Moline Democratic Maverick

What lessons should be taken from Nativity story?

2009-12-27T08:00:00.001-06:00

In this morning's Moline Dispatch newspaper columnist Scott Reeder opines that the National Association of Latino Elected Officials must not know the Bible as well as he does. The group is trying to encourage immigrants to participate in the 2010 census and are distributing posters to evangelical churches serving immigrants that say

Joseph and Mary Participated in the Census, Don't be afraid.

Mr. Reeder feels that only someone with knowledge of the Bible inferior to his own would suggest such a thing.

Let's recap the Bible story.
Joseph took a very pregnant Mary on a 120-mile journey to Bethlehem to register for the census because an evil emperor named Caesar Augustus didn't give his subjects a choice. He wanted to count them so he could tax them.
His underling, King Herod, was so angry about Christ's birth that he ordered all the boys under the age of 2 in Bethlehem murdered. Mary and Joesph along with the baby Jesus were forced to flee across the border to Egypt and hide.
And this Bible story is supposed to encourage new immigrants to trust their government and participate in the Census?

Someone needs to brush up on their Bible.

Mr. Reeder seems to think that the only lesson this story offers is that immigrants should fear the government and that participating in the census will put them in danger. But in this story the immigrant child whose parents were participating in the census was kept safe by the forces of good in the world. Most likely almost all the children killed in the Slaughter of the Innocents were not new immigrants but were natives of Bethlehem whose families had been there for generations.

Just who has either not understood this story or twisted its meaning to support political goals -- the group of Latino politicians or Mr. Reeder?

A Mavericky Thanksgiving Day Message

2009-11-27T09:01:00.006-06:00

A few days ago I asked my father if he shared my growing suspicion that my generation (those of us born after World War II) had really made a mess of things once we got in charge. My father was born in 1923, was 6 years old when the stock market crashed, grew up during the Great Depression and had just started college when the United States declared war on Japan. People of his generation were running the country until around 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected President. My impression was that life had been steadily getting better for most Americans all during the period his generation was in charge and that trend had started to reverse right around the time my generation took over. Was that, I asked him, how he saw it.

No, he said. What really impressed him about the last 20 years was the progress that had been made in regard to race. His generation, he felt, had been an impediment to progress in many ways in racial issues and apparently had to pass from the scene before fundamental progress could be made toward a truly color-blind society.

So that will be my Thanksgiving Day message. I am not sure where our country is going but we are going there more united, at least in terms of race, gender and sexual orientation, than we ever have been before, and for that we should give thanks.

Imaginary dangers

2009-11-21T07:33:00.005-06:00

Apparently another way in which conservatives in this country differ from the rest of us is in what they worry about. Here is Congressman John Shadegg, Republican of Arizona, (who had a few days earlier brought a staffer's 7 month old daughter on the House floor with him to use as a prop for a speech) reacting to New York Mayor Bloomberg:

I saw the Mayor of New York said today, "We're tough. We can do it." Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok. Link

Terrorists kidnapping children as part of a raid to free jailed comrades? It sounds like a movie plot. When has Al Qaeda or any other real-life Muslim terrorist group operated like that? Al Qaeda targets are always ones that have resonance with the victims of American imperialism -- U.S. battleships and embassies, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the White House or the Capitol. Although most Muslims around the world oppose acts of terrorist violence they do understand and have some sympathy with the message sent by attacking those targets. What message would be sent by targeting children and who would have sympathy with that message? Americans who worry that terrorist will target the Statue of Liberty, football stadiums or the children of mayors or prison wardens are reacting to terrorist they have dreamed up or seen in movies, not the real-life enemies we actually face.

The more clearly we see a potential danger the more effective we can be in preventing it. Worrying about imaginary dangers is total ineffective in keeping us safe, especially if it causes the warning signs of real dangers to be missed. (Remember President Bush blowing off warnings about Al Qaeda before 9/11 or Katrina before it hit.) I am glad we now have leaders on the national level who appear to be knowledgeable realists with their eyes squarely focused on the world as it exists.

Across the Borderline

2009-11-20T07:23:00.002-06:00

Here is a video of the late Willy deVille singing Ry Cooder's song "Across the Borderline." (You may have heard other covers of the song by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Freddy Fender or others.)

Listening to the lyrics makes me realize how deeply American it is for someone to cross the Rio Grande seeking a better life. ... How wierd that some of us, rather than identifying with the immigrants, see them as "the other" and a threat.

Do Conservatives fear the attractiveness of fundamentalist Islam?

2009-11-15T08:12:00.006-06:00

Some Conservatives are worried (see here and here) about the world getting a chance to hear what anti-American terrorists have to say. Here is CNN's Wolf Blitzer giving voice to some of those concerns:

One of the arguments against this decision is that it will give these five detainees, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and these four others, a platform, if you will. They will express their Jihadist views. In the process, they will be able to recruit more followers.

Why would Conservatives fear the world hearing what these terrorist defendants have to say? It is almost as if these Conservatives find fundamentalist Islam's ideas, commitment, moral certainty and absolutism more attractive in some respects than the traditional American ideals of democracy, freedom, diversity, choice and the rule of law. Why else would they so fear that when the world hears these ideas they will be seduced into anti-American terrorism? They must not believe that demonstrating our commitment to fair trials, rule of law and justice by publicly giving these criminals their day in court will be seen by the world as more attractive and admirable than terrorist rhetoric. I am starting to suspect that some Conservatives really don't like America very much.

The very "serious" David Brooks

2009-11-10T07:16:00.007-06:00

David Brooks' column in this morning's New York Times highlights a key difference between Conservatives and Liberals.

When Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did that in Fort Hood, Tex., last week, many Americans had an understandable and, in some ways, admirable reaction. They didn’t want the horror to become a pretext for anti-Muslim bigotry.
So immediately the coverage took on a certain cast. The possibility of Islamic extremism was immediately played down. This was an isolated personal breakdown, not an ideological assault, many people emphasized.
...
The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.
It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

David Brooks sees viewing Marjor Hasan's murderous rampage as part of a global battle between us and Islam as realistic and "serious," but how realistic, serious and mature is that way of viewing the world? It is particularly troubling that he says the struggle is with Islam itself and not "extremist Islam" or "fundamentalist Islam." Furthermore what course of action does the Conservative view suggest? Measures to reduce the psychological stress on our military of multiple deployments, a course of action suggested by the main-stream way of viewing the tragedy, would be a useless diversion from the fundamental problem according to the Conservatives. It is hard to see how anything other than taking military action against someone or something would be effective when the world is seen in David Brooks' "serious" way.

Update An email I just got from a local conservative alerts me that my sentence structure in the above may have been a little convoluted, making my meaning less than clear, at least to some people. I am very anti-war. I think all the troops should be brought home immediately. The problem with the Conservatives like David Brooks and those who think like him is that viewing the killings at Fort Hood as being part of a global struggle against Islam (rather than viewing it as what happens when soldiers are placed under too much stress) leaves them their only option for trying to do something to prevent a reoccurance is attacking someone or something militarily -- which I think is a horrible idea. Is that clearer?

If that is "political correctness" we need more of it.

2009-11-08T07:03:00.007-06:00

I think it may be time for people of good will, who believe in treating people the way that we would like to be treated, to embrace the "political correctness" label.

Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly has taken aim at the Town of Kent [Connecticut] for refusing to grant a local man's wish that a town memorial to his son [paid for with public funds], who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, should read: "Murdered by Muslim Terrorists."
In his evening television program Thursday, O'Reilly said he supported Peter Gadiel's request for such an inscription in the face of refusal by Kent's Town Hall. He labeled as "political correctness" remarks by First Selectman Ruth S. Epstein that such wording would disparage an ethnic group and would be "against everything that we stand for here."
Read entire article

There are millions of American Muslims, most of whom think of their religion as one of peace, and they are sincere about that. They are not the enemy and it would be profoundly misguided to treat them as though they were. It would be a tactical mistake to define as enemies people who otherwise would be our allies -- if you are in a battle you want as many people on your side as possible.

It would also be wrong on moral and ethical grounds. We should treat people the way we would like to be treated. How would you feel if someone disparaged your religion or ethnicity because of the bad actions of a few individuals? We didn't start talking about "Christian terrorists" after any the terrorist attacks carried out by white Americans, such as the anthrax attacks or Oklahoma City bombing.

If it is "political correctness" to treat people the way we would like to be treated and to not define as enemies people who would otherwise be on our side then we should all seek to be more "politically correct."

Exercising Political Correctness

2009-11-07T14:06:00.005-06:00

Yesterday on Fox Friends, Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson were wondering if it was time for the military to start treating Muslim-American soldiers as potential terrorists simply because they are Muslims.

Kilmeade:

Do you think it’s time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers — anybody enlisted? Because if I'm going to be in a foxhole, if I'm gonna be stuck in an outpost, I've gotta know the guy next to me is not gonna wanna kill me.

Carlson:

I want to ask this question another way. Could it be that the military, because our society -- let's face it, our society has become very politically correct -- could it be that the military was also exercising political correctness, even though [Major Hasan] had a poor performance report, and even though he spoke openly about being a radical Muslim, and had those supposed postings online, could it be that the military was exercising political correctness in not approaching him as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim? link

Did the people at Fox News call for special debriefings of all Christian soldiers of European descent to prove they were not terrorists after Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City? Well not so much. Not only did they not think that terrorist acts by white Christians should prompt special suspicion of all white Christians as potential terrorists but when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report to law enforcement warning of the danger posed by right-wing extremist groups conservatives were outraged at the perceived insult to all people with right-wing views. Republican Newt Gingrich tweeted:

The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired.

If Newt considered it an outrageous smear and insult to all veterans and conservatives to simply warn law enforcement that right-wing extremist groups might try to recruit returning veterans what would he think of the suggestion that all Christian veterans with right-wing views be debriefed to determine how much of a threat they might be? I suspect he would not label a failure to do that as an excess of political correctness.

You may be a racist if...

2009-11-03T07:11:00.004-06:00

A few years back Jeff Foxworthy was striking comedy gold by alerting people to the warning signs that they may be a redneck. Two of my favorites: You may be a redneck if you have more than one major appliance on your front porch. You may be a redneck if your house is mobile but your truck isn't. These warning signs were necessary because people are a lot more likely to recognize redneckism in others than in themselves.

I was reminded that the same was true of racism by this amazing statement on the Christwire website:

I am extremely terrified of Chinese people, but I am not racist. You should feel the same way too.
See entire article

No evidence is offered for why the Chinese might be doing all the terrible things the author imagines other than that they are not Christians. A purer expression of racism is hard to imagine. But that got me thinking that I should give people warning signs that they may be racists.

You may be a racist if you suspect an entire nationality of people of plotting terrible disasters simply because they are not like you.

You may be a racist if you think the Obama family has any less right to live in the White House than previous first families.

You may be a racist if you demand more proof that Barack Obama is a citizen than anyone ever asked of previous presidents.

You may be a racist if you think bi-racial children aren't "accepted."

You may be a racist if you think immigrants today are assimilating more slowly than your ancestors did.

That's all I have time for now, I have to go to work. If you can think of more put them in the comments.

What you deserve

2009-10-31T05:19:00.005-05:00

I was just reading an online article about people who are in debt even though they make more than enough money to live comfortably.

"Mark," a 41-year-old executive who makes a six-figure salary but fell into debt because he doesn't believe in self-sacrifice: "I have a sort of moralistic self-righteousness that I deserve good things," he says. "And because I'm surrounded by luxury all day, I know what's good quality and what isn't."

My advice is to not listen to any voice, internal or external, that says you "deserve" luxury consumer goods. That is the voice of someone or something which does not have your best interests at heart. Hit the mute button, make the sign of the cross, say "Get thee behind me Satan" -- whatever works for you.

Mexican Day of the Dead, Sunday Nov. 1, 2009

2009-10-28T22:00:00.003-05:00

This year the Putnam Museum is the place to celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead in the Quad Cities! [Click on the image below to see it full sized.]

Why fund war with debt but insist that health-care reform be deficit-neutral?

