Obama to Tout Amazon.com at Tennessee Speech

Amazon warehouse outside Chattanooga, TN.
Can you count the number of "middle-class" jobs in this photo?
(Image: timefreepress.com)

On Tuesday, July 30th, President Obama will visit Chattanooga, Tennessee, to deliver a speech about his administration's economic policies. According to WRCB-TV in Chattanooga, the address will be delivered at an Amazon warehouse. President 44 may very well cite Amazon's physical expansion and subsequent hiring as examples of America's middle class moving forward economically. It is unlikely the President will comment on the hundreds of small firms Amazon's Walmartization scheme will knock out of business.

The joint chutzpah of Obama and Jeff Bezos' Amazon juggernaut is breathtaking. Obama's Department of Justice has already gone to the mat for Amazon on the lucrative, influential e-book front: witness the recent, allegedly "consumer friendly" case against Amazon nemesis Apple and the major New York publishing players.  Meanwhile, the Obama administration has approved AWS, Amazon's data and cloud computing arm, to get hush-hush contracts with the CIA and NASA. Then again, this secrecy-obsessed administration may have found a kindred spirit with Amazon, which notoriously keeps the public at arm's length about its affairs.

One wonders why the president of the United States feels so compelled to publicly praise Amazon. What is the connection between the Obama Administration and Amazon? Why is this connection not questioned in major media outlets?

Amazon Deepens Reach into Federal Contracts

In March 2013, I wrote a blog post about Jeff Bezos' Amazon juggernaut landing a contract to handle CIA data storage and related data management needs. The Seattle-based firm muscled out IBM to win the deal. IBM squawked and had the contract assignment reviewed.

Reuters reporter Alistair Barr has followed up on the contretemps. His piece, which was picked up by the Mercury News, notes the impact of the shock waves the Amazon cloud computing triumph on Old School tech firms, including "Big Blue," as IBM is sometimes known.

The story quoted some investment analysts for attribution. They noted how AWS -- the heart of Amazon's cloud computing initiative -- allegedly strongly shapes Amazon's current stock market valuation. Reuters' Barr grasps the notion that Amazon is really a tech company, an inconvenient fact most journalists ignore. To that end, his article cites AWS' impact on Oracle, cloud computing competitor Rackspace Holding, Microsoft, and other tech heavyweights.

Barr also cites some of AWS' publicly identified clients. One of them is NASA, which, as with the CIA, happens to be involved in highly classified operations. (An ironic aspect of this situation is that Jeff Bezos recently sponsored the retrieval from the Atlantic Ocean of what he claimed were Apollo 11 rockets. A related report and images appear in a gizmodo.com post.)

Another AWS client is PBS. Inquiring minds are wondering why a federally and viewer-subsidized media outlet requires Amazon's cloud computing clout. (In late 2011, PBS and Amazon signed a deal in which PBS would show some of its programming on Amazon Prime.)

What's most interesting in the increased coziness of the Obama Administration's bureaucracy and Amazon is why it's happening at all. Just don't expect that story to appear on the News Hour anytime soon.

The US Sushinomics Index

Image: bloombergbusinessweek.com

Sushinomics sounds like a sound bite an Anglo-Saxon journalist created to describe official Japanese fiscal policy. However, this is one duck that may quack like a duck, but is not a duck at all. In fact, Sushinomics is a shorthand for something the Bloomberg news service calls the Sushinomics Premium Priced Index (SPPI).

According to a bloomberg.com report, the SPPI is an all-American phenomenon. The index measures the price of sushi in major US metropolitan areas. Leading the pack are New York and hedge fund epicenter Greenwich, Connecticut. The Gotham restaurateurs complain that the cost of doing business in the Big Apple make high prices inevitable. No such excuse has emerged, so far, from their commutable brothers and sisters in Greenwich.

The cheapest city, according to the anonymous sushi price meter readers, is New Orleans. Somehow, the birthplace of jazz just doesn't seem to be the best fit for spiced tuna rolls and sake.

