Malcolm's Blog

The internet is spying on you

2011-02-16T10:43:00.002-05:00

From The Week
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2010, AT 10:32 AM

Every time you go online, sophisticated data miners are tracking your every move. What do they know about you?

How frequently am I followed online?

Constantly. Your computer leaves a unique digital trail every time you visit a website, post a comment on a blog, or add a photo to your Facebook wall. A growing number of companies follow that trail to assemble a profile of you and your affinities. These profiles can contain shocking levels of detail—including your age, income, shopping habits, health problems, sexual proclivities, and ZIP code—right down to the number of rooms in your house and the number of people in your family. Although trackers don’t identify their subjects by name, the data they compile is so extensive that “you can find out who an individual is without it,” says Maneesha Mithal of the Federal Trade Commission.

How does the technology work?

The moment you land on a website, it installs a unique electronic code on your hard drive. Owners of websites originally placed “cookies,” the simplest such codes, on computers for users’ convenience, in order to remember things like the contents of online shopping carts. But a cookie placed by one site can also serve as a tracking device that allows marketers to identify an individual computer and follow its path on every Web visit. It’s like a clerk who sells you a pair of jeans at one store, then trails you around the mall, recording every store you visit and every item of clothing you try on. “Beacons” are super-cookies that record even computer keystrokes and mouse movements, providing another layer of detail. “Flash cookies” are installed when a computer user activates Flash technology, such as a YouTube video, embedded on a site. They can also reinstall cookies that have been removed. Such “persistent cookies,” says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, make it “virtually impossible for users to go online without being tracked and profiled.”

Who’s doing the spying?

Marketers, advertisers, and those whose businesses depend on them. Most websites install their own cookies and beacons, both to make site navigation easier and to gather user information. (Wikipedia is a rare exception.) But third parties—advertisers and the networks that place online ads, such as Google and iAds—frequently pay site hosts to install their own tracking technology. Beacons are even sometimes planted without the knowledge of the host site. Comcast, for example, installed Flash cookies on computers visiting its website after it accepted Clearspring Technologies’ free software for displaying slide shows. Visitors who clicked on a slide show at Comcast.com wound up loading Clearspring’s Flash cookies onto their hard drives, which Comcast said it had never authorized.

How is personal data used?

It’s collected and sold by companies like Clearspring. Such information can be sold in large chunks—for example, an advertiser might pay $1 for 1,000 profiles of movie lovers—or in customized segments. An apparel retailer might buy access to 18-year-old female fans of the Twilight movie series who reside in the Sunbelt. “We can segment it all the way down to one person,” says Eric Porres of Lotame, which sells these profiles. Advertisers use the profiles to deliver individualized ads that follow users to every site they visit. Julia Preston, a 32-year-old software designer from Austin, recently saw how this works firsthand when she started seeing lots of Web ads for fertility treatments. She had recently researched uterine disorders online. “It’s unnerving,” she says.

Is all this snooping legal?

So far, yes. While an e-commerce site can’t sell to third parties the credit card numbers it acquires in the course of its business, the legality of various tracking technologies—and the sale of the personal profiles that result—has never been tested in court. Privacy advocates say that’s not because there aren’t abundant abuses, but because the law hasn’t kept pace with advancing technology. “The relevant laws,” says Lauren Weinstein of People for Internet Responsibility, an advocacy group, “are generally so weak—if they exist at all—that it’s difficult to file complaints.”

Can you avoid revealing yourself online?

Aside from abandoning the Internet altogether, there’s virtually no way to evade prying eyes. Take the case of Ashley Hayes-Beaty, who learned just how exposed she was when The Wall Street Journal shared what it had learned about her from a data miner. Hayes-Beaty’s computer use identified her as a 26-year-old female Nashville resident who counts The Princess Bride and 50 First Dates among her favorite movies, regularly watches Sex and the City, keeps current on entertainment news, and enjoys taking pop-culture quizzes. That litany, which advertisers can buy for about one-tenth of a cent, constitutes what Hayes-Beaty calls an “eerily precise” consumer profile. “I like to think I have some mystery left to me,” says Hayes-Beaty, “but apparently not.”

How to fight back against data miners

There are ways to minimize your exposure to data miners. One of the most effective is to disrupt profile-building by clearing your computer browser’s cache and deleting all cookies at least once a week. In addition, turning on the “private browsing” feature included in most popular Web browsers will block tracking technologies from installing themselves on your machine. For fees ranging from $9.95 to $10,000, companies like ReputationDefender can remove your personal information from up to 90 percent of commercial websites. But it’s basically impossible to eradicate personal information, such as property records and police files, from government databases. “There’s really no solution now, except abstinence” from the Internet, says Lt. Col. Greg Conti, a computer science professor at West Point. “And if you choose not to use online tools, you’re really not a member of the 21st century.”

The GOP's rude awakening on health-care repeal

2011-01-21T12:28:00.004-05:00

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, January 21, 2011

Wednesday's vote to repeal President Obama's health insurance reform law was supposed to be a crowning triumph. We heard confident GOP predictions that cowed Democrats would defect in droves, generating unstoppable momentum that forced the Senate to obey "the will of the people" and follow suit. The Democrats' biggest domestic accomplishment would be in ruins and Obama's political standing would be damaged, perhaps irreparably.

What actually happened, though, is that the Republican majority managed to win the votes of just three Democrats - all of them Blue Dogs who have been consistent opponents of the reform package anyway. In terms of actual defectors, meaning Democrats who changed sides on the issue, there were none. This is momentum?

The unimpressive vote came at a moment when "the will of the people" on health care is coming into sharper focus. Most polls that offer a simple binary choice - do you like the "Obamacare" law or not - show that the reforms remain narrowly unpopular. Yet a significant fraction of those who are unhappy complain not that the reform law went too far but that it didn't go far enough. I think of these people as the "public option" crowd.

A recent Associated Press poll found that 41 percent of those surveyed opposed the reform law and 40 percent supported it. But when asked what Congress should do, 43 percent said the law should be modified so that it does more to change the health-care system. Another 19 percent said it should be left as it is.

More troubling for the GOP, the AP poll found that just 26 percent of respondents wanted Congress to repeal the reform law completely. A recent Washington Post poll found support for outright repeal at 18 percent; a Marist poll pegged it at 30 percent.

In other words, what House Republicans just voted to do may be the will of the Tea Party, but it's not "the will of the people."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." By this standard, House Republicans are geniuses. To pass the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," they had to believe that the work of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is both authoritative and worthless.

The CBO, which "scores" the impact of proposed legislation, calculated that the health-reform law will reduce federal deficits by at least $143 billion through 2019. Confronted with the fact that repeal would deepen the nation's fiscal woes, Republicans simply claimed the CBO estimate to be rubbish. Who cares what the CBO says, anyway?

Er, um, Republicans care, at least when it's convenient. Delving into the CBO's analysis, they unearthed a finding that they proclaimed as definitive: The reform law would eliminate 650,000 jobs. Hence "Job-Killing" in the repeal bill's title.

One problem, though: The CBO analysis contains no such figure. It's an extrapolation of a rough estimate of an anticipated effect that no reasonable person would describe as "job-killing." What the budget office actually said is that there are people who would like to withdraw from the workforce - sometimes because of a chronic medical condition - but who feel compelled to continue working so they can keep their health insurance. Once the reforms take effect, these individuals will have new options. That's where the "lost" jobs supposedly come from.

The exercise in intellectual contortion that was necessary for the House to pass the repeal bill will be an excellent tune-up for what's supposed to come next. "Repeal and replace" was the promise - get rid of the Democrats' reform plan and design one of their own. This is going to be fun.

It turns out that voters look forward to the day when no one can be denied insurance coverage because of preexisting conditions. They like the fact that young adults, until they are 26, can be kept on their parents' policies. They like not having yearly or lifetime limits on benefits. The GOP is going to have to design something that looks a lot like Obamacare.

Meanwhile, Obama's approval ratings climb higher every week. Somebody change the subject. Quick!

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Bill Maher on Jon Stewart's Rally

2010-11-10T03:11:00.001-05:00

Bill Maher took on Jon Stewart for claiming during his rally that there are extremists on both the Right and the Left.

Just Libertarianism?

2010-05-20T10:38:00.000-05:00

from Talking Points Memo

TPM Reader SW wrote in this morning cautioning that we make clear that opposing all civil rights legislation on libertarian grounds doesn't mean you don't support civil rights. I think this is far from an uncontested claim. And since the Rand Paul situation is going to be raising it to such high salience I wanted to share SW's email with you and give you my thoughts on the underlying question.

First here's SW's email.

You write that Rand Paul is "...against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act and supporting abolishing the Department of Education..."

It's worth noting that Libertarians are against the Civil Rights Act, but not against civil rights. Indeed you'll find no stronger defender of civil rights of any type than libertarians. For us its a matter of approach. A different means to the same end. But the means does matter both in principal and practice. I think you understand this, but the way you characterize Paul's policy positions gave me pause.

He's not against civil rights, people with disabilities, or against educating today's youth.

Let's start the conversation by agreeing that as a technical matter, this is true. Libertarianism is a political philosophy rooted in a belief in radical limitations on state power. And I'm inclined to follow my friend Mike Lind's argument that unlike a lot of mishmash conservative claptrap libertarianism is a political philosophy I can disagree with but still recognize as internally consistent and rooted in important principles. As Mike wrote once, I simply think its assumptions and understanding of human nature are off. But this is hardly the end of the story.

Political philosophy can never be free of history. And there is no denying that similar states rights or libertarian arguments have been the arguments of choice for those who want to defend racial discrimination since avowed defenses of racial prejudice and subordination became publicly unacceptable outside some parts of the South in the early second half of the last century. That's simply a fact. In principle, it doesn't delegitimize libertarian political philosophy. But we don't live in classrooms or treatises. We live in an actual world where history and experience can't be separated from philosophy.

When he ran for President in 1964 Barry Goldwater ran on opposition to federal Civil Rights legislation on what he claimed were states rights grounds. And there's some reason to believe that for him that really was what it was about. But it is entirely clear that his political punch came from supporters in the South who wanted to keep Jim Crow in effect. Again, that's just a fact.

So that's the history.

Then there is the simple matter of priorities. To a degree the argument Paul is making is something like saying that I don't like rape or murder, I just don't believe in a police force to prevent it or a judiciary to punish the offenders. The reason we, albeit imperfectly, have equality before the law and in the society at large (in terms of public accommodations and so forth) on racial grounds in the whole of the United States is because of federal legislation that forced that to be the case. The reason we don't have white and colored drinking fountains or pools for whites only, etc. You can say you think all those things are awful and you may be telling the truth. But what are you going to do about it? The variant of libertarianism which Paul espouses, while internally consistent in theory and separate from race, has you saying, I wouldn't do anything about it -- though I'd decry it as an individual.

Folks who espouse this kind of philosophy deserve to be held to account for that fact, whatever their inner beliefs about race and equality may be.

And having said all this, I'd be remiss not to say that an awful lot of folks in the South seem to have these views and theories of the constitution that are completely divorced from history that end up bringing them to these conclusions. As one observer said in a totally different context about the Nation of Islam, they may not be looking for trouble, but they sure do seem to find it.

S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals

2010-01-26T22:51:00.001-05:00

South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who hopes to succeed fellow Republican Mark Sanford as his state's governor, drew a comparison between government help for poor people and "feeding stray animals" – who, he noted, "breed."

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer said during a town hall meeting, as the Greenville News reported over the weekend. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

As the Greenville News notes, more than half of the students in South Carolina participate in a program that allows them to get their lunch for free, or at a reduced cost.

Bauer later said he wasn't saying those who receive government help "were animals or anything else."

He added that his metaphor was taken out of context, WSOCTV reports, and added that "maybe the stray animals wasn't the best metaphor."

Bauer made the comment as part of an argument that people should lose government benefits if they fail drug tests or don't attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings.

"Look folks, if you receive goods or services from the government and you don't attend a parent-teacher conference, bam, you lose your benefits," he said. In a follow-up story, the Greenville News reports that Bauer said "he would penalize only adults and that he never advocated taking away a child's free or reduced-price lunch. His speech was about breaking the cycle of dependence on government aid, he said."

During the town hall meeting, Bauer said he "can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina." He added: "So how do you fix it? Well you say, 'Look, if you receive goods or services from the government, then you owe something back.'"

South Carolina Democrats responded harshly to the comments, and there were calls for Bauer to apologize and to drop his gubernatorial bid. Some in his own party were also critical, with Republican state Rep. Harry Cato saying Bauer "has gone overboard."

2009-12-31T11:49:00.004-05:00

"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do." - William Blake

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. - Ernest Hemingway

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. - Unknown

LAPD drops ties with the Boy Scouts

2009-12-29T10:28:00.000-05:00

from Box Turtle Bulletin
by Timothy Kincaid

In 2000, the Boy Scouts of America went to the US Supreme Court to defend their right to exclude members based solely on their sexual orientation. And since that time, they have insisted that all scout troops – even those in which the community, the scout leaders, and the parents wish otherwise – expel and exclude gay scouts and leaders. They also exclude atheists and agnostics.

I support their right to do so. Generally, I believe that membership based social organizations should be free to grant or deny membership based on whatever arbitrary or ridiculous reason they wish, even if it be odious and hateful. Even if I believe the policy to be ill conceived and harmful.

But they should not do so with my tax dollars.