2009-10-24T08:19:00.006-05:00

The Washington Post responded in today's paper to a reader who pointed out an apparent contradiction: the editors insist that health care reform not increase the debt but call for escalation of the number of our troops in Afghanistan without any plan to pay for it other than borrowing money from China and Japan. "Why fund war with debt but insist that health-care reform be deficit-neutral?" This was part of their answer:

Universal health care, however desirable, is not "fundamental to the defense of our people." Nor is it a "necessity" that it be adopted this year: Mr. Obama chose to propose a massive new entitlement at a time of historic budget deficits. In contrast, Gen. McChrystal believes that if reinforcements are not sent to Afghanistan in the next year, the war may be lost, with catastrophic consequences for U.S. interests in South Asia. U.S. soldiers would continue to die, without the prospect of defeating the Taliban. And, as Mr. Obama put it, "if left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

The disconnect between the interests and priorities of the Washington elite, as exemplified by the editorial board of the Washington Post, and those of most Americans could not have been revealed more clearly. This was obviously written by someone whose health care (and the health care of everyone near and dear to them) is absolutely guaranteed. This is in sharp contrast to the situation of most Americans who worry that they, or someone close to them, have no health insurance or could lose it, perhaps as a result of being laid off, and be unable to obtain an new policy, either because of a "preexisting condition" or because they could not afford it. For most Americans outside the Washington beltway this is much more of a "necessity" than the need to wage unending war in Asia.

Louisiana judge thinks biracial children are to be pitied

2009-10-18T18:13:00.004-05:00

nathan_nora_portrait, originally uploaded by dvdbarrett.

When I read that a Louisiana judge had refused to issue a marriage license to a biracial couple out of concern that "most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society" it brought back memories. About 20 years ago I informed the people I worked with that after 10 years of trying my wife and I were going to have a baby. We were adopting and we had opted for a biracial child after being told that the wait time would just be weeks but for any other category of child it would be years. The senior member of my work team told me he thought biracial children were to be pitied using almost the same words as the Louisiana judge. There were nods of agreement with this opinion all around -- it seemed to be the consensus opinion. Later 2 women (out of the 60 people who worked there) each told me privately that they disagreed - they thought biracial children were beautiful.
Once we got our baby boy and a year later a girl we discovered that "I think your child/children is/are beautiful" was a kind of code phrase of support for white parents with biracial children that we would occasionally get from strangers in public. It would have never occurred to us that our children were anything other than beautiful, even if no one else had told us that, but it was nice to occasionally have it confirmed.
Judging from the almost universal condemnation of the Louisiana judge's opinions on this, public opinion on biracial children has really shifted in the last 20 years. But how could it be otherwise. Above is a 16 year old picture of my children. How could anyone think they were anything other than beautiful?

Why was gambling illegal?

2009-10-17T15:50:00.008-05:00

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s all forms of gambling were illegal in this country (except in Nevada) and had been as long as anyone then alive could remember. My grandfather, who was born in 1890, talked about what life was like at the turn of the century and although in some respects the country was very different then the illegality of all gambling was exactly the same.

When I recently read a book in which it was mentioned in passing how this situation came about I was surprised. Before reading about the history of this I would have guessed that the banning of gambling had a basis in Puritan morality, similar to the prohibition of alcohol. When I solicited my Facebook friends for their guesses when and why gambling had become illegal my sister-in-law also assumed that banning gambling had been similar to the prohibition of alcohol -- she guessed it must have come about after women's suffrage and as a result of a campaign to prevent men with wives and children from gambling away money needed by their families. My nephew guessed, again like Prohibition, the ban had arisen primarily as a result of anti-immigrant xenophobia.

It turns out that the national ban on all forms of legal gambling from 1892 to 1965 had arisen in order to stop bribes to and corruption of elected official by the legal state lottery of Louisiana which had so corrupted the state government that national legislation was needed to end it. By this time most other states had already made lotteries and other forms of gambling illegal and these local bans had come about in various contexts and motivated by various concerns besides corruption, including morality, efforts to protect wives and children, anti-immigrant feelings, etc. (although since this was the 19th century these bans were passed without the votes of women). But there is little debate among historians about the basis of the national ban being the need to protect our democratic governments from the corrupting influences of legal gambling revenues.

According to Roger Dunstan in "Gambling in California"

Following a long national tradition, the South turned to lotteries to generate revenue to rebuild the war-ravaged region. The Louisiana lottery was the most notable because of its unseemly end. In 1868, the Louisiana Lottery Company was authorized and granted a 25-year charter. A carpetbagger criminal syndicate from New York bribed the Legislature into passing the lottery law and establishing the syndicate as the sole lottery provider. The Louisiana Lottery was an interstate venture with over 90% of the company's revenue coming from outside Louisiana. This lottery was a prolific money maker. Attempts to repeal the 25-year charter were defeated with assistance of bribes to legislators.
... The Louisiana Lottery survived until Congress enacted a prohibition against moving lottery tickets across state lines by any method. This act led to the abolition of the Louisiana Lottery in 1895. When the lottery was disbanded, it was discovered that promoters had made huge sums of ill-gotten gains. The Legislature was riven with accusations of bribery. By the end of the century, thirty-five states, including California, had in their constitutions prohibitions against lotteries and no state permitted the operation of lotteries.

An article titled "19th Century Gambling as it Flourished in America" at www.macauonnet.com agrees:

In 1868, Louisiana established a lottery that lasted for twenty-five years amid recurring scandals. Anti-lottery sentiment developed again in the waning decades of the nineteenth century, fueled to a significant degree by the scandals surrounding the Louisiana lottery.

"Gambling politics: state government and the business of betting" by Patrick Alan Pierce and Donald E. Miller tells the same story, with some additional detail:

The Louisiana lottery, with its history of bribery, graft, corruption, and dishonesty, represets a fitting end to a storied history of the American lottery, an institution which for years was the backbone of economic development of a new nation. ...Given the lottery's support by Louisiana politicians and citizens, only federal government intervention could stop the corrupt operation of the Louisiana lottery. A series of antilottery laws accomplished this goal. These antilottery laws included an 1827 law that prohibited postmasters from acting as lottery agents, an 1868 act that banned lottery materials from the mails but had no enforcement provisions, and an 1890 act that added enforcement provisions. The final necessary and most effective act, in 1892, prohibited interstate transportation of lottery materials. With its market essentially restricted to the state of Lousiana, the lottery eventually died three years later. Fallout from the scandals of this lottery as well as national public opinion on gambling were so negative that by the turn of the century no states permitted the operation of lotteries.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Are our state legislatures today less susceptible to being corrupted by legal gambling industry money than their 19th Century counterparts? I know of no reason to suppose that they are. The only difference between now and then is that in 1890 the newspapers in New York and Chicago which were publishing articles alerting the country to corruption in Louisiana were not owned by corporations receiving gambling profits. Perhaps the only reason we are not reading stories about the corrupting influence of legal gambling today is that the small number of large corporations which control most of the media also have a financial interest in gambling remaining legal.

Local town names echos of empires

2009-10-12T06:53:00.004-05:00

In his newspaper column in today's Moline Dispatch, Greg Aguilar reminds of how the Quad Cities area towns of Andalusia and Cordova got their names.

Many people don't realize this fact, but the Spanish Empire reached the state of Iowa and a small piece of Illinois. Some of our area cities share their name with cities of Spain like Andalusia and Cordova. It is kind of funny that at one point in our history, Spanish was the official language of the Quad-Cities.
Read the entire article.

Since this is Columbus Day I thought it would be appropriate to also reflect on how the nearby town of Milan got its name during the brief period when this area was part of the Italian empire. The large number of pizza parlors in the Quad Cities are also a legacy of this period. If you know where to look you can still find reminders of a time when all public institutions had Italian names. In the back of the prison in East Moline there is a place where you can see written in large letters on the ground the former name of the old East Moline State Hospital, 'Ospedale psichiatrico di Watertown.'

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it!

2009-10-10T11:07:00.002-05:00

Michael Moore's response to President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it!

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of our War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down.

President Obama's Call to Action

2009-10-10T10:44:00.003-05:00

President Obama sent the following message to all those on his e-mail list yesterday.

A Call to Action

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Brick street becomes a hazard

2009-08-29T08:32:00.005-05:00

People like the brick streets in the part of Moline where I live but some of them are getting difficult to drive on. 18th Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets got so bad this spring it was damaging the undersides of cars and had to be completely rebuilt -- the bricks removed, the road bed redone and the bricks relaid in a month-long labor-intensive project that I heard people in City Hall referring to as "extremely expensive." Now a portion of 18th Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets is starting to buckle up in the same way.

Wavy Street

Will another "extremely expensive" project be necessary?

Professor Gate's "disorderly conduct"

2009-07-25T10:34:00.002-05:00

After reading what blogger digby had to say I could not think of anything to add.

Pat Buchanan on undeserving Latinos

2009-07-18T06:42:00.004-05:00

When Pat Buchanan was on the Rachel Maddow show the other night he claimed that Sotomayor was an intellectual lightweight not qualified to be on the Supreme Court who had gotten where she was through affirmative action. Remember, he was talking about a woman who:

Coming from a housing project in the Bronx, Sotomayor ended up graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton. She also was a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. Sotomayor then went to Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. [the Think Progress blog]

Of course, there is no reason to believe that I am aware of that affirmative action had any role to play at Princeton or Yale in anything other than admissions. Buchanan offers no evidence that Sotomayor was not deserving of her educational achievements other than the fact that she is a minority. If graduating summa cum laude does not prove that you deserved to be there, even though you were admitted through affirmative action, what would? Obviously no level of achievement, no amount of ability and hard work, would be enough.

To black and Hispanic voters the message in this is clear, insofar as Pat Buchanan defines the Republican Party, a Republican administration would be one that thinks that minorities are undeserving per se, just because they are minorities. It is amazing to me that Republican elected officials and Republicans who aspire to be elected seem to be unwilling or unable to counter the damage that racists Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh are doing to the Republican brand.

White male Republican Senators worry about racism and sexism

2009-07-16T06:22:00.004-05:00

The white male Republican Senators have had a lot to say about racism and sexism during the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor. Apparently they think the only remaining bias in this country is reverse racism by minorities against whites and sexism by woman against men. Listen to Senator Lindsey Graham pretend that Sotomayor had claimed that Latino women always make wiser decisions than white men (something she did not say):

This wise Latino comment has been talked about a lot. But I can just tell you one thing: If I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over.

Graham and the other Republican Senators have been lecturing Sotomayor that this wise Latina comment which she made in several speeches makes them worry she will bring bias to her interpretation of the Constitution. In response to that my brother Dan from Rockford wrote:

The GOP senators questioning Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor are being very disingenuous or else they haven’t the grasp of history that one would expect of a United States Senator. To make any sense of the line of questioning these Senators are pursuing, we must, like them, accept that men from a strictly Western European heritage have a neutral perspective. These senators must believe, or pretend to believe, that all other groups—all women and any man with a “minority” family background—have a clouded view or perspective of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Our Founding Fathers, who were only those men in this country coming form a Western European background, believed that Native Americans, Mexican Americans. African Americans, all women, and the Irish were mentally inferior to white men and thus created laws reflecting their belief. We now know that no group is mentally inferior to any other, yet our Founding Fathers had such a cultural prejudice that they could not see the obvious. They could not understand, for example, that women did indeed have the mental ability to deal with business, higher education, and politics. These Founding Fathers made laws and judicial decisions that a girl had no legal status separate from her father as she grew up and no rights or legal status separate from her husband after she married. If a woman’s husband died, she was under the “protection” of her son if he was of age. If a woman’s husband abused her and her children and she was forced to flee, she took only the clothes she was wearing. All the money she had earned during her marriage, all of her household, and her children belonged to her husband and she could not take any of that away.
The winning of civil and political rights by each of these persecuted groups has been DIRECTLY related and proportional to each group’s involvement in public discourse, voting, political representation, and membership in the judiciary. These GOP senators, therefore, must be ignorant or dishonest to claim that men from a Western European heritage have the ideal or unimpaired perspective of our Constitution.
That is, of course, unless these GOP senators are TRULY CONSERVATIVE and believe that we should fall back to historic beliefs that would take away from women, racial groups, and the Irish their right to vote and enjoy equal protection under the laws of the land.