PS. The Bloomberg story includes Sushinomics data and related graphs. Wasabi and ginger are not included.

Wikipedia's Ten "Touchy" Topics

A BBC report today noted subjects that rile the good editors at Wikipedia. What are they? Let's take a look behind the Wiki curtain, shall we?

The dieci, as noted by the BBC story, are as follows:

• George W. Bush
• Anarchism
• The Prophet Muhammad
• World Wrestling Entertainment employees
• Global warming
• Circumcision
• The United States
• Jesus Christ
• Race and intelligence
• Christianity

Quite a mixture, eh?

Former Versace Mansion in Miami Beach Facing Auction

Casa Casuarina
(Image: forbes.com)

Some mansions have more changes than a Las Vegas chorus line dancer. In the case of 1116 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach FL, that "evolution" includes a noirish sense of murder and corrupt financing. The address, better known as Casa Casuarina, gained notoriety as the late Gianni Versace's playpen. The Italian fashion designer was murdered on the Casa's steps in 1997. A fast-money telecom player named Peter Loftin later purchased a majority share in the mansion. He displayed poor judgment concerning business partners, as approximately ten percent of the mansion's ownership included one Scott Rothstein.

Mr. Rothstein was later convicted of conducting a Ponzi scheme. This left Mr. Loftin holding a rather heavy financial bag. He has attempted to sell Casa Casuarina without success. Meanwhile, Versace's former Miami Beach escape now faces the auction hammer, according to a report in today's Miami Herald.

Clearly, the auction is strictly for "global citizens," the one-percenters who are "makers." Rothstein and Loften were once in Mitt Romney's preferred category in his conveniently polarized view of society. However, Rothstein's felony convictions and Loftin's fire-sale antics seems to place them in the "taker" category. What a difference a bankruptcy and a guilty plea make!

Former US Senator Praises Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden (left) and
Gordon Humphries (right)
(Images: usnews.com)

An avalanche of media stories have worked overtime to convince readers that Edward Snowden's actions were just a step away from joining Lee Harvey Oswald's on American history's list of dark deeds. A step in a different direction appeared today, courtesy of the Associated Press. An AP story, posted in today's philly.com, reported that former US senator Gordon Humphrey wrote Snowden an e-mail supporting what the solon characterized as whistleblowing.

Humphrey hails from the "Live Free or Die" state of New Hampshire. A card carrying member of the Republican Party, Humphrey was a two-term senator and was never, ever implicated in anything that might have jeopardized American national security.

Well, there's always a first time.

Robert Frost in the Laundry Room

Laundry rooms sometimes offer unusual reading material. Tonight's find was a first edition of Robert Frost's poems. Few people find lyricism in the drab enclosure where washers and dryers dominate the space. Reading Frost's verse during the spin cycle didn't feel very inspirational. However, what separates printed books from their electronic relatives is the element of surprise. In tonight's case, a mimeographed sheet of questions related to a marriage ceremony and flowers had been inserted into the book. The name of a flower was required for each answer.

Whomever wrote on the sheet used a somewhat blunt pencil for their handiwork. The handwriting sample, with its dull, lazy lines, suggested that the mind holding the pencil wasn't too sharp, either. Nonetheless, this unexpected window into an unknown person's soul fascinated me. The episode reminded me of a fiction story my father wrote many years ago. The tale involved debris that washed ashore on a beach after a storm. My dad, who was born and raised in an oceanfront community during Prohibition, grew up immersed in tales of rum runners, lost ships, and surfside melodrama. In his later life, he finally unleashed his imagination and created a story, based upon an amalgam of real events.

He didn't have Robert Frost's works washing up on the beach. Rather, the poetry book appeared among my apartment complex's laundry room's printed flotsam, quite possibly from a recently deceased former librarian's collection. What would he have made of the appearance of the marriage questions?

Nancy -- RIP

Around July 4th, we learned that Nancy had passed away. She died in her apartment, presumably alone, as she had lived solo in her residence for a number of years. A neighbor, concerned about Nancy's sudden, uncharacteristic inactivity, discovered the corpse about 36 hours after she had died.

