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Republicans enabling
House’s pork addiction
WASHINGTON Rep.
Sue Myrick of Charlotte.
N.C., a conservative star of
the famous Republican con
gressional class of 1994. has
just about had it with the way
the world works on Capitol
Hill. "It makes you not want
to be here. It just makes you want to leave."
she told me Friday morning before the House
passed the "highway" bill by a veto-proof
margin of 357 to 65. What infuriates her is
the money provided by this bill that does not
have a thing to do with highways.
Myrick went before the closed-door
House Republican Conference last week to
spell out this outrage. The response was icy
silence. Even conservatives who have railed
at President Bush for moving left on educa
tion and Medicare did not want to hear her.
They are infuriated when Myrick compares
their bipartisan finagling for pork with the
machinations of Dennis Kozlowski.
The highway bill marks the absolute ter
mination of the Gingrich Revolution ushered
in by the 1994 Republican sweep. In the face
of President Bush's repeated veto threats.
Republicans are determined to pass a bill
filled with earmarked spending for individual
members of Congress.
The 1982 highway bill contained only 10
earmarks. The 1991 bill, the last highway bill
passed under Democratic leadership, con
tained 538 such projects. But the addiction
for pork has grown so large that the current
bill contains at least 3,193 earmarks.
The addiction is bipartisan, thanks to the
policy of the House’s reigning king of pork.
While House Transportation Committee
Chairman Don Young has packed the bill
with money for his state of Alaska, he makes
sure Democrats are allocated their share of
money for roads and other goodies in order
to build a bipartisan majority on the floor.
Young is careful to fund the pet project of
Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, the
Transportation Committee's senior Democrat.
The bill establishes Oberstar's proposed Safe
Routes to School program, earmarking $1
billion to enable and encourage children to
walk and bicycle to school.
Here are a few of the earmarked non
highway projects (along with their congres
sional beneficiaries):
• Construction of "Renaissance Square" in
Rochester, N.Y., including a performing arts
center. $7 million. Rep. Louise Slaughter, a
highly partisan liberal Democrat.
• Renovation of a historic depot and bus
Emotion rules despite technology
One hundred billion —a num
ber that is almost impossible to
visualize and beyond conceptual
ization for most of us (despite the
fact that it is trivialized when
economists discuss the U.S. gross
domestic product or politicians
argue about our national debt).
To put it in perspective, if we
turned the clock back by that
number of seconds, we would
still have 500 years to wait before
the founding of Rome. If we
counted noses, the number would
represent a population 15 times
greater than exists on our world.
If we traveled by space ship for
that number of miles, we would
be 30 times further from the earth
than Pluto, the most distant plan
et. But perhaps most impressive
of all. 100 billion is the figure
most often ascribed to the number
of neural cells in the human
brain.
The human brain is an incredi
ble "device." Despite all our
advances in computer technology,
children easily perform many
tasks that modern-day computers
cannot come close to matching.
The best computers can only
approximate skills that we take
for granted, like language and
pattern recognition. And for
computers, other everyday experi
ences involving emotion and intu
ition lie well in the realm of sci
ence fantasy.
Today's computers are very
different from a human mind.
They are electronic devices which
process data within established
pathways in the form of binary
bits. A single bit registers only
two states: it carries a signal (on)
or it doesn't (off). However, bits
can be combined to permit com
puters to recognize additional
states. Two bits can be linked to
register 0-0, 0-1. 1-0 or 1-1
(where "0" is "off" and "1" is
"on”). We can increase the capa
bility of computers to handle
more complex tasks by increasing
the number of bits that are linked,
the storage area and the speed at
which access takes place. And
we normally connect computers
to other devices by electrical or
mechanical linkages.
Robert
Novak
member of the House and a fierce
Democratic battler.
• A new parking building in Oak Lawn.
111. $4 million. Rep. William Lipinski, an ll
term Democrat.
• A series of improvements for the Blue
Ridge Music Center in Galax. Va. $2.5 mil
lion. Rep. Rick Boucher, an I I-term
Democrat.
Despite repeated threats of a presidential
veto, the House Republican leadership actu
ally added a billion dollars to the bill last
week. It was not necessary to gain additional
votes on the floor, but odds and ends had to
be fixed.
For example. Chairman Young had pun
ished freshman Republican Rep. Marilyn
Musgrave for opposing his proposed gas tax
increase by eliminating all money for her
Colorado district. Because a rising conserva
tive could not be treated that way. money for
her roads was restored. The final version
made sure that no congressman was left
behind.
Only 58 Republicans (and six Democrats)
joined Myrick in voting no Friday. She is not
opposed to spending money for roads, within
reason. It's the non-highway money that
bothers her.
"Why are we paying for all of this stuff?"
Myrick asked me (using a more vivid word
than "stuff"). "It's just the way you get along
here."
That so serious a conservative as Sue
Myrick feels she would like to quit shows
how much the climate has changed on
Capitol Hill since she and other bright-eyed
new Republican House members were sent
there by the 1994 election.
