tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115781202012-02-16T08:33:11.902-08:00PLURALISM; A condition of society in which different ethnic, religious, etc. groups preserve their own customs and/or hold equal powerSudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17668396677126239786noreply@blogger.comBlogger731100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-77420676696029691702012-01-14T09:48:00.000-08:002012-01-14T09:48:00.580-08:00

Here's a fun comparison between barking dogs and cable news...

Sudihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17668396677126239786noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-26392571925755264232012-01-13T09:07:00.000-08:002012-01-13T09:40:10.623-08:00

Rachel Maddow brought up a past incident about Mitt Romney that she says could haunt his campaign if he should get the nomination. It is old news now, but I agree with her that it goes right to the heart of his character. For when does character show up more than in our dealings with the powerless? Dogs, in their total loyalty and devotion, will take any treatment at the hands of their owners

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-88344884976440708692009-10-30T06:55:00.001-07:002009-10-30T06:58:51.388-07:00

Why is the far right of the Republican party called the "conservative base" while the liberal end of the spectrum for Democrats is called the "left wing?" If supporters of single-payer were continually labeled the "liberal base" of the party, their ideas would command more respect in the media and the minds of the public.

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-39215660339625166862009-10-25T08:27:00.000-07:002009-10-25T08:59:20.151-07:00

Today the headline on HuffPo is "Leaderless" and refers to the White House's lobbying against a robust public option in the Senate in the name of bipartisan cover to the Blue Dog Democrats for their upcoming election. This at a time when Republican identification is at an all-time low. The President and his cabinet are at risk of making the word "bipartisan" as contemptible a word as "

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-43578517782988813962009-10-24T15:52:00.000-07:002009-10-24T16:00:32.974-07:00

I'll tell you a story and you guess who did it. A bunch of politicians signed up for Twitter accounts under the names of their political opponents and began sending obnoxious tweets under those false identities. When they were found out and suspended from Twitter (the act is a breach of the user agreement you must check before joining) these same guys complained that their right to free speech

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-72254190146055303552009-10-21T06:54:00.000-07:002009-10-21T15:56:50.794-07:00

So it turns out that above ground nuclear testing of the Cold War is directly linked to increased cancer in Baby Boomers. A discovery of 85,000 baby teeth donated for a St. Louis study back in the 50's has provided the means, measuring them for the fallout element, Strontium 90, and correlating that to the lifetime cancer rates of those children. The suprise is not in the findings that, yes,

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-60798587372935287122009-10-07T07:12:00.000-07:002009-10-07T07:20:10.887-07:00

I don't see the political debate in the US being between liberals and conservatives anymore. It is becoming clear that what passes for conservatism today is pure reactionary negativism. "I don't like my life and it's all YOUR fault!" Reminds me of how I feel once a month just before my period. The once-conservative Republican party is now the party of perpetual PMS.Conservatism in my mind is

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-75085658068203402362009-10-05T07:15:00.000-07:002009-10-05T07:28:15.842-07:00

I'm as troubled as most thinking people are about the yellow journalism style that has become respectable mainstream reporting. Fox News is the standard bearer, but by no means the only one. Calls for a return to the "Fairness Doctrine" reflect this growing unease among liberal intellectuals. The problem with those regulations is that they bump up hard against free speech, one of the liberal

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-53704479563144692542009-10-03T14:24:00.000-07:002012-01-10T20:59:33.567-08:00

While I was cleaning today, I accidentally ripped an old graying piece of paper stuck on the side of my refrigerator. Before throwing it away, I read it over. I kept it because of how it presented the ideas of the philosopher, Richard Rorty, on the need for storytellers. If you have a philosophical bent or a belief in the value of storytelling, read on. In his ideal of self-creation ... Rorty's

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-59221925041088012822009-09-07T08:43:00.000-07:002009-09-07T10:16:43.491-07:00

Self-help is big business because so many of us want to improve our lives. I see this as good, but there is a dark side to the self-improvement world that can hurt most those who need the most help.I'm bothered by a tendency I see over and over in the self-help world to label and blame critics of any creed or system for their failure to be helped by that system. "Negative attitude" or "

_noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-67245686157388034642009-03-13T14:44:00.001-07:002009-09-07T10:16:09.470-07:00

Thinking about the news of the day, from Madoff, to the Stewart-CNBC dustup, to my personal financial situation, I was struck by this quote of Teddy Roosevelt:The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.Roosevelt took on the monopolies and created our

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-23950170048101429132009-03-12T06:42:00.000-07:002009-03-12T06:43:48.771-07:00

All the hoo-ha about Obama signing the spending bill despite the dreaded earmarks...Imagine your truck needs 99 $1 repairs to get back on the road to deliver your load and get paid, but the shop does 100. You think the 100th was unneccessary, but you're no mechanic. Should you refuse the repair, send the truck back to the shop and twiddle your thumbs for days to save a dollar?A veto of all for a

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-30628997726443434572009-02-28T09:09:00.001-08:002009-09-07T09:56:13.917-07:00

The Washington Post is still trying to contain the read-rage of its subscribers over George Will’s denial of global warming. The furor has centered on some arcane bits of data from 1978. The Post is hiding behind its claim that many fact-checkers misread the data summary. The question in the debate should not focus on whether George Will or the Washington Post misrepresented the facts, but on

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-79731683855597585022009-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:002009-09-07T10:33:33.520-07:00

I was listening to O’Reilly spin about the Helen Thomas kerfuffle that resulted from his tasteless remarks. His rhetoric was a wonderful template for insult and propaganda. To prove there is no substance but just abuse, I took out the key words and made a kind of mad-libs game with it. I have supplied some suggestions for each category, but feel free to substitute your own mad-as-hell-libs to

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-5645046706910382382009-01-25T09:19:00.000-08:002009-09-07T10:04:11.139-07:00

The GOP “ideas” about the economy and the country have nothing to do with governing in a post 11/4 world. The country voted to change the game, and the Republican Congress keeps arguing that we must adhere to the rules of the old one. It’s as if Bush had a baseball team, and the people voted for Obama because he promised them basketball, and the GOP is still insisting that we enforce the

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-45624644078452589162008-12-28T07:46:00.001-08:002008-12-28T08:08:07.630-08:00

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight is working on a fabulous citizen resource that I think is going to take away a lot of the relative anonymity of congressional voting and drive a boom in blogosphere citizen-journalist awareness of Congress. He is working on a cartogram, a kind of map that shows every single congressional district so that voting records will be immediately available. Much more

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-16611342566536924892008-12-22T09:36:00.000-08:002009-03-14T16:19:26.441-07:00

The web is buzzing with the news that a Saudi judge has denied a divorce plea on behalf of an 8-year-old girl married without her knowledge to a 58-year-old man by her father in exchange for a $5000 dowry - apparently, he needed the cash. This is not merely a Saudi or Islamic crime against a girl-child’s right to liberty. Women in virtually all traditional societies are sold to men who pay “

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-67732873293830516912008-11-05T12:43:00.000-08:002009-03-14T16:20:27.262-07:00

Palin kept saying the clothes bought for her would be donated to charity after the election. However, it now seems that some of those clothes have been 'lost.' 'Lost' as in once having found their way into the Governor's Mansion closet, they are now unable to remember how they got there or which way Neiman Marcus is from Alaska.What I want to know is which charity will be receiving the clothes

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-57768849930288859892008-11-02T18:03:00.000-08:002008-11-02T18:05:58.735-08:00

Democrat or Republican, if you find yourself unable to vote or confused about something at your polling place, you can call these people. Election Protection is non-partisan and will help you deal with whatever comes your way so that everyone's vote can be counted.866-OUR-VOTE

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-72052981444232294912008-11-02T06:59:00.000-08:002009-03-14T16:21:14.904-07:00

The clock is running out on the "permanent Republican majority" so sweepingly orchestrated over the last generation. This grandiose plan resembles the rise of every tyranny in history, combining public rhetoric that idealizes tribalism with backroom powergrabs that care nothing for anyone outside the inner cadre of rich and powerful influence peddlers. Whoever wins the presidency on Tuesday,