And, increasingly, the Scouts have been discovering that the cost of their exclusionary policy is not an inconsequential one. There has been a steady stream of cities that have severed ties or revoked special privileges which the organization had enjoyed. No longer does the City Berkeley provide free berthing to the Sea Scouts. The City of San Diego revoked its $1 lease on a portion of Balboa Park, and the City of Philadelphia evicted the Scouts from a city owned building.

Of course, those who demand their right to discriminate often are outraged and indignant when they think that they are on the other side of the equation. So the Boy Scouts have sued in each of these cases, claiming that revoking their special privileges and taxpayer sponsored handouts is (you saw it coming) discrimination against them.

Yet with each passing year, they are discovering that local governments and institutions give less leeway to the Scouts. Their blind insistence on defining themselves as a religious organization free to disassociate the ungodly also puts them at conflict with establishment of religion issues.

And, frankly, more and more, their pigheadedness is seen as distasteful. Civic institutions don’t want to put gay elected officials or employees in the uncomfortable position of having to deal with a group that considers them not to be “clean” or “morally straight”. And it feels burdensome of the Scouts to put them in this position.

So this organization, once revered and considered an integral part of American youth, is increasingly give the heave-ho. And the latest to sever connections with the Scouts is the Los Angeles Police Department (Daily Breeze).

Since 1962 the Explorers, a program for youth who wish to become police officers, has been affiliated with the Boy Scouts. That will end on Friday; the Police Commission has voted to change the name of the program and cease using the Scout affiliated insurance service (the LAPD has administered the program itself for the past decade).

Commissioner Robert Saltzman, who is openly gay, said that because he cannot support the Boy Scouts, he has invested a lot of time to ensure the new youth program is “as good or – I’m confident – better than the program it replaces.”

“The Boy Scouts are clear that they discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender identity and religion, and the result of that is I could not be active on the Boy Scouts,” Saltzman said.

None of this is a happy resolution. The Scouts are weaker, the program is less respected, ad hoc solutions are pasted about in attempts to keep programs operating, and children are now less connected to their local governments. All the good that comes from connecting with nature, teaching values by example, efforts for self improvement and a call to selflessness has now been tainted by exclusion, discrimination, and recrimination.

All so that some ultra-religious administrators can self-righteously declare that only good god-fearing heterosexuals can be associated with their organization. Oh, and all this sadness and destruction is justified because their bigotry is “for the children”.

VP of Exodus, Randy Thomas, decries Maddow, defends Cohen

2009-12-28T15:44:00.001-05:00

by Patrick Fitzgerald

Building on David Robert’s post on the Richard Cohen portion of The Rachel Maddow Show, Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, had some things to say about the exchange.

Randy Thomas: I am going to share a review of the actual interview and then move into how I believe she, and some other militant gay activists, are missing the point with regard to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill.

Transcript, edited for brevity, emphases mine:

MADDOW: But you have told them, particularly in your book, “Coming Out Straight,” which I understand you donated multiple copies of to this organization that‘s promoting this bill. You‘re telling them exactly what they need to hear in order to justify the kill-the-gays bill. I mean, your book portrays gay people as predators who must be stopped to protect the innocent.

COHEN: Oh, no, no, no.

MADDOW: Let me ask – I‘ll just read from your book, OK? Page 49, “Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Homosexual teachers are at least seven times more likely to molest a pupil. Homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults were made by those who engage in homosexuality.”

This is the claim that you make in your book that exactly feeds these folks who want to execute people for being gay, what they need in order to justify that. Do you stand by what you said in your book?

COHEN: Actually, you know, that one particular quote, when I do republish it, reprint it, we will extract that from it, because we don‘t want such things to be used against homosexual persons.

MADDOW: That quote is cited – you cite somebody named Paul Cameron as the source of that book.

COHEN: I see that they‘re using it, but you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book.

“you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book”

That “one little quote” may be edited out of Cohen’s next revision, but it’s a paltry excision in light of the other “little” quotes in his book.

But first, a bit of context. Cohen cites Dr. Joseph Nicolosi—co-founder of the anti-gay organization, NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality)—repeatedly, in the effort to demonstrate (simplified) that same-sex attraction can be “overcome,” and that it all boils down to distant same-sex parenting, or clingy opposite-sex parenting.

Much of Cohen’s book is dedicated to promulgating the concept that gays can become straight–a key factor in justifying the passage of anti-gay laws, and the non-passage of pro-equality laws.

Richard Cohen, Coming Out Straight: NARTH conducted a survey of 860 respondents and found that those who want to change their sexual orientation may succeed. [p24]

In addition to the Paul Cameron “research” that Cohen asserts he will take out of his next reprint, there are several other cases of misused studies that were not mentioned in the interview.

Included are some of the anti-gay industry’s favorites to show that gay men are unfaithful sluts at heart (you monogamous lesbians, as usual, are safe on this front).

Richard Cohen, Coming Out Straight: The Gay Rights Movement, the media, the educational system, and the mental-health profession tell use that homosexuality is normal and natural. Let us observe some of the statistics about homosexual behavior and see if this condition is, in fact, normal:

“The Kinsey Institute published a study of homosexual males living in San Francisco which reports that 43 percent had sex with 500 or more partners, 28 percent had sex with 1,000 or more partners, and 79 percent said that over half of their sex partners were strangers.” [p48]

(Ergo, all gay men are male nymphomaniacs.)

That “particular” quote is footnoted as: Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) , 308-312

As Alvin McEwen of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters reports:

A citation of the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct generalization of lgbt sexual habits despite the fact that it was written in 1978 and was not meant by the authors to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general…

…“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

We then get the claims that gays and lesbians are more prone to drug and alcohol abuse, that gay teen suicides are over reported, and that gay men are “six times more likely to have attempted suicide than heterosexual men.”

And then, on cue, we are given one of the anti-gay industry’s most famous misused study from the 1984 McWhirter and Mattison book, The Male Couple, to show that 95% of male couples are unfaithful.

Yet, from the first page of the Introduction, we find this disclaimer:

We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location [San Diego], and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay male community. Stricktly speaking, the sample is neither large enough, randomly selected nor geographically dispersed enough to represent necessarily the majority of male couples. As behavioral scientists we cannot report our conclusions as being derived from a representative sample.

That is then compared with a survey boasting of a “93.6 percent” fidelity rate among married heterosexual couples.

(Or, in reality based terms: Only 6.4 percent of married heterosexual couples surveyed were willing to admit that they were adulterous cheaters.)

Only THEN do we get to the Paul Cameron child molestation quote that Rachel Maddow confronts Cohen with. And to Randy Thomas’ credit, he does denounce Paul Cameron as “debunked” and “quite hateful.”

Immediately after that litany of slander, Mr. Cohen has this to say:

…Members of the homosexual community argue that social intolerance and prejudice cause these destructive behaviors. I believe there is some merit to this argument. However, the deeper reason for these unhealthy behaviors is the emotional brokenness that caused the homosexual condition in the first place. The social prejudice merely exacerbates the already-existing pain lodged deep in their souls. [p49]

And exacerbate that social prejudice he does.

It remains to be seen whether these defamatory claims will be redacted from the next revision of his book, but the damage is done and his message received; same-sex attraction can be reversed, therefore it is a choice, and gay men are super-slut child molesters.

Randy Thomas: But here’s the point I really want to make; saving Ugandan lives doesn’t appear to be Maddow and friends top priority, bashing alternate views does.

gay men are sex-fiends = alternative view

The exposition of this tawdry laundry list of anti-gay hate-speech would seem to be what Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, would have us believe is responsible for the ‘victimization’ of Richard Cohen by Rachel Maddow.

Further:

She did not use any of that precious air time in actually helping the Ugandan people defeat this bill…

…In her very long segment, Rachel didn’t change a thing in her world, our world or help save Ugandan lives.

As a “militant homosexual activist,” Mr. Thomas, need I remind you of Ecclesiastes 3:8:

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

This is one of those times, Mr. Thomas. To hate lies and to war against them. If you can’t see that, might I suggest you move into a non-glass house?

VP of Exodus, Randy Thomas, decries Maddow, defends Cohen

2009-12-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

A culture war cease-fire

2009-12-24T16:56:00.001-05:00

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post
Thursday, December 24, 2009

It is 2009's quiet story -- quiet because it's about what didn't happen, which can be as important as what did. In this highly partisan year, we did not see a sharpening of the battles over religion and culture.

Yes, we continued to fight over gay marriage, and arguments about abortion were a feature of the health-care debate. But what's more striking is that other issues -- notably economics and the role of government -- trumped culture and religion in the public square. The culture wars went into recession along with the economy.

The most important transformation occurred on the right end of politics. For now, the loudest and most activist sections of the conservative cause are not its religious voices but the mostly secular, anti-government tea party activists.

Especially revealing is the re-emergence of former House majority leader Dick Armey, a prime mover behind the tea parties and a longtime critic of the religious right. He once said that James Dobson of Focus on the Family and his allies were a "gang of thugs" and "real nasty bullies."

Armey and his supporters speak a libertarian language that contrasts sharply with the message of Christian conservatives. "When Republicans are fighting against the power of the state, we win," Armey told the New York Times recently. "When we are trying to advance it, we lose."

At the same time, President Obama has been unabashed in offering his views on religious questions. Two of the most important speeches of his first year -- his addresses at the Notre Dame graduation in May and in Oslo this month when he received the Nobel Peace Prize -- were suffused with the language of faith. At Notre Dame, the president lavishly praised the Catholic social justice tradition. In Oslo, he spoke as a Christian realist clearly conversant with the ideas of Reinhold Niebuhr, the great 20th-century theologian.
ad_icon

On President Bush's faith-based initiative, Obama has made reforms but largely avoided or postponed dealing with the most controversial questions.

Even the cultural and religious conflicts that have persisted were debated at a lower volume. Going into the health-care skirmishes, both supporters and opponents of abortion rights pledged that they would not try to upset current arrangements that bar federal funding of abortion. Although they feuded bitterly over what this meant in practice, their opening positions reflected a pulling back from the brink.

The Senate compromise on abortion negotiated by Sens. Ben Nelson, Bob Casey and Barbara Boxer did not fully satisfy either camp in the abortion struggle, and there will be fallout in the new year. ("Imagine, we Democrats managed to make both sides on the abortion issue unhappy," one House member said wryly but accurately.) Nonetheless, those who expected the abortion controversy to sink health-care reform have, so far, been proved wrong.

And while gay marriage continues to roil politics at the state and local levels, this argument has now become part of the routine of American politics. Republican politicians have shown a limited appetite for nationalizing the issue, something they did eagerly before the 2004 election. Judging by the closeness of some of the referendum votes -- notably this year in Maine, where the measure lost narrowly -- support for gay marriage has grown, although its backers are still short of a majority in most places.

In the meantime, religious progressives are mobilized to a degree not seen since the civil rights years. They weighed in regularly on health care, providing energy for the compromises on abortion that would otherwise have won little organized support.

Of course, it was inevitable that cultural and religious issues would at least partially recede during a sharp economic downturn. Such matters also declined in importance during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and none more so than the previous decade's struggle over the prohibition of alcohol.

At the time, historian William E. Leuchtenburg reported, a Missouri Democrat told James Farley, one of Franklin Roosevelt's top lieutenants, that it was "ridiculous for a jobless wet Democrat to wrangle with a jobless dry Democrat over liquor when neither could afford the price of a drink."

The paradox for Obama is that if the economy continues its comeback in 2010, his overall standing will improve, but the risk of renewed conflict over religion and values will also rise. It's a trade the president will happily take, even if he would then face a much tougher test of his credentials as a cultural peacemaker.

Go Forth and Steal, Says English Priest

2009-12-22T23:17:00.002-05:00

LONDON (Dec. 22) For some 3,500 years, the 10 Commandments have included the easy-to-follow instruction, "Thou shalt not steal." But one British Anglican priest thinks that ancient command is now out-of-touch with our recession-hit world and has suggested it be changed to something more flexible, such as: "Thou shalt not steal, unless you're short of cash."

The Rev. Tim Jones issued his new religious edict on Sunday, while addressing worshippers at the Church of St. Lawrence, in the northern English city of York. He told parishioners that poor people struggling to survive should steal food and other essentials from shops, rather than raise money through prostitution, burglary or mugging.

"My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift," he said, as originally reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post. "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither."

The Rev. Tim Jones says the 10 Commandments could use tweaking during a recession, like maybe some stealing is acceptable for those otherwise going hungry.
Keen to make sure that independent retailers wouldn't fall victim to a holy shoplifting spree, Jones set down strict guidelines for would-be Christian criminals. "I would ask that [people] do not steal from small, family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices," he said. "[And] I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need."

Local police condemned his sermon as sinful, telling the BBC that "shoplifting or committing other crimes should never be the solution" for people in difficult circumstances. If everyone in poverty stole from stores, the police added, "this would make the downward spiral even more rapid, both on an individual basis and on society as a whole."

U.K. storeowners -- who pay out $5 billion each year on stolen stock -- were similarly unimpressed. "You'd expect a vicar to appreciate the difference between right and wrong," says Krishan Rama, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium. "It's the job of our welfare system, which retailers support with the billions they pay each year in tax, to help vulnerable people. There are no excuses for stealing."

