the five years we've lived on the Eastern Shore, I generally get home around 7, leave the house around 6. It's a long day, and a long commute, but I love what I get to do for a living, and I love getting to call the Eastern Shore home, so it is all part of the bargain. But having a new family has made my desire to be home much more pressing and profound. <br />
<br />
Perhaps it makes sense then, that as I thought about running for the Board of Education I thought of the time a proper campaign would inevitably consume, the time away from Kim, Alex, and Emily. Stepping in to the race would mean missing putting the kids to bed some nights, and weekend afternoons spent out on the campaign trail and not with the family. I am not unique, every candidate who enters any race understands the sacrifices that are necessary to run a credible campaign.<br />
<br />
But where I do believe I am unique, is the level of effort I have put into this campaign. I have attended every candidate forum, sign waved across the county, knocked on doors, and attended far more Board of Education meetings than any other candidate. I have talked to county commissioners about education, I have talked to commissioner candidates about their views on education. And after the public aspect of the campaign ends for the day, I have spent countless hours researching the county's education budget, Common Core standards, and a whole bevy of other education issues.<br />
<br />
The only promise my campaign has made is one that I know I can keep: no other candidate for the Board of Education will work harder on behalf of our county's students and taxpayers than I will. <br />
<br />
I believe strongly that those who seek to hold public office must work hard to earn the trust of those they hope to represent. They owe the voters, in short, a glimpse of the kind of elected official they will be. Candidates who pledge hard work and effort, but don't illustrate that pledge with vigor on the campaign trail, are unlikely to keep their promises if they are trusted with elected office. Work ethic isn't a light switch.<br />
<br />
It has been tough to leave the family, but I know that if by
my effort, I can improve the education available to my children, and
moreover to all the children of Queen Anne's County, both today and in
the future, then that time away from home will not have been spent in vain. As
your member of the Board of Education, I will bring the same commitment to the Board as I have brought to the campaign. I would be honored by your confidence on Election Day. <br />
<br />
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-13666655505914418972014-05-08T07:59:00.001-07:002014-05-08T07:59:49.361-07:00A Board of Ed Candidate at a Sewer Hearing? Lately, nothing in Queen Anne's County has been as controversial as the debate about a sewer pipe. Many county citizens, elected officials, and political hopefuls, are involved in the discussion about whether or not to connect the communities of Southern Kent Island to a sewer line that would largely preclude the need for outdated and outmoded septic tanks that pose a threat to human health and environmental safety.<br />
<br />
One of the major issues raised by a Southern Kent Island sewer is anticipating the new residential development that might accompany such a sewer line. Growth impacts the county's public schools in a profound way. Growth impacts our physical education infrastructure (school buildings and buses are asked to accommodate more children) and of course, residential growth impacts class size, and perhaps most profoundly, the school budget. Of course, growth can certainly be beneficial to the school system, bringing new teachers to the area, and adding to the diversity of views in our classrooms. <br />
<br />
It is not the job of the Board of Education to manage growth or even to judge growth. But how can the Board efficiently and effectively manage the school system for today and for the future, if it is completely in the dark on issues related to growth that will impact the system? How would a sewer line alter Matapeake Elementary and Middle and Kent Island High School? Our Board of Education needs to know enough about what is happening to get out in front of these challenges. <br />
<br />
Being a member of the Board of Education is more complicated and detail oriented than most candidates assume or expect. The Board is tasked with the job of running a system with an $80 million annual budget, educating more than 7,000 children, and serving in some way, shape, or form, each of the county's 50,000 citizens. In that role, I think candidates for the Board, and members of the Board, have an obligation to the citizens to be as informed as possible about what is going on in the county.<br />
<br />
I am the only candidate in district 2 who knows the language that the county uses to talk about growth. I have read our comprehensive plan, I have worked at length on the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, and grow frustrated when it becomes clear that even current members of the Board of Education have at best a fumbling knowledge of the APFO, an important policy for mitigating the impact of growth on our schools and on our taxpayers. <br />
<br />
The Board of Education is no place for a growth-related agenda one way or the other. But knowing and understanding the projects being considered, and understanding their many complexities, prepares me better than any of my opponents for being a productive member of the Board of Education, one that can make decisions that are wise for what the county looks like today, and what it might look like tomorrow. <br /><br />I hope I can earn your vote, and thank you for your support. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-56039027143898429362014-02-10T07:49:00.001-08:002014-02-10T07:49:34.835-08:00Centreville resident Kline files to run for Queen Anne’s County Board of Education <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">News
for Immediate Release<br />
February10, 2014<br />
Contact 443-988-8632</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Centreville
resident Kline files to run for Queen Anne’s County Board of Education </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Centreville,
Maryland – Today Steven Kline announced his candidacy for the Queen Anne’s
County Board of Education, where he will seek to represent the county’s second
district.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
am excited to enter the race for the Queen Anne’s County Board of Education.