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-31646869737202978272008-10-31T06:47:00.000-07:002008-10-31T07:22:59.187-07:00

All this talk about Obama being a socialist for wanting the wealthy to pay higher taxe rates than those in the middle ignores the realities of society. After all, it was Abraham Lincoln himself who introduced a tiered income tax to pay for the Civil War "... with taxable incomes up to $10,000 taxed at a 3 percent rate and higher incomes taxed at 5 percent." (From the US treasury website) Higher

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-21168569091303531422008-10-22T21:39:00.000-07:002008-10-22T21:41:43.860-07:00

McCain and Palin crying foul on Obama wanting to redistribute the wealth. But since Reagan, this is just what their party has been doing.From Daily Kos:Between 1983 and 2004 the net worth dramatically shifted as follows:The top 1% net worth went from $8,315,000 to $14,786,000 - a 77.8% change.The next 4% net worth went from $1,375,000 to $2,645,000 - a 92.3% change.The bottom 40% net worth went

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-49624735276484992632008-10-15T17:03:00.000-07:002008-10-15T17:06:30.738-07:00

A great McCain/Obama debate parody written in a time warp 40 years ago for the old Batman TV series. Were television audiences smarter back then? Check it out and have a laugh before the main event tonight.Watch it here.

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-85017850686312805102008-10-12T13:23:00.000-07:002008-10-12T13:25:37.309-07:00

HuffPo reports that RedState co-founder Joshua Trevino wrote in his blog that he filled in his CA absentee ballot intending to vote a straight Republican ticket but in the end he couldn't vote for McCain. He wrote in Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.How about that for a kick in the teeth to McCain!

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-23035421515606083382008-10-11T07:08:00.000-07:002008-10-11T07:17:51.538-07:00

The legislative report that Palin abused her power in trying to get Trooper Wooten fired has some pretty damning conclusions about her character. Many of her claims described Wooten as dangerous, that he had threatened her and her family, and that she was afraid. The investigator, Branchflower, concludes:I conclude that such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-31266817465949744832008-10-11T06:56:00.000-07:002008-10-11T07:00:50.361-07:00

TPM has a great reader post on the math of the golden parachutes received by the CEOs after destroying the banking system. Puts their bonuses in perspective. Here.

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-19927444468725903922008-10-10T18:16:00.000-07:002008-10-10T18:40:58.993-07:00

Today, in two separate arenas, Governor Sarah Palin has been rebuked for failures to carry out her duties as entrusted to her by the great state of Alaska.ABUSE OF POWERThe bipartisan (mostly Republican) panel in the legislature investigating Troopergate released its findings. As reported here:Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-6031890439319088542008-10-09T18:35:00.000-07:002008-10-09T18:39:18.074-07:00

The vicious innuendo that fills the new RNC ad as well as the McCain campaign ads and speeches needs to be met head on. I hope Obama develops an ad campaign with the same slogan, the same techniques, and answers the sleazy lies with the truth in clear images and words that rebuke the falsehoods and shame the ad makers.Who is Barak Obama?

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-11610567879463192982008-10-09T06:24:00.000-07:002008-10-09T06:44:20.896-07:00

The New York Times today reports on how states are illegally purging voters from their rolls. There are purging voters too close to the election day in violation of federal law. And they are using the Social Security database, a database that Social Security says is unreliable and should only be a last resort, as a first resort, which is in violation of their agreement for permission to use

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-11915830246946443702008-10-01T15:25:00.000-07:002008-10-04T07:37:32.741-07:00

Say you've got a million dollars to spend on a website. Your first thought is probably, do I really need to spend that much on a website. But, okay, you need to launch big and launch now. So who do you hire. You can have your pick of top firms. Would you choose a company that not only never ran a website before, but has as its website something that looks like the free template that comes

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-75825113793466558162008-09-28T16:58:00.000-07:002008-10-04T07:38:30.961-07:00

The Daily Kos has a set of graphics about the Presidential debates that brought home the results to me. The responses to the debate categories were broken down by Republican, Democrat, and Independent. In evaluating the candidates, you'd expect the partisan approvals by the party-affiliated responders. But the base hasn't decided a presidential election in years. The Independents must break

