Category Archives: Social Commentary

December 18, 2010 · 11:10 am

Here’s Why Eliot Spitzer Would Make a Good President

Good article from David Fagan at AOL News….

We really need to stop worrying about our politicians sex lives and worry about their effectiveness.  Eliot Spitzer was effective.  That’s why he was targeted…

Who cares if he’s also an arrogant hypocrite?  When you get right down to it, aren’t all politicians?

At least he had guts…I welcome him back to the fight.

Whatever you say about Eliot Spitzer, one thing is for certain: The man has chutzpah.

As New York’s attorney general, he went after the centuries-old boys’ club that said the banks and insurance companies were above the law. The club that said the little guy was always the loser and the big guy was good for early retirement at 35. The club that, just months after the governor’s scandal, collapsed for exactly the same reasons Spitzer was investigating them for. He went after the banks, corrupt insurance companies, mutual fund managers, record companies practicing payola and many others looking to cheat the system.

No one else in the history of New York state politics had the guts to go after these “masters of the universe” in such a direct and “in yer face” kind of way. And, as we’ve seen from Barack Obama’s ineffectiveness trying to play “BFF’s” with them, that’s the only way you can get their attention.

In the two and half years since the sex scandal that cost him the governor’s mansion, Spitzer has reappeared with a vengeance. He started small, with guest appearances on shows such as “Real Time With Bill Maher” and landing a gig on his own political talk show on CNN.

Some may never forgive Spitzer for what he did, but as far as I’m concerned, he paid a hefty price for his actions, both in public and in private, and, like all of us, he deserves a second chance. Especially if you consider the good he did to the bad that drove him from office.

He didn’t steal from the cookie jar. He didn’t molest little boys. He wasn’t on “the take.” In fact, just the opposite. He was so insistent on righteousness and virtue — strange concepts for a politician — that people took special umbrage when he violated them.

Was Spitzer a hypocrite? Of course. But, as we all know, “hypocrite” is just another word for “politician.” Show me a politician who isn’t two-faced and I’ll show you a private investigator who’ll change your mind with 8×10 glossies in a matter of days.

via Opinion: Here’s Why Eliot Spitzer Would Make a Good President.

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Filed under Politics, Social Commentary, Television

December 16, 2010 · 7:59 pm

Blogger’s year of mystery meat: School lunch every day – TODAY Health – TODAYshow.com

This stuff makes airline food sound good…

And kids have to eat this mess every day?

Blame it on the bagel dog.

If not for that sad excuse for an entree, the blogger known as Mrs. Q might never have gotten so disgusted with school lunches that she decided to show the world how bad they are. She never would have eaten, photographed and blogged about 160 elementary-school lunches — one per school day for the past year. She never would have attracted the attention of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and food activist Marian Nestle.

And Mrs. Q (who hides her identity to protect her job) might have gone on thinking that school lunch is “just food.” Instead, she told TODAYshow.com, “I have learned that food is personal, food is life, food is health.”

She has eaten more Salisbury steak and chicken nuggets than any adult should have to endure — and chronicled the culinary highs and lows on her blog, Fed Up With School Lunch. Her experience has pushed her into the spotlight, made her an activist, and totally transformed the way her family eats.

The fatal bagel dog

But back to that bagel dog: Mrs. Q, who works at a Chicago-area public school, forgot her lunch one day, so she bought the bagel dog at the cafeteria. She figured: How bad can it be?

Turns out: Really bad.

“It was this massive amount of dough covering a hot dog, plus tater tots and a fruit cup. And I thought, ‘This is it?’ ” Mrs. Q recalled.

She looked at her students, most of whom rely on government-subsidized free lunches at school. The bagel dog that turned her stomach would be, for many, the best meal of their day.

More:   Blogger’s year of mystery meat: School lunch every day – TODAY Health – TODAYshow.com.

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Filed under Education, Food, Health Care, Social Commentary

December 16, 2010 · 4:37 pm

Elizabeth Edwards: The link between who we are and who we could be | National | Independent Weekly

Great tribute from the Independent Weekly:

The day after she died, someone posted a newspaper article about Elizabeth Edwards on a progressive political blog and added this one-sentence introduction: “When all is said and done, she was one of us.”

Whatever “us” he had in mind, it seemed a perfect epitaph.

Was he thinking that she was a passionate advocate—and blogger—for social and economic justice? She was.

Was he thinking she was authentically, even brilliantly representative of the generation of Americans born after World War II? She was that, too.

Or he may have been thinking that the indomitable spirit with which she endured tragedy and continued to seek purpose in her life made her human in the fullest sense of the word. Because she was, millions of Americans—especially, but not exclusively, women—loved Elizabeth Edwards and mourned her passing last week.