Jones also received a telling off from his boss -- no, not that one, but the more temporal Archdeacon of York, the Venerable Richard Seed. "The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift, or break the law in any way," the Archdeacon announced. "Father Tim Jones is raising important issues about the difficulties people face when benefits are not forthcoming, but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these difficulties."

The controversial vicar later appeared on British television to clarify his position, and claimed that he had "never said it is OK to steal. It is a dreadful thing to steal." The sermon, Jones said, was in fact only meant to encourage worshippers to give more to charity, not incite them to snatch cookies from the corner store.

Obama vs. Fox News

2009-10-14T09:34:00.003-05:00

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says Fox is an arm of the Republican Party

Best opinion: Nation, Hot Air, Baltimore Sun, Crooks and Liars

The Obama administration has finally declared war on Fox News, said Ari Melber in The Nation. White House Communications Director Anita Dunn went on national television over the weekend to "blast Fox," saying that the cable news channel "often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." It's about time Democrats started treating Fox as the "hostile force" it obviously is. (watch the White House's Anita Dunn criticize Fox News)

Sure, Fox News offers viewers an alternative to the "Obama Hosannah Hours" on rival cable networks CNN and MSNBC, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. But that's why the "ill-advised" strategy of publicly attacking the network is bound to "backfire." The White House is just conducting what amounts to a free marketing campaign that will drive up Fox's ratings.

This isn't just an attack on Fox, said David Zurawik in the Baltimore Sun. It's an attack on "press freedom" that would make Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew proud. "You have to wonder who else is on this administration's enemies list."

Please, Anita Dunn merely stated the obvious, said John Amato in Crooks and Liars, when she pointed out that Fox News is a "propanda" organ for the Republican Party. Can anyone deny that Fox spends an inordinate amount of time and effort reporting on Bill Ayers and ACORN? Obama didn't declare war on Fox—Fox declared war on him.

Obama and gay rights

2009-10-14T09:25:00.003-05:00

President Obama renewed his vow to end "don't ask, don't tell," but some activists are getting impatient.

Gay rights advocates rally in Washington D.C. on Oct. 11, 2009.

Best opinion: NY Times, New Majority, Wash. Post

President Obama's renewal of his promise to end "don't ask, don't tell," said Sheryl Gay Stolberg in The New York Times, got a roar of approval from the 3,000 people at a Human Rights Campaign black-tie fundraiser on the eve of Sunday's big gay-rights rally in Washington. "But outside the room, the president's words got a chillier reception," because some activists think the president isn't moving fast enough to lift the ban on gays in the military.

There's good reason for gay-rights activists to be impatient, said Jeb Golinkin in New Majority. Gay rights is yet another case where Obama "speaks big words" but offers little action to back them up. The "real fight for change" is in the courts, where constitutional lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies are challenging California's Proposition 8 gay-marriage ban. If Obama wants to do his part, he'll have to go beyond words and spend some of his "rapidly diminishing" political capital to end "don't ask, don't tell."

Sure, the pace of progress on gay rights is slow, said Jonathan Capehart in The Washington Post, but don't pin the blame on President Obama. Obama has made it clear he would sign bills repealing "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act. The huge crowd that rallied Sunday for faster action on gay rights served as a reminder that it's time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to get Congress to step up and do its part.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T11:58:00.004-05:00

The Nobel Committee on Friday awarded President Obama its annual peace prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." (The New York Times)

What the commentators said

"This is completely bizarre," said Iain Martin in The Wall Street Journal. "Traditionally it has been standard procedure that winners of the prize do their peacemaking first." With whom has Obama made peace—Hillary Clinton? (watch the Obama Nobel Peace Prize announcement; watch Obama give a statement)

What President Obama has done, said Maria Farrell in Crooked Timber, is make peace possible again. The Bush presidency created a "tidal wave of bad faith" that discouraged international cooperation. Obama has "changed how the world feels about America. He’s lifted the planet’s mood. This guy is global Prozac."

Even the president's fans must admit, said Matt Lewis in Townhall.com, that the Obama Nobel peace prize was, "at least, a bit premature." The award couldn't have been based on accomplishments—Obama has "zero"—but on "lots of 'hope' for the future."

The hope is that Obama will advance "diplomacy rather than confrontation around the globe," said Jacob Heilbrunn in The Huffington Post, and he has already done that. He has improved U.S. relations with Europe and the world; focused on global warming; started talks with Iran ... "it would be hard to think of a more electrifying and deserved recipient of this year's Nobel Peace prize."

This kind of puts the whole Chicago Olympics rejection in perspective, said Rachel Sklar in Mediaite, "eh?" The Nobel Committee said it wasn't rewarding Obama for future achievements but trying to enhance his current diplomatic efforts. "No doubt the cries of 'USA! USA!' will be emanating from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show very soon."

Best opinion: Slate, Wash. Monthly, Sun-Sentinel

President Obama should "politely decline" his Nobel Peace Prize, said Mickey Kaus in Slate, saying he's honored but hasn't had time to accomplish his goals. He'll get "the same amount of glory," and chip away at his "narcissism problem" by showing that "he's uncomfortable with his reputation as a man overcelebrated for his potential long before he's started to realize it."

It's fair to say Obama's Nobel is premature "given his fairly brief tenure," said Steve Benen in Washington Monthly. But there's a legitimate defense for giving him the award—it is, after all, reserved for those "who've shown great leadership in advancing the cause of international peace," which Obama undeniably has. And Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is worth having—it could have "meaningful, and positive, impact," by giving him the "high ground in international settings."

Obviously, this was a symbolic message meant to repudiate "the go-it-alone, reckless cowboy mentality of George W. Bush’s administration," said Michael Mayo in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sun-Sentinel, "and a validation of Obama’s more conciliatory approach and his overall message of hope." But "I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around a sitting U.S. president—commander-in-chief of the world’s most sophisticated military machine—winning a peace prize amidst two wars." If Obama doesn't turn down the prize, he should at least "make sure the $1.2 million prize money goes to a darn good cause (helpful advice: probably not a donation to ACORN)."

Why I'm Grateful for Joe Wilson and the Fury of Racists

2009-09-25T10:38:00.001-05:00

By Keli Goff
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff

I'm not sure when it first hit me, that the future of our country, particularly when it comes to race relations, is really looking up. Perhaps it was when a member of the Boston Police Department referred to Professor Henry Louis Gates as a "banana-eating jungle monkey." Perhaps it was when an angry town hall protester ripped up a poster of Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks -- while others in the crowd applauded. Or perhaps it was when Congressman David Scott was greeted with a swastika spray painted outside of his office and hate mail calling him the N-word all in the same week. Or perhaps it was when Congressman Joe Wilson demonstrated such a lack of respect for our president when he shouted "You Lie," at him during a presidential address.

You've probably assumed that I am being sarcastic in my premise that these incidents are proof that our country is on the verge of significant racial progress but I'm not. During a recent conversation with my mother she expressed fear that Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be right, that the current vitriol being exhibited at town halls and elsewhere is not only uncivil, but down right scary and could soon boil over into violence. We then began to reminisce about the Civil Rights Movement, which my mother lived through, a time when racist rhetoric turned deadly. That's when it hit me: People turn angry when they feel that they are losing ground.

Racist domestic terrorists did not bomb the church that killed four little Black girls in Birmingham, Alabama because they knew those little girls would never attend high school with their children, but because they knew that one day they would. The Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights workers, not because they were confident that Blacks would never get the right to vote, but because they were terrified that they would -- and were on the verge of doing so. (It is worth noting that this year the town in which the workers were murdered elected its first Black mayor.)

There are plenty of Americans -- good, fair-minded people -- who do not support the President's proposed health care reform, at least not yet. I consider myself among them. But there are others, who as former President Carter asserted, are simply unhappy that a Black man is president.

And that gives me hope.

Because the reason some people's racism has been brought to the fore is because the America they thought they knew and loved is becoming a different one before their very eyes; an America in which a Black man can get elected president and a Latina can become a Supreme Court Justice. But most of all an America in which their very own children applaud both. This is what really has racists in a tizzy. Every study shows that most of their children do not share and will not pass on, their legacy of intolerance and hate, but instead may end up dating or marrying an Obama or Sotomayor of their own one day.

You know what else gives me hope? The fact that even in a state like South Carolina where the Confederate battle flag still flies near the entrance to the capitol, citizens have seen fit to punish Congressman Wilson in the polls for the lack of respect he showed our president, who as we all know, is Black. If that's not proof of progress then I don't know what is. So let the racists wail. Let freedom ring and let progress come.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/why-im-grateful-for-joe-w_b_297514.html

The National Conversation on Race

2009-09-10T21:14:00.002-05:00

Just as America was starting to pat itself on the back for coming a long way on race issues, America is closer to having an honest conversation about race than ever before. Some have cautioned against using the "racism card" to describe the vitriol that Republicans the Birthers and the Schoolers have slung toward President Obama. Yet, during this season of disrespect toward the President, we have seen more than ideological disagreement. From a Congresswoman calling for a Great White Hope to save the Republican Party (isn't Michael Steele the leader of the Republican National Party) to parental hysteria about the President's back to school speech, people who are not used to having a black leader are finding tacit ways to revolt.

South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “you lie” at the president during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. Few would doubt this was a sign of disrespect that most Americans would find objectionable. But beyond Wilson's callous disdain for the office of President, it is important to understand the racial connotations involved, and the climate that gave rise to them.

Contemporary racism is not largely about lynching or legalized segregation. Rather, we must be reflective about the myriad ways in which we are tacitly socialized to believe stereotypes about persons of color. Those beliefs reside in our subconscious and affect our attitudes and behaviors in ways that we often do not recognize. All Americans who are attentive to our potential for prejudice have been in situations where we “catch” ourselves with a racially insensitive thought that surprises us. Other times, those thoughts drive our actions without our knowledge. If we only define “racism” as overt bigotry, we ignore the most important elements of a system that continues to perpetuate it.

I am not saying Joe Wilson is a bigot, Rather, the consistent branding of President Obama as “other” by his opponents has created a context within which it is perceived that Obama need not be treated as other presidents have been treated. The creation of that “otherness,” while possibly motivated by racial animosity, is certainly rendered more effective as a result of deeply held negative predispositions about African Americans.

For at least two years, his political opponents (including Democratic opponents during the primary) have attempted to portray Barack Obama as “not one of us.” He has been, at various times, referred to as communist, elitist, corrupt, a terrorist sympathizer, foreign, fascist and even racist. In short, he is everything that we believe America is not. He is not “one of us.” He is “other.”

It is no surprise, then, that some parents felt it dangerous to let this stranger talk to their children on Tuesday, and it is no surprise that at least one member of Congress believed that it was appropriate to hurl an insult at him during a formal address. Keeping in mind that there is a small but vocal group of Americans and conservative leaders who continue to perpetuate the story that Obama is not a legitimate president because of his birth status, perhaps we should not be surprised that this president, then, does not command even the most minimal level of respect from some of his elected political opponents.

By and large, Americans go out of their way to excuse such behavior as being impolite and not at all related to race. If one believes that the threshold of what is to be considered to be “racist” is that an epithet must be hurled (e.g., if Wilson would have yelled, “You lying nigger!”), it is comfortable to believe that in a “post-racial” nation, such behavior is divorced from the nation's rich history of oppression and White supremacy.

Attacks on President Obama are not, in and of themselves, racist. They might be made without racist intent; they can even be made without racist effect if they do not find greater results because of ingrained stereotypes about African Americans. Criticizing the president for being willing to push for a clean energy bill, for example, is likely to be devoid of racial effects. However, arguing that he is lying when the evidence contradicts you, is corrupt when there is no reason to believe so, or has friends who are criminal when he does not does have a racist effect because it is easier for us to believe such claims about a black man.

Some of the folks who make racist appeals may be aware that they are doing so, but others very well may not. Irrespective of intent we must be aware that a context of “otherness” has been established around this president that set the stage for him to be treated differently than other presidents.

Obama School Speech Sends the Right Message to Many Who are Usually Tuned Out

2009-09-08T19:07:00.000-05:00

By Dan Brown

Deep into the presidential campaign last year, I was stunned to learn that a significant number of my high school students had never heard Barack Obama speak. They'd heard of him, but had no clue about anything he stood for. This was shocking to me; I listened to the guy and his surrogates practically every night on TV. I knew the Obama brand inside out. My D.C. pupils, living in a news vacuum, had had no exposure to him.

I set to work on filling this void by introducing campaign-related reading and activities in my class. However, there is no doubt that, for all sorts of reasons, many students across the country are simply tuned out.

That's why Obama's back-to-school speech matters. It probably won't make a significant imprint on kids who read the paper everyday, with parents discussing current events. They've already heard the president discuss personal responsibility. They know how their president speaks.

However, the back-to-school speech does have a real chance to touch the typically disconnected students, and that is a substantial upside. These kids are not absorbing the most basic civics information at home; school has to pick up the slack. There is a psychic cost to not knowing a larger world beyond your immediate day-to-day life; American kids need to know their president, whether they support his policy agenda or not.

They don't need to back his healthcare agenda or weigh in on his military spending, but they do need to know what he's about. That's the barest minimum that a responsible, participatory democracy should settle for.

In the actual speech, the messages Obama offered were all positive, non-controversial, and framed in ways that students could understand. My favorite snippets:

On discovering talent through schoolwork:

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life -- I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job.

On embracing challenges and failure:

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures.