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-20524364031546660162008-09-28T15:24:00.000-07:002008-10-01T23:46:38.347-07:00

The Washington Post has reported on yet another ethical lapse by Governor Palin. Apparently, state officials in Alaska are forbidden by law from taking sides on ballot initiatives. Palin bit her tongue about a conflict between mining and fishing industries, but put up partisan info on her government website. When the fisheries complained, she was ordered by the courts to remove the info. She

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-61544239401839789342008-09-28T15:13:00.000-07:002008-09-28T15:18:20.513-07:00

A reader of Talking Points Memo noticed Fox News playing around with the debate footage. They flipped the debaters positions on a split screen so that it looked like McCain was addressing Obama and that it was Obama who was looking away from McCain. Fox should explain that when they say "fair and balanced" they mean that they will actively 'balance' reality so that it meets their idea of fair.

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1990297898705064982008-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:002008-09-28T14:41:50.690-07:00

TPMcafe has a funny Palin story that reads like a classic joke. A 75-year-old rancher is talking to his doctor and the subject of Palin comes up. Enjoy.The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a 'Post Turtle'".Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-63262975294102607132008-09-27T17:57:00.000-07:002008-09-28T17:50:29.906-07:00

While we are all gritting out teeth and accepting the inevitable bailout of unregulated banking in the mortgage sector, the credit card sector is still completely unregulated. Congress is trying to address that in separate legislation at the same time they are proceeding with the bailout by writing some pretty tame limits on how credit card issuers deal with consumers. Mostly the legislation

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-36733555284477610202008-09-22T13:04:00.001-07:002008-09-22T13:07:15.433-07:00

Notice in the article that the campaign strategist, Schmidt, doesn't address the merits of the accusations. He attacks the paper and somehow makes the conversation about the liberal media. Davis at least admits he worked for Fannie & Freddie but claims he didn't lobby–he just met with his friends in Washington who worked for the government. Right. And I don't teach school, I just go every day

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-79806990305623714642008-09-20T18:18:00.000-07:002008-09-20T18:33:31.744-07:00

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, and the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., have thrown their party's theories aside and dived into the financial crisis determined to avoid the mistakes that turned a depression into the Depression. The New York Times chronicles in its business section (here) how the "professor" prevailed against the "banker," the crisis returning us

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-68689840743732129472008-09-20T10:31:00.000-07:002008-09-28T14:57:13.938-07:00

Can you imagine if the Republicans had gotten their way during the Clinton years and if Social Security had been privatized and was dependent on the very financial institutions now collapsing? And McCain wanted to put your health insurance in the same pocketbook. Sure it sounds good: you make your own choices and have more control. But this is the same rationale my dad made for not wearing a seat

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-74203628261199036042008-09-20T07:52:00.000-07:002008-09-20T10:39:03.355-07:00

You better stay healthy if McCain gets elected. McCain was quoted recently in a business magazine, Contingencies, saying that the way to fix health care was to use the deregulated banking industry as the model."Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-59226194707525351432008-09-16T13:23:00.000-07:002008-09-16T13:42:08.328-07:00

Sara Palin quoted Westbrook Pegler in her acceptance speech, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity."The writer a person quotes approvingly is likely to be a writer that same person reads and enjoys, especially if the quote is not some famous old saw or the words of an emblematic public figure. Like is drawn to and values like. So it says a lot about

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-58862879976993979472008-09-16T06:04:00.000-07:002008-09-16T06:12:27.722-07:00

Paul Theroux brought me Thoreau on hunting moose today here and I am now ashamed that on hearing about Palin's love of moose hunting, I didn't question the 'sport.' Where is the sport here?All this talk about moose hunting! It is as though, because of the animal's enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. As

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-51153477611345521542008-09-14T07:58:00.000-07:002008-09-14T08:04:50.039-07:00

So many people are writing about how the poll numbers they are seeing cannot be correct. I, too, am weirded out by them and have been trying to figure out how these stats can be true. One of my friends suggests that poll answerers are a self-selecting group, and that folks like my friends or like me do not answer them. So today, I took my first poll in over 10 years.The last poll I took was a