It’s easy to see that Elizabeth and her husband, John Edwards, reached for the political heavens, and they came to grief. The Greeks would understand. But if this was hubris, surely it was more the gods’ fault than hers, or even his. After the death of their son, in a nation and world yearning for uplift, was it arrogant to think they were called to serve their country? Say instead that it was audacious and that Elizabeth’s efforts were, as the Edwards’ longtime friend Glenn Bergenfield said at her memorial service, never fueled by ego but rather by duty—and a sense that it was time someone of her generation tried for greatness.

 

MORE:   Elizabeth Edwards: The link between who we are and who we could be | National | Independent Weekly.

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Filed under Health Care, History, North Carolina, Politics, Social Commentary, Style

December 16, 2010 · 4:33 pm

Winona Ryder On Mel Gibson, In GQ: ‘He’s Anti-Semitic And He’s Homophobic’ (PHOTOS)

From Huffingtonpost.com

This guy has some serious issues…

Winona Ryder, featured in the latest issue of GQ, talks about her long past in Hollywood — and her horrifying run-in with Mel Gibson. She claims that she knew of the star’s alleged intolerance far before anyone else.

“I remember, like, fifteen years ago, I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk,” she recalls to the magazine. I was with my friend, who’s gay. He made a really horrible gay joke. And somehow it came up that I was Jewish. He said something about ‘oven dodgers,’ but I didn’t get it.

“I’d never heard that before,” Ryder continues. It was just this weird, weird moment. I was like, ‘He’s anti-Semitic and he’s homophobic.’ No one believed me!”

Since, Gibson has been derided for multiple racist diatribes, and is now suffering a very public anger meltdown.

via Winona Ryder On Mel Gibson, In GQ: ‘He’s Anti-Semitic And He’s Homophobic’ (PHOTOS).

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Filed under Entertainment, Movies, Social Commentary

December 16, 2010 · 4:29 pm

AMERICAblog News: Broadband Prices Falling Everywhere but the U.S.

From Chris in Paris at Americablog:

Whatever happened to Democrats that fight for the middle class? We must be fools to support a party that supports this garbage.

A new study suggests that the United States could do better when it comes to home ISP prices. The Technology Policy Institute’s latest survey of the global high speed Internet market finds that US residential broadband subscription rates have “remained fairly stable” over the last three years, rising by just two percent.

That’s good, of course, since they didn’t go way up. But residential broadband prices have fallen in most other countries, the paper notes—in some instances by as much as 40 percent.

The survey also found that prices in the United States for “triple play” plans are some of the most expensive among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations.

As a reminder, we pay €35/month for a 100MB fiber optic connection that also includes unlimited phone calls around the world plus TV channels. Even with the lousy exchange rate (which makes makes many countries look closer to the US) it’s a deal. What a scam.

via AMERICAblog News.

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Filed under Media, Politics, Social Commentary

December 15, 2010 · 9:10 pm

Hoyer: Senate Has Votes Needed To Repeal DADT

I’m hopeful, but will believe it when I see it…

Lieberman and Collins are not exactly the most trustworthy folks in the Senate…

Still, this should happen.  The polls show almost 80% of American’s support repeal.  But that never matters to Republicans…

The Senate has enough votes to pass a standalone repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has been told by Senate counterparts, he said in an interview with HuffPost Wednesday evening after the House approved its own version of the bill.

Hoyer said that he’s been working closely with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the leading reform advocates in the Senate, and that he suggested last week to Lieberman that the House move first.

“Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins determined that they would introduce a bill,” said Hoyer. “I called and talked to a number of people. I then called Senator Lieberman and said ‘Joe, my intent will be to talk to Congressman Murphy’ — who’s the sponsor of the amendment that was adopted in the defense bill — ‘and put this in as a free standing bill, because we can probably send it over to you more quickly than you can send to us.’ And he agreed and we introduced exactly the same bill that they have in the Senate.”

via Hoyer: Senate Has Votes Needed To Repeal DADT.

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Filed under Gay, History, Politics, Social Commentary

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.

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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.

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Filed under Education, Politics, Social Commentary

December 12, 2010 · 5:13 pm

“The Eight Reindeer Monologues”

If you are looking for some great, irreverent Holiday fun, I strongly suggest “The Eight Reindeer Monologues”, a play by Jeff Goode, at The Broach Theatre here in Greensboro, NC.

I don’t want to give away too much information, but let’s just say Santa may be guilty of sex crimes, Mrs Claus has a bit of a drinking problem and the reindeer have much more distinctive personalities than you may have suspected.

Excellent performances from all four actors-Jordan Hayes, Camilla Millican and especially stellar work from Lee Strickland and Tal Fish.

Go see it…It runs through December 18th.  More information at www.broachtheatre.org.

You’ll never think of Santa and Rudolph the same way again..

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Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Greensboro, Holidays, North Carolina, Social Commentary, Style

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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.

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