I wrote 10 years ago that Republicans,
taking control for the first time in 40 years,
faced a test. Metaphorically, would they
close the executive washroom or just change
the locks?
It was almost immediately evident that
they would take the latter course. Now, it's
becoming clear the erstwhile Republican
reformers are also super-sizing what they
once condemned.
Robert Novak is a nationally syndicated
columnist and a television commentator.
station in Jessup. Ga. $l mil
lion. Rep. Jack Kingston, a
leading Republican conserva
tive.
• Improvement of the
Henry Ford Museum in
Dearborn. Mich. $1.5 million.
Rep. John Dingell, the senior
Mel 1
Copen . «*i
The human brain, on the other
hand, is an electro-chemical
device which processes informa
tion through many (and often
multiple) paths, and in ways that
are much more complex than sim
ple on/off modes. The efficiency
and functioning of the brain is
dependent not only on its physi
cal construct, but on oxygen and
other chemicals that blood sup
plies to it and by a host of signals
generated by various body
organs. And the brain is linked to
input (e.g. eyes) and output sys
tems (e.g. muscles) by very intri
cate systems.
Given the incredibly complex
design and the variability of
inputs, it's really a wonder that
our brains function at all. Even
more incredibly, the entire "blue
print" is contained in a few organ
ic cells that unite and eventually
grow to become a person.
One of the most intriguing dif
ferences relates to our ability to
exercise control. In theory, the
full capabilities of a computer are
available to the designer/opera
tor/programmer. Not so to the
owner of a human brain. It seems
to have "a mind of its own." Let's
look at this question of "output
management."
First, there are many areas
over which we normally have
direct control and full decision
making authority. We can decide
when to raise our arms, take a
step, write or express our con
scious thoughts. We can decide
what TV show to watch and can
program our brains to learn and
remember (at least for a while).
Then there are areas where
management seems to be
shared." We can blink our eyes
or take a breath when we wish,
but there is also an "auto” mode
which normally takes care of this
function for us. We can control
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some of our feelings, but others
seem to develop in an independ
ent manner. We only exercise
partial control. We learned long
ago that we can indirectly force
our bodies to deviate from their
anormala states by the food we
eat, the exercise we do, etc. But
these control the way our body
reacts to stimuli, rather than an
ability to will our brains to
behave in a certain manner.
For some time we have known
that Yoga and various other forms
of meditation provide some
degree of control over blood pres
sure, heartbeat and breathing
rates. But now we are beginning
to learn that brain wave patterns
are associated with certain feel
ings. activities and physiological
states and that some of these pat
terns can be altered with appro
priate practice.
Perhaps the most challenging
area is the third those func
tions which seem to be beyond
"human” intervention. They
operate on their own. The
immune system determines when
to martial its armies to fight an
invader weaponry that we nei
ther consciously create nor acti
vate. Things happen within our
bodies, good and bad, over which
we have no control. Cancers
form, as cells start to mutate or
are attacked by aforeigna ele
ments. and today we are unable to
do very much to consciously con
trol what is taking place within
an enormous frustration when it
occurs within our own bodies or
those of loved ones. Modern
medicine may try to influence
what happens via external inter
vention (drugs, surgery, electrical
stimulation and the like often
on a trail and error basis) but the
body basically does its own thing
and we have difficulty accessing
the "computer console" to deter
mine what is happening and, of
greater importance, how to alter
or stop it.
Other things go on within our
brains over which we have little
control. Try to influence dreams,
for example. Why do we dream
in the first place, or why do we
even sleep? Despite all the
advances of medical science over
the last millennia, we still know
little about many of these
processes that not only keep us
alive, but that contribute to the
way we experience the world
around us.
Great sums are being spent on
developing drugs and procedures
for external intervention. Clearly
this must continue. More recent
ly, genetic research has come to
the forefront in an effort to under
stand the building blocks that
determine the shape and function
of our "computers" and their
"attachments." But we also need
to concentrate on learning how to
run our own "computers" how
to shift from "non-controlled" to
"shared control" to "fully-con
trolled" status so that we can take
charge of what is happening to us.
Some day, as scientists contin
ue to experiment, we are likely to
see computers that are literally
grown in test tubes rather than
constructed from tiny bits of sili
con and other materials. Much of
what we learn may be inter
changeable as computers and
human processes converge. It's a
scary concept, but one which also
holds enormous potential for
improving and prolonging the
quality of life. But, like issues
surrounding genetic engineering,
many ethical questions will have
to be addressed.
Despite the enormous advances
in science and technology, today's
world probably doesn't function
much differently than it did thou
sands of years ago. Emotionality
often outweighs rationality.
Perhaps, if we knew more about
how the mind truly works we
would better understand how to
put things into better balance.
Dr. Melvyn Copen of
Cumming is an educator and
businessman who has worked and
lived in many foreign countries
and provides consulting services
for businesses and organizations
throughout the world. His col
umn appears every other
Wednesday.
Please share your comments
with him via email at mel
copen@hotmail.com.
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