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-66737455705700057052008-09-13T23:36:00.000-07:002008-09-13T23:52:48.446-07:00

As reported in the New York Times, Palin's style of budget cutting has all the empathy of a Mafia don.The mayor quickly fired the town’s museum director, John Cooper. Later, she sent an aide to the museum to talk to the three remaining employees. “He told us they only wanted two,” recalled Esther West, one of the three, “and we had to pick who was going to be laid off.” The three quit as

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-47409809482075782732008-09-13T08:02:00.000-07:002008-09-13T08:30:21.682-07:00

Deepak Chopra wrote a column called Obama and the Palin Effect that explains the appeal of Palin. Instead of looking at the facts of the candidates or the role of the press, he looks at the unconscious emotional dynamics at play in the electorate. The press may be promoting the idea that the McCain Republican campaign is once again outfoxing the Democratic machine, but the real culprit is found

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-3506423693457236292008-09-12T19:25:00.000-07:002008-09-12T21:40:17.334-07:00

Todd Palin Subpoenaed in TroopergatePalin, cast at last week's Republican National Convention as a supportive husband, oil rig worker and championship snowmachine racer, has emerged in the days since as also a powerful figure in his wife's administration. Despite holding no government position, he attends official meetings and is copied on e-mails concerning state business. (italics mine)

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-45794294794004824472008-09-06T18:57:00.000-07:002008-09-06T19:43:53.430-07:00

The elephant and the donkey. Republican and Democrat. Elephants are supposed to remember. Remember when you opposed integration - of the military, of baseball, of schools? You were angry and resentful. Remember that? All the liberals you hated and now you have to admit, it was the right thing to do. Remember when you said going after Osama bin Laden was a Clinton ploy to draw attention away

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-3996289944419749092008-09-05T21:50:00.000-07:002008-09-06T18:53:37.335-07:00

My mother told me long ago, "when you point a finger at someone else, you are pointing three back at yourself." The Republican playbook runs the 'finger-pointing, name-calling' game and wins with it time and again. The names work for the simple reason that there is truth behind them. Not the truth of the accusation. The truth is in the accuser.And so it is that the shockingly joyful response

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-57772253867925989102008-08-23T08:39:00.000-07:002008-09-06T18:51:46.204-07:00

Obama’s opponents are trying to tag him like a gang in the ghetto of American political speech. I’d like to see the candidate boldly incorporate the tags, redefining them and making them part of his platform. If people see this divisive language being defused and de-clawed, they will begin to have hope again for the future of American politics, and isn’t that what his campaign is all about?

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-58696748414166460472008-08-12T09:18:00.001-07:002008-08-12T09:19:06.445-07:00

Cult - a closed group or religious sect devoted excessively to one idea or person; an unothodox or false religionCulture - growing, cultivated organisms or social community; refinement A cult is narrowing and hierarchical. A culture is expanding and communal. Cults point the finger outward and find everyone else evil and advise either isolation or evangelism to cleanse it. Cultures hand

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-68173400221085659032008-08-09T00:25:00.001-07:002008-08-09T00:25:53.409-07:00

A flock of birds. A herd of cows. A school of fish. An exaltation of larks. Many nouns in English have another, special word to designate a grouping. In the run up to the elections, I have been listening to the reports being circulated about the candidates and noticing they resemble nothing so much as those emails friends forward with capital letters and exclamation points, full of dire

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-90756476572487387402008-07-24T13:29:00.001-07:002008-07-24T13:29:59.482-07:00

In San Francisco for the BlogHer Conference last weekend, I met a young woman who had just arrived from Canada to study medicine at Stanford. Her mother is a physician in Canada and her mother’s associates had encouraged her to study in the US because, "You’ll see a lot of crazy things there.” I thought she meant culturally, but no. Apparently, doctors see many diseases in far more advanced

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-70131130689968694242008-07-12T09:05:00.000-07:002008-07-12T10:05:02.970-07:00

The blogosphere and supporters of Barack Obama have been railing over the mild-mannered treatment John McCain has received from the main stream media. The examples of glossing over his inconsistencies, mistakes and downright lies are so numerous, the voices pointing them out sound like broken records in their call for more balanced reporting. There are several reasons, however, why this gentle