The activities peculiar to the recently deceased began shortly thereafter. Family members, some of whom had reputedly sketchy relations with Nancy, visited the deceased's apartment. The usual scavenger hunt for sentimental or valuable items presumably was part of the post-mortem action. Cleanup was also part of the deal, as there did not appear to be any takers for the lease. Nancy was something of a reader; books mysteriously appeared in a shared laundry room.

For those who knew Nancy as a neighbor and as a friend, her departure from life was very unsettling. Anyone who is not in the business of ministering to the dead, and has walked into a room and unexpectedly discovered a stiff, understands this feeling. That situation has only occurred for me in relation to domestic animals; whenever I've seen a human corpse, it was not a surprise.

Some people regard dying alone to be a dreadful nightmare. I can't speak to that feeling, except that it happened to someone I can now say I used to know.

Insurers Raise Red Flags Over Risks in Teacher Handgun Policies

A new paradigm for teacher training?

With many K-12 schools closed for the summer, administrators in a few states are preparing to arm elementary school teachers. The assumption is that an instructor carrying a live weapon in a room filled with young pupils will create an oasis of safety and reassurance. Apparently, a number of insurance companies have a different perspective. According to a story in today's New York Times, some states which permit teachers to carry loaded guns in school buildings are discovering their school districts can't get insured at all.

The article notes that South Dakota, one of the states which permits teachers to possess guns within a school building, has not yet approved "firearms training rules for teachers."

I'm trying to envision Teach for America conducting gun ed as part of the preparation for its well-intended acolytes. I'm imagining a host of university teacher training programs including some basics about weapons, perhaps mixed in with its student teaching opportunities. (Never too early to learn, eh?) And I can't wait for the first Board of Education meeting filled with pistol-packin' parents.

No other civilized nation, and hardly any uncivilized country, would encourage such stupidity. The notion that an armed school is a safer school is flat out bizarre. What lesson does an armed teacher communicate to a young child?

First Latino Chief Judge for Chicago Federal Court Takes Office

Judge Ruben Castillo sits on the bench in the Northern District of Illinois, the federal court system's longhand name for Chicagoland. According to a story in today's Chicago Tribune, he became a federal jurist in 1994, nominated to the US bench three years earlier by then-Senator Paul Simon. Last week, the Chicago native became the chief judge for the Northern District. He is the first Latino to achieve this milestone.

Chief Judge Ruben Castillo, with his 88-year-old father,
Ruben Sr., helping the jurist with his new robe. The action took place
during the event celebrating Castillo's becoming Chief Judge
for the Northern District of Illinois.
(photo: Scott Eisen/Associated Press)

The son of a Puerto Rican mother and a Mexican father, Castillo grew up in a tough Windy City neighborhood. He made up his mind to become an attorney while he attended a Chicago public high school. (Where are the naysayers about the quality and necessity of public education now?) While working his way through Northwestern University Law School, Castillo moonlighted as an assistant in Chicago's night bond courts. Let's just say his education was well rounded.

Castillo eventually became a federal prosecutor. One of his scalps was a Colombian drug "king," who provided Castillo with the ultimate respect: a very real death threat.

The Tribune article goes into a bit more detail about Castillo's resume and life story. The story's last line summarizes a sentiment many first generation immigrant and African-American high achievers share:

I hope history will bear out that I was just a good chief judge, and not a Latino chief judge.

Wisconsin Governor Signs Restrictive Abortion Legislation Into Law

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker joined the GOP's political offensive against abortion today. He signed legislation that compels doctors who provide abortion services to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the practitioner's abortion clinic. The practical effect of the law is to diminish the availability of abortion facilities within the Badger State. The Wisconsin action is similar to recent initiatives in Texas and North Carolina.

According to a report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Walker signed the legislation in a private ceremony on a slow holiday news day. The legislation was passed by both houses of the Wisconsin state government along party lines. The GOP holds majorities in both houses.