Public schools represent our most important investment in the future, and as a
member of the Board of Education, I will be committed to keeping Queen Anne’s
County public schools at the top of the pack; making sure our schools work for
our students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers,” said Kline. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“As
a member of the board, I will do all I can to prioritize science, math, and
technology in our schools, while also making sure our students have access to
quality art and music education, both of which are essential. I think there is
value in moving beyond measuring success simply by a test score, and beginning
to focus more on the comprehensive development of our children into members of
society who are not only productive, but possess the skills to be happy,” said
Kline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The
surest way to have successful students is to create a space where teachers can
be successful. I’ll emphasize improving teacher morale, and seek to work with
other members of the Board of Education to enact policies that help to retain
our best teachers and attract the best teachers in the world to Queen Anne’s
County,” said Kline </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Kline is an Eagle
Scout who attended Maryland’s great public schools. He holds a Bachelor’s
Degree in Political Science from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a Master’s
Degree in Government from Johns Hopkins University. Kline and his wife Kimberly
have made their home in Centreville since 2009. He is the father of two
children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-2945893778949647132014-02-03T07:28:00.000-08:002014-02-03T07:28:51.881-08:00Phillip Seymour HoffmanI am no fan of popular culture. Even before having young children provided a good excuse not to go to the movies, I didn't find myself shelling out 8 or 10 dollars for a ticket and 15 dollars for a soda with too much ice and a bag of popcorn very often. My movie philosophy was summed up nicely by Gene Wilder recently, in an interview on AMC that I caught accidentally; when asked why he wasn't doing much film acting these days, Wilder looked pained, as if he was letting the interviewer in on some unfortunate secret that could no longer be kept from him: "Because most of them are...so...bad." The audience laughed, but Wilder just shrugged, perhaps frustrated by their laughter.<br />
<br />
I am sure there are lots of great movies being produced, but the ones that I am told are going to be great, never are. I recently saw American Hustle. The theater was packed and yet the movie was just...okay. It was too long, there were entire segments I thought could have been left out, that forwarded the story in no meaningful way, and yet here we were on the wrong side of two hours invested in a movie that was blowing no one's socks off. I thought to myself, and probably said out loud, if this is on the short list for Best Film, the competition must be incredibly weak.<br />
<br />
But there are a few actors who can make me want to buy a ticket. Daniel Day Lewis leads a short list. Leonardo DiCaprio. And increasingly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I thought Hoffman's performance of Truman Capote in the film Capote was truly masterful. Hoffman immersed himself in that role the way Day-Lewis did in Lincoln, and the result was just as astounding. One forgets where the actor ends and the role begins. I am no film critic, nor what anyone would call a movie buff, and perhaps there are better, more technically sound, ways to describe Hoffman's performance in Capote, but I will leave it at exceptional.<br />
<br />
I tried, although maybe halfheartedly, to see Hoffman perform on the Broadway stage as Willy Loman in <i>Death of a Salesman</i>, a role he was said to have mastered on the live stage. But traveling to Manhattan for painfully white collar entertainment wasn't in the cards. I find myself wishing it had been. <br />
<br />
I am no fan of popular culture. So much of it is vapid, empty, and temporary, that it is just not worth paying attention. But such as Mr. Hoffman's work was popular, it was worth paying attention to, it was none of those things. A man whose extraordinary talent came at the cost of an extraordinary vulnerability has left this planet far too soon with far too much left to do. I found myself unexpectedly moved at the news of his passing and pledged to recommit myself to my own writing, for one day, there will be nothing more to write. <br />
<br />
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-46998120558435515742014-01-22T19:24:00.000-08:002014-01-22T19:24:00.928-08:00Endings, Beginnings, and Who Knows What...Earlier this week, I hope that you had a chance to read <a href="http://klineonline.blogspot.com/2014/01/statement-dunmyer-will-not-seek.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, a press release announcing that my dear friend David Dunmyer will not be seeking a second term on the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners. This is the story of how I came to help Dave write that press release. <br />
<br />