Turning local police into immigration enforcers

2009-07-13T05:30:00.005-05:00

An editorial in today's New York Times opposes the policies announced by the Department of Homeland Security last week "expanding its 287(g) program, which enlists local law-enforcement agencies to hunt illegal immigrants.

...many responsible police chiefs and sheriffs have stoutly opposed having immigration duties outsourced to them. The Police Foundation, a nonprofit research group, declared in a study in April that the costs of 287(g) outweigh the benefits, not just because it strains budgets, but also because it undermines community policing, which relies heavily on building trust among those the officers serve and protect.
Turning local cops into immigration enforcers makes racial profiling more likely while sending a chill through immigrant neighborhoods, where victims fear and avoid the police and crimes go unsolved for lack of witnesses. As a police chief in the report said: “How can you police a community that will not talk to you?”
Read the entire editorial.

This is a concern that some immigrant advocacy groups in the Illinois Quad Cities have been expressing in informal dialog with city officials and police. There has been an apparent upsurge of local cases in which immigrants have been arrested and taken to jail for traffic offenses, such as driving without a license, which in the past would have resulted in only a ticket and court summons. Then instead of being released after serving their time they have been held indefinitely for I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as felons because of technicalities such as 3 misdomenors (even minor traffic offenses committed while driving to and from work) are a felony or using a false papers to get a job is felony identity theft even though the person whose identity has been "stolen" has not been negatively impacted whatsoever.

The New York Times is absolutely right about this. Turning local police into immigration agents is a bad idea.

One of the "worst of the worst"

2009-07-09T11:33:00.003-05:00

(Photo by Nancy A. Youssef / MCT)

Check out this wonderful piece of journalism by Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy. An Afghanistan tribal elder, Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil, was detained by U.S. forces in August 2002 after attending a meeting with an American commander at U.S. military base near his home in Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo and imprisoned there for 6 years, including the years 2007 and 2008 when government officials were assuring us that the remaining prisoners were the "worst of the worst." After he was released his name was included in a leaked list of 74 former Guantanamo prisoners "who've returned to or are suspected of returning to terrorism after their release" even though he leads a very public and open life as a respected tribal elder, has a reputation for being anti-Taliban and regularly meeting with Afghanistan government officials advocating for the needs of his home province.

Look who is # 1!

2009-07-09T11:21:00.002-05:00

In a possible sign that my opinions are becoming more mainstream a new website named Mediaite, in its rankings of the most influential print/online columnists, ranked two of my favorites in the top 10. Paul Krugman is #1 and Glenn Greenwald #10.

Congressman Hare Pledges Support for Public Option

2009-07-07T16:43:00.002-05:00

At least seven House Democrats have pledged not to support any health care bill that does not include a public option. One of them is our own Congressman Phil Hare. As he explains in this video a bill without a public option is "like a car without a motor."

Showing dignity, reticence and restraint in public

2009-07-07T06:13:00.003-05:00

I often disagree with Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks but I think he hit a home run with today's column. The subject was the personal dignity and reticence shown by most of this country's early leaders and politicians, epitomized by George Washington.

The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.

Brooks laments that that this code no longer exists and that we now only see the qualities of dignity and personal restraint among those who exhibit a natural dignity, apparently a rare trait. As examples Brooks mentions Joe DiMaggio, Tom Landry, Lauren Bacall, Tom Hanks, Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr.

The three big news stories of the last few weeks feature people totally lacking in the qualities of dignity, reticence and restraint -- Mark Sanford and Michael Jackson and someone aspiring to high office "unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust" -- Sarah Palin.

But Brooks ends the column on a positive note.

But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.

That an avowed Conservative should praise Obama's character and leadership should not surprise anyone and will only come as a shock to those who have fallen for the big lie promulgated by so many right-wing hacks that Obama is some sort of left-wing radical. The truth is that he is the opposite of an extremist or radical, exemplifying true Conservative values that people all along the political spectrum can and should admire. I keep waiting, so far in vain, for true Conservatives to rise of and reclaim their political philosophy from the bunch of radicals who have hijacked it. Perhaps this column is the opening salvo in that war.

Undemocratic Elitists?

2009-07-06T17:35:00.004-05:00

Has someone revealed themselves to be an undemocratic elitist when they expect the people selected to lead this country to be among the best and brightest, to have demonstrated competence and achievement? That is the dubious proposition advanced by Ross Douthat in his column in today's New York Times.

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

If Douthat was talking about someone other than Sarah Palin and was arguing that someone could be smart, knowledgeable, accomplished and competent without attending an elite school at least he would have an arguable point. But since it is Sarah Palin he must be claiming that someone can be a "great success" without being smart, knowledgeable, accomplish and competent. And if you doubt that he says you are an undemocratic elitist!

Putin stands up for the Russian people. Who will stand up for us?

2009-06-29T06:18:00.003-05:00

An article in today's New York Times informs us (I didn't see any mention of it in the local papers) that the Russian government is closing every legal gambling establishment in the country.

One of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history is to occur on Wednesday, and the Kremlin itself is decreeing it, economic crisis or not.
The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor across the land, under an antivice [sic] plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin that just a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched. But the result will be hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work.

If you read the entire article you may have been amazed as I was that the focus is almost entirely on the downside of decision -- the loss of jobs. There was little attempt at balance or explanation of the upside of this decision other than a mention of organized crime and a concession that:

The gambling industry here does not have the loftiest of reputations, and many Russians will not grieve for it.

This obvious deficiency and lack of fairness and balance in the reporting probably does not leave most readers here in Illinois and Iowa totally in the dark about what might be causing the Russian people to make this move. Unfortunately we are all too well aware of the kinds of problems legalized gambling causes -- lives ruined by gambling addiction, increases in other vices such as prostitution and loan-sharking, increases in the number of instances of embezzlement perpetrated by people who had been upstanding law-abiding citizens before the casinos came, the loss of more wholesome, locally-owned entertainment businesses unable to compete with the organized gambling giant corporations who send the profits far away.

The slant the article takes does give an indication how difficult it would be to reverse the trend toward more legalized gambling with incrementally decreasing restrictions occurring in this country. The very serious people in the news media would inform us that restricting gambling in this country would be unthinkable. We will just have to endure all the problems that gambling causes. Anyone who suggests otherwise is just not being serious.

Rummage Sale Today!

2009-06-06T06:26:00.000-05:00

MEGA RUMMAGE SALE

Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009

A fundraiser for

Come and Buy!

St. Mary’s Gymnasium

412 – 10th Street

Moline, IL 61265

· Furniture

· Kitchen items

· Toys—gently used

· Clothing, Accessories, Jewelry

· Tools

· Crafts

Time: 8 a.m. to 3p.m.

Are Americans who attend church at greater risk?

2009-06-01T06:24:00.004-05:00

A great deal has been written about the horrible and terrible murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas yesterday, but one aspect I have not seen discussed is whether Dr. Tiller put himself at risk by being a regular church-goer. In the interest of full disclosure I am particularly interested in this topic since I also attend church nearly every Sunday morning. More details have been released and it now appears that the murder happened in the vestibule of the church during the church service, where the murderer could have known Dr. Tiller would be because Dr. Tiller was listed as being one of the ushers in the church bulletin.

Dr. Tiller was known to sometimes wear a bullet-proof vest and have security at the clinic where he worked. Was his regular church attendance a fatal security lapse?

Did the demise of the Whigs look like this?

2009-05-30T07:19:00.007-05:00

Watching Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich define ever increasing numbers of Americans out of the Republican Party (Rush and Newt are now declaring racist the idea that having grown up non-white might give someone some special insight on racial discrimination) got me to wondering what the demise of the Whig Party looked like. I did a Google search on 'Demise of the Whig Party.' Wikipedia had this:

The Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue after 1850. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by Daniel Webster, represented businessmen who loved the national flag and a national market, but cared little about slavery one way or another. However many Whig voters in the North felt that slavery was incompatible with a free labor-free market economy, and supported the Wilmot Proviso that did not pass Congress but would have stopped the expansion of slavery. No one discovered a compromise that would keep the party united. Furthermore the burgeoning economy made full-time careers in business or law much more attractive than politics for ambitious young Whigs. Thus the party leader in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, simply abandoned politics after 1849. When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid 1850s, no one looked to the fast- disintegrating Whig party for answers

It sounds like at the end the Whigs were pursuing their own self interests rather than what was good for the party. Sort of like what Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are doing, don't you think?

Miley Cyrus making waves again

2009-05-08T05:49:00.004-05:00

Teen TV star, Miley Cyrus, recent made some comments on her Twitter account giving her view of what Jesus, Christianity and God have to say on the subject of gay marriage

Everyone deserves to love and be loved and most importantly smile.
Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! That’s like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz he’s gay and that is wrong and very sad!
Like I said everyone deserves to be happy.
God’s greatest commandment is to love. And judging is not loving.
I am a Christian and I love you - gay or not - because you are no different than anyone else! We are all God’s children.

The OneMillionMom.com website took great exception to those statements on their website and in an email. They seem to have removed the statement from their website but it can still be found on the web, for example here.

Such statements will send the wrong message to our children who are influenced by this teenage megastar. Parents need to realize that Cyrus is not the positive role model she was once thought to be.

Two very different points of view! Which one do you think is closer to Jesus' message in the Gospels?

Hope for Republicans in the culture wars?

2009-05-06T06:56:00.004-05:00

In his latest newspaper column Pat Buchanan sees hope for the Republican Party. First he gives the bad news:

...the voting groups growing in numbers — Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, folks with college degrees, the young — are all trending Democratic, while the voters most loyal to the GOP — white folks and religious conservatives — are declining as a share of the U.S. electorate. And demography is destiny.

But he sees an advantage for Republicans in the culture war issue of gay marriage.

When African-Americans, who gave McCain 4 percent of their votes in California, gave Proposition 8, prohibiting gay marriage, 70 percent of their votes, why would the GOP give up one of its trump cards — not only in Middle America but among minorities? A conservative who could have sharpened the social, moral and cultural differences might, from the exit polls, have done far better.

That is just too stupid for words. All the Proposition 8 vote showed was that in a straight up or down vote on gay marriage most African-American voters were against it. Their feelings about gay marriage have caused few African-Americans to support Republicans up to now and there is no evidence, in the Proposition 8 vote or elsewhere, that very many African-American voters will become single-issue anti-gay rights voters in the future.

In fact the same demographic and intellectual trends that favor Democrats that Buchanan cited are eroding opposition to gay rights in general and gay marriage in particular. In fact, these trends will continue to erode opposition to gay rights until it will be as much a fringe position among the American electorate as is opposition to womens suffrage or support for slavery. But that is the issue Buchanan hopes will stem the tide of Republican decline. What a maroon!

A Nation of Typhoid Marys

2009-05-03T07:31:00.004-05:00

Nicholas Kristof, in his column in today's New York Times, points out how vulnerable to pandemic our flawed health care system makes us.

Think of the 47 million Americans who lack [health] insurance. They are less likely to receive flu vaccines (which might or might not help), less likely to receive prompt care when they get sick, and less able financially to stay home from work — and thus they are more likely both to die and to spread the virus inadvertently.
“These are, in effect, 47 million ‘Typhoid Marys’ of the next pandemic — at risk themselves and to their families and neighbors,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Read the entire article.

There are reasons to believe that many of those who have died from the flu in Mexico waited too long to seek medical attention because they lacked both medical insurance and money to pay the hospital.

The threat of pandemic is just one of many wake-up calls that should alert us that we need to provide health insurance to all Americans ASAP. The failing American automobile manufacturers are another. Many of their foreign competitors are based in countries in which the government provides health care, taking the burden off of employers.

The morality of torture

2009-05-01T06:57:00.003-05:00

A Pew Research Center survey reveals that, in general, the more Americans go to church the more willing they are to support torture. According to a CNN article:

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

What is taught about the morality of torture in the churches attended by these people who think torture is "justified?" I doubt that the ministers or priests in their churches are actually preaching torture.