On effort:

You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust -- a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor -- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

I look forward to showing the speech to my students when they return to school tomorrow. It's sad that a ludicrous kerfuffle launched by Glenn Beck lemmings has precluded many kids from hearing their president's ideas--- from horse's mouth. There's a substantial benefit in taking a few minutes in one school day for all students to listen to their chief executive address them.

President Obama delivered an excellent speech; here's hoping America's students listened. Now the real work begins again to support and drive our nation's youth to realize their profound potential.

You can’t pray gay away

2009-08-14T14:32:00.001-05:00

By Andy Birkey

The world’s largest professional association for psychologists released a report last week criticizing attempts to turn gay people straight. The American Psychological Association (APA) found that such efforts — variously called reparative therapies, sexual orientation change plans or “ex-gay” movements — typically demonize the “homosexual lifestyle” and use religious programming to “change” a person’s sexual orientation. In Minnesota, there are at least three such organizations working to alter people’s sexual orientation.

The APA’s report, “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation,” (pdf) found that change therapies, both religious and secular, failed to change clients’ sexual orientation — and in some cases caused further harm. It also concluded that religion is a strong factor in individuals’ difficulty with being gay or lesbian and that therapists should work to help people reconcile their sexual orientation and religion.

“Scientifically rigorous older studies in this area found that sexual orientation was unlikely to change due to efforts designed for this purpose,” said Judith M. Glassgold, PsyD, chair of the task force that released the report, in a statement. “Contrary to the claims of [sexual orientation change effort] practitioners and advocates, recent research studies do not provide evidence of sexual orientation change as the research methods are inadequate to determine the effectiveness of these interventions.”

Glassgold acknowledged in an interview with the Associated Press that religion can be a strong motivator for gays and lesbians to want to change their sexual orientation.

“There’s no evidence to say that change therapies work, but these vulnerable people are tempted to try them, and when they don’t work, they feel doubly terrified,” Glassgold said. “You should be honest with people and say, ‘This is not likely to change your sexual orientation, but we can help explore what options you have.’”

One ministry in Minneapolis which works with “ex-gays” acknowledges that some people cannot change — even if they want to. Dave Rasmussen, co-director of Simon Ministries, says their operation doesn’t do change therapy but merely exists to provide support for “married men who have unwanted same-sex attractions.” His wife runs a similar group for women.

“I don’t feel compelled to tell these men they need to change, and I am honest with them and say up front that some of their marriages may end in divorce and some will go into the lifestyle.”

“Our group time is for encouragement, understanding, prayer and to draw closer to God. Through intimacy with Him sometimes change does happen. I have seen it,” he said. “Sometimes it does not.”

Two other religiously affiliated “ex-gay” programs, Outpost Ministries in Robbinsdale and UpStream Ministries in St. Cloud, did not respond to a request for comment.

The former has an interesting past. Jeffrey Ford, Outpost Ministries’ director for most of the 1980s, has since renounced change therapy and spoken out about the harms associated with it. A therapist living in Minneapolis with his partner Kent, he recounts his struggles as Outpost’s director:

Even as a married man and director of an ex-gay ministry, I privately struggled with temptations. Unless you’ve been there, it is hard to explain how you can call yourself ex-gay and still have strong homosexual feelings. The denial is supported and encouraged by all those around you. You are taught that to be “tempted” has nothing to do with orientation. You take on Christ’s identity and can honestly say that, in Christ, I am whole and complete and heterosexual.

It became clear to me that I was living and perpetrating a lie. I knew that, for me, the road less traveled involved accepting that I was not a former homosexual and that I needed to resign my position with OUTPOST.

The APA report concluded that such therapies as those practiced by Outpost can be dangerous.

“[S]tudies … indicate that attempts to change sexual orientation may cause or exacerbate distress and poor mental health in some individuals, including depression and suicidal thoughts.”

Glassgold said that it is important that clients know that.

“[W]e recommend that psychologists be completely honest about the likelihood of sexual orientation change, and that they help clients explore their assumptions and goals with respect to both religion and sexuality.”

Debunking gay-to-straight therapy

2009-08-09T15:09:00.001-05:00

The American Psychological Association has condemned gay-to-straight therapies.

The American Psychological Association just “officially debunked” the validity of gay-to-straight therapies, said Joel Schwartzberg in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. This is a “refreshing triumph of science over willful ignorance,” not to mention a big step toward the acceptance of gays in America. It’s too bad “evangelists” of so-called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy “don’t give a hoot about what the larger psychological community does or says.”

Those ethically or religiously “conflicted” gay men are the whole point of the APA’s report, said Stephanie Simon in The Wall Street Journal. And while the new APA guidelines stress that there is “no evidence therapy can change sexual orientation,” they also—in a “striking departure”—say it’s ethical for counselors to promote rejecting gay attractions, even if that means embracing celibacy.

Such “repression” might work for some struggling gays and lesbians, said Wayne Besen in The Huffington Post, but most of us would find it “destructive to self-worth and psychological well-being.” In fact, the most important point of the APA report is that it “smacks down the absurd notion, pushed by charlatans,” that “ex-gay” therapies do anything but leave a trail of “psychological casualties.”

Having a Beer

2009-08-01T18:12:00.001-05:00

Henry Louis Gates Jr. and James Crowley "did not link arms," said Joseph Williams in The Boston Globe, "and there were no public apologies." But their chat at a White House beer summit "appeared to achieve President Obama’s goal of encouraging a deeper dialogue on race" between Gates, a prominent African-American Harvard professor, and Crowley, a Cambridge, Mass., police sergeant who arrested him after a report of a possible break-in at Gates' home. Crowley held a news conference after the chat and said that he and Gates were "two gentlemen who agreed to disagree" about the arrest, and Gates' statement was "similarly ambiguous."

Barack Obama's beer diplomacy worked—at least for him, said David Swerdlick in the New York Daily News. "Obama put those beers on his tab so he could get right with voters after saying that the police acted 'stupidly'" by arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his own home. "And it did the job." At least Gates and Sgt. Crowley say they'll keep talking to each other.

One thing we learned from Obama's beer summit, said Peter Baker in The New York Times, is that "President Obama has yet to always find sure footing when it comes to race." The Gates controversy "shows that he has the capacity to inflame, intentionally or not, partly just by virtue of who he is, and that he has an instinct to try to mediate, as with this beer at the picnic table, something I can’t picture any previous president doing. How he will reconcile these in the future is something to watch."

Can Prejudice be Justified?

2009-07-29T14:39:00.002-05:00

By Etan Thomas

By now everyone has heard of the incident that occurred with Professor
Henry Louis Gates and officer James Crowley of the Cambridge Police
department. Just to recap, a woman calls the police to inform them
that two black men are breaking into a house. The police end up
arresting a Harvard professor at his own house for disorderly conduct.
At his own house. President Barack Obama calls the actions taken by
the Cambridge police "stupid," the officers apparently get offended
and return with criticism that the President commented without knowing
all of the facts. As if there was a missing piece of evidence that
supported arresting a man for breaking into his own house and citing
the reason for the arrest as disorderly conduct.

President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives Joseph McMillan stated:

Once Gates was identified as the lawful resident of the house, the
police contact should have ended.
Sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Officer
Crowley, in describing the chain of events, explains that Professor
Gates was arrested after he proved to him that it was indeed his
house, showed the proper identification, and began to become in
Crowley's words "disorderly." I guess he expected bygones to be
bygones, and to receive an invite for some donuts and maybe a good
laugh at the absurdity of being detained or even questioned for
breaking into one's own house. Or maybe Crowley expected Gates to say
something along the lines of, "Oh, that's O.K. Mr. Police Officer, I
know you were just doing your job and the fact that you treated me
like a common criminal despite the fact that I am a Harvard Professor
with numerous honorary degrees, widely considered one of the nation's
foremost authority on black culture, didn't even bother me. Thank you
for keeping our streets safe."

To add insult to injury, Crowley has proclaimed that he will not
apologize because he feels he did nothing wrong. This father of three
(not sure why articles keep pointing that out so I decided to
reiterate) and police academy instructor on the dangers of racial
profiling, who the Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas describes
as "a stellar member of the department," who Academy director Thomas
Fleming calls "a good role model," described by his colleagues as an
overall wonderful human being, told the Herald, "I just have nothing
to apologize for, it will never happen."

My four-year-old son Malcolm knows that saying you're sorry for
something you have done to offend another person is what you are
supposed to do. He knows that even if it was an accident and you had
no intention of disrespecting or affronting the person, the correct
thing to do is to offer a sincere apology. Oh, if we could all have
the mentality of a four year old.

But to make matters worse, Crowley brings up the fact that he tried to
save basketball star Reggie Lewis with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,
as if that proves that he couldn't possibly be a racist. What is he
going to say next, that he enjoyed watching every season of The Cosby
Show? Michael Jackson was one of his favorite entertainers? He has
black friends?

President Obama has invited them both to the White House to sit down
and iron out whatever happened. I'm sure they will shake hands, maybe
even apologize to each other for their parts in the incident and take
a picture together or something. However, there is a bigger issue that
this incident has sparked.

An article on CNNPolitics.com called "Obama's Rush to Judgment on
Police" by Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at John Jay
College, offered a very interesting perspective. In the article she
says:

Police work is about sub-cultural contexts, war stories, about
suspicion, about unpredictability, about danger and fear of one's
life. Police make their decisions based on not just a given situation
but also based on their prior experience, the experience of those they
have worked with and the stories they have heard about incidents that
happened in the past... Police officers hear about these stories and
unlike the members of the public who forget a story no matter how
sensational within a day or two, police carry these stories as their
secret weapons. This is part of their armor. An officer responding to
a burglary in progress arrives at the scene with a heightened sense of
danger, anxious and ready to fighting mode.
Sounds a lot like she is justifying prejudice. So would I be well
within my rights to utilize the same method of thinking that was
described by Professor Haberfeld? Would I be justified in thinking
that every police officer I see is a racist pig? I mean, I have "prior
experiences and the experience of those I have worked with and the
stories they have heard about incidents that happened in the past."
Personal experiences such as being stopped and dragged out of my car
while I was in high school by members of the Tulsa Police Department
and made to lay on the ground while on my way to one of the biggest
games of the season because the officers thought they saw my face in a
lineup or on a mug shot. It turned out they had just seen me in the
papers playing basketball, but I definitely didn't receive an apology.
Or while I was in college being put in handcuffs by the Syracuse
Police Department, in the snow mind you, my freshman year along with
one of my teammates because they thought we had stolen the car we were
in. They actually had the audacity to tell us to stay out of trouble
afterward, but no apology. Or after I was drafted by the Dallas
Mavericks, being stopped by the Dallas Police Department and told that
my Navigator would be impounded if I could not provide proof of a job
that would allow me to purchase a car of that magnitude. Again I
received no apology. Or driving through Virginia on my way to one of
my teammate's house and being stopped by the Virginia Police
Department and asked what business I had in that neighborhood,
detained for hours and later told that I "fit the description" of
something that happened. Still no apology.

As far as "war stories, unpredictability, danger and fear of one's
life," just in the past 5 years there has been an abundance of horror
stories of police brutality. Events that seemingly are forgotten about
by the general public within a day or two that I could carry around as
"secret weapons." Accounts such as the NYPD shooting Sean Bell fifty
times on the morning of his wedding day on November 25th of 2006; the
image of half a dozen Philadelphia police officers beating, kicking
and punching three men while holding them on the ground on May 7,
2008; Oakland transit officer Johannes Mehserle executing 22 year old
Oscar Grant while he was handcuffed and lying face down on the
pavement in January of 2009. Unfortunately I could go on and on with
example after example.

I'm not alone in having personal accounts of "war stories" that could
shift the entire way I look at all law enforcement. President Barack
Obama wrote in his book The Audacity Of Hope:

Although, largely through luck and circumstance, I now occupy a
position that insulates me from most of the bumps and bruises that the
average black man must endure -- I can recite the usual litany of
petty slights that during my 45 years have been directed my way:
security guards tailing me as I shop in department stores, white
couples who toss me their car keys as I stand outside a restaurant
waiting for valet, police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason.
I know what it's like to have people tell me I can't do something
because of my color, and I know the bitter swill of swallowed-back
anger.
So my question is, would I or any other black man who shares "war
stories" involving the police be justified, utilizing Professor
Haberfeld's method, in immediately going into "a heightened sense of
danger, anxious and ready to go into fighting mode" type of a
mentality every time I see a policeman? Would I be justified in
prejudging them before knowing anything about them? Do the isolated
incidents in my past and what I have seen justify an overall prejudice
toward all policemen? The answer of course is no.

My Grandfather told me a long time ago that he couldn't put all white
people in the category of devils because he had to judge each person
as an individual. Now, if they prove themselves to be devils, then
that is a different story, but they have to prove that first. He had a
long list of previous experiences that I couldn't even imagine living
through or being able to deal with, but he always concluded that there
are good white people and there are bad white people, just as there
are good black people and bad black people. This is my point: no
matter what our past experiences are, it is not intelligent, nor is it
fair not to see people as individuals. Furthermore, if a policeman is
to prejudge a situation and not have the ability to view it on a case-
by-case basis, he has no business being a policeman.

If not responsibly honed, their power can become catastrophic,
dangerous, destructive and corrupt.

