Category Archives: Politics

December 15, 2010 · 11:26 am

What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama – NYTimes.com

Thanks, to my friend Kirk, for forwarding this on to me.  This is very thought provoking to me…

Here is an excerpt and link to full article:

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years. Very few of them would have been given a grade above D from most of my teachers.

When these progressives refer to themselves as Mr. Obama’s base, all they see is themselves. They ignore polls showing steadfast support for the president among blacks and Latinos. And now they are whispering about a primary challenge against the president. Brilliant! The kind of suicidal gesture that destroyed Jimmy Carter — and a way to lose the black vote forever.

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all. They know how it feels to be unemployed and unable to buy your children Christmas presents. They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

via What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama – NYTimes.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy

December 14, 2010 · 11:23 am

Achilles heel of American education: inequality – KansasCity.com

Great article on Education….

The latest shocker came with the results of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which showed students in Shanghai well ahead of the global pack. The study tested 15-year-olds from 65 Organzisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member nations in math, science and reading. (China wasn’t assessed as a whole, but Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macao were separately.)

The United States ranked 24th, the middle of the pack. Cue the cliches …

“Fifty years later, our generation’s Sputnik moment is back,” declared President Barack Obama.

“Wow, I’m kind of stunned. I’m thinking Sputnik,” Chester E. Finn Jr., who served in Ronald Reagan’s education team, told The New York Times.

Faced with the new rankings, Britain, France, Germany and other nations announced plans to study and overhaul their educational systems. The U.S. pretty much shrugged. And some began searching for faults in the analysis.

Every time such figures are released, some Americans content themselves to do a little math. They subtract the inconvenient students. Take out underachieving minority students, they say, and we’re not doing so badly.

True, white and Asian students have vastly better graduation and achievement rates than African American and Hispanic students do. But if you want to know the biggest problem in the U.S. education system, it’s this: inequality.

Tucked into news stories about the testing was the finding that the highest achieving school systems in the world were the ones where social class tends not to predict student achievement. Think about that. In countries where students from all social and economic backgrounds are well represented among highest academic achievers, student achievement on the whole is higher.

Inequality is America’s Achilles heel. Class level still matters greatly when it comes to student achievement. No Child Left Behind has made that infinitely clear. I realize this is hardly rocket science. Turning it around will be.

via Achilles heel of American education: inequality – KansasCity.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Politics, Social Commentary

December 12, 2010 · 10:18 am

Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian – NYTimes.com

Frank Rich is really on this morning in his weekly New York Times column.

Here’s an excerpt.  I encourage you to click the link and read the full column.

It still seems an unwritten rule in establishment Washington that homophobia is at most a misdemeanor. By this code, the Smithsonian’s surrender is no big deal; let the art world do its little protests. This attitude explains why the ever more absurd excuses concocted by John McCain for almost single-handedly thwarting the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are rarely called out for what they are — “bigotry disguised as prudence,” in the apt phrase of Slate’s military affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has been granted serious and sometimes unchallenged credence as a moral arbiter not just by Rupert Murdoch’s outlets but by CNN, MSNBC and The Post’s “On Faith” Web site even as he cites junk science to declare that “homosexuality poses a risk to children” and that being gay leads to being a child molester.

It’s partly to counteract the hate speech of persistent bullies like Donohue and Perkins that the Seattle-based author and activist Dan Savage created his “It Gets Better” campaign in which gay adults (and some non-gay leaders, including President Obama) make videos urging at-risk teens to realize that they are not alone. But even this humanitarian effort is controversial and suspect in some Beltway quarters: G.O.P. politicians and conservative pundits have yet to participate even though most of the recent and well-publicized suicides by gay teens have occurred in Republican Congressional districts, including those of party leaders like Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy.

Has it gotten better since AIDS decimated a generation of gay men? In San Francisco, certainly. But when America’s signature cultural institution can be so easily bullied by bigots, it’s another indicator that the angels Keith Haring saw on his death bed have not landed in Washington just yet.

More:   Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian – NYTimes.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under Education, Gay, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Television

December 11, 2010 · 10:09 pm

Elizabeth Edwards ‘A Lighthouse to All of Us,’ Says Daughter Cate at Funeral

Sounds like a fine farewell to a great lady….

RALEIGH, N.C. – Elizabeth Edwards was remembered as a loving mother and loyal friend in a memorial service that acknowledged the turmoil she confronted with “grace and strength,” in the words of her daughter, Cate Edwards. Politicians with headline names joined the public in saying goodbye Saturday at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in this city she called home years before she became a national figure and symbol.

