Category Archives: Politics

December 10, 2010 · 10:49 pm

Chapter 45: The Help | My Southern Gothic Life

Yet another new post is up on my other blog.

Here is the beginning and a link to the full post:

I can’t encourage you enough to read the book “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.  If you haven’t read it, put it on your Christmas Wish List.  If you have read it, give it to your friends.

I’ve never read a truer book about the interaction between black women who worked as Maids in the early 1960′s and their “white ladies.”

Although the book is set in Mississippi, it could very well have been set in Danville, Virginia.  I remember those days too well.

People seem to already be forgetting that the South in those days, from Richmond to Mobile, was like South Africa under Apartheid.  I was in South Africa in 1997 and felt just like I did in Virginia in 1965.

Everyone had a place and stayed in it.  But the times were beginning to change…

In the 1960′s, the bus line ran near our house.  The corner of Brook Drive and Lansbury Drive was a major stop for the Maids.  Six or seven women would get off the bus around 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and walk back down there to go home around 6:00 or so.  Some of them wore their bedroom shoes to work as their feet were so tired and broken down from standing all day, all they could wear were scuffs.

Most of the White Ladies in Temple Terrace had maids.  They didn’t have jobs, but they had Maids.  I remember our “car pool” for Miss Touchstone’s Kindergarten, our Mothers would throw a London Fog all-weather coat over their pajamas to take us to “school” and only get dressed and made up around 4:30 before our Fathers came home from work.  I don’t know what they did in the meantime…

MORE:   Chapter 45: The Help | My Southern Gothic Life.

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December 7, 2010 · 11:28 pm

Elizabeth Edwards, Rest in Peace

Great Tribute from a reporter, Melinda Henneberger, who traveled with Elizabeth on the campaigns.

 

The most disarming, beloved and beleaguered woman in the American political arena died of cancer Tuesday, at age 61, at the Chapel Hill estate that Mary Elizabeth Anania Edwards once told me she’d built in part to compensate for the succession of modest homes she’d lived in as a Navy brat.

“From years of living in military housing, I like a big room,” the wife of then-presidential hopeful John Edwards said in an interview in front of her hotel lobby-sized Christmas tree three years ago. Because some of the bedrooms she’d had as a kid were so dinky you couldn’t fit the bed in and still close the door, “my dream was to turn in circles if you wanted to.” The 28,000-square-foot result was just one of the ambitions Elizabeth willed to life, brick by brick, along with a few heartfelt myths and the clear understanding that she did not want to be remembered as anybody’s cuckold, or some modern-day female Job.

Before their 16-year-old son Wade’s Jeep was blown off the road in a freak storm in 1996, John and Elizabeth “had the storybook life and the storybook marriage,” his former law partner David Kirby told me as Edwards was preparing for his second presidential run. But like most pre-Disney fairy tales, it also included some dark and confusing turns in the woods. On the campaign trail, Edwards’ favorite fallback phrase was “It’s not complicated!” — but the years they lived in public certainly were. For most of us, her story really only began on the worst day of her life, when the state troopers came to the door to say Wade had been killed and she promised herself that if her husband ever had to hear bad news again, it wouldn’t be from her. I’ve often wondered if any of what followed — his political career, the birth of their two younger children, her breast cancer, which was advanced even when she discovered an egg-sized lump six years ago, and his affair with Rielle Hunter, who bore him a daughter — would ever have happened if Wade had stopped for a Coke instead of being where he was, when he was.

Link to complete Article:  Elizabeth Edwards, Rest in Peace.

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December 7, 2010 · 9:11 pm

Elizabeth Edwards Op Ed – Bowling 1, Health Care 0 – NYTimes.com

Just to remember a phenomenal woman, I wanted to post this excerpt from an op ed Elizabeth Edwards wrote for the New York Times back in 2008.

She not only was the classier, more honest one in her marriage to John Edwards, I think she was the smartest one.

We were enriched to have her voice as part of the public debate.  She will be missed.

I’ll let her words speak again…

Here is the excerpt with a link to the full article at the bottom:

 

Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates’ priorities, policies and principles — information that voters will need to choose the next president — too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I’m not surprised.

Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

It is not a new phenomenon. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings — an important if painful part of our history — were televised, but by only one network, ABC. NBC and CBS covered a few minutes, snippets on the evening news, but continued to broadcast soap operas in order, I suspect, not to invite complaints from those whose days centered on the drama of “The Guiding Light.”

The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

via Op-Ed Contributor – Bowling 1, Health Care 0 – NYTimes.com.

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December 6, 2010 · 10:04 pm

Which Kind of Booze Is Best for the Planet? | Mother Jones

For all our environmentally concerned drinking friends….