I met Dave about four years ago. In fact, now that I think about it, it might have been exactly four years ago this week, as the ironies and coincidences of life are to have it. We were both in the process of engaging in a fight to stave off the construction of a State Department training facility just a mile or so from where Dave lives. I was fighting because of what I wanted this new place for me and Kim to continue being, rural and close. Dave was fighting for something so much more important.<br />
<br />
I did a lot of writing about the issue here at the blog, traded a lot of barbs with various people on social media (God that was fun), attended a lot of meetings, and lobbied folks in Washington DC against the facility. There were certainly a couple of people more involved than me, but not many more involved than Dave. He was a relentless, no holds barred champion for the people of Ruthsburg. <br />
<br />
Kim and I had moved to Centreville in the late fall of 2009, and were neck-deep in the facility fight by January. I can say that there is no better way to find friends in a new place than to stand next to them during a good old fashioned dust up. I still count Mike and Tina Naumann, Mike Weddell, Jay Falstad, Bonnie Roschy, and of course, Dave and Rhonda Dunmyer, as good friends that I might have never met if not for FASTC. <br />
<br />
I got a call from Dave one day in the spring of 2010; he knew that my racket was politics, and he was thinking about running for county commissioner. I didn't know much about the county board of commissioners, nor about the political vagaries of the county, but I knew that Dave was a guy worth helping, so I signed on to the effort as a volunteer campaign manager. As Kim can attest, the spring, summer, and fall of 2010, my life was Dunmyer for Commissioner. Together, Dave and I redefined the way you run for commissioner in Queen Anne's County. We worked every weekend, knocking on thousands of doors over the course of the campaign. We worked nights, we worked mornings, we ate breakfast at Batter Up (but apparently not enough times to keep the place in business). We answered more questionnaires then now seems possible. As Theodore Roosevelt would have wanted it, we spent ourselves in a worthwhile effort.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4iVZIe6UMsCsAmVrSLrDgahJeh5ok-_vOj_jx_QOr9nsLEOkB827oo2bhya2JM0JR4PHfs9nmXshbhkoo15xIpgbVsZjUzEutXJwlgqMH3x4WnCKFVA7uU5nR7l-aueiA-OE/s1600/dave+parade+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4iVZIe6UMsCsAmVrSLrDgahJeh5ok-_vOj_jx_QOr9nsLEOkB827oo2bhya2JM0JR4PHfs9nmXshbhkoo15xIpgbVsZjUzEutXJwlgqMH3x4WnCKFVA7uU5nR7l-aueiA-OE/s1600/dave+parade+4.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
I can say that there is no better way to learn your way around a county, then to help someone run for county commissioner.<br />
<br />
Election night 2010 was a supremely weird event. Dave had won his first ever campaign as a candidate, and I had won my first ever campaign as a full-fledged campaign manager. I had counted votes at the Board of Elections until late in the night, and knew that while Dave had won, he and his slow-growth principles would be in the minority 3-2. So while it was a great night, it was also a night with big question marks about the future. We were surprised at the outcome of the election and that Dave would be in the minority; we sensed that it would be a frustrating four years.<br />
<br />
It was a cold and rainy Friday near the end of my paternity leave in October 2013 and Dave and I were scheduled to have lunch in Centreville to talk about his ensuing reelection campaign. After we ordered, Dave got to the real special of the day: admitting that he did not think he was going to run again. That, after pouring himself into being a commissioner for four long years, he had had enough, emotionally, intellectually, financially. The job of commissioner, done right, done the way Dave did it, is certainly a full-time job, yet its wages, the wrong side of $20k a year, are hardly enough to call a living. The unavoidable responsibilities of life could not be avoided for four more years. <br />
<br />
I let him know that I supported him either way, that I would be there to run another campaign, or that I could help with the drafting of a statement that he would not seek reelection. I warned him that, if he decided to not run for reelection, a lot of people would try to guilt him in to changing his mind. I promised to not be one of those people. But as we traded drafts of the release back and forth, I kept letting him know it was not too late to change his mind. As evidenced by the earlier post, there was no change in his mind on this one. <br />
<br />
I don't know how many citizens of Queen Anne's County realize just how great of a commissioner they had in Dave Dunmyer. Here's a guy who literally put more free time into his role as commissioner than he could well afford, and all in the service of making progress on things he thought were important, like cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, and keeping our county a great place to live. When he was stymied by the myopia and recalcitrance of the status quo, he blazed his own path, meeting with US senators, governors, the EPA administrator, cabinet secretaries. When major progress couldn't be made, Dave made incremental progress. He took on issues, big and small, with a doggedness, a heart, and courage that you won't find in many people, let alone politicians, and as a result, Dave has grown into a leader in the field of conservation policy. His advice will be sought by the doers and the thinkers long after the other four members of this board have melded back into the fabric of whatever it is that they do when they aren't sitting in the Liberty Building. <br />