Sent from my iPhone
www.mtravers.com

Jon Stewart vs. Lou Dobbs and 'birthers'

2009-07-26T17:05:00.000-05:00

"You just knew this was coming!" said Gawker. "Jon Stewart devoted aDaily Show segment to the birther movement and its enablers in the media last night, a segment he used to eviscerate them thoroughly and hilariously." CNN's Lou Dobbs must be wishing he had never suggestedthe fringe "birthers" might be right to insist Barack Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and is therefore ineligible to be president (watch Jon Stewart's take on Lou Dobbs and "birthers" and watch Dobbs' questions about Obama's birth certificate).

It was great fun to watch Jon Stewart go after Lou Dobbs, said Michael Wolff in Newser, especially when he pointed out "that Dobbs' own network, CNN, had meticulously debunked all of the theoretical circumstances underlying the conspiracy." But that's the beauty of conspiracy theories—they merely buttress beliefs people already have, and in this case the real issue is simply that Barack Obama is not a white American the way all our other presidents were.

More GOP crazies

2009-07-21T10:41:00.001-05:00

People who know me will confirm that my fiscal track record is unlikely to garner an appearance on The Dave Ramsey Show. If a problem has two possible solutions, one costing $10 and the other $1,000,000, however, even I have enough fiduciary stock to be invested with that choice. I would not fail.

Barak Obama has a birth certificate problem. I know about the $10 solution because I read about it myself on Hawaii’s Department of Health (DOH) website. All Barak needs to do to get a certified copy of his birth certificate is go to the Hawaii Vital Records web page with a credit card, and for about the cost of three packs of smokes, they’ll ship it straight to the Oval Office. Strangely, Barak has chosen to pay high-powered attorneys about $1-million to make sure his birth certificate doesn't ever see the light of day. I don't know what the big deal is about $10 but maybe he wants to economically stimulate the attorneys. Or, maybe he's intimidated by the Internet. All I know is, the Obama team defined “tech-savvy" during the campaign, so I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon enough.

Lots of Americans believe Barak Obama’s a genius, a “miracle worker,” practically “divine.” Why Louie Farrahkahn even says he’s “the messiah.” He’s so smart, in fact, that he is healing the U.S. economy, right before our very eyes and for the first time in recorded history, by profligately taxing and spending it back from the brink of eternal destruction to the mount of economic transfiguration. They say he’s gonna do it with Cap and Trade (whatever that is) and Health Care Reform too. Every other country that has tried has failed, but they didn’t have “the messiah.”

I may not be an economic Einstein, but I'd spend the ten bucks and have certified copies of my birth certificate mailed to every plaintiff who has filed suit in a U.S. court alleging that I’m ineligible to be President because I never produced it. I’d never have guessed that spending a million dollars on attorneys to keep my birth record private is a better idea than the ten dollar option, but I guess that’s why Barak Obama is in the White House and I’m still paying rent.

Sonia Sotomayor: What we learned

2009-07-20T15:47:00.001-05:00

After four days of confirmation hearings, "what did we learn about Sonia Sotomayor?" said Eva Rodriguez in The Washington Post. Not much. She played "the game of confirmation politics brilliantly," so we know she's "a shoo-in" for the Supreme Court. And thanks to her detailed, frustrating non-answers on issues like gun rights, abortion, and civil rights, we know she's "fluent in constitutional case law." Most of the rest is conjecture.

Amazingly, we may actually know less about Sotomayor than before the hearings, said Dahlia Lithwick in Slate. "Abortion rights advocates and gun groups on both sides are about equally anxious now," as are liberals and conservatives generally. In trying to divine "the 'real' Sonia Sotomayor," we might have been better off "with a Magic 8 Ball" than Senate hearings.

After a rare moment of almost-candor, "some observers thought they detected her tipping her hand on abortion rights," said Charlie Savage in The New York Times. Overall, though, perhaps there's "meaning in the hearing's absence of meaning"—maybe Sotomayor really is the cautious, technical judge she appeared to be before the Senate. Certainly, she never got "flustered or upset."

Sure, she was "moderate in tone and manner" during the "unsatisfying and relatively unilluminating" hearings, saidPeggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. But that's nothing new with Supreme Court nominees—"they're all a mystery going in and then, paradoxically, cover themselves in a long black robe and reveal themselves." We'll find out "who she is and how she thinks" soon enough.

How to argue with the irrational

2009-07-18T13:31:00.001-05:00

Homosexuality isn't illegal, though it wouldn’t be surprising to find a large number of Americans who think it should be. When pressed for the reason why some appeal to religious dogma is likely to be sited. These are the same people who rail against the intrusion into people’s everyday lives in the form of heavy-handed government regulations, yet they are the people who support bans on gay marriage. Of course gay couples will still live as a married couple if they so choose, so why shouldn't they be able to enter into a committed union like everyone else who wants to? After a few rounds of back and forth with someone who want to legislate homophobia you realize that their arguments aren’t rational, so do you persist?

As far as religious arguments go there shouldn’t be any dispute that homosexuality is a sin. It may not make you comfortable and you may not agree but it is right there in black and white and any argument with a Christian trying to support their backward ideas will show it to you if you don’t believe me, just concede that from the get go. What you should not concede is the idea that homosexuality is somehow a worse sin than any other. Somehow gay sex is so sinful that Christians can’t stop talking about it. It has become a bigger sin than all the others and it doesn’t follow any logical argument that it should be elevated to such a high status. It was a choice they made to elevate it and persecute people with because scripture certainly doesn’t single it out as all that important.

And why are they making a religious argument in the first place? If they love America so much why do they hate the freedom of religion? Most people who are against freedom of religion also believe they have a patent on patriotism. Show them how patriotic you are by noting how beautiful a thing the constitution really is. America is in existence because people we looking for freedom from religion, that and to make money. Yes and mention how much money you’re denying caterers and florists who could use the work a bunch of gay wedding would bring. Ask them “Why do you hate America so much?” that should put them in their place. And while you may not want to stoop to such a low blow remember you’re not arguing with a rational person. Say, “If you loved America you’d respect the Constitution and the separation of church and state.”

If you’re going to get into an argument with these people you should understand that they’re argument have no merit and you shouldn’t attack them head on. A number of people with power and resources have interpreted that God does not want gay people to get married because homosexuality is a sin. They may have not chosen to cheery pick verses but someone they listen to has chosen to ignore a lot context. God is also a big supporter of the oppressed. So keep this in mind when getting into a religious argument over homosexuality. Use the story of a group of men about to stone to death a promiscuous woman, they talked to Jesus and He said to them: "he who is without sin cast the first stone." As everyone knows, everybody stepped away.

While people were donating millions of dollars and spending exhaustive hours trying to stop gays from getting married, they could have spent all that money on feeding starving children or paying for medications for those who can’t afford it. While they’re holding up signs saying “God Hates Fags” they could be helping battered women find the courage to leave their abusive husbands or counseling those at risk of committing crime. Are there really that many Christians out there that think God is less concerned with feeding children than He is with how two men love each other? And if He did then why is this a God you worship?

The reality of the situation is that gay marriage is inevitable. One by one every state will legalize it and those millions will have gone for nothing. Any non-believing gay person is now going to be about five times more disinclined to be receptive to a message about Jesus, God, and the Bible because of the negative connotations that have been pressed upon a large majority of the Christian faith. Morality is built on the foundation of a simple tenant, the Golden Rule, do unto other as you would have them do unto you. What would it be like if somebody came along and told them that you couldn't marry the person you were in love with? Gay marriage won’t destroy society, if anything, banning it is only going to encourage promiscuity. And in the end isn’t promiscuity a greater threat to marriage than anything else?

Racism goes mainstream in GOP

2009-07-13T09:49:00.001-05:00

Audra Shay, a promoter of despicable hate and racism now serves as the national chair of the Young Republicans organization. The delegates tapped 38-year-old Shay to lead them in a vote of 470 to 415 over the weekend, effectively endorsing hate, racism and bigotry as the now and future platform of the GOP.

The election of the chair of the Young Republicans would have largely gone unnoticed, were it not for the discovery of racial slurs and hate found on Shay’s Facebook page. Certainly, a public endorsement of hate and racism should disqualify a person from becoming a leader of a major political party, but think again. This is the GOP and if anything, despite some outcries from a few fellow Young Republicans, Shay’s display of hate seemed to work to actually embolden her supporters.

Since the historical election of our first black president, Conservatives have become unhinged and have unleashed racial slurs against President Obama the likes this country has not witnessed since the dark days of racial segregation during the 50s and 60s.

What’s worse, GOP racism and bigotry has gone mainstream. When called out on racially insensitive remarks, most Republicans don’t even have the decency to be ashamed, as they reluctantly issue non-apology apologies.

As the ranks of the Republican party shrink and become more concentrated with right-wing extremists, racism LOL-er Audra Shay and others like her who deal in hate-mongering and racism, are becoming the voices and the faces of the Republican Party of the twenty-first century.

The first Facebook post of Shay’s that garnered public attention was her response to a racist post made by her Facebook friend Eric Piker:

“Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.” A few minutes later Shay responded, “You tell em Eric! lol.”

More hateful posts and racially insensitive comments of Shay’s were discovered in the days leading up to her Young Republicans election, including referring to President Obama in a “noose”

When two fellow Young republicans objected to Shay’s display of racism, she defriended them and allowed fellow racist buddy Eric to remain.

Shay in typical Republican fashion remained largely unapologetic about her racially insensitive and hateful comments, claiming people were out to get her.

A look at Shay’s so called, Team Renewal website reveals a woman who is blissfully unaware of the term irony. Shay takes credit for energizing Young Republicans across the nation writing, “…the only way to change something you don’t like, is to get in and get your hands dirty.” No truer words have been spoken by Shay, the racism LOL-er and purveyor of hate.

Shay also gushes about her important work electing Louisiana Republicans David Vitter to the U.S. Senate and Steve Scalise to Congress. The very married Vitter recently admitted to frequently using the services of prostitutes from the service of the so called, DC Madam.

Allegations later surfaced that he was also a frequent customer of a Louisiana brothel as well, where it’s said he was fond of wearing diapers while using the services of prostitutes.

Shay conveniently overlooks Vitter’s transgressions of infidelity and hypocrisy in a laughable, grammatically challenged statement. “This massive effort to change the state’s leadership is helping to bring Louisiana out of the ethic [sic] hole it has been in, in recent years.”

It appears the not so Young Republican Audra Shay has an “ethic hole” in her head and the Young Republicans certainly are getting what they deserve in choosing an endorser of hate and racism to lead them on their future path.

Is Brüno a force for good or evil?

2009-07-11T10:46:00.001-05:00

It seems we can't make up our minds about this caricature created by actor Sacha Baron Cohen. One gay group is screening the movie as a fundraiser for same-sex marriage, another plans to picket it as homophobic.

You must have seen the trailers: Brüno telling a talk show audience that he swapped a black baby for an iPod. Brüno reporting for boot camp in D&G camouflage. D&G? Dolce & Gabbana. Hello?

You thought it was safe to snigger because you had an insider's take on Brüno, because he's gay, just like us. But now some homosexualists are pointing out that he's not funny. Because he's not like us at all.

Vassup? Well, Brüno is a nasty stereotype. He reduces everything to its place in his superficially gay lifestyle. Orphans are accessories. Dildos are weapons. Campfires are for confabbing about Sex and the City. He's a mincing streak of blond with the attention span of a koi, an über-gay cliché who would shame the shallowest twink. This, say Brüno's critics, is the image he is single-handedly laying back on gay men. How many same-sex attracted boys will be abused in the schoolyard for being 'Brünos'? What amount of bullying will occur?

But since it follows that a community can only be afraid of something it feels it hasn't the strength to withstand, to what extent can Brüno be culpable? The only way to protect ourselves from the possible adverse effects of a Brüno is to already be protected in those institutions where the backlash often occurs: schools and workplaces. If Brüno has the capacity to cause grief for gay men, that's an indication that the environment around those men is not robust enough to counter the real life bullies who use Brüno as an excuse to go on a spree.

True, this argument owes something to the gun lobby: 'Brüno doesn't bully gays, bullies bully gays'. But if it wasn't Brüno as the catalyst for bullying it would be the NRLFooty Show, or Jeff Kennett, or Fred Nile, or some punk in the schoolyard. I hope that a gay school student being bullied would know he could report it to a teacher or a counsellor as part of his school's anti-bullying policy. An employee should be confident that if he is harassed in the workplace for his sexuality he will be able to appeal to his company's anti-homophobia policy.

On the other hand, if you believe Brüno is a champion of the gays, slyly highlighting homophobia in mainstream society, then sit back and enjoy the in-joke. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't inquire if your son's – or nephew's – school has an anti-bullying policy inclusive of homophobia.

Bruno

2009-07-10T13:29:00.001-05:00

Borat's back...and this time he's Bruno. Sacha Baron Cohen returns in another comedy masterpiece as he tries to be the "biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler".

After the controversy and popularity of 'Borat' two years ago, Sacha Baron Cohen faced what musicians term 'the difficult second album syndrome' for his follow-up cinematic outing.

Opting this time to leave his previous Kazakh alter ego at home in favour of Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion designer, he's managed to do it again - and better.

Just as he did previously on an unsuspecting American public in 'Borat', Cohen again mines comedy from people who unknowingly expose themselves as venal, greedy, ruthless, and utterly foolish. The basic plot, which is little more than a collection of staged skits, follows Bruno's journey to become the "biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler".