On Tuesday, Elizabeth Edwards, 61, died of cancer. On a gray, rainy Saturday, lifelong friends and family gathered to mourn and remember Edwards’ intelligence, sense of humor and uncompromising attitude. Following her mother’s draped casket into the church, Cate, 28, held hands in a line with her 10-year-old brother, Jack, their father, John Edwards, and sister, Emma Claire, 12.

In her tribute, Cate called her mother “feisty and smart as a whip.” She never held that against people, said Cate, “unless she was right and they were wrong.” She said her mother was a “consistent source of wisdom,” about everything from wearing solid colors to never marrying the first boy you date. (“You would never buy the first pair of shoes you try on.”)

“She’s been a lighthouse to all of us, a point of guidance when we all feel lost,” Cate said of her mother. “Even in her last days, she was comforting us.” She quoted from the letter to her children Elizabeth Edwards had long been working on: “All I ever really needed was you,” it said, “your love, your presence, to make my life complete.”

via Elizabeth Edwards ‘A Lighthouse to All of Us,’ Says Daughter Cate at Funeral.

Leave a comment

Filed under History, North Carolina, Politics, The South

December 11, 2010 · 4:02 pm

War On Christmas Spreads To Lincoln Tunnel : NPR

Interesting article from NPR….

This “War on Christmas” crap normally just makes me tired.

I’m of the “live and let live and go to whoever’s party is best today” school of thinking…Just stay in the moment, enjoy the season and don’t think about any of it too much..

And people really should know by now, it’s a waste of time and energy to argue about religion…

Holidays are time for traditions, and one of the biggest American traditions this time of year is arguing about religion.

Some years, a community is torn over a manger on the lawn in front of city hall or a missing menorah.

This year, the season’s biggest religious controversy is in an unlikely place: the Lincoln Tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York.

For the last three weeks, New Jersey commuters entering the tunnel have had to sit in traffic and contemplate the sight of a billboard with a picture of a nativity scene, a star and three wise men. Its message: “You know it’s a myth,” courtesy of a group called American Atheists.

Drivers can mull over this challenge for the few minutes of purgatory it takes to cross under the Hudson River. Once they make it through the tunnel into New York, however, they’ll encounter another billboard, this one from the Catholic League.

It’s the same nativity scene, but this time with a retort: “You know it’s real.”

More:   War On Christmas Spreads To Lincoln Tunnel : NPR.

Leave a comment

Filed under Entertainment, History, Holidays, New York, Politics, Religion

December 11, 2010 · 11:29 am

The secret life of Julian Assange – CNN.com

A little more info about the Man behind WikiLeaks..

He grew up constantly on the move, the son of parents who were in the theater business in Australia.

Now, Julian Assange, 39, on the move for months, was arrested Tuesday in Great Britain in relation to a sex crimes investigation spearheaded by Swedish authorities.

“It sounds like good news to me,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said to reporters who asked him about the arrest.

Since this summer when his Web site WikiLeaks began releasing reams of classified U.S. intelligence, Assange has stoked the ire of top officials like Gates. Politicians and power-players the world over have called for his arrest for exposing sensitive documents. Supporters contend Assange represents free speech at its finest. They say he is a man and an organization committed to outing injustices.

Yet despite unrelenting global media attention, Assange has remained an enigmatic figure. Perhaps that’s because he learned as a child to cope with living a solitary life.

More:   The secret life of Julian Assange – CNN.com.

Leave a comment

Filed under History, Media, Politics

December 11, 2010 · 10:59 am

Where are the Republican Scientists? | Mother Jones

Short, very interesting article….

Roughly speaking, though, this doesn’t seem like such a hard question to me. The more time you spend practicing science, the more time you’re going to spend discovering that conservatives hold scientific views that you find preposterous. Sure, liberals have PETA and the odd vaccination fetishist, but really, it’s no contest. In the Democratic Party those are just fringe views. Even the anti-GM food folks don’t amount to much. The modern Republican Party, by contrast, panders endlessly to the scientific yahooism of its base. What would be amazing is if much more than 6% of the scientific community identified with the Republican Party.

via Where are the Republican Scientists? | Mother Jones.