<br />
There is a discussion that needs to happen, about the emotional and intellectual toll of seeking and serving in public offices that keeps good people from running, or in the case of Dunmyer, from running again. There is the constant divisiveness, perhaps pronounced by the still small-town feel of Queen Anne's County, that provides no refuge from sarcasm and negativity. When we, and I think it is incredibly important that we realize that we all do play a role in this, make elected offices attractive only to the retrogrades and the argumentative, then only the retrograde and the argumentative will we get. Our collective need to get the last word, whether in a comment section, a social media forum, a town hall meeting, a radio show, is poisoning the public arena. Negativity is self-perpetuating. <br />
<br />
Dave Dunmyer will be replaced on the Board of Commissioners, and there might be much to say about that race in the days ahead right here on this blog. But I want to offer my most sincere gratitude to my friend Dave for the sacrifices he has made over the past four years to the people of our home county, to the Chesapeake Bay, and in defense of the notion that good people can hold office, and accomplish good things, without every having to raise their voice. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-9242310946873960312014-01-20T04:11:00.000-08:002014-01-20T04:11:09.223-08:00Statement: Dunmyer will not seek reelection in 2014 <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">January 20,
2014<br />
For Immediate Release<br />
Contact: 443-481-0707<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Queen Anne's County Commissioner
David Dunmyer Announces He Will Not Seek Reelection in 2014</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Centreville, MD </span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, David Dunmyer, who has
represented the First District on the Queen Anne's County Board of County
Commissioners since 2011, announced that he will not seek reelection to the
Board in 2014. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dunmyer, who
now serves as the Vice President of the Board of Commissioners, will leave an
incredibly strong legacy of leadership when he departs the Board. He serves as
the Chairman of the Upper Shore Regional Council, and as an advisory member of
the Chesapeake Bay Local Government Advisory Council. Dunmyer also serves as a
voting member of the Maryland Association of Counties Legislative Committee,
and as a liaison to the Queen Anne's County Council of Governments<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. </b>Dunmyer has also recently been named
to the Local Leaders Council for Smart Growth America. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"As I
think many of my fellow citizens know, I have happily poured my heart and soul
into this job, serving Queen Anne's County to the best of my abilities. But
after much thought, I believe I can better serve the places I love, Queen
Anne's County and Maryland's Eastern Shore, as a private citizen." Dunmyer
said. "In 2010, I proudly ran on a platform of improving the county's
finances and sustaining our rural quality of life, and there is no question
that, with the help of the citizens, progress has been made on both of these
fronts during my time on the Board, and I step away without regret,"
Dunmyer continued.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I have
never wanted to turn politics into a career, and never thought that running for
reelection was at all inevitable. I have met some great people interested in
running across the county, and they deserve a chance to see what they can
accomplish," Dunmyer said. "I am not sure exactly what the future
holds for me personally, but I am excited about taking a more prominent role in
issues related to conservation and smart growth, and perhaps serving the county
in other roles," said Dunmyer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I have
enjoyed serving the county as a commissioner, and am incredibly grateful to the
voters who gave me that opportunity. I look forward to staying engaged in the
issues facing our county, and supporting great candidates in 2014." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">###</span></div>
Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-9453123633940185362014-01-14T13:33:00.000-08:002014-01-14T13:33:23.028-08:00But What Are you FOR?!The 2014 Governor's race here in Maryland is shaping up to be underwhelming. As far as I can tell, the Maryland Republicans have one candidate that is remotely viable, David Craig, who as sitting Harford County Executive has the only meaningful executive experience in the GOP bunch. There are rumors that the vaunted Larry Hogan, of Change Maryland "fame" will enter the race, but I suspect what few in the GOP establishment can probably see from being too close, that few outside of that establishment (and probably few of the "75,000 strong Change Maryland army" know who the Hell Larry Hogan is.<br />