Although I seldom see it talked about I think the difference between those who think that America should never torture and those willing to accept it is the attitude toward those likely to be tortured. I think that those who always oppose torture see the likely victims of torture as people fundamentally like themselves and those who think torture is justified assume that those tortured are "the other." I suspect that these regular churchgoers who think torture is justified have an us-against-them view of the world that trumps the Christian teachings of "love thy neighbor", "turn the other cheek", the parable of the Good Samaritan and the compassionate example of Jesus, the healer.

Meghan McCain reacts to Arlen Spector's choice

2009-04-29T06:22:00.005-05:00

John McCain's daughter Meghan posted the following message on Twitter yesterday:

I know its been a hard day for a lot of you but Arlen Spector has made a selfish choice. This can come back and be better than ever.

What Republican principle does making a selfish choice violate?

Shocked, shocked to discover crooked gambling

2009-04-25T07:21:00.007-05:00

If you had been thinking that the state-run lottery was a fair and honestly run game-of-chance in which your odds of winning were determined by the mathematical laws of probability then you may have been shocked by the news story in the Quad City Times this week that:

The state ombudsman issued a report Tuesday alleging Iowa Lottery officials have failed to adequately protect the enterprise’s customers from fraud and theft by retailers.
Iowa Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman Bill Angrick said his review of three years’ worth of lottery investigations found numerous customer complaints where leads went unexplored and potential crimes were not pursued.
And, Angrick said in a 210-page report, even when the lottery substantiated complaints against retailers for fraud or theft, in many instances those retailers were not held accountable.
Read the entire article

Most people who were not born yesterday know how crooked gambling scams work, such as the street-corner 3 card monte huckster or the carnival side-show booth. These are games in which there are no winners other than the operators. Anyone appearing to win is either a hired shill who has won nothing other than their pre-agreed share of the take or a mark who has been allowed to win when the stakes are low in order to entice him/her into larger bets. Sometimes people are allowed to walk away from these crooked games winners when there are other potential marks standing around to see this and be drawn in.

If you had been thinking that the association between gambling and gangsters and crime was just a result of gambling being illegal and that a legal state-run lottery or state sanctioned and regulated casinos could be fair and honest then you have been naive. Gambling is a scam by its very nature. If you are involved in any way in gambling you are by necessity in one of two groups. You are either part of the group that organized and runs the game and is profiting from it or you are a mark, a victim, a loser. Proponents of state lotteries and state sanctioned casinos claim that the tax-payers and school-children of the state are part of the group that benefits from the gambling, but given gambling's tendency to turn everyone not actually running the game into marks and victims how likely do you think that is?

Some of the ways we have been made victims by legalized gambling have been argued in this blog previously. New jobs appear to have been created in the community by casinos but it turns out the jobs have merely shifted because jobs have been lost by other entertainment businesses closed because of competition from the casinos. Although gambling adds money to the state coffers there are large costs to the community when formerly law-abiding people become addicting to gambling and commit crimes, sometimes embezzling large amounts of money from PTAs, fire departments, etc. Now we have a report that legalized gambling is turning the retail stores that sell lottery tickets into crooks and thieves who defraud their customers. (The state's reluctance to investigate and punish this wrong-doing because the state is a partner in this scam reminds me of Catch 22 where people are being attacked and killed by a corporation that has been hired to strafe and bomb them and are told that that's good because they are stockholders in the corporation and are therefore profiting from the attack.) What other ways in which governments are corrupted and we are victimized by legalized gambling are yet to be revealed?

Republican patriotism

2009-04-17T06:44:00.003-05:00

Daniel from Rockford wrote me to suggest a topic for this blog. I couldn't think of anything to add to what he wrote, so I will just let him speak:

Is there much that is less patriotic than to publicly avow secession from the Union? Well, now we have a pattern of secession talk from the center of the Republican party. The party’s V.P. candidate spoke at a meeting in her own home town that was advocating Alaska secession. Now, the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is making secessionist comments and then refusing to disavow the idea when questioned about the implication of what he has said.
The Republican party has made patriotism their badge of honor for many years now. Sadly, their idea of patriotism usually turned out to be the shallow lapel pin type symbolic patriotism. They stretched the truth whenever they made any claim to patriotic action as opposed to their usual patriotic speech and flag waving. For example, during the Reagan, Bush years they claimed that indulging in hedonistic capitalism was a patriotic act or then denied that social activism was patriotic. They sneered at Obama’s social activist background.

Obama passes test of foreign policy crisis

2009-04-13T07:19:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to the Navy and to President Obama for the rescue of the ship's captain held by pirates. They negotiated and waited while that was the correct course of action and then took decisive and successful action when it was called for. President Obama early on gave authority for lethal action if and when it became appropriate to the navy and then allowed the professional military people on the scene to use their judgement. He was not bullied into intervening and forcing inappropriately premature action by right-wing criticism such as this on the national level and this from here in the Quad Cities.

How refreshing to have a president whose actions are not geared toward meaningless gestures and stage-managed photo-ops.

An economist's take on the GOP

2009-04-13T07:14:00.003-05:00

Check out Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman's analysis of the positions and leadership of the Republican Party in his column in today's New York Times.

Mariana de la Torre

2009-04-12T15:59:00.003-05:00

I blogged about a month ago about the sad story of Mariana de la Torre. Kuninori Takahashi (Kuni) is the Chicago Tribune photographer who upon hearing about Mariana's situation came to the hospital in Rock Island to meet her, decided he wanted to document her story and accompanied her on her trip from Illinois back to her home in Mexico to see her three young children before she died. Kuni has just completed and put on the web an audio slideshow telling her story. Watch it here.

My mother

2009-04-07T07:54:00.003-05:00

My 87 year old mother died Friday evening. The last few years of her life she was increasingly afflicted by dementia and so it was a long good-bye for my father, brothers, sisters-in-law, daughter, nieces, nephew, wife and me.

Here is a link to the obituary my brother wrote in the QCTimes on-line edition. The obituary also appeared in the Moline Dispatch (but I could not find it in the on-line edition of that paper) and the Chester (Illinois) Herald.

Here is a picture of her taken before her marriage and long before I was born so I have no actual memories of her looking that young and glamorous. But I would like to think of her as beautiful and care-free as she appears in this picture, forever young, and so I shall. I invite you to do so, also.

It takes a brick-paved street to cry

2009-03-30T17:46:00.004-05:00

Click picture to see it full-sized.

In the part of Moline where I live there are a number of old brick-paved streets. I took the above picture a block from my house. Apparently the winter was hard on the streets around here. This is 18th Avenue betweeen 12th and 13th Streets. That section of the street is now blocked off but a number of cars scrapped their bottoms on this hazard before the barricades were put up.

Gonzales, Yoo and 4 others may be indicted for War Crimes

2009-03-28T19:04:00.005-05:00

According to the Associated Press a Spanish court has agreed to open a criminal case that could result in criminal indictments for six Bush Administration officals on charges of enabling torture at Guantanamo Bay.

Human rights lawyers brought the case before leading anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon, who agreed to send it on to prosecutors to decide whether it had merit, Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who brought the charges, told The Associated Press.
The ex-Bush officials are Gonzales; former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.
....
Spanish law allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes under a doctrine of universal justice, though the government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process.
Garzon became famous for bringing charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and he and other Spanish judges have agreed to investigate alleged abuses everywhere from Tibet to Argentina's "dirty war," El Salvador and Rwanda.
Read entire article.

It will be very interesting to see how the American public reacts to this news. Hopefully this will open people's eyes to how the reset of the world views the actions of the Bush Administration.

Unfair compensation

2009-03-22T14:19:00.004-05:00

Is your feeling that the bonuses received by the AIG executives whose actions helped put their company at risk of bankruptcy are unfair and wrong just an emotional reaction or is it a reasonable position grounded in your moral principles? Can you define fair and unfair compensation? Without a definition of unfair compensation you are left expressing anger without a justification, like the lynch mob some people in Washington and the Main-Stream Media accuse those opposing the bonuses of being.

Of course, unfettered free-enterprise (capitalism) does not provide any definition of fair compensation -- the income someone receives entirely depends on market forces of supply and demand . Fairness has nothing to do with it. If you believe that the bonuses were unfair then you must look somewhere else for justification for those feelings.

My brother Dan suggested to me yesterday that the old Quaker idea that a businessperson should set a fair price for his/her merchandise or service and always sell it for that price, rather than haggling to establish the price for each transaction suggests a refinement to capitalism that could give us a definition of unfair compensation. Up until the late 18th Century there were no set prices in American stores. As is still the case in the developing world store-owners would haggle with the customer for each sale. If, through ignorance or desperation, the customer was in a poor bargaining position the store-owner would be able to coerce a high price and make more profit. Some Quaker shop-owners began feeling uneasy about charging some customers more than others, especially because it often worked out that the highest prices were charged to those least able to pay. They decided to determine a fair price for everything they sold, post those prices and always sell at the set price without haggling. Customers much preferred set prices to haggling and as a result stores offering set prices became popular, business increased and the Quaker store-owners ended up making more money than ever. Soon all stores were forced by competitive pressures to also adopt set prices and it became the standard way of doing business in this country and the developed world.

On September 11, 2001 in New York City the subways were closed down and tens of thousands of people who normally took public transportation were forced to walk to get home in Manhattan. It was a hot day and a lot of the walking people started ducking into stores to buy bottled water. Some store owners, in order to cash in on the situation, suddenly raised the price for their bottled water. If you think it was wrong to raise the price of water for desperate, thirsty people just because they were thirsty and desperate then that suggests a definition of unfair compensation. It is wrong to charge more for your product or service just because, through circumstance, you are in a position to do so. It is wrong for AIG to reward executives who made bad decisions just because the government has been forced to bail out AIG because it is too big to fail.

Not only is it wrong to try to profit from someone else's misfortune, as the experience of those late 18th Century Quaker shop-owners shows, it might turn out in the long-run to be a bad business decision. At least it would if people today react as those 18th Century customers did. We seem to be on a retreat from set prices made possible by shopper's desire to get a "bargain." Today a lot of items have set prices, called the list or retail price, but most people most of the time don’t pay that price, they pay a discounted, sale or coupon price, sometimes arrived at through haggling. For those items the retail price becomes the unfair price paid by those unable, through circumstance, ignorance or desperation, to negotiate a better price. Once again those least able to pay, pay the most.

The 18th Century Quakers had other ideas that were just as radical and new at the time as set prices. They opposed slavery and believed that women had the same rights to education as men. They were declaring wrong activities and behaviors that were almost universally practiced. All three ideas were eventually adopted by the developed world and now seem like conventional wisdom. But we seem to be on a retreat from the idea of the same price for everyone. Why would unfair prices be a harder problem to solve than slavery or women's rights?

Gov. Richardson abolishes death penalty in New Mexico

2009-03-20T06:36:00.004-05:00

I don't know how much good Bill Richardson would have done as Commerce Secretary, but there is no doubt in my mind that the bill he signed on Wednesday, abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico, made the world a much better place. As the prophet Amos, speaking on behalf of God, said "...let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."

Here is an excellent editorial about it from the Los Angeles Times.

Are illegal immigrants the biggest threat we face?

2009-03-19T07:15:00.003-05:00

There is an interesting op-ed in this morning's New York Times:

Here’s a thought. What if illegal immigrants really aren’t America’s worst nightmare? A lot of energy has been spent insisting that they are, but are they really as dangerous as, say, zombie banks? Or as evil as retention bonuses?
In truth, our biggest domestic menace never was waiting outside Home Depot, hoping to clean your basement. Unauthorized immigrants are not about to destroy anything, not even when they get angry and loud and march in large groups. On the contrary, they are inspiring. Their ethic of self-reliance and hard work is one that Americans should recognize and celebrate.
Read the entire article

Young Moline Mother Returns to Mexico

2009-03-17T12:16:00.007-05:00

photograph by Kuni Takahashi of the Chicago Tribune. Click on the picture to see it full sized.

The woman in the bed in the picture is 28 year old Mariana de la Torre, a Moline resident for two years, until her recent return to her native Mexico. You can still tell, if you use your imagination at little, how pretty and vivacious she was before the cancer and the radiation and the chemotherapy took her hair and her strength.