Leave a comment

Filed under Health Care, History, Politics, Religion, Social Commentary

December 11, 2010 · 10:56 am

Is the Payroll Tax Holiday a GOP Trojan Horse? | Mother Jones

This article makes me feel a little better about this…

I’m really worried about the GOP trying to find any sneaky way they can to undermine Social Security…

 

Part of the Obama tax deal is a small, one-year cut in the Social Security tax rate, and a fair number of liberal commenters are afraid that this is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for Republicans. After all, won’t they just come back a year from now and start screaming that if the cut is allowed to expire it’s a tax increase? Just like they’re doing with the Bush tax cuts? And won’t Democrats cave? And won’t that ruin Social Security’s finances, leading to demands for benefit cuts?

It might. But I think this worry is overblown. Here’s why:

Republicans don’t care about middle class taxes. They care about taxes on the rich. I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll make some noise a year from now about how Democrats are increasing your taxes, but their hearts won’t be in it. They’ll fight to the death over taxes on millionaires, but when it comes to payroll taxes it will just be pro forma partisan kvetching. (And the payroll tax cut expires in a year and isn’t linked to anything else. So it won’t be a hostage to upper bracket cuts.)

This is explicitly a one-year cut. Republicans all assumed that the 2001 Bush tax cuts would be renewed at some point, but no one is assuming that here. And 12 months isn’t long enough for conservative talkers to muddy the water on this score.

The public strongly associates payroll taxes with future Social Security benefits. Demagoguing payroll taxes simply doesn’t work as well as it does with income taxes.

Beltway elites are really, really obsessed with Social Security solvency. For once this will work in our favor. Calls to allow the cuts to continue will be met with almost unanimous establishment condemnation.

December 2011 is far enough away from an election that Democrats can withstand the moderate heat Republicans will put on them over this.

Bottom line: a few Republicans here and there will try to work that old-time tax jihad magic, but it won’t find much purchase. The tax cuts will expire on time with only modest fuss.

POSTSCRIPT: Am I underestimating just how craven and spineless Democratic pols can be? That’s always a possibility! But I don’t think so. In this case, luckily, most of the political incentives line up in the right direction.

via Is the Payroll Tax Holiday a GOP Trojan Horse? | Mother Jones.

Leave a comment

Filed under Health Care, History, Politics, The Economy

December 11, 2010 · 10:48 am

Morrison pardon doesn’t change The Doors’ history | Raw Story

I’ve always been fascinated by Jim Morrison and the Doors.  Love their music…Stopped by his grave in Paris…

But, still, can’t politicians find better ways to use their time????

Pardon of Jim Morrison can’t change The Doors’ history or answer a slew of ‘What ifs?’

A hot, frenzied night in Miami changed life for Jim Morrison and The Doors. That’s something the late singer’s pardon on indecent exposure and profanity charges can’t correct.

“It made him realize he was no longer in the graces of the gods, that things could go wrong,” said Ray Manzarek, the band’s keyboard player. “Jim had a great line — in that year we had a great visitation of energy. We had the mandate of heaven. And I think at that moment, he lost the mandate of heaven.”

An arrest warrant was issued for Morrison four days after a March 1, 1969, concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium. He turned himself in, was tried the next year and convicted on two charges. Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida’s Cabinet members pardoned Morrison of those convictions Thursday.

But forgiveness can’t change history. Morrison, worried about prison time, was distracted. Other cities, worried about The Doors, canceled concerts. Morrison ended up dead in a Paris bathtub in 1971 while appealing the convictions. Would he have died if the Miami incident never happened?

 

“It was one of the many things that contributed to his death. I don’t give it any more credence than any of 10 other things,” guitarist Robby Krieger said. “If it had never happened, would he never have died at that time? Maybe not. It didn’t help.”

 

More:   Morrison pardon doesn’t change The Doors’ history | Raw Story.

1 Comment

Filed under Entertainment, History, Media, Music, Politics

December 11, 2010 · 10:32 am

New drafts of Eisenhower’s farewell address : The New Yorker

Fascinating…

From The New Yorker:

One core idea dominates every version: the first draft described “the conjunction of a large and permanent military establishment and a large and permanent arms industry.” Policing it would require “all the organizing genius we possess” to insure “that liberty and security are both well served.” It added, “We must be especially careful to avoid measures which would enable any segment of this vast military-industrial complex to sharpen the focus of its power.” Through scores of revisions, that idea persisted. As delivered, the speech memorably read, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

More:   New drafts of Eisenhower’s farewell address : The New Yorker.

Leave a comment

Filed under History, Media, Politics, The Economy