<br />
I want to support David Craig for Governor. I promise, I really do. Moderate as I am, I find the idea of another Democratic administration coupled with unfettered Democratic control of the state legislature to be anathema to fairness and sensibility. One party rule should be rejected. To express my sincerity about wanting to support Mr. Craig, I plan on reaching out to the campaign in the coming days, because while some of the messaging they are using on social media is just fine for the red meat Republicans of the state, its been a really long time since those red meat Republicans won a statewide election in Maryland. And by really long time, I mean never. <br />
<br />
What I think many ambitious Republicans do not understand is that being against a solution (Obamacare, for instance, or the Stormwater Fee) is all fine and good, but it leaves the underlying problem firmly in place. I am not the first to say this, but for all intents and purposes, Republicans in Maryland come off as the opposition party, as opposed to a party of workable alternatives. As Ted Kennedy said to Republicans opposing No Child Left Behind years ago on the floor of the Senate, "We know what you are against, but tell us, what are you FOR?!" That is one of the chief reasons, in my opinion, the GOP continues to fail in this state, because it does not present itself in a coordinated fashion as a governing party, but merely as an opposition party. The people of Maryland, in election after election, reject the inherent negativity of Republican politics, and I do not see this changing any time in the near future; although my hope is that Mr. Craig could be convinced to see the light on issues like these. <br /><br />And further to my point, today on his Facebook account, Mr. Craig has asked his followers: <span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"How has the failed rollout of the Maryland Health Exchange affected you?"</span> The question was asked earlier in the day as well (although that post was removed, presumably because no one answered). I wonder if Mr. Craig and his social media consultants are surprised that no one has fessed up to it impacting them personally on the new post, either. And this sort of proves my theory, doesn't it? The failed rollout of the Maryland Health Exchange hasn't affected anyone you are pandering to, Mr. Craig! Aside from being an inherently negative question, guaranteed to garner angered online diatribes, it's not governing, and it isn't serious, and it won't get you elected. A campaign whose stock in trade is torching straw men is bound to end in failure. Instead of making people angry about opposition, bring people together around solutions. One of these things is harder than the other, but the easy one won't get you elected as a Republican in Maryland. <br />
<br />
And while opposing the stormwater fee, or the rollout of the Maryland Health Exchange, or the theory of gravity might be very safe ground with the Lincoln Day Dinner circuit, it will come across to millions of other voters in the state as being another negative campaign with no real ideas of its own. And that is why, Mr. Craig, if you continue down this path, you will not get elected. Like Bob Ehrlich before you (twice). And like every other failed statewide Republican who proceeded you to an electoral Elba. Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11292713.post-79403216876911179902013-12-31T06:36:00.000-08:002013-12-31T06:37:01.476-08:00The 2013 Kline Online Book of the YearFor years, what would eventually become the 2013 Kline Online Book of the Year has sat on a bookshelf, half-read, in my home office. I had started to read it about a decade ago, when I thought I was going to write an academic history of US agricultural policy for my Master's thesis at Johns Hopkins University. Both the book, and the idea for the thesis, were disregarded in time. While I would move on to another topic for Johns Hopkins, I would come back to the book in question; somewhat ironically, it was the first book I read for pleasure after finishing the writing of my Masters thesis.<br />
<br />
David M. Kennedy is not a writer of history for the masses. An emeritus history professor from Stanford University, he is the principle author of the seminal Advanced Placement American history textbook, <i>The American Pageant</i>. Perhaps you've read it? Perhaps not. But his tome <i>Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945</i> is a book that is worth the investment of time and intellectual energy to read.<br />
<br />
In the book's 900+ pages, Kennedy deftly handles perhaps the most profound 15 years of America's history, the time period covering The Great Depression and World War II. <i>Freedom</i> brings home the idea to a modern audience with no memory of the event that the Great Depression wasn't simply an economic downturn, deeper but similar to what occurred in this country in 2008, but instead was an all-encompassing catastrophe that required a fundamental shift in the way the average American thought about money, employment, democracy, capitalism, and their very lives. <br />
<br />