A little over a month ago one of the oncology nurses at Trinty Hospital in Rock Island told my wife, who was there as a friend and translator for Mariana, that she did not understand why the doctor was treating her so aggressively. "There is nothing more to be done. Why doesn't he just discharge her?" But Mariana had told the doctor that she wanted to go home to Mexico to see her children and family. The doctor ordered one more round of chemo to get her well enough to travel. That got her just strong enough that she could fly home, although she needed someone to go with her to handle the ostomy bags and tubes and ambulances were needed to take her to and from the airplane. The above picture was taken a few weeks ago in Mexico at the hospital Mariana was taken to by ambulance from the airport. The three children are Mariana's. They had not seen each other since December 2006, when she left them with an aunt and crossed the border illegally and came to the Quad Cities looking to earn money that she could send back to Mexico to support her children. She had just left an abusive husband and had no way of earning enough money by herself in Mexico.

The day after this picture was taken the Mexican hospital asked Mariana where she wanted to die and then released her in her brother's care. There was nothing more they could do for her.

There is an article in today's Chicago Tribune about Mariana's situation.

Workers without borders

2009-03-10T07:38:00.004-05:00

There is a very interesting op-ed in this morning's New York Times by Jennifer Gordon proposing a change in how we handle immigrant workers.

Despite stepped-up enforcement at the borders, hundreds of thousands of immigrants still come illegally to the United States every year. Raids terrorize immigrants but do not make them go home. Instead, rigid quotas, harsh immigration laws and heavy-handed enforcement lock people in. As the recession deepens, undocumented immigrants will hunker down more. They may work less, for worse pay, but they will be terrified to go home out of fear they can never return.

Read the entire article for her solution.

How much bipartisanship is there going to be in Washington?

2009-03-01T07:26:00.004-06:00

Quite a few of the talking heads in the media have been claiming that Obama must be judged to have failed if he cannot get Republicans to support his proposals, even though the voters elected enough Democrats to Congress that legislation can be enacted with no Republican support in the House and only a couple of Republican votes in the Senate. This being the case all Republicans have to do is say 'No' in order to have Obama judged a failure. Of course, if they simply say 'No' to everything they will have sacrificed their chances to accomplish anything positive. Do they care so little about what is good for the country that they would try to scuttle needed legislation just for partisan advantage?

Here is Rush Limbaugh, default head of the Republican Party, on bipartisanship. (From his speech yesterday at the CPAC).

Bipartisanship occurs only after one other result. And that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives liberals demand that we be bipartisan with them in congress. What they mean is, we check our principles at the door, let them run the show and then agree with them. That is bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we have politically cleaned their clocks and beaten them.

If the Republicans in Congress continue to follow Limbaugh's lead there is going to be very little bipartisanship in Washington.

Who wants to hang with Rush Limbaugh?

2009-02-27T11:01:00.007-06:00

On the American Prospect blog Sarah Posner reports:

In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more "interesting" and "fun" than liberals. Here's his proof: "who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?"

McConnell's comment causes me to suspect that the chasm between liberals and conservatives in this country is immense and unbridgeable. I find it hard to imagine anyone preferring the company of Rush Limbaugh to either Paul Krugman or Robert Reich.

Instant Polls show public liked Obama speech

2009-02-25T06:45:00.006-06:00

As reported by Sam Stein of Huffington Post:

Instant public surveys on Barack Obama's address before Congress showed, by in large, that the public was incredibly receptive to his speech, regardless of political party. ...
A CBS News poll of approximately 500 people saw approval of the president rise from 62 percent before the speech to 69 percent afterward.
Meanwhile, a poll on CNN showed that 68 percent of respondents -- who skewed a bit Democratic -- viewed the speech positively, 24 somewhat positively, and only eight percent not positively. Eighty-two percent supported the president's economic plan as outlined in the speech, while 17 percent opposed it.

Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s official Republican response received a less favorable response. Here is how the Fox News panelists, who are usually receptive to the conservative point of view, responded:

BRIT HUME: “The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal’s greatest oratorical moment.”
NINA EASTON: “The delivery was not exactly terrific.”
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “Jindal didn’t have a chance. He follows Obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. He’s in a Reagan-esque league. … [Jindal] tried the best he could.”
JUAN WILLIAMS: “It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.”

Republican governors reject federal unemployment aid

2009-02-24T05:25:00.001-06:00

The New York Times asks "What part of 'stimulus' don't they get?"

Schwarzenegger's truthfulness

2009-02-22T08:19:00.005-06:00

I was just watching California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on This Week with George Stephanopoulos talk about the budget deal just reached in Sacremento which involves tax increases and spending cuts. George reminded Arnold that when he ran for governor he promised never to raise taxes and asked, "Were you wrong to make that pledge?" "No," replied the governor, "because I really hate raising taxes, but this is an emergency."

So when a Republican says "never raise taxes" do they really mean "only raise taxes when the situation demands?" It seems that Republicans are using different standards of truthfulness than the Democrats. Democrats are much less likely than Republicans to say they would 'never raise taxes," not because they hate taxes any less but because they are aware that in an emergency raising taxes may be necessary. Is their different attitude toward saying what they mean and meaning what they say putting Democrats at a disadvantage when campaigning?

Rush Limbaugh says he is no coward

2009-02-20T06:35:00.003-06:00

On his show yesterday Rush Limbaugh responded to Attorney General Eric Holder's charge that Americans had been a "nation of cowards" on the subject of race.

I, El Rushbo, am no coward. … In fact, I show bravery on race. I am totally willing to discuss it openly and honestly. How does one show bravery on race as I have? You talk about media bias, you talk about slavish media coverage of Black quarter backs in the National Football League. Then see what happens. Then watch all hell descend upon you from every quarter of this nation’s media. From print to broadcast to internet. … I show bravery on matters of race.

Watch it:

Limbaugh is referring to his very brief stint in 2003 as football commentator for ESPN. The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, Donovan McNabb, had a couple of bad games early in the season. Rush Limbaugh proclaimed on a national broadcast that McNabb's poor performance was because he had never been that good to begin with and had only been proclaimed a great player because the media was eager to promote black quarterbacks. I believe Rush Limbaugh was fired just a couple of days after that broadcast.

The way I remember the incident the general feeling among football fans was that he was fired mainly because his comment was so totally wrong it would be absurd for him to continue posing as a football expert. The comment showed he was a racist, but the main problem was that his racism was causing him to be wrong in his football judgments. After the slow start that season Donovan McNabb went on to have a great season, as if to demonstrate just how wrong Rush Limbaugh had been.

Since Rush Limbaugh had really wanted to be a television football commentator, he views the incident as him being forced to sacrifice for his (racist) truth. But there is no need for those of us who do not share his racist views to see any nobility in his actions. He was and is just stubbornly wrong.

Conservative Stimulus Bill humor

2009-02-19T06:42:00.006-06:00

This is a cartoon which was published yesterday in the New York Post. A lot of people were appalled by it. I have read the opinions of several right-wingers who claim it is no big deal and point out that Bush was occasionally portrayed as a chimp in cartoons. Of course, Bush was never depicted as a violent, crazed animal that had to be shot by the police. When I described the cartoon to my 85-year-old father he thought it was a hilarious comment on what he took to be the Keystone Cops-like circus surrounding the writing of the stimulus bill. Of course, unlike most Americans, my father is facing no financial uncertainties -- his state pension and Social Security are unlikely to be impacted by whatever happens or does not happen in Washington.

My opinion of the cartoon? I am shocked and appalled that any newspaper would publish such a thing. It is becoming clear to me that the more competent and successful Obama and the Democratic Congress are the more violent and angry the Conservatives will become.

President Obama invites us to track the stimulus spending.

2009-02-18T05:52:00.005-06:00

If you are not on President Obama's email list you may not have heard about a new websites that have been set up to allow the public to track how the stimulus money is spent and a website for posting and reading stories of how Americans are coping with our current economic challenges. Here's an excerpt from an email I just received from President Obama:

The recovery plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs, provide tax cuts for working and middle-class families, and invest in health care and clean energy.
It's a bold plan to address a huge problem, and it will require my vigilance and yours to make sure it's done right.
I've assigned a team of managers to oversee the implementation of the recovery act. We are committed to making sure no dollar is wasted. But accountability begins with you.
That's why my administration has created Recovery.gov, a new website where citizens can track every dollar spent and every job created. We'll invite you and your neighbors to weigh in with comments and questions.
Our progress will also be measured by the tens of thousands of personal stories submitted by people who are struggling to make ends meet. If you haven't already, you can read stories from families all across the country:
http://my.barackobama.com/yourstories
Your stories are the heart of this recovery plan, and that's what I'll focus on every day as President.
With your continued support, we'll emerge a stronger and more prosperous nation.

The secretive Bush Administration never invited us to track how they were spending our money or provided tools to allow us to do so. This is change I can believe in.

What kind of liberal are you?

2009-02-17T11:02:00.001-06:00

I just took the quiz and this is what I scored. What kind of liberal are you?

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Terrorism committed by white people

2009-02-11T15:22:00.004-06:00

A few days ago James Adkisson was sentenced to life in prison for killing two people during an armed assault at the Knoxville, TN Unitarian-Universalist church last July. Just after he was sentenced he released to the Knoxville News a four-page handwritten "manifesto" which was to be his suicide note if things had gone as he planned . The note can be viewed here. Some excerpts:

Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....
This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."
I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

It is clear that his act was a terrorist act with the same motives and purposes as other acts of terrorism, such as the 911 attacks or the embassy bombings -- to try to achieve political ends by killing innocent civilians. The only possible reason for not classifying his attack as an act of terrorism is if you define terrorism in a way that excludes the acts of white Christian Americans. Keep that in mind when you hear people claim that there have been no terrorists acts in this country since 911 or that terrorism is the exclusive province of Middle-Eastern people and/or Muslims.

Post-racial America

2009-02-11T06:01:00.003-06:00

If you want irrefutable evidence that the election of Barack Obama does not mark the end of racism in this country take a look at this. It is an editorial cartoon that actually ran in the Ashville (North Carolina) Citizen Times newspaper on Monday, February 9, 2009. The ideas embodied in the cartoon and the decision to publish it are about as pure expressions of racism as can be imagined.

Republicans on parade.

2009-02-07T06:15:00.004-06:00

Karl Rove responds to Obama's criticism of Republicans who offer 'more tax cuts as the only answer to every problem we face.'

Republicans using homophobia against each other.

Andrew Card thinks the most important way of showing respect for the Constitution is wearing a jacket in the Oval Office.

Although he disdained bipartisanship when he was in charge of the House, Newt Gingrich criticizes Obama for not being bipartisan enough.

Why the President will not mention local blog

2009-02-03T06:44:00.003-06:00

Local conservative blogger, QCExaminer, pleads with President Obama to "diss" her. I think she is missed something important about why the president advised Congressional Republican "you can't listen to Limbaugh and get things done." It wasn't just because Limbaugh is a conservative. It was because Limbaugh was telling Republicans to oppose Obama, not just when they thought his proposals were wrong and would not work, but all the time, especially on proposals that, if passed, would work. Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, not because his ideas would fail, but out of fear that his proposals would succeed. The success of Obama's policies, in addition to being good for America, would clearly demonstrate to the vast majority of voters that it is in their interests for Democrats to be elected.

That is the reason the President told Republicans in Congress they cannot listen to Limbaugh and "get things done." Is QCExaminer saying anything that the President needs to comment on? Not so much.

Magic Tax Cuts

2009-02-03T06:32:00.003-06:00

Ellen Beth Gill at Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District Blog discusses the amazing Republican claim that tax cuts are a better stimulus than government spending. Why would increasing after-tax profits for businesses automatically create jobs in the current business climate? Are they Magic Tax Cuts?

Off-the-grid living

2009-02-01T18:30:00.004-06:00

The fellow pictured above is John Wells. He is experimenting with living disconnected from the energy grid. You can get an overview of what he is trying to do on his website.

You can keep track of his daily progress by following his blog. He posts about once a day. The last few days he has been completing his shower, in which the water is solar heated in a collector he designed and has been building. Fascinating reading. Much more uplifting than the websites some other local blogs are spotlighting

Why give a mother of six fertility assistance?