Part of this involves finding a baby to accompany him, and an X Factor-style toddler photoshoot with actual mothers and fathers trying ruthlessly to get their babes into the limelight. Amongst the requirements of the infants, Bruno tells the parents with utter seriousness, are an ability to work with loud noises, rhythm-less music, bees, komodo dragons, and, oh yes, being thrown from a four-storey building! Only one couple hesitates before eventually signing on the dotted line like all the others.

Another has Bruno dressed as a Nazi pushing a wheelbarrow with a Jewish child inside - "but all in the best dramatic taste" - to the complete agreement of the mother. Another parent whose child who weighs 30 pounds is asked to bring the weight down by 10 pounds in six days "because we are looking for the next Nicole Richie, not the next Scarlett Johansson". Naturally, Mom agrees to an immediate slim-fast plan.

Another skit has him appearing on a 'Jerry Springer'-type show, where he arrives with his adopted African child and a t-shirt bearing the word 'Gayby'. Things go from nuts to outrageous when giant screens show pictures of said infant cavorting in hot tubs with grown men and hanging Christ-like from a cross. The final sketch sees Bruno trying the change his gay image a new persona - Straight Dave.

Seeking the ultimate credibility amongst the most anti-homo crowd that can be found anywhere on the face of the earth, he tackles the world of wrestling with his event: Straight Dave Man Slammin' Max Out. Unfortunately his opponent turns out to be…..his ex-lover. They crouch in the ring ready to fight to the death…..but then their eyes meet…..and the romance is again passionately, very passionately, rekindled in front of 10,000 screaming hetros baying for blood. Classic.

Where 'Borat' annoyed due to its non-PC attitude to American sacred cows, Bruno underscores the attitude - while ramping up the outrage even higher. Various celebrities have walk-on parts - Bono, Elton John, Chris Martin and Slash - but the stage belongs to Cohen in another comedy masterpiece that will play very well on this side of the Atlantic.

Once again, he'll be criticised and excoriated in certain sections of the conservative US media, but, by now, that is all part of the 'Bruno' publicity machine. While Cohen did slap on the Austrian attitude for the cameras in London at the film's recent premiere there, much of his effect is diluted in a culture where nutty Austrian behaviour is expected.

In the good old USA, however, he'll no doubt bring out the pointy-hat-and-burning-cross brigade. A terrific antidote to the current doom and gloom and poor weather.

Sent from my iPhone

www.mtravers.com

How the ’Family Values’ Political Scandals May Benefit Gay Marriage

2009-07-09T01:11:00.001-05:00

by Peter Cassels
EDGE National News Editor
Sunday Jul 5, 2009

Email Print Share Buzz up!

One by one, the so-called "family values" Republicans--including those considered potential 2012 presidential candidates--are falling like dominoes.

They preach about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of a man and a woman raising children, then get caught with their pants down (literally). Like TV evangelists tearily confessing to marital infidelities, they parade before the cameras to admit breaking their vows.

Here's the good (better?) news: These political promoters of fundamentalist Christian principles who apparently don't bother to practice what they preach could prove to be a windfall for advocates of marriage equality and same-sex family adoptions.

GOP South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is only the latest. Deserting his spouse and statehouse responsibilities on Father's Day no less, he secretly flew off to Argentina to see his "soul-mate." Pundits believe that every time Sanford opens his mouth he digs himself into a deeper hole.

Just this week he told AP the relationship existed longer than he initially acknowledged and included some allegedly non-sexual trysts in New York. And, despite his amorous feelings for his Argentine amore, he said in the interview that he wants to make up with his wife. He also reported he had had lust in his heart for other women, but never bedded them.

Before Sanford's startling admissions, U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nevada) confessed to an affair and resigned as chair of the Senate's Republican Policy Committee, but plans to hold onto his seat.

Then there's married Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), who a while back was caught in the D.C. Madam sting. According to some news blogs, he asked hookers in New Orleans to make him wear diapers. Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), famous for his "wide stance" in the men's room at the Minneapolis airport.

Ater admitting there's something about him "I find really creepy," Gail Collins wrote, in a New York Times op-ed, that Mitt Romney "secretly believes the tide of sex scandals is going to continue to roll through the ranks of the Republican presidential hopefuls until by 2011 he's the only one left bobbing."

Maybe. Attorney Evan Wolfson, founder and executive director of Freedom to Marry, said of "family values" politicians like Sanford, "These people run around the country denying encouragement and support for gay people. That's the hypocrisy of their position."

Part of the purpose of marriage is to bring the support of friends, family and community to people, added the head of the partnership of gays and straight allies working to win marriage equality nationwide, Gays and lesbians who are married or want to do so "need that support and it turns out so does Mark Sanford," he added in an interview with EDGE.

Wolfson--a pioneer in the marriage equality movement going back to his time at Lambda Legal, the nation's preeminent LGBT advocacy legal group--pointed out that there should be a boundary between what's done in the name of government and society and people's personal lives.

Conservative politicians with marital infidelities, he said, "don't respect that boundary when it comes to gay people but it turns out they want that boundary honored when they let down the people and show themselves to be hypocrites. But they really shouldn't be able to have it both ways."

Wolfson doesn't believe the central issue is Sanford's infidelity. "It's his abuse of power, his hypocrisy and his dereliction of public duty." He paints all the "family values" politicians who commit marital infidelities with the same brush.

"They are all self-proclaimed moral crusaders who demonize and discriminate against some of their constituents because they're gay and then turn around and flout the so-called morality that they invoked against gay people," he said. "To me, the really unpardonable part is not their personal failings; it's their political and policy choices that turn out to be so hypocritical and destructive."

So, then, why do social conservatives insist on linking marriage and religion when same-sex marriage advocates are not asking that religious institutions must marry lesbians and gays, Wolfson says there are really two different groups at play:

He believes that there are some among the opposition who are truly "theocratic" and would like to impose on others their biblically derived laws in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. But others use religion as an excuse because they are still uncomfortable with gay people and conflicted about the freedom to marry.

"They can invoke religion as a way of shutting down the conversation," he noted. Those folks are more than willing to respect the boundaries between church and state in other contexts when given the opportunity.

Wolfson told EDGE that those who believe in the Golden Rule would naturally support marriage equality.

How, then can marriage equality advocates use the "family values" politicians committing marital indiscretions to their advantage? "I think that their hypocrisy speaks for itself and helps move the case for legalization forward," Wolson said. "Because many of them have been the bomb-throwing leaders of the anti-gay campaign, every time one of them is taken out it allows for the fair-minded to think anew and move in the right direction."

Advocates aren't just sitting by watching the conservative hypocrites self-destruct. They are reaching out to those who are religious and remain on the fence about supporting same-sex marriage.

Harry Knox is director of the Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Program and used to work with Wolfson at Freedom to Marry. "We have to promote our own positive view of what the world would look like when we achieve marriage equality," he told EDGE. "It would be a better place--safer, healthier and more stable for everyone."

One of the program's strategies is "to give a big megaphone," as Knox puts it, to clergy and other people of faith who support the cause.

As part of the efforts to overturn Prop.8, HRC is working with the grassroots organization California Faith for Equality to train clergy on how to be effective in the media and give the public a broader view of the need for marriage equality.

HRC also promotes "For the Bible Tells Me So," a 2007 documentary featuring five Christian families with gay or lesbian children. A thesis of the film is that much of Christianity's homophobia represents a misreading of scripture, a denial of science and an embrace of quack psychology. HRC offers a study guide and sells the DVD at a steep discount for screenings by groups throughout the U.S.

Peter Cassels is a recipient of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association's Excellence in Journalism award. His e-mail address is pcassels@edgepublications.com.

Sent from my iPhone

www.mtravers.com

A Texas gay raid and Stonewall

2009-07-04T12:37:00.001-05:00

What a rough police "check" at Fort Worth's Rainbow Lounge on the
40th anniversary of Stonewall says about gay rights

On the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Raid, Fort Worth officers
raided a gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge and seriously injured a
patron.
(Corbis/Andrew Brookes)

The Fort Worth police have "some explaining to do," said
Jacquielynn Floyd in The Dallas Morning News. On June 28, officers
raided a gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge, sending a patron to
intensive care with a head injury. "In what I can only hope is a
spectacularly infelicitous coincidence," it took place on the 40th
anniversary of the Stonewall Raid, the gay-rights movement's
catalyst. The cops' story—drunk gay men groped them—doesn't add
up.

Well, police chief Jeff Halstead is backing his men and their classic
"Gay Panic Defense," said Dan Savage in The Stranger, which goes:
He made a pass at me, so I was justified in beating/killing him. That
would still be illegal, but it's also bunk. "I've been in a
million gay bars" like the Rainbow Lounge, and "gay men don't
grope police officers when they enter gay bars."

It is, "obviously, very sad" that one of the Rainbow Lounge patrons
is in critical condition, said Rod Dreher in BeliefNet, but come on,
the report that "cops who entered a gay bar were set upon by drunk,
horny patrons who played grab-ass with them" is "hilarious," and
not at all far-fetched. Gay people, especially drunk gay people, can
be "as stupid as the rest of us."

Except that the hospitalized man was reportedly drinking bottled
water, said Jeff Epperly in New England's Bay Windows. But 40 years
after Stonewall, this kind of gay harassment goes on all over the
U.S., not just in Texas. The raid at Forth Worth's Rainbow Lounge
"was the work of a police department that wasn't smart enough to
hide its bigotry."

The police may have been at fault or the men in the bar may have
inappropriately and had unwelcome advances towards the officers but
what really concerns me is the overall attitude is to not believe the
police. While there are bad officers, those numbers are fairly small.
You would think they wouldn't be judged until all the evidence is in.

Guilty until proven innocentare you speaking about the cops, or the
patrons?A trained police officer doesn't have to put somebody in the
hospital if they are coming on to themespecially if that person is
drunk. I'm guessing the blood alcohol report comes up clean, and the
officers will get off without any reprimand. You can still bash the
gay and get away with it.

Got Game?

2009-06-29T21:36:00.002-05:00

Baron Hill is in training, working on his jumper, pumping iron, doing rep after tedious rep on the weight machines to strengthen his bum knee. He swore 15 years ago that he'd never play competitive basketball again, but here he is at his health club, 55 years old, shooting baskets alone. Once, he was an Indiana high school legend, a member of the state's hall of fame. Those pictures, though, are in black and white.

Just your typical bourgeois midlife crisis, right? Not exactly. Consider who Hill is—an influential member of the U.S. House of Representatives, co-chairman of the Blue Dog Democrats. Consider too that the court he's on isn't at a local Y. He's in Room SB-322 of the Rayburn House Office Building: the famous House gym.

Outside D.C., Hill's new regimen would seem absurd. In D.C., it's just doing business. Getting his basketball game up to speed isn't about him. Well, that's not entirely true. It's somewhat about him, about his own political future. But it's also for the 675,000 citizens of his Indiana district, the people he has been sent here to serve. The reason he's playing basketball isn't because he wants to be, but because the president of the United States plays basketball.

"It's because of him," the five-term Democrat admits. "If I ever have an opportunity to play with him, I want to be able to halfway get around that court well enough."

At the end of his workout, just like when he was a kid, Hill won't allow himself to leave until he has made 10 straight free throws.

A clarification: Washington actually is two cities. In one Washington, regular people do things like eat at a restaurant because they like the food. In the other, citizenship isn't defined by street address but by connections. Live next to a powerful senator? It means nothing. Know a powerful senator? You're in.

The latter D.C. is a lot like junior high: The student body waits to see what the cool kids do, and the president—no matter who—is the coolest kid. People eat where he eats; Obama went to a local burger joint, and now you can't get a table there. People scheme for the opportunity of a chance encounter. Parents push their own children to befriend his kids. They adopt his mannerisms, his catchphrases, even his sports. Especially his sports. Clinton played golf, so everyone in D.C. played golf, working angles to share a tee time with him.

Obama, of course, loves all things hoops. By executive fiat, the White House tennis court is being retrofitted for basketball. He mentions the game every other speech, including his controversial commencement address at Notre Dame. There's a blog devoted to his on-court exploits called Baller-in-Chief. His brother-in-law is the coach at Oregon State University. His friends hoop. His personal aide, Reggie Love, hooped his way to a college national title at Duke and is the gatekeeper for the presidential game. The senior staff hoops. The junior staff hoops. Four members of the Cabinet hoop. Wanna guess what comes next? There's a new prize to be won. "What's the hottest invite in Washington?" former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers asks. "Yeah, it's great to go to White House state dinners or Stevie Wonder kinds of events. But what's the sine qua non? It's a pickup game with Obama. That's the inner, inner, inner sanctum. Proximity is everything in this town. How close are you to the epicenter?"

No one ever feels close enough, so all over town, people are playing hoops, in newly started leagues, in pickup games at private schools, even in Congress.

For people who don't spend much time in Washington, the line that most of us would draw between networking and hanging out can be confusing. The city doesn't really make sense until you understand that a moment there almost always exists on two levels. There is the moment itself, not unlike a moment anywhere else in the world. Then there is its political shadow, which is far more significant.

Here's an example.

This is the moment: A spring Sunday on the leafy campus of Sidwell Friends School. In the school's gym, a group of middle-aged men—most of whom have been friends for decades—get ready to play basketball. It's Mother's Day, so a few regulars are missing, and some guys brought the kids to give Mom a chance to sleep in. One boy spreads out Legos in the corner. It's a chance for everyone to unwind away from work. "Nobody ever talks about what they do," Julius Genachowski says.