For perhaps only the second time in American history, large segments of the U.S. population began to wonder if America could even survive as a republic. Americans worried that the growth in material consumption that had driven the Roaring Twenties had reached its terminus and that there was nothing but long-term decline in store for the American economy. Reading <i>Freedom</i>, the modern reader smiles to think that many thought at the time that the human race had reached an economic and technological summit, that all great things had already been achieved and that as a result there was nowhere to go but down. The economic orderliness of European dictatorships like Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy began to look promising to some Americans, and never had communism looked so good to so many Americans.<br />
<br />
Any book about the Depression and World War II must by necessity also be a biography of Franklin Roosevelt, for his leadership is the one constant throughout this era of complete upheaval. Kennedy's book takes us in great detail through Roosevelt's various attempts at tackling the Depression, all of which failed for one reason or another. Despite Roosevelt's many bureaucratic creations, the Depression's utter persistence frustrated Roosevelt to no end, and the book compels the modern reader to understand the depth of the Depression.<br />
<br />
Roosevelt's legacy lies not with programs like the National Recovery Administration, whose Blue Eagle proudly adorned Main Street shop windows across the country, but with the notion that the federal government should, and would, play an increasingly hands-on role in managing the national economy, which up to that point had been at the whim of Adam Smith's invisible hand, and the <i>laissez faire</i> doctrines of oligarchs like J.P. Morgan. Roosevelt introduced the idea that the stock market should be regulated, that investors should know the financial facts of publicly traded companies. Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Act, although largely nullified by the Supreme Court, also laid the groundwork for a heavy federal hand in American agriculture that lasts to this day. None of these programs ended the Depression, but they, along with social security, are its most durable legacy. <br />
<br />
Much like the country at large in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Kennedy's book comes to life as he writes the story of the nation's awakening to the idea of another war in Europe. Roosevelt was artful in balancing the needs of European democracy (the United States would become the so-called "arsenal of democracy" before entering the fray) with domestic political considerations; Roosevelt took the country no farther than it was willing, for he acutely understood that alienating the nation would curb his war powers when he truly needed them.<br />
<br />
Kennedy's descriptions of the invasion of Pearl Harbor, which take the reader into the cockpits of the Japanese Zeroes and the early morning beds of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, warm the reader's blood in a way that few books of 900 pages can. The <i>Freedom</i> narrative also excels as the U.S. Navy takes to war on the seas of the Pacific, luring the pride of the Japanese Imperial Navy into a series of engagements that roundly favored American firepower; and to the island jungles of the Pacific, where adolescent Japanese boys shrieked their way towards face-to-face encounters with American Marines. For the modern reader, who might think World War II was a war of unmitigated and breezy American success, Kennedy's <i>Freedom from Fear</i> confirms in narrative color the real facts, that the American slog across the Pacific to reach the Japanese home islands and across Europe to strike at the heart of Naziism was brutal, and thoroughly worthy of modern study.<br />
<br />
Roughly the first half of the book is focused entirely on the Depression, certainly a tough topic to cover in a way that does not bog down, but Kennedy manages it, and I frankly think Kennedy does a far superior job at the task than does Amity Shlaes in the much-heralded <i>The Forgotten Man</i>, which I also read this year. That is a fine piece of work, but I enjoyed Kennedy's book more. The second half, the war half as it were, is just incredible, benefiting as it does from the previous half establishing the national mood as we headed to war. As an obsessive reader of American history I enjoy all the books I read, but if I am to be honest, I can say that there aren't many 900 page books that are page-turners, the second half of <i>Freedom from Fear</i> is one of those books.<br />
<br />
There is no doubt that the 2013 Kline Online Book of the Year is David Kennedy's <i>Freedom from Fear.</i> <br />
<br />
2013 Honorable mentions:<br />
<i>Whose Names are Unknown</i> Sanora Babb<br />
<i>Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR </i> H.W. Brands<br />
<i>Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon</i> Theodore H. White <br />
<br />
Past winners:<br />
2011: <i>The Best and the Brightest</i> David Halberstam<br />
2012: <i>The Fifties</i> David Halberstam<br />
2013: <i>Freedom from Fear</i> David M. Kennedy<br />
<br />
<br />Steve Klinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00495893340285769428noreply@blogger.com0