2009-01-31T12:12:00.004-06:00

My brother Dan's thoughts on the recent birth of octuplets:

How very very sad yesterday was the news of octuplets born into a family already overflowing with six children. My initial feelings of sadness, however, were soon overcome with stronger feelings as I pictured unregulated, profit motivated, fertility “doctors” artificially creating a family with 14 children, as I pictured a most likely scenario of a woman with six children taking artificial measures to have an extreme multiple birth in hopes of becoming famous like the couple with sextuplets on TV.
I see this as yet one more tragedy in a cascade of tragedies resulting from the Reagan, Bush,& Bush scheme of weakening governmental regulators and governmental agencies while creating a propaganda blitz claiming unregulated profit motivated industries were good for Americans. The human fertility industry that grew up in this climate would of course be without moral, ethical, or governmental checks and balances. We have already seen the tragic results of an unregulated Wall Street, of unregulated Banks, of an unregulated housing finance industry, and a war machinery industry with the inside power to control the CIA and the White House to create a series of wars to kill our children. Now we see further tragedy as eight babies are artificially inserted into a “family” that can at best be described as “overwhelmed ” A tragedy created by an industry that, by all indications, is motivated simply by selfish profit.

A baby elephant named Obama

2009-01-30T16:43:00.004-06:00

Vital Stats:
Birthday: 1/19/09
Time: 11:50 p.m.
Sex: Male
Height: 39 inches
Length: 41 inches
Birth Weight: 250 pounds

Suspecting that many readers of this blog are not on the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey mailing list I felt that I had to pass along this announcement I just received from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Baily Center for Elephant Conservation.

IT'S A BOY!
On behalf of the entire Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® family, I’m thrilled to announce the birth of our first Asian elephant born as a result of artificial insemination. A healthy male born on the inaugural eve of our 44th President of the United States, the calf named Barack, is a living tribute of our ongoing commitment to help save this magnificent yet endangered species.
The worldwide elephant population is declining, which means the overall mortality rate is increasing. That is why at Ringling Bros. we are working around the clock to bring practical solutions that are helping to care for and to save these majestic animals. Since 1999, Barack is just the fourth elephant in North America to be successfully born from artificial insemination. We are proud of the unwavering efforts that our veterinary and elephant husbandry teams provide to support the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation and its global preservation programs.
Barack’s arrival is the 22nd in what has already become the largest herd of Asian elephants in the Western Hemisphere and I’m excited to share this significant milestone with all of you.
>Photo Gallery of pictures of Obama and his Mama
>More information
>Send a Greeting to Our New Calf

Iraq War costs higher than many expected

2009-01-29T08:46:00.004-06:00

According the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON – Suicides among Army troops soared again last year and are at a nearly three-decade high, senior defense officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.
At least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008, said two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the data has not been formally released.
The final count likely will be considerably higher because more than a dozen other suspicious deaths are still being investigated and could also turn out to be self-inflicted.
The new figure of more than 128 compares to 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006 — and is the highest since record keeping began in 1980.

Obviously we are going to be paying a very high price for our war of choice in Iraq for a very long time, indeed.

Our State Senator has doubts

2009-01-28T07:31:00.003-06:00

The only state senator we have in this part of Illinois has been signaling he might vote to not remove Govenor Blagojevich from office. According to an article in today's Quad City Times:

After hearing FBI recordings presented at the Senate impeachment trial Tuesday and the testimony of FBI agent Daniel Cain, state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, said he still was not convinced the 52-year-old chief executive has done anything illegal.
“Today, they just decided it was criminal,” Jacobs said. “I haven’t quite heard (pay-to-play) yet.
“I don’t think the case is as strong as people would have you to believe.”

While I could be persuaded that it is unfair for other Illinois politicians to say Rod Blagojevich was uniquely unsuited for office, for Mike Jacobs to claim that the tapes we all have heard do not prove "pay-to-play" makes him sound somewhat daft. Also his suggestion that he needs to hear evidence of criminality beyond a reasonable doubt is disingenuous. In an impeachment trial each Senator decides for himself or herself what constitutes grounds for conviction.

There are reasons why a senator would vote to acquit even in the face of obvious criminality. If Mike Jacobs does vote not to remove the govenor from office I hope he gives us his real reasons rather than this nonsense about a lack of conclusive proof of "pay-to-play".

Ridiculous argument for the "gag rule"

2009-01-28T06:28:00.004-06:00

It is not surprising that anti-choice activists would oppose Obama's lifting of the "gag rule" which prevented US foreign aid from going to agencies which offer abortions or referrals for abortions as part of their family planning services. What is kind of surprising to me is that some of the arguments they use are deceitful and insulting to our intelligence. Take, for example, the following by Laura Hollis at townhall.com.

What are we to make of the first African-American president who is so blind to the devastation abortion has wrought among African-Americans? African-Americans make up less than 15% of the U.S. population, but over 35% of abortions are performed on African-American women. To get some sense of the magnitude of this impact, consider that, according to the Center for Disease Control, nearly 293,000 black Americans died in 2005. The single largest cause of death was heart disease, which claimed over 74,000 lives. By comparison, the 1400 abortions of black babies daily in the United States is over 438,000 African-Americans destroyed every year. Upwards of 13 million abortions have decimated the African-American population in this country. This is a holocaust, and one that cannot be prettied up under the rubric of "reproductive freedom."

While I can admire a skillful playing of the race card this is just pathetic. The disproportionate use of abortion as a means of family planning is much more associated with low social-economic status (poverty) than race. And to compare woman using abortion to prevent having babies before they can adequately care for them or to limit the size of their family to the Nazis trying to completely eliminate European Jewry is insulting to our intelligence. White people in the developed world have been limiting the size of their families to an average of less than 2 children for the last 50 years or so, using abortion as a last resort, without the results looking anything like a Holocaust.

4230 Tiny Flag-Covered Coffins

2009-01-25T14:36:00.004-06:00

Please click on the photo to see it full-sized.

There are 4230 tiny flag-covered coffins in the room which has a floor about 10 feet square. The small (about 1.5" X 3/4" X 3/4") cardboard boxes each with a tiny flag on its top and sides are arranged in a rectangle 60 boxes across by 70 boxes down, a rectangle about 8 X 5 feet.

If the actual coffins for the 4230 American servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq were gathered together and arranged like this (assuming coffins 7' X 3') they would require a space 140 yards long and 70 yards wide, half again as long as a football field.

The tiny coffins are part of a War Memorial created by Rock Island, Illinois artist Jay Strickland, entitled "Arrival at Dover." (Dover, Maryland is the place where most of the flag-draped coffins arrived back in the United States from Iraq.) The walls of the room are covered floor to ceiling with a listing of all the 4230 service people. With each name there is a brief description of how that individual died, whether in combat or on duty, from injuries sustained from IED’s or while being treated in medical facilities for their injuries.

The memorial is currently on display at the Davenport Unitarian Church. It can be viewed Wednesday, Jan. 28 from 5pm - 8pm or Sunday Feb 1 from 1pm - 5pm.

I hope Obama fixes this

2009-01-25T07:23:00.004-06:00

According to a story in today's Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald newspaper:

AN AUSTRALIAN family on a mercy dash to a dying relative in the United States were detained without food or water before being sent to a detention centre and forced to spend the night with criminal suspects. Their ordeal finished with them being deported.
Read the entire article.

This happen on January 13th and 14th, before Ohama became president. I hope changes have already been made so this sort of thing won't happen again. Treating famililes visiting the US with valid travel visas, passports and return tickets badly cannot possibly make us safer in any way. In fact it makes people hate us and makes it more likely that Americans will be treated badly when they travel overseas.

Limbaugh's head explodes

2009-01-24T09:13:00.004-06:00

To Barack Obama's supporters the actions he has taken in these first few days of his presidency are not particularly surprising. After all, they are reflections of themes he stressed during the campaign. For example, his executive order instructing "federal agencies to handle requests for information from the public and press under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] with an eye toward disclosure, not refusal" is just a return to the pre-Bush Administration policies regarding FOIA requests. But what most Americans view as a return to the status quo after 8 years of lawlessness has some Bush supporter's heads exploding. Here is Rush Limbaugh's reaction:

LIMBAUGH: What I’m afraid of is that what Obama did with this executive order is actually make it easier for the media to go get Bush documents. Because you know Pelosi and some of the guys over in congress are talking about war crimes trials and charges and so forth. […]
What I’m afraid of is what Obama’s done here is made the gathering of the information for this kind of stuff– This is not American. This is not America. This is not what America does. We don’t– This is Banana Republic kind of stuff.

The idea that obeying the law and allowing citizens to hold the government accountable for their actions makes us "a banana repubic" is pretty bizarre. Even more bizarre is Rush Limbaugh's view of who has been exhibiting racism lately:

You know, racism in this country is the exclusive problems of the left. We’re witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds; that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever; because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We’ve got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign.

It is hard for me to make any sense of this. He says that he and people who think like him are being told they have to "accept this" but it is not clear what "this" is. It surely cannot be that Obama has a black father or that Obama is the first black president. He surely cannot be objecting to being expected to accept those facts. No, it must be that he objects to the assumption that we all agree that it is good that we finally have a black president. Amazingly, he is claiming that it is racist of us to expect him to be glad about that.

President Obama is re-administred the oath

2009-01-22T06:55:00.005-06:00

Chief Justice Roberts came to the White House last evening and re-administered the presidential oath. Since Obama had repeated the words of oath slightly out of order during the official Inauguration doubts had been raised about whether he had actually taken the oath. Read more about it in this New York Times article.

You may have missed any mention of this in your local newspaper, if your local newspaper is not a big city paper with independent national reporting. The Associated Press is apparently boycotting this story and several other first day of the new administration stories in a dispute about their right to take their own White House photos rather then just distribute photos released by the Obama Administration. Read the Associated Press's take on it here. Notice how even in this story mention of the retaking of the oath is downplayed.

I can publish the above photo since it is an official government photo and therefore belongs to all the people. If the only photos of the event had been ones taken by the news organizations then there would have been no photos that I would have had rights to use.

The Grown-Ups are back in charge.

2009-01-21T07:13:00.003-06:00

My main reaction, listening to Barack Obama's Inaugeration speech, was that grown-ups are back in charge. We are no longer being told, for example, that we can have a war without sacrifice -- fought by volunteers, paid for by oil revenues from the invaded country, while the rest of us get tax cuts and are encouraged to go out shopping. The Obama Administration will not claim that we can solve our security problems by torturing people or eliminate our enemies by holding people we have captured indefinitely without charges.

This seems to be driving the few remaining Bush Administration loyalists crazy. Consider Mona Charen's column in today's newspapers for example:

That much having been said, it would be salutary in the midst of all this effervescence to reflect that many of the difficulties faced by the United States are not — the left's animadversions notwithstanding — the fault of George W. Bush.

I agree with that. Probably Dick Cheney is more to blame.

It is, for example, nearly universally agreed that America's supposed unpopularity in the world will be erased by the simple fact of Barack Obama raising his right hand and swearing to uphold the Constitution.

Nearly universally agreed that our unpopularity would be erased simply by swearing in Obama?!? Who, other than Ms. Charen, has suggested such a thing? And what does she mean "supposed unpopularity." She must not have done much traveling outside the United States lately.

Why we all should celebrate the first African-American president

2009-01-20T07:03:00.003-06:00

As part of the Moline Dispatch newspaper's 'What Obama Means to Me' feature Jan Anderson of Moline had the following to say:

...Because Barack Obama is an African American does not make him any more or less important than any previous presidential candidate and I question The Dispatch and their offer to the public to "be part of this historic event."
Every inauguration is historic but it seems that the media, including The Dispatch, has for some reason blown this one way out of proportion. Whatever happened to fair and balanced reporting?

She seems to be claiming that celebrating Obama as the first African-American president is unfair. Unfair to whom? I would have to guess she means unfair to white people.