Who is Julius? Exactly.

Julius plays with his son Jake, who'll be a senior in high school, and there's chemistry between father and son. On a fast break with the two Genachowskis out in front, Julius passes the ball to Jake, who, being the best player on the floor, easily lays it in.

This is the same moment's political shadow: At the main campus of the exclusive Sidwell Friends School, where Malia Obama is a fifth-grader, a group of Washington's political elite gathers. Some of the usual suspects are missing, including the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and the vice president for research at the National Defense University, but the game is still overbooked. Since the election, so many more people want to play with them that they've added a second weekly game.

In addition to running fast breaks, Julius Genachowski is the nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission. He clerked for two Supreme Court justices and has been friends with the president since they both were students at Harvard Law School.

Off to the side, reading a children's book to a small girl to occupy her while her father is in the game, is Richard Danzig, a former secretary of the Navy who some thought would be Obama's secretary of defense. Some think he still will be.

Ken Salazar is secretary of the interior, which means he's in charge of a whole bunch of cool stuff, like Yellowstone Park's Old Faithful, Lincoln's birthplace in Illinois, and the indoor basketball court closest to the White House. It's Tuesday night, and the pickup run is in full swing when he finally gets to the basement of his building. He has been to three or four states today, so there's a bit of stress to burn off.

These games happen twice a week, and because the gym is just four blocks from the White House, folks from there play here, too. In late February, Obama came over one Saturday morning for a game, taking on Salazar and some of his staff. Obama & Co. won. "We've been asking for a rematch for months," says Ray Rivera, head of external and intergovernmental affairs for Interior.

The games are fluid. There's a good energy on the court. People talk on defense. When Salazar finally gets in, it's obvious he is actually pretty athletic. He's not easy to cover. Someone yells, "Who's got Secretary?" Other than being addressed by his title, Salazar is treated like everyone else. Look around at the court right now. Don Gips, the director of personnel at the White House, is in the game, too, setting devastating picks. Then another regular, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., joins in. So now, on the court at the same time, are a Cabinet secretary, the guy in charge of administration hiring, a U.S. senator … and a bunch of staff members, some of them very junior. This is the dramatic difference between basketball and golf. Nobody's taking an intern to play golf at Congressional Country Club. Basketball is much more democratic. During a break, Casey is talking to scheduler Courtenay Lewis, explaining that she should treat him like anyone else.

"I fouled you, and you didn't call it on me," he says.

"Well …"

"You should have," he says.

Everybody in D.C. has got the fever. Last December, there wasn't a regular pickup game in the House gym. By February, lots of congressmen had rediscovered their love for the sport. Former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler, D-N.C., is the game's "commish," or organizer, and he gets the game rolling almost every morning at 6:30. "Everybody wants to get in on the first administration versus Congress basketball game," says Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. Not long ago, Shuler was at the White House. The first words out of the president's mouth, Shuler remembers, weren't about health care or foreign policy. No, Obama led with a question: "How's the pickup basketball coming over there?"

But the invites to play with the Baller-in-Chief have been scarce. Mostly friends and staff—the old Chicago crew. "The only thing that's changed is we're playing at Camp David," cracks Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has known the president for years.

The secretary and some staff at Interior got a run, as did some old buddies of Love's. Arizona Cardinals QB Kurt Warner got an invitation, as did the mayor of Washington. Just about everyone else is angling. Love apparently keeps a list of names in case he needs extras.

If you don't have Love's extension, there's another, more circuitous road. Play with an Obama confidant—and play really well. The best baller in Obama's Cabinet, without question, is Duncan, who got a tryout with the Boston Celtics and played professionally in Australia. Duncan plays a lot, but his regular game is on Saturday mornings at the Lab School of Washington. "That's gotta be the screening game," says Matt Laczkowski, a former University of North Carolina walk-on who runs hoops at a swanky D.C. health club. "It's gotta be."

Arthur Jackson, president of a company that runs local youth training camps, is the commish of the Lab School run. On Thursdays, he sends out an e-mail to a tightly controlled group that includes NFL wide receiver Antwaan Randle El and John Rice, brother of Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The first 15 to reply are in.

Recently, Jackson was approached by the CEO of a nonprofit company, a man who does work on the Hill. "I have a business idea," he said.

Then the acquaintance laid it all out: The president and his confidants play hoops, which put people you could never get on the phone in regular games, which made others play hoops, which made the ability to play basketball a legitimate club in the bag of Washington power. Would Jackson be interested in giving basketball lessons on Capitol Hill?

"I think there's a big market," Jackson now says. "The law firms, the lobbyists are gonna want to be able to get into these games. And they won't want to embarrass themselves once they get out there."

The image of a wing-tipped brown-noser learning to execute a crossover is hilarious, of course. But a lot of people around town, when they stop laughing, say it won't ever happen.

Why? If the lessons weren't totally secret, it would defeat the purpose. In the Washington where regular people are scarce, the only thing worse than not operating is being caught operating.

Jackson gets that, so he's figuring out a way to offer classes firm by firm in a private gym. He hopes to start executive training in the fall.

Gang Leader for a Day

2009-06-28T00:06:00.001-05:00

Honest and entertaining, Columbia University professor Venkatesh vividly recounts his seven years following and befriending a Chicago crack-dealing gang in a fascinating look into the complex world of the Windy City's urban poor. As introduced in Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's bestseller, Freakonomics, Venkatesh became involved with the Black Kings—and their charismatic leader J.T.—as a first-year doctoral student at the University of Chicago. Sent to the projects with a multiple-choice test on poverty as his calling card, Venkatesh was, to his surprise, invited in to see how the drug dealers functioned in real life, from their corporate structure to the corporal punishment meted out to traitors and snitches. Venkatesh's narrative breaks down common misperceptions (such as all gang members are uneducated and cash rich, when the opposite is often true), the native of India also addresses his shame and subsequent emotional conflicts over collecting research on illegal activities and serving as the Black Kings' primary decision-maker for a day—hardly the actions of a detached sociological observer. But overinvolved or not, this graduate student turned gang-running rogue sociologist has an intimate and compelling tale to tell. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"Gang Leader for a Day is not another voyeuristic look into the supposedly tawdry, disorganized life of the black poor. Venkatesh entered the Chicago gang world at the height of the crack epidemic and what he found was a tightly organized community, held together by friendship and compassion as well as force. I couldn't stop reading, and ended up loving this brave, reckless young scholar, as well as the gang leader J.T., who has to be one of the greatest characters ever to emerge from something that could be called sociological research."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich

"Gang Leader for a Day is an absolutely incredible book. Sudhir Venkatesh's memoir of his years observing life in Chicago's inner city is a book unlike any other I have read, equal parts comedy and tragedy. How is it that a na•ve suburban kid ends up running a crack gang (if only for a day) on his way to becoming one of the world's leading scholars? You have to read it to find out, but heed this warning: don't pick up the book unless you have a few hours to spare because I promise you will not be able to put it down once you start."
--Steven D. Levitt, co-author, Freakonomics

"This extraordinary book features the fascinating research of a brilliant young sociologist. Sudhir Venkatesh spent several years closely interacting with crack-selling gang members and struggling poor residents in a large and very dangerous public housing project in Chicago. His riveting portrait of day-to-day life in this poor community, including the challenges confronting parents in a drug-infested and violent social environment, is disturbing. But, Gang Leader for a Day is rich with original information and insights on poor families, drug dealers and even the police. It will leave an indelible impression on readers."

---William Julius Wilson, Harvard University Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser Professor

"Whether you enjoy fiction, history, or biography you'll be drawn to Venkatesh's gripping retelling of his experiences in the Robert Taylor Homes. Gang Leader for a Day poignantly reminds us that there continue to be separate and unequal Americas that ultimately impact us all."

--Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)

Racist Robots inTransformers 2

2009-06-27T12:12:00.001-05:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harmless comic characters or racist robots?

The buzz over the summer blockbuster "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" only grew Wednesday as some said two jive-talking Chevy characters were racial caricatures.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.

As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But their traits raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace," was criticized as a caricature.

One fan called the Transformers twins "Jar Jar Bots" in a blog post online.

Todd Herrold, who watched the movie in New York City, called the characters "outrageous."

"It's one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes," he said, "but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who's also a stereotype."

"They're like the fools," said 18-year-old Nicholas Govede, also of New York City. "The comic relief in a degrading way."

Not all fans were offended. Twin brothers Jason and William Garcia, 18, who saw the movie in Miami, said they related to the characters—not their illiteracy, but their bickering.

"They were hilarious," Jason said. "Every movie has their standout character, and I think they were the ones for this movie."

That was the aim, director Michael Bay said in an interview.

"It's done in fun," he said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes—they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."

Bay said the twins' parts "were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters."

Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.

Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."

"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."

Gay exorcism video abuse or freedom of religion

2009-06-26T16:31:00.002-05:00

The video that shows an apparent gay exorcism is making a stir and causing a debate across the nation. The Bridgeport, Connecticut based church, Manifested Glory Ministries, was performing the exorcism or casting out demons from a 16 year old boy who had, according to church apostle Patricia McKinney, wanted deliverance from dressing like a girl.

Speaking with the Associated Press, Rev. Patricia McKinneystated, "We believe a man should be with a woman and a woman should be with a man. We have nothing against homosexuals. I just don't agree with their lifestyle." McKinney also stated the teen came to them for the casting out services, they didn't approach him. In the video you can see the boy thrashing around, and at one point he vomits. For those who believe in deliverance ministry, these manifestations are attributed to the expelling of demons.

However, the debate between those who believe that homosexuality is caused by demons and those who believe you are born that way has come full swing, as the video makes its way across the net. The question is whether freedom of religion allows for deliverance or ‘exorcism’ practices to occur, and if so, should they occur without the oversight of the government. If freedom of religion does allow churches to practice exorcisms, should there be a waiver or signature required? Should children be involved in exorcisms according to the faith of their parents? What age should one be to give legal consent to an exorcism?

The practice of exorcism or casting out demons is prevalent throughout the New Testament. Jesus cast demons out of a man referred to as “Legion” due to the fact that he was possessed with a “legion or more” demons. The Bible also teaches that true believers in Christ will cast out demons. If the teaching of exorcism and deliverance is protected by the freedom of religion, then when, and under what circumstances does it become abusive?

Robin McHaelen, director of Truce Colors stated to the Associated Press, "I think it's horrifying. What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing something in the kid's best interests, when in fact they're murdering his spirit."

When one group is advocating the acceptance of gay youth, and the other end of the spectrum refers to homosexuality as the work of demons, there is sure to be extreme conflict across the divide.

If teens are allowed the freedom to choose the gay or lesbian lifestyle, then aren’t those same teens allowed the freedom of religion to engage in an exorcism? If that teen believes that he or she is possessed, wouldn’t freedom of religion allow that teen to enter into an exorcism if he or she chooses to? And if so, at what age would be appropriate for a child or teen to exercise their free will and engage in an exorcism?

Exorcism continues throughout many churches world wide. It is a practice that is in many faiths across the globe. If one person believes that the gay and lesbian lifestyle is biological, does that negate another person’s right to believe that it is a choice, or demonically inspired? Does freedom of religion allow a church the right to conduct exorcisms in the way they see fit, provided the participants are willing and no physical harm comes to the person? According to documented cases of exorcisms, mainly through the Catholic church, exorcism is not a pretty sight.

It will be interesting to see how this case plays out. Mainly because the person being exorcised was a teen. If the Connecticut Department of Children and Families comes to the aid of a child being persecuted for openly displaying their gay or lesbian belief, should they come to the rescue of a child who is trying to change his or her behavior? Can a child participate in a 'casting out of spirits service' if they choose? Does a child have a right to pursue a homosexual or lesbian path, but not one that tries to change that behavior, and if not, who decides?

If the exorcism was performed against the teen’s will, or wishes, it would be an obvious sign of abuse. Until we hear from the teen himself, and see if the Connecticut Department of Childrens and Families follows up with the case, we might not know the full scale of the story.

2009-06-20T14:04:00.001-05:00

Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.

Sex workers (Prostitutes) in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

Marijuana as medicne

2009-06-19T18:25:00.000-05:00

A growing number of states are legalizing marijuana to treat pain or illness, but standards are lax. Is this just another way to get high?

What makes marijuana 'medical'?
Only the intent of the user. Marijuana sold by prescription is chemically identical to the pot that stoners use as a recreational drug. Derived from the buds and leaves of the cannabis plant, marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals, one of which is THC, which works its way through the bloodstream to the brain, producing a relaxing "high.'' Various cultures have used marijuana medicinally for thousands of years. In recent years, 13 states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, and several others are currently considering it. "It's starting to cascade," says drug legalization advocate Ethan Nadelman. "Our model is the gay rights movement and their recent string of successes with gay marriage."

What are pot's medicinal uses?
There are quite a few. Marijuana is used to treat glaucoma, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and high blood pressure, among other ailments. THC also stimulates appetite and calms the stomach in the wake of various AIDS treatments and chemotherapy, allowing patients to hold down food. Mike Stetler, a Navy veteran who lives in Huerfano County, Colo., has been using marijuana since 2002 to blunt the chronic pain resulting from a 1990 car accident. "The pain isn't all the way gone, but I can live again," says Stetler, who previously had relied on a battery of dangerous narcotics for pain relief.

