Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

Wherever I've lived, I've been lucky to find newspaper columnists who speak to me as I like to be spoken to: clearly, literately, and of course liberally. And I'm not talking about nationally syndicated columnists, either (like Krugman). No, these are the regular commentators on things of interest primarily -- or exclusively -- to readers in the given newspaper's circulation area.

When I lived in NJ -- sandwiched between Philadelphia and NYC -- I had almost an embarrassment of riches to select from. When I moved to Richmond VA for a few years, the pickin's got a little bit slimmer but I still found a favorite.

And now, here in North Florida, I have to confess I've always been taken with Gerald Ensley of the Tallahassee Democrat.

When I first moved here, Ensley was on the sports staff, writing features and an occasional column. He also occasionally appeared in the paper's Local section -- again, not writing hard news stories but rather features. Although I read the Local section regularly, I'm not by a long shot the world's biggest sports fan, and so it took me a while to latch onto his sports columns. In particular, I learned to look out for his columns beginning, "Nobody asked me, but..."; this tag line was always followed by an assortment of bullet-pointed one-line opinions on a wide range of topics, maybe 80% of which had nothing at all to do with sports.

He's kept up the "Nobody asked me..." tradition since becoming the regular Sunday Local news columnist. Here's an excerpt from the most recent such column:

Nobody asked me, but:

• If Katrina had happened here, I'd be like one of those last 10,000 people in New Orleans: You'd have to send soldiers to get me to leave my home.
• Nothing evokes more "How do they do that?" in me than a big bridge.
• You want to cut back gas consumption in America? Quit whining about SUVs and start closing the drive-through lanes at fast-food restaurants.
• This would be a better world if anti-abortionists spent half as much effort on stopping the abuse of children as they do on protecting the rights of fetuses.
• Secret ballots are the chief tool of democracy, which is why I can't agree with critics who demand that coaches and other college-football-poll voters reveal their ballots.
• Nothing picks up a funeral quite like a barbershop quartet.

See what I mean? I don't empathize or even agree with everything he says (like the first bullet above). But he's just about always fun to read, and I just about always end up nodding along with him as he comments on this and that -- often, from a quite liberal perspective. And whatever the topic, he's always fair, engaging, good-humored when sternness isn't called for, and stern when humor would be inappropriate.

His column of September 25 is illustrative. [Note: I don't know how long the paper keeps its columnists' work available for free. For now, though, the whole thing is available at that link.] The title: "Gas-tax respite robs Peter to pay Paul."

What particularly exercised Ensley on this occasion was a series of efforts, especially post-Katrina, to eliminate -- at least temporarily -- state and local taxes on gasoline, here in Florida as well as elsewhere. These drives to cut gasoline and other taxes always come cloaked in the verbiage of doing citizens a favor, most often "tax relief." Ensley exposes this sham for what it is: a game of three-card monte (emphasis mine, of course):

As a consumer I say: Don't help us that way. Tax rollbacks to address temporary fuel increases is simply a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul -- and do injury to Paul's future.

In 2004, Florida lawmakers cut gas taxes by 8 cents a gallon for the month of August. Consumers saved $1 to $2 per tank -- while the state lost nearly $60 million that could have been spent on road construction and maintenance.

The Tallahassee utility-bill rollback would save consumers $5 to $10 a month -- while taking away $10 million that could be spent on sidewalks, drainage improvements or parks.

It is not surprising politicians are embracing these rollbacks. Republicans like nothing so much as a good tax cut, and Democrats like nothing so much as doing something for the common man.

It's also a good way for politicians to avoid tougher questions.

Like, why are oil companies jacking up their profits? A University of Wisconsin economist calculated that oil companies have lifted their wholesale prices to far larger margins over the cost of crude oil since Hurricane Katrina: At last week's $65 per barrel for crude oil, gas should be $2.30 a gallon instead of the current $2.65 to $2.99.

Like, why don't the oil companies build more and better refineries as a hedge against these natural disasters? Instead, they pare back refinery building and capacity to maximize profits.

Like, why aren't auto manufacturers working harder to produce cars that run on alternative fuel sources instead of continuing to rely on a single, endangered type of fuel? And why do auto manufacturers resist even hybrid cars, keeping production numbers low and unashamedly passing along the costs of hybrid technology to the consumer? Right now, it can take more than five years for a buyer to recoup the extra cost of a hybrid car through lower fuel usage.

On its own, industry will never temper profits in the name of social good. So government must hold industry's feet to the fire and insist it make sacrifices and changes just like the consumer.

But while government works at that, it shouldn't try to disguise the hard realities of capitalism with phony giveaways. The government's money belongs to everyone. Don't hand us $5 today if it's going to cost us $10 million tomorrow.

In a time of media consolidation and media timidity, it grows ever more difficult to get one's strong opinions into print or on the air (short of engaging in talk-radio and cable-TV shoutfests). At such a time, it's wonderful to have someone on staff at the local newspaper to say what -- given a suitable pulpit -- you imagine you yourself would say.

(By the way, the Ensley column cited above was the stimulus for my rant on taxes yesterday.)