Murder in Detroit, overworked immigration judges, bruisers-for-hire on Indian reservations: If you’ve been reading Mother Jones lately, you’re probably ready for a stiff drink. Not so fast! In terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, US booze manufacturers release the annual equivalent of 1.9 million households. How’s that for a buzzkill? The good news is that you have choices. Here are a few tips for drowning your sorrows sustainably.

WINE: Fruity bouquet? Tastes like pencil shavings? Environmentally speaking, none of that matters: According to a 2007 study (PDF) commissioned by the American Association of Wine Economists, the majority of wine’s carbon footprint comes from shipping. You can minimize your wine miles by using the handy map below. In short, New Yorkers should buy French, while Iowans are better off drinking California wines. If you’re concerned about water use, go for bubbly wines made with early-harvested grapes. TRY: French Rabbit wines. They come in recyclable Tetra Paks, which reduce packaging weight by 90 percent over bottles. For reasonably priced organic wines, try Frey Vineyards—if the map allows.

MORE:   Which Kind of Booze Is Best for the Planet? | Mother Jones.

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December 6, 2010 · 9:29 pm

Elizabeth Edwards gravely ill with cancer

Sad news….

WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Edwards is gravely ill and doctors have told her she only has weeks to live, according to a family friend who is among those who have gathered with Edwards at her North Carolina home.

The family issued a statement Monday that said doctors have told her that further treatment for her cancer would be unproductive, and the family friend further described Edwards’ condition to The Associated Press.

The friend said Edwards was briefly hospitalized last week and received treatment, but doctors have now told her that she may only have up to a couple months of life left. The friend spoke on condition of anonymity because of the personal details divulged.

Edwards’ estranged husband, former presidential candidate John Edwards, and their three children were at her side at the Chapel Hill home, the friend reported. Her sister, brother, nieces, nephews, former campaign advisers and other friends were also there. The friend said Elizabeth Edwards is not in pain and in good spirits despite the seriousness of her condition.

via Elizabeth Edwards gravely ill with cancer.

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December 5, 2010 · 3:03 pm

What Else Would $60 Billion Buy? – NYTimes.com

$60 Billion: The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year — which Congress seems on the verge of doing — will cost a year, in inflation-adjusted terms. On average, the affluent households that benefit from these cuts will save $25,000 annually. What else might that $60 billion a year buy?

•As much deficit reduction as the elimination of earmarks, President Obama’s proposed federal pay freeze, a 10 percent cut in the federal work force and a 50 percent cut in foreign aid — combined.

•A tripling of federal funding for medical research.

•Universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, with relatively small class sizes.

•A much larger troop surge in Afghanistan, raising spending by 60 percent from current levels.

•A national infrastructure program to repair and upgrade roads, bridges, mass transit, water systems and levees.

•A 15 percent cut in corporate taxes.

•Twice as much money for clean-energy research as suggested by a recent bipartisan plan.

•Free college, including room and board, for about half of all full-time students, at both four- and two-year colleges.

•A $500 tax cut for all households.

via What Else Would $60 Billion Buy? – NYTimes.com.

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December 5, 2010 · 3:02 pm

For ABC, a Win-Win With ‘Dancing With the Stars’ – NYTimes.com

Just like her Moma….one hard, tacky little wench…

ABC got everything it wanted out of its “Dancing With the Stars” finale Tuesday night: a huge audience, up about 25 percent from last year, and a winner that most of the show’s legion of fans will most likely feel is worthy.

Much of the success of this “Dancing” season was thanks to Bristol Palin — the daughter of the former governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin — whose run to the finals was widely chronicled and debated because of her generally lower scores from the show’s judges.

Ms. Palin, who was identified on the show as a “teen activist,” was eliminated Tuesday night, but not before she got a chance to perform two final dances and be a presence for most of the show’s two-hour duration.

With the show’s hosts acknowledging this was the “most talked about” season in the show’s history, there was little doubt that interest in Bristol Palin — both positive and negative — had helped the ratings. She stoked the heat surrounding the show this season by saying on several occasions that she was defying what she called “the haters” who were denigrating her performances because of what she said was dislike of her mother.

On the finale she made that point again, saying that winning would mean a lot and would be like “a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me.”

via For ABC, a Win-Win With ‘Dancing With the Stars’ – NYTimes.com.

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December 4, 2010 · 11:25 pm

AMERICAblog News: Krugman: Why people like ‘the Incredible Shrinking President’ don’t like Social Security

From Americablog.com

Another article that says just what I’m thinking…

With a nice nod to Digby, Paul Krugman makes an essential cultural point about Beltway opposition to Social Security — it’s all about class (my emphasis throughout):

[A] fair number of “centrist” Democrats – probably including the Incredible Shrinking President — seem willing, even eager, to join up with Republicans in cutting Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age. … The question you have to ask is, why are Democrats such suckers on this issue?