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-18896944779658921572008-07-06T07:51:00.000-07:002008-07-07T15:28:11.712-07:00

Vampires - they suck your blood, infect you with their curse of bloodlust, and have no reflection that is the mark of soullessness. They might be creatures of fantasy in the literal sense, but metaphorically speaking, they are all around us making pronouncements on the television, strolling the halls of power, and debasing their enemies real and perceived in interrogation rooms around the

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-85250702685959135312008-04-04T14:48:00.000-07:002008-04-04T16:02:39.368-07:00

The death of the head of a large family with a substantial estate reveals, in the power struggle that ensues, all of the unhealed wounds and undeveloped characters of the family members remaining. Sometimes, the family members' inability to reconcile with one another means that the inheritance will be squandered in the fighting with little or no benefit ever passing on to those who grabbed so

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1141917554667609982006-03-09T06:35:00.000-08:002008-01-11T07:31:35.785-08:00

Thinking about the current political and social polarity in America as a fight for innocence, or more precisely for a veil of innocence, modulates many of the oppositional motifs into comprehensible themes. What I mean by the "veil of innocence" is a blanket denial of any guilt or responsibility for complex social phenomena in which one plays a part, large or miniscule, even to the point of

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1130861592739012212005-11-01T07:53:00.000-08:002005-11-01T08:13:12.753-08:00

The nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court may please the far right, who see themselves as holding the line on morality in society, but the short-sighted victory may have exactly the opposite effect. Alito believes a husband has dominion over his wife and that an abortion should require his permission, whether or not it is his child. If such a practice were put in place, my solution

_noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1124030180565914732005-08-14T07:19:00.000-07:002005-08-14T07:41:33.400-07:00

The idea of framing puts language foremost in the public debate, and as the NY Times Magazine pointed out a few weeks ago, the Republican core values are summed up in a few words - lower taxes, small government, family values - the Democratic values are difficult to lay out in a full essay.An Article in the LA Times on Bill Richardson quoted him as saying, "It's basically not center, not left,

_noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1122647515168336972005-07-29T06:38:00.000-07:002005-07-29T07:31:55.176-07:00

Much has been made of the Democratic Party's lack of message. The successes at holding off the assaults of the neo-con right wing have been good defense, but defenses alone cannot win a war. In this ideological war, the liberals need weapons of their own. I don't think the problem is that Liberals have no ideas; I think Liberals are afraid their ideas will not be popular. They lack the

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1121961872288496172005-07-21T08:06:00.000-07:002005-07-21T14:05:24.170-07:00

Complaining about the lack of traditional values in others is part of a traditional pastime that employs a whipping boy to release pent up negativity. Often people laying blame are deeply unhappy and have discovered that if they discharge their existential discomfort onto others, using projection as their primary tool of inner peace, their lives suddenly blossom with value and purpose. These

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1116433974507796692005-05-18T08:09:00.000-07:002005-05-18T09:53:37.616-07:00

I'm tired of all the talk about 'values' because that's all it is - talk. Values are principles, which according to my dictionary, are rules of behavior, laws from which other laws are derived, theoretical and fundamental ideas about right and wrong. They can be all talk and no action, except the action of telling others what to do by means of law and lecture. The actual venality, hypocricy,

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1116255411731807592005-05-16T07:23:00.000-07:002005-05-18T10:10:59.226-07:00

As a pluralist, I'm okay with a school board adding things to the curriculum. As a writer, I'm not at all happy with a school board taking it upon itself to redefine a whole field of study because they don't like its conclusions.I may be a secular humanist myself, but I know science doesn't have all the answers, and many of the answers it does have are not the final answer. I still remember my

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1112630590798495332005-04-04T08:32:00.000-07:002005-04-04T09:25:36.870-07:00

Fundamentalism and education have always been at odds. Fundamentalism, by definition, takes one perspective and filters all other ideas through that single lens. The Nazis or the Taliban, the Khmer Rouge or the Christian Coalition, they take a single-minded narcissistic vision of the world and use it as a tool of domination to unite their followers in unthinking self-congratulation while

