A (Random) Round-Up…
W. Horace Carter was hardly a household name. He should have been, at least for journalists and civil libertarians.
Carter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for his crusading, small-town newspaper editorials against the Ku Klux Klan. He wrote more than 100 stories and editorials about the Klan and his reporting lead to countless arrests and convictions for violations of civil rights. Gutsy stuff in Tabor City, North Carolina when Jim Crow still ruled the south. Carter’s recent obit in the New York Times is a fitting testament to the power of the press in the hands of a person determined to shine a bright light on injustice.
Packwood the Candid
Back in the day, Oregon Senator Bob Packwood held enormous regional and national power. The Northwest delegation at one time – Jackson and Magnuson of Washington, Church and McClure from Idaho, Hatfield and Packwood or Oregon – were as influential a half dozen as existed in the U.S. Senate. Packwood’s fall – he resigned amid scandal in 1995 – was dramatic, but he re-invented himself as a very successful lobbyist (all those years on the Finance Committee) and recently gave a fascinating interview to Willamette Week. Must reading for any political junkie.
Tweeting to Sacramento
Still not convinced that the “new media” is changing politics? Check out this posting from the L.A. Times “Top of the Ticket” blog. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, one of many candidates for governor, has a million followers. Ironically, another Sacramento hopefull, eBay founder Meg Whitman, is hardly in the game.
Light Rail – the Phoenix Story
I confess to not understanding the reluctance of some folks, in the west particularly, to embrace the need for rail (and light rail) transportation alternatives. The rail debate has raged in Phoenix for years, but now with a 20 mile line connecting Tempe and downtown Phoenix the ridership is exceeding expectations and seems to be helping the desert capitol of the southwest with economic development.
Elsewhere in the west, Salt Lake City and Portland are clearly ahead of the game when it comes to rail transit. The rest of the west is waiting – for what? Lower gas prices?
And Finally…
In one of the great dissents in Supreme Court history, Justice Louis Brandeis objected to warrantless wiretapping by the government. The case was decided in 1928, proving – if nothing else – that nothing ever seems to change.
In his dissent, the great justice penned one of the memorable lines in American jurisprudence. “The greatest dangers to liberty,” Brandeis wrote, “lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Melvin Urofsky, the editor of Brandeis’ papers, has produced a new and timely biography of the fascinating judge and he makes the case that, “no justice of the 20th century had a greater impact on American constitutional jurisprudence.” Good reading. Good history.