Apparently Ms. Anderson sees no advantage to her that Americans of color can now join white Americans in realistically believing that their children can grow up to be president. She must not see it to be in her interests for all Americans to have reason to fully buy into the American dream and to have a stake in our nation and economy working well. Her limited and narrow understanding of what is and is not to her advantage and "fair" to her must interfere with her ability to choose what is truly best for her and for the nation. We can only hope hers is an extreme minority opinion and that she will eventually see the light. Perhaps President Barack Obama will have found the right words and phrases for his speech today to open her eyes to the opportunities this moment has for all Americans.

Bloody Kristol not only wrong but dishonest

2009-01-19T05:37:00.004-06:00

It was not surprising to me that in his column today in the New York Times, William Kristol is completely and thoroughly wrong. Everything he says is totally and demonstrably false. What surprised me was how thoroughly dishonest the column is, especially the following excerpt:

In synagogue, right after the prayer for our country, there is a prayer for the state of Israel, asking the “rock and redeemer of the people Israel” to “spread over it the shelter of your peace.” As we recited this on Saturday, I couldn’t help but reflect that a distressingly small number of my fellow Jews seem to have given much thought at all to the fact that President Bush is one of the greatest friends the state of Israel — and, yes, the Jewish people — have had in quite a while. Bush stood with Israel when he had no political incentive to do so and received no political benefit from doing so. He was criticized by much of the world. He did it because he thought it the right thing to do.
Read the entire column

As William Kristol knows very well polls show that the vast majority of America's Jews have great misgivings about the wisdom of the sort of military solutions to Israel's disputes with the Palestinians that Kristol and his fellow neocons, including President Bush, support. It is not through some oversight or lack of thought that most American Jews are not celbrating President Bush as a savior of Israel.

Equally dishonest is Mr. Kristol's amazing claim that it is of no political benefit to an American politician to be a strong supporter of Israel's government, and therefore the politician must be doing it because of a personal conviction that it is the right thing to do. After the injury of AIPAC having hijacked our political process on this issue so that almost all our politicians are forced to blindly support Israel's every policy mistake this insult is almost too much to bear. Kristol's assertion that Bush is acting against his political interests in supporting Israel is chutzpah of the highest order.

Forced to Prosecute

2009-01-17T06:18:00.002-06:00

In a very interesting article in today's New York Times, reporter Scott Shane reports that the Obama Administration, simply by acknowledging the obvious truth that waterboarding is torture, could be forced to prosecute those responsible for torture as war criminals, despite Barack Obama and Eric Holder's protestations that they are disinclined to do so.

In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Mr. Holder was merely admitting the obvious. He was agreeing with the clear position of his boss-to-be, President-elect Barack Obama, and he was giving an answer that almost certainly was necessary to win confirmation.
Yet his statement, amounting to an admission that the United States may have committed war crimes, opens the door to an unpredictable train of legal and political consequences. It could potentially require a full-scale legal investigation, complicate prosecutions of individuals suspected of committing terrorism and mire the new administration in just the kind of backward look that Mr. Obama has said he would like to avoid.

The article goes on to point out the difficulties in prosecuting the low level people who carried out the orders.

Two obvious obstacles stand in the way of a prosecution: legal opinions from the Justice Department that declared even the harshest interrogation methods to be legal, and a provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that grants strong legal protections to government employees who relied on such legal advice in counterterrorism programs.

Although the article does not say so, it seems to me that this defense should not and would not work for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell although it should absolve everyone below them in the chain of command. Picture Bush and Cheney being prosecuted for war crimes, claiming that as a result of legal rulings they directed the Justice Department lawyers to draw up, their orders to torture people were legal. Would such a defense have worked for the Nazis and Japanese Generals in the war crime trials following World War II?

This Miracle Brought to You by America's Unions

2009-01-16T20:13:00.003-06:00

Marcy Wheeler has an excellent post up at the emptywheel blog:

They're calling it a miracle--the successful landing of a US Airways jet in the Hudson and subsequent rescue of all 155 passengers. They're detailing the heroism of all involved, starting with the pilot and including cabin crew, ferry crews, and first responders. What they're not telling you is that just about every single one of these heros is a union member.
There's the pilot:
Sullenberger is a former national committee member and the former safety chairman for the Airline Pilots Association and now represented by US Airline Pilots Association. He--and his union--have fought to ensure pilots get the kind of safety training to pull off what he did yesterday.
....
There are the ferry crews:
They're represented by the Seafarers International Union. They provide safety training to their members so they're prepared for events like yesterday's accident.
Read the entire post.

Thank goodness that plane did not come down in a river somewhere out in one of those red-state rural areas of this country that Sarah Palin likes to call the "real America." Those highly-trained and skilled blue-state New York City policemen, firemen, Coast Guard and commercial ferry crews are as real American heroes as you will ever need.

Wouldn't it be great if everywhere in this country we had as competent and highly-trained union professionals responding to disasters as they have there in New York City?

Violent crimes committed by G.I.s back from war

2009-01-02T05:06:00.002-06:00

Today's New York Times has an article about violent crimes being committed by soldiers returning home from multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He's not a drop-out. He's taking corresponence courses.

2009-01-01T09:44:00.004-06:00

According to numerous press reports:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her future son-in-law Levi Johnston is not a dropout as the press is reporting, but is enrolled in high school via a correspondence program. The former Republican vice presidential candidate also said daughter Bristol, is enrolled in regular high school and has taken correspondence courses. The 18-year-olds are the parents of Sarah Palin's first grandchild, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, born Saturday.

My brother Dan, the school teacher, just emailed me his take on that:

Doesn't nearly every kid who has dropped out of High School claim to be taking correspondence classes? By the nature of those sort of programs, it is hard to claim who is or is not a student until they start to actually earn credits in the program on a regular basis. Otherwise ALL dropouts are not dropouts but simply waiting or delaying attendance. I don't see how "dropout" has any meaning if it doesn't mean all students who are not making measurable and steady progress toward graduation.

Quad Cities linked to Christmas Eve tragedy

2008-12-30T07:01:00.004-06:00

We now find out that Bruce Pardo, the Southern California man who killed 9 members of his ex-wife's family and then shot himself on Christmas Eve, had an airline ticket and plans to come to the Quad Cities on Christmas Day. Well, if somehow he had come to see his options as having narrowed to either going to a place where the temperature was 0 degrees F with lots of snow and ice or killing a bunch of people and himself, I guess the tragic outcome was inevitable.

Do not allow Bush to slink quietly out of town

2008-12-30T05:17:00.003-06:00

In his column in today's New York Times, Bob Herbert sums up the last 8 years.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.
This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.
Read the entire article.

Where was all this media suspicion in 2003?

2008-12-24T05:14:00.006-06:00

What in heavens name are all these "unanswered questions" and suspicions about possible Barack Obama involvement with the Blagojevich scandal that so many media types have been talking about? From the very beginning of public awareness of the alleged crime, when Patrick Fitzgerald announced the arrest of Govenor Blagojevich, he made it clear that there was nothing on the wiretaps suggesting that the President-elect was in any way complicit in the crime.

All the media suggestions that there might be some Obama involvement have been based on no facts whatever. Where was all this media suspicion when Bush and Cheney were making the case for invading Iraq in 2003?

Should Caroline Kennedy be appointed U.S. Senator

2008-12-24T05:04:00.009-06:00

I have been so busy preparing for the holidays I have committed blogging malpractice -- I've had opinions and not blogged about them.

Concerning the possiblity of Caroline Kennedy being appointed U.S. Senator from New York: That would make it look like you needed to be the wife or child of a former president in order to be a U.S. Senator from New York. Would that mean that in this country a child from humble origins, born to ordinary parents, has a better chance of growing up to be President of the United States than Senator from New York?

What kind of change was Obama promising?

2008-12-13T07:40:00.004-06:00

When you heard Barack Obama promise to bring change to Washington what kind of change did you imagine? Did you take your cues from his criticism of our decision to invade Iraq and his promises to bring the troops home in 18 months to understand Obama to be promising change away from the Bush Doctrine of preventive wars of choice? Did Obama’s willingness to talk to any foreign leaders, including ones the Bush Administration refused to meet, indicate to you that he meant change toward a less belligerent and militaristic foreign policy? Did Obama's emphasis on the environment and sustainable energy suggest to you a change in the way those issues are handled? Did you also hear indications that Obama would be appointing and hiring people based on competence and ability rather than the loyalty standard used by the Bush Administration?

If so, then you are probably as surprised as I was by the following lead paragraphs of an AP story in today’s newspapers:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The inauguration committee of President-elect Barack Obama, who ran on a platform to change the way business is done in Washington, is selling four-day packages of four tickets to his historic swearing-in ceremony and parade plus some extras in exchange for $50,000.
The deal does represent a change. President Bush charged $250,000, selling his supporters a much bigger menu of inaugural goodies that featured candlelight dinners.

Does the writer of this article really believe that the change Barack Obama was promising was to not do fund-raising? That seems unlikely since Barack Obama did the most successful fund-raising in history during his campaign. No, it seems more likely to me that the writer of that article knows exactly what kind of change Obama was promising but is trying to persuade her/his readers to forget.

Madonna causing lustful, impure thoughts

2008-12-11T06:15:00.002-06:00

According to Yahoo News, Madonna is turning heads down in Chile.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina criticized the flamboyant singer during his homily at a Mass in honor of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, who oversaw the deaths of some 3,200 dissidents during his 1973-1990 rule.
"This woman comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts," said Medina, the cardinal who was chosen to announce the election of Pope Benedict XV.

It almost sounds as though the Cardinal was hired by Madonna to hype the show, doesn't it? I've always wondered about the source of her appeal. Apparently her act goes over particularly well with the sexually repressed.

Voting for Auto Bail-Out will require Political Courage

2008-12-06T07:19:00.004-06:00

The Democrats in Congress who are going to vote next week to bail out the Big 3 American automakers are probably going to pay a political price for doing so. The polls and word on the street make it clear that most of the public hates the idea of bailing out well-paid union workers and fat-cat corporate executives.

But economists warn that in the current financial climate bankruptcy for any one of the Big 3 automakers would most likely not lead to reorganization, restructuring or new ownership, but in liquidation, which would cause a cascade of closures among part supplies and associated industries which would in turn force the other 2 automakers out of business. Economists are talking about a difference in 10% unemployment if the American automakers are kept in business or a Great Depression level 25% unemployment if they disappear.

Once Congress decides to do something, such as bailing out Detroit, there is no way to know for sure what would have happened if they had not acted. People opposed to the bail-out, probably a majority of the voters, will look at the 10% unemployment and say that after giving away all this money we still have lost a lot of jobs. They will feel that their tax dollars were given away for nothing. There will be no way to prove that it would have been much worse if the auto makers had gone into bankruptcy.

It will be interesting to see which politicians in Congress put the good of the country ahead of their own reelection chances and vote for the bail-out next week. Does anyone have any guesses about the relative percentages of Democrats and Republicans who will show political courage? My guess is that despite their rhetoric, there are very few Republican left in Congress who actually put country first. I predict that those voting for the bail-out will be over-whelming Democrats.

Odetta 1930 - 2008

2008-12-03T05:11:00.004-06:00

Odetta sings Careless Love

A young Odetta sings Water Boy

Read a good article about Odetta's life in today's New York Times.

David Brooks now says neo-con ideas passe

2008-12-02T06:15:00.004-06:00

Conservative David Brooks’ column in today’s New York Times claims that the Barack Obama’s foreign policy is not change but really is continuity of ideas developed by people in the Bush Administration.

[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates does not talk about spreading democracy, at least in the short run. He talks about using integrated federal agencies to help locals improve the quality and responsiveness of governments in trouble spots around the world.
He has developed a way of talking about security and foreign policy that is now the lingua franca in government and think-tank circles. It owes a lot to the lessons of counterinsurgency and uses phrases like “full spectrum operations” to describe multidisciplinary security and development campaigns.
Gates has told West Point cadets that more regime change is unlikely but that they may spend parts of their careers training soldiers in allied nations. He has called for more spending on the State Department, foreign aid and a revitalized U.S. Information Agency. He’s spawned a flow of think-tank reports on how to marry hard and soft pre-emption.
The Bush administration began to implement these ideas, but in small and symbolic ways. ...
Read entire column.