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1112559797156875012005-04-02T13:06:00.000-08:002005-04-03T13:52:32.086-07:00

"We like the idea that he'll represent U.S. interests to the U.N., rather than act as a U.N. spokesman to this country," said Howard Kaloogian, chairman of Move America Forward. "We like the idea that he'll speak truth to power." The report on John Bolton's nomination presented the above conservative opinion quote in Thursday's LA Times article, "Democrats Set to Reject Pick for U.N." as a

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1112319824078974392005-03-31T17:43:00.000-08:002005-04-03T13:25:14.606-07:00

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1112218585437303632005-03-30T13:35:00.000-08:002005-03-30T22:31:32.720-08:00

A friend of mine got a cash advance from her bank card. When she got the bill, her interest rate was a whopping 40%. She was in financial straits, which was why she borrowed. This 40% interest pushed her over the edge rather than saved her. The new Abu Ghraib mentality toward unsuspecting borrowers will drive many into financial ruin, a thing you'd think the banks and credit companies

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1112212962789269922005-03-30T12:02:00.000-08:002005-03-30T21:07:58.243-08:00

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111947724638490362005-03-27T10:01:00.000-08:002005-03-27T10:43:42.776-08:00

Either Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader and Republican darling from Texas, committed an "act of barbarism" on his own father or he has been using the poor Schiavo family as a bit of lighter fluid on the flames of the emotional barbecue called Republicans-Uber-Alles. He himself coined the impassioned phrase, "an act of barbarism," to describe the removal of the feeding tube that was keeping

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111889316896245582005-03-26T17:47:00.000-08:002005-03-26T18:15:19.850-08:00

I look at the parents and the husband of Terri Schiavo and I see a microcosm of the cancer eating at the core of our society. They cannot come to an agreement, even for the sake of one they love. Meanwhile, all the rest of us are so sure 'our side' of this tragic drama is not only right, but that the other side is evil. This issue, the election, the social and political landscape, the world

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111376494790775722005-03-22T19:02:00.000-08:002005-03-22T21:43:03.030-08:00

I would like to rehabilitate the word 'liberal.' Liberal, according to my dictionary, means generous; noble-minded; broad-minded; not bound by tradiitional authority or orthodoxy; candid; free from restraint; looking to the general or broad sense rather than the literal. These are all beautiful ideas. Only one of the last definitions, free from restraint, could possibly be given a negative

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111468981202212732005-03-21T21:11:00.000-08:002005-03-21T21:25:02.580-08:00

The GOP Leaders want it both ways. They want to save the Terri Schiavo's of the world whose costly care would be impossible without Medicaid, but they want to slash Medicaid. It's not okay for her husband to remove her feeding tube, but it's okay for them to remove funding for it. Likewise, the part of Terri's care that was paid for by her husband came from a million dollar settlement against

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111418059502395842005-03-21T06:54:00.000-08:002005-03-21T07:45:58.466-08:00

All the high-minded rhetoric about poor Terri Schiavo in the mouths of Republican legislators would be heartwarming if those ideas found their way into other issues. The reason that the Republican Machine has jumped on this issue is revealed in an eyes-only memo for GOP senators that described it as a "great political issue" because it played to the Christian conservative movement, which makes

_noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111373577896905712005-03-20T18:35:00.000-08:002005-03-21T12:50:51.880-08:00

I am tired of the self-styled "Moral Majority." They are merely selectively moral and only superficially devoted to the democratic idea of majority rule. When the majority opinion agrees with theirs, they tout it with zeal. But when the majority opinion on an issue disagrees with theirs, they deny the majority voice for that Majority-of-One called God. Happily, God always agrees with them.

_noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578120.post-1111338929467290142005-03-19T08:47:00.000-08:002005-03-20T20:04:32.816-08:00

The Ethical Plurality, as opposed to the so-called "Moral Majority," recognizes that there are other people in the world beside oneself. A pluralist stands by the saying, "There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and the wrong way is to try to get everybody else to do things the 'right' way.

_noreply@blogger.com0