And why Social Security particularly, and not Medicare? For Krugman, the reason is revealing:

When medical expenses are big, they’re big; even the very affluent are grateful when Medicare pays the bills for their mother-in-laws bypass or dialysis. The importance of Medicare, in short, is obvious to all but the very rich.

Social Security, by contrast, is something that matters enormously to the bottom half of the income distribution, but no so much to people in the 250K-plus club. A 30 percent cut in benefits would represent disaster for tens of millions of Americans, but a barely noticeable inconvenience for VSPs [Very Serious People] and everyone they know. A rise in the retirement age would be a vast hardship for people who do manual labor, but if anything a gift to VSPs, who don’t want to step aside in any case. And so on down the line.

So going after Social Security is a way to seem tough and serious — but entirely at the expense of people you don’t know.

I’m calling this a cultural analysis because he’s talking about people who pick their targets based on their starting point. For example, some people want skate-boarders banned because they have brittle bones; others want the government to murder Julian Assange because they’re government-hating Teabagging freedom-lovers. It’s a function of your starting point.

The political analysis is equally simple, but it uses power as the dynamic — If you’re in the predator group, you get to eat the prey. It’s just a matter of feeding; no ill will intended.

via AMERICAblog News: Krugman: Why people like ‘the Incredible Shrinking President’ don’t like Social Security.

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December 4, 2010 · 11:22 pm

Social Security and the Democratic Party

I hope the President and the Democrats in Washington realize they are playing with fire here…

From Digby at Hullaboo.com…and I couldn’t agree more.

 

If they pursue this Social Security/Austerity business I think we’ll have a one term presidency (even, Gawd help us, if the Queen of the Arctic gets the nomination.) And I’m not sure that the Democratic Party won’t be permanently shattered.

I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it’s vitally, vitally important that the president understand that if he goes after Social Security, the Republicans will turn the argument on him just as they did with “death panels” and “pulling the plug on Grandma” and end up solidifying the senior vote for the foreseeable future and further alienate the Party from the liberal base. I know it makes no sense that Republicans would be able to cast themselves as the protectors of the elderly, but in case you haven’t been paying attention lately, politics doesn’t operate in a linear, rational fashion at the moment. After all, the Republicans just won an election almost entirely on the basis of saving Medicare.

via Hullabaloo.

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December 4, 2010 · 6:37 pm

Cleopatra’s Guide to Good Governance – NYTimes.com

I somehow think this is similar to how Hillary might have done it…

Great article on many levels…

Excerpt and link to full article at the bottom…

LET’S say you can’t readily lay your hands on “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun” or those of Winnie the Pooh. And let’s say the political mood around you is bleak; gridlock is the order of the day. Why not turn to a different management guru, a woman who left some 2,000-year-old teachable moments, each of them enduring and essential?

At 18, Cleopatra VII inherited the most lucrative enterprise in existence, the envy of her world. Everyone for miles around worked for her. Anything they grew or manufactured enriched her coffers. She had the administrative apparatus and the miles of paperwork to prove it.

From the moment she woke she wrangled with military and managerial decisions. The crush of state business consumed her day. Partisan interests threatened to trip her up at every turn; she observed enough court intrigue to make a Medici blush. To complicate matters, she was highly vulnerable to a hostile takeover. Oh, and she looked very little like the other statesmen with whom she did business.

Herewith her leadership secrets, a papyrus primer for modern-day Washington:

Obliterate your rivals. Co-opting the competition is good. Eliminating it is better. Cleopatra made quick work of her siblings, which sounds uncouth. As Plutarch noted, however, such behavior was axiomatic among sovereigns. It happened in the best of families.

The royal rules for dispensing with blood relatives were as inflexible as those of geometry. Cleopatra lost one brother in her civil war against him; allegedly poisoned a second; arranged the murder of her surviving sister. She thereafter reigned supreme.

Does this suggest by extension that a family business is a bad idea? It does.

Don’t confuse business with pleasure. The two have a chronic tendency to invade each other’s territory. But what were John Edwards, Mark Hurd, Mark Sanford and Eliot Spitzer thinking?

If you’re going to seduce someone, set your sights high. Cleopatra fell in with the most celebrated military commanders of her day, sequentially allying herself and producing children with her white knights, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. As she demonstrated, the idea is to kiss your way up the ladder. Along the same lines, there was an ancient world equivalent of the hire-an-assistant-of-whom-your-spouse-can’t-be-jealous wisdom. Cleopatra surrounded herself with eunuchs. They got into less trouble than did other aides, or at least different kinds of trouble.

Appearances count. As President Obama has learned and unlearned, theater works wonders. You may campaign in poetry, but you are wise to govern in pageantry. Deliver carnivals rather than tutorials; a little vulgarity goes a long way. Just wear the flag pin already.

More:   Cleopatra’s Guide to Good Governance – NYTimes.com.

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