The clear, at least to me, implication of what David Brooks is saying in this column is that electing neo-cons John McCain and Sarah Palin would have meant a return to a the foreign policy of the first few years of the Bush Administration, to ideas and attitudes that the foreign policy wing of the Bush Administration led by Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates had realized years ago were failures and mistakes. Why didn’t David Brooks mention this before the election?

William Kristol's answer to terrorism - patriotism

2008-12-01T08:22:00.004-06:00

It is no surprise that William ”The Bloody” Kristol‘s column in today’s New York Times is wrong. Everything he said has turned out to be wrong. But this column’s wrong-headedness is immediately obvious. No need to wait for events to unfold to prove it false.

In India’s long and bloody battle with Muslim terrorism the one thing the non-Muslim majority of Indians has not lacked is patriotic and emotional fervor and intensity. The recent attacks by Muslim terrorists on hotels in Mumbai may have revealed possible deficiencies in police and military preparedness, communications, coordination, planning and leadership but they revealed no lack of patriotism among the common citizens.

So what is Kristol’s analysis of this situation?

In nations like India (and the United States), governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists.

Think about that for a second. How would increased patriotic feelings among the ordinary citizens of Mumbai have prevented the recent attacks or decreased the number of Indians killed or brought the situation to a close sooner? What could ordinary citizens do in the face of AK-47s and grenades, no matter how patriotic they felt? The idea is absurd. It is so mind-numbingly false it boggles the mind how someone paid to provide expert commentary in a national forum could write such a thing.

Phil Hare proposes increased help for soldier's families

2008-11-30T08:46:00.005-06:00

Here in the Quad Cities, those of us who have Mediacom cable tv see 5 minute interviews with local newsmakers which are shown every hour or so on the CNN channels. I just saw an interview with our congressman Phil Hare. I was very pleased to hear him talking about a bill he is sponsoring to greatly increase the amount of psychological counseling and other support for our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

In my opinion one of biggest under-reported scandals of the Bush Administration is how little support they have provided to our returning military people who have suffered physical and psychological damage in war. Those of us who were around in the 1970s and 1980s remember the thousands of homeless Vietnam War veterans who were unable to productively return to peacetime society because they had been psychologically damaged by their wartime experiences.

There are reasons to believe that there are greater levels of damage being inflicted on our soldiers in Iraq than occured in Vietnam. Very few soldiers served multiple tours of duty in Vietnam and those who did return for a second tour volunteered to do so. Most of the soldiers being sent to Iraq are serving multiple tours, creating unprecedented levels of psychological pressure on the soldiers and their families. The Bush Administration has allocated far too few resources to healing the damage they have caused, exacerbating the problems we will face in the future.

As a society we will be paying for years to come for this misguided "war of choice." I am glad to hear that Phil Hare is on the case, trying to get the help they need to our soldiers and their families.

Did Jdimytai Damour die for your sins?

2008-11-29T13:25:00.004-06:00

Temporary Wal-Mart employee Jdimytai Damour of Queens, New York was trampled to death Friday morning when an estimated 2,000 shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors of the Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream on Long Island at a 5 a.m. sale. How culpable are you for his death?

If you had been there, hoping to find bargains before they were all snatched up, would you have been part of the group that pushed the store doors off their hinges? If you had seen people laying on the floor beneath the feet of the crowd you were a part of as you entered the store would you have stopped to help them or would you have kept running toward the bargains as did most of the mob?

Do you value life more than bargains? Will you join me and many others who have been refusing to shop on Black Friday as part of the loosely organized Buy Nothing Day Protest? Will you choose life and boycott shopping the day after Thanksgiving next year?

War on Christmas, 2008 edition

2008-11-23T07:28:00.003-06:00

In his Wall Street Journal column on Nov. 20 Daniel Henninger opined:

And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say "Merry Christmas" and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name.
This year we celebrate the desacralized "holidays" amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin -- fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man's theory: A nation whose people can't say "Merry Christmas" is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

If your tolerance of ignorance and stupidity is strong enough go ahead and read the entire column. Henninger claims that his concern is that people are turning their backs on religion and all its virtues when they choose to say ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas.’ That is an incredibly stupid and ignorant argument, but I am calling Henninger dishonest rather than ignorant and stupid because I don’t think he really cares very much about religion.

First, no Christian is refraining from (or being asked by others to refrain from) saying ‘Merry Christmas’ at home, in church or when addressing non-strangers they know will not be offended. Second, it would be hard at this point for any Christian to ‘desacralizing’ Christmas any more than it already is. Read this for more about that.

I think Henninger’s real concern is that being forced to modify his speech and actions to accommodate other people’s feelings will drain him of his vital forces and undermine his will. He thinks that for America to remain strong militarily and economically he and people like him must not turn into wusses and pansies, which he thinks would be the result of having to censor his speech out of concern for anyone else.

How can Henninger claim that acting out of a concern for the feelings and sensibilities of your neighbors is turning away from Christianity and the virtues of responsibility and restraint? Well, as I said earlier, I don’t think he is really very much concerned with Christianity or with honesty, either.

Trend setting Professor Krugman

2008-11-19T21:55:00.001-06:00

Just now, as I write this, on the Rachel Maddows show guest host Alison Stewart started her interview with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman by thanking him for coming on the show. Professor Krugman responded, ‘Sure.’

That caught my attention because a few weeks ago someone wrote into either Dear Abby or Ann Landers complaining that some young people today have no manners because they do not respond to ‘Thank you’ with the polite and proper response of ‘Your welcome.’ That got me thinking about why that is the only correct response. There is no objective reason why the words ‘your’ and ‘welcome’ are any more appropriate a response to a statement of thanks than any other word or phrase. It is just something we have all agreed to. There is no reason we couldn’t or shouldn’t undo that agreement and agree on something else.

For reasons that I cannot explain I would love for ‘You betcha’ to become the new polite and correct response to ‘Thank you.’ But if Nobel Prize winners are going around responding ‘Sure,’ then I suppose that response has the best chance of being adopted as the new standard . Oh well.

Clinton was a tougher opponent for Obama than McCain

2008-11-16T08:36:00.003-06:00

I just finished listening to the podcast of the November 10 edition of NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She was talking to Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker Magazine, who has been covering the Obama campaign for the last 2 years. Terry asked Ryan what the Obama campaign insiders now say about the effect on their campaign of the long and tough primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Lizza said that everyone in the campaign was unanimous about the overwhelmingly beneficial effect of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy on their eventual victory. Having potentially damaging issues, such as Rev. Wright, brought up during the primary season made them easier to deal with than if they had been brought up for the first time just before the general election. Also the Obama Campaign’s internal polling showed that, thanks to the lengthy primary campaign, by the time of the nominating conventions the public had a much clearer picture of who Obama was than they did of McCain, who had an easier and shorter path to the nomination.

Back in February many blogs, including this one, were worried that Hillary Clinton, by continuing her doomed campaign, ran the risk of lessening Barack Obama’s chances of winning in November. It now appears that we were wrong about that. Mea culpa.

Of course we were not the only ones that had worries at that time that turned out to be unfounded. Remember that Hillary Clinton and her supporters were claiming the McCain and the Republicans would be tougher and have more damaging and more difficult-to-deal-with attacks against Obama than he was currently facing from her in the primaries. That turned out not to be true. McCain refused to allow his campaign to even mention Rev. Wright, because he did not want to play the race card.

Miriam Makeba 1932 - 2008

2008-11-10T05:50:00.006-06:00

The New York Times reports

Miriam Makeba, a South African singer whose voice stirred hopes of freedom among millions in her own country though her music was formally banned by the apartheid authorities she struggled against, died early Monday after performing at a concert in Italy. She was 76.
Read complete article

Here is a video of Miriam Makeba singing Pata Pata

As we remember her, listen to her music and watch recordings of performances such as the one above she will live forever and be with us always.

New taxes and restrictions on auto sales?

2008-11-09T08:44:00.003-06:00

Because of economic woes many American industries, including automobile manufacturing and sales, are hurting but the firearms business is booming. According to the Guardian:

Starting in the days before the election, gun shops have been mobbed by buyers who fear that Obama and a larger Democratic majority in Congress will restrict firearm sales.
Many were stocking up on things such as assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and handguns that they think would be the most likely targets of new laws, though practically everything related to shooting has been selling more quickly.
"It's been an absolute madhouse," said Trey Pugh, a manager at Jim's Pawn Shop in Fayetteville, which is selling 15 to 20 AR-15 assault rifles a day. "I'm getting guys come in and say I always wanted that gun, and give me that one too and that one and, oh, I need a gun safe, too."

New restrictions on gun sales have not been something Barack Obama has proposed and there is little reason to think that this issue will be on the agenda of the Barack Obama presidency or the Democratic majority in Congress. So gun buyers’ concerns appear to be irrational fears fueled by unfounded rumors, being spread (and perhaps originated) by the gun retailers themselves.

As an employee of a company that sells to automobile dealers and is being negatively impacted by the drop in automobile sales I would like to warn the public about the possibility of new restrictions and taxes that may be imposed on the sales of automobiles, perhaps in an attempt to combat global warming. [There is little objective evidence that this could happen but who knows what the future holds?] In order to avoid new taxes and price increases that could happen in a future that no one can predict I think the public would be well advised to make their automobile purchases sooner rather than later. Be sure to pass this advice on to your friends and neighbors.

Republicans praise Rahm Emanuel

2008-11-08T18:43:00.004-06:00

Barack Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff has drawn some criticism from people claiming Emanuel has been partisan and divisive. Some Republicans who have worked with Emanuel in the Congress disagree with that assessment.

According to the Washington Times Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel 'wise' and added that:

Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills. He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work together.

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted retiring Representative Tom Davis, R-Va:

I can't think of a better choice. What's the old saying? You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose? (Rahm) understands the poetry, but he can translate it into prose. He is a practical guy who understands politics as well as policy.

Bloomberg.com quoted retiring Illinois Republican, Ray LaHood:

This idea that Rahm is a guy who can't get along with Republicans is just not true. The truth is in politics, you can count your friends on one or two hands, but he's been a true friend… The idea that he's just a trash-talking, hard-core Chicago pol does not reflect who the man really is.

So if these Republicans who have worked with Emanuel in the Congress say that he is perfectly capable of working amicably and productively with Republicans why are others saying something different?

Fear of an Obama Presidency

2008-11-06T05:00:00.004-06:00

My brother, who is a sixth grade teacher in the public schools in the Rockford area, just emailed me about what happened in his classroom the day after the election:

The majority of students in my class, those whose parents voted for Obama, could not enjoy a moment of glory because two students who were strong Republicans were terribly distressed, telling fellow students that they were going to have to leave our school and flee with their parents to Canada when President Obama started destroying our country. Other students were concerned and sympathetic to the fear felt by their fellow students.
I saw that this fear, pressed upon these children by ****** parents, was real, lasting, and not a ploy or act on the student's part.

In his Concession Speech Tuesday evening John McCain seemed to be trying to put back into Cassandra’s Box all the unwarranted fear and hatred of an Obama presidency that his campaign had unleashed, but obviously it is not going to be that easy. Of all the damage that has been inflicted onto this country the past 8 years, this unreasonable and unwarranted suspicion and fear of Obama held by those who drank the McCain/Palin Campaign Kool-aid may turn out to be among the most destructive of all. If this distrust of Obama cannot be overcome it will undermine the unity needed to get the country back on track and solve our dire and urgent economic, environmental and international security, prestige and moral authority problems.

Candidate defends himself against baseless smears

2008-11-05T18:59:00.004-06:00

Thank God the election is over. We all heard candidates being accused of being unpatriotic, friends with terrorists, Muslims and socialists. I have just become aware of an even more astounding accusation. Out in Montana Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown had to defend himself against accusations that he was a vegetarian:

"I am disgusted by the baseless allegation that I am a vegetarian and that my personal eating habits should somehow be construed as opposed to the economic interests of Montana's livestock industry."
Brown did say that he and his family temporarily cut back on their consumption of meat and dairy products 25 years ago when they were caring for a dying loved one who couldn't eat those products.