Are there downsides to using pot in this way?
Yes. Marijuana can impede short-term memory as well as physical coordination, reasoning, and problem solving. Like tobacco, it contains carcinogens and can damage the respiratory system. There are also problems associated specifically with pot as part of a medical regimen. There is no standard dose of marijuana, for example, and its potency varies greatly. But all of these issues would be more easily addressed if the legal landscape were not so confusing.

What does the law say?
Under federal law, marijuana remains a controlled substance, so in states that have approved medical marijuana, it's both legal and illegal. During the Bush administration, the feds regularly raided state-sanctioned pot dispensaries and indicted their owners. The Obama administration has signaled that it considers such enforcement a low priority at best. But it's not yet clear what that means for people in the pot trade. A federal court just last week sentenced a California man to a year in jail for selling medical marijuana from a dispensary that, under state law, is legal. The dissonance doesn't exist only in Washington; in many cases, laws aren't applied uniformly even within states.

Why is enforcement so inconsistent?
Rules often vary from one locality to the next, depending on the prevailing attitude toward the war on drugs. Regulations on licensing and transporting pot are spotty, and the line between legal and illegal sales is often far from clear. In Michigan, where voters endorsed medical marijuana last fall, "we are simply in a state of confusion," says Grand Valley State University criminal justice professor James Houston. "Everyone is searching for some proper guidelines."

How do patients qualify for pot?
Essentially, they ask for it. Oregon, which legalized medical marijuana a decade ago, now has 21,000 "patients"—a fast-growing population that seems suspiciously robust for so small a state. In California (see box), patients suffering from such routine ailments as stress and menstrual cramps have little difficulty finding a doctor to authorize marijuana therapy. Indeed, standards are so lax that even some proponents of drug decriminalization have come to view medical marijuana as a scam. "Many of the 'dispensaries' are about as medical as a wine store," says UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman.

What are these dispensaries like?
Some strive to look like pharmacies, with tidy vials of pot awaiting customers who have a doctor's authorization. Others look more like hippie dens, complete with pot brownies and THC-laden lollipops for sale. But it's big business either way. One-eighth of an ounce can be purchased for $35, with more exotic fare retailing for as much as $2,500 an ounce. Because successful dispensaries handle large volumes of cash as well as marijuana, they are prime targets for robberies and frequently deploy burly bodyguards. Some dispensary owners yearn to become mainstream. "Just because there's a stigma attached to pot doesn't mean that we shouldn't be able to run our business in an intelligent fashion," says one owner. "The biggest problem facing this industry right now is the stoner mentality."

Is medical pot a stalking horse for legalization?
Possibly. A recent poll found a slim majority of the nation in favor of medical marijuana, and more states seem likely to follow the path to legalization. Medical marijuana will be on the ballot in Arizona next year, and in state capitals across the country, lawmakers can hear the seductive call of marijuana sales-tax revenues. But while medical marijuana has gained a foothold, decades of anti-drug policies won't be easily surmounted. Drug tests, for example, have become commonplace in many workplaces, and employees who fail can be fired even if medical marijuana was the cause. And many Americans remain resolutely opposed to pot in any form. New Hampshire State Rep. William Butynski helped derail medical marijuana legislation in his state for a simple reason. "There is no such thing,'' he insists, "as 'medical' marijuana."

California dreamin'
True to form, California is at the forefront of the medical marijuana movement. Legal in the state since 1996, medicinal pot enjoys a solid base of support. The number of medical marijuana patients in the state has grown to an estimated 250,000, with 180 marijuana clubs or dispensaries in Los Angeles alone. Growers have settled into quasi-respectability, while certain doctors routinely authorize marijuana for their armies of patients. Dispensary owners claim the industry now provides $100 million in taxes to the state treasury. That's a crucial point of leverage in a state facing a cataclysmic budget hole, and it was one of the strongest arguments for a bill, recently introduced in the state legislature, to legalize pot completely. The state's hard-pressed governor last month signaled a willingness to consider that approach. "I think it's time for debate," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues—I'm always for an open debate on it."

Sen. John Ensign's affair

2009-06-17T14:30:00.001-05:00

John Ensign is the new poster boy for Washington hypocrisy, said Max Blumenthal in The Daily Beast. The Nevada Republican senator —who once insisted then-president Bill Clinton should resign after having an affair—admitted Tuesday that he had an extramarital affair with a married campaign staffer. So much for Ensign's 2012 presidential ambitions—you don't build a political career as a darling of the Christian right and defender of the sanctity of marriage and recover from something like this.

Forget the "predicable cries of 'hypocrisy' from leftists," said the Las Vegas Review-Journal in an editorial. In fact, Ensign was probably pushed to go public by opposition "bloodhounds" who got wind of the affair. But "it's worth pointing out that this is a personal matter," so Ensign should stand firm as "one of the more principled spokesmen" in Washington for keeping big government out of our lives—that's what Nevada voters elected him to do, "no matter what his personal imperfections."

Don't worry, John Ensign is unlikely to resign over an extramarital affair, said Nate Silver in FiveThirtyEight. "This will make for plenty of interesting water-cooler gossip, particularly since Ensign has a penchant for calling on people to resign for various and sundry moral and ethical lapses—notably Larry Craig, Bill Clinton, and Ted Stevens (but not David Vitter)." More significantly, it "certainly would seem to give the Democrats a leg up" when Ensign's term is up in 2012.

EMT attack by police videos

2009-06-16T11:19:00.000-05:00

Iran’s divisive election

2009-06-16T00:10:00.000-05:00

Elections have always been “scripted charades” in Iran, said Amir Taheri in The Wall Street Journal, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection on Friday was particularly “dubious.” The signs of fraud—a too-quick tally of votes, an unrealistic 62.6 percent—caused many Iranians, including clerics, to protest the election as “a putsch by the military-security organs” that backed Ahmadinejad over ex–Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. So much for the hope that a repressive theocracy will accept the will of the people.

Don’t be so quick to yell fraud, said Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty in The Washington Post. The Western media portrayed Iranians as “enthusiastic” about Mousavi, but our “scientific sampling” of voters across Iran showed Ahmadinejad leading by more than 2 to 1. Mousavi, in fact, was more popular only among university students, graduates, and the wealthy. So the election results may actually “reflect the will of the Iranian people.”

Iran is at best a “managed democracy,” so the people’s will is heavily filtered, when solicited at all, said Anne Applebaum in Slate. But even the most heavily managed election is “ultimately uncontrollable,” and the “whiff of fraud” opened a new crack in Iran’s “passive society,” leading to the biggest wave of protests in a decade. Even if the election results are “farcical,” they show that “a bad election is better than none at all.”

Obamanomics: Protesting success?

2009-06-15T20:11:00.001-05:00

Boy, talk about short memories, said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. The business community welcomed the Obama administration’s infusion of billions of dollars when the global economy was teetering on the edge. But now that Obama’s economic recovery efforts are showing some early signs of success, Big Business—led by the Chamber of Commerce—is once more preaching the “old-time religion of bashing government” and worship of unfettered markets.

The “business backlash” was inevitable, said Theo Francis in BusinessWeek, and in fact there are “real dangers” in the Obama team’s “activist investor” approach to fixing the economy: taxpayers hopelessly locked in “lost corporate causes,” pay caps prompting top talent to abandon a company. But business “grousing” about the government could also be seen as a positive sign that we’ve moved from crisis to “something approaching normalcy.”

The “hopeful signs” of recovery should be tempered by concerns about “huge budget deficits,” said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned, the government now needs to shift from “stimulus to restraint,” and the efforts by Obama and Congress so far “just aren’t credible.”

Fiscal restraint is the worst thing we could do, said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. The “predictable yet ominous” calls to abandon the Obama rescue efforts might make sense in a normal recession, but the U.S. is in a dangerous “liquidity trap,” and if the government reins in spending now, we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of Japan in the 1990s and the U.S. in the 1930s.

Renegade: The Making of a President

2009-06-14T19:29:00.002-05:00

Renegade takes neither a positive or negative view the 44th President of the United States. During what turned out to be the longest most expensive presidential campaign in American history, there were so many inside details that seemed to be missed. When did Barack Obama decide he wanted to run for president? What were the internal discussions like among his family and advisors? What was the thinking that inspired such skillful political maneuvering around race and Jeremiah Wright, the whisper campaign that he was secretly Muslim, open accusations that he "palled around with terrorist", or even questions about his place of birth and his legality as a candidate. There are so many twists and turns in the his rise to power that the drama almost writes itself, but Wolffe is not a lazy writer, clearly he took time to go deeper into the candidates life and conduct intimate interviews with Barack, Michelle, and many of his closest advisors to get a clear idea of who this man is by examining his most difficult undertaking.

If you followed the campaign closely and think you know all there is to know about his campaign, pick up this book. There are plenty of funny and insightful details that were overlooked by the 24/7 coverage. That this book examines in a way regular news media didn't have the inclination to explore. This book is for an audience that cares about politics. This books is for people who want a better understanding of who the President is want a window into his thinking on issues that go beyond sound bites and digs deep into his political philosophy. It's a book that will remind you of things you thought you'd forgotten about and shows you new details you never knew you missed. Quite frankly it's one of the best books about modern politics I've read.

2009-06-13T14:54:00.001-05:00

The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.
- Seth MacFarlane

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
- Kurt Vonnegut

2009-06-10T09:30:00.001-05:00

When a giraffe's baby is born it falls from a height of six feet, normally without being hurt.

9 out of 10 people believe Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. This isn't true; Joseph Swan did.

The human skin weights 6 lbs.

2009-06-08T15:31:00.001-05:00

Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was.
- Margaret Mitchell

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
- George Bernard Shaw

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde

2009-06-02T01:51:00.001-05:00

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.

2009-05-30T00:20:00.000-05:00

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

- P. G. Wodehouse

Television is for appearing on - not for looking at.
- Noel Coward

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.
- Herbert Rappaport

2009-05-19T18:09:00.001-05:00

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
- Thomas Szasz

Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.
- Edgar Watson Howe

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
- E. W. Dijkstra

2009-05-18T07:32:00.001-05:00

The average American consumes 1.2 pounds of spider eggs a year and eat 2.5 pounds of insect parts a year.

Hair is the fastest growing tissue in the body, second only to bone marrow.

Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.

2009-05-15T07:47:00.000-05:00

I've been trying for some time to develop a lifestyle that doesn't require my presence. - Garry Trudeau

Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money. - Arthur Miller

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas A. Edison

2009-05-14T10:39:00.000-05:00

Its impossible to smoke oneself to death with weed. You won't be able to retain enough motor control and consciousness to do so after such a large amount.

A newborn expels its own body weight in waste every 60 hours.

Sir Isaac Newton, who invented Calculus, had such a bad memory to the point where he would forget his brothers' names.

2009-05-13T10:27:00.001-05:00

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. - Mark Twain

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. - Thomas Jefferson

There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. - G. K. Chesterton

2009-05-09T21:00:00.001-05:00

The word "listen" is an anagram of the word "silent".

The original game of "Monopoly" was circular.

The worlds best known word is 'okay', the second most well-known word is 'Coca-Cola'.

2009-05-08T15:48:00.001-05:00

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. - Soren Kierkegaard

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

No one can earn a million dollars honestly. - William Jennings Bryan

2009-05-07T07:49:00.001-05:00

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.

Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.

Twinkies have a shelf life of 100 years.

2009-05-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. - Bertrand Russell

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague. - Bill Cosby

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. - Joseph Baretti

2009-05-04T08:17:00.001-05:00

The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."

The length of time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun is 365 and a quarter days. To make up this extra quarter which isn't counted at the end of a year, we have an extra day every four years on 29th February. This year, 2008, is a Leap Year. The next Leap Year will be in 2012.

Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%.

My anti-tourture diatribe

2009-05-02T11:43:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I lashed out at him so violently. It wasn't something I would have normally done, but maybe it was because I respected him I expected better from him, but still my reaction surprised me. I was with an old friend watching TV when a little piece came on the news about the death penalty. My friend is actually a corrections officer at a youth facility. Certainly the debate about putting people to death is nothing new, but there was some news on the use of lethal injection. There was a court ruling that said that when administered improperly it was similar to torture. The three stage process is such that the first step is supposed to put the suspect to sleep, the second is supposed to stop the lungs, the third is supposed to stop the heart. In practice however it doesn't always work that way. Most of the time it didn't put the person out and the death was like that of drowning slowly because their lungs were paralysed. My friend said something to the effect that this guy probably deserved to suffer. I went off on him. It was out of character for me because I normally let other people's opinions wash over me. Had it been someone else, someone I didn't know, someone who was conservative I would have just written it off. But he was rather liberal and held such disdain for human life because the man in question was evil.

We believe that if a man does something bad enough he loses his right to be treated with respect, and maybe he does. I said something about this being a violation of his rights, that as Americans we are pretty clear that we don't allow people to suffer at our hands. This isn't very persuasive for someone who committed some of the atrocities for which people are tortured or sentenced to death. This man may be evil but we are not. And besides this is not about his rights this is about our rights. We let this man drown to death by our hands and it makes us all vulnerable to treatment that bad or worse. If he was an innocent it wouldn't be acceptable, and yet we cannot assume we are always right. It is a better assumption that we are wrong, that we will be wrong given enough time. In our minds we have to erase the false distinction we draw between us and them, but such a distinction is false. Can you imagine them water boarding your mother? When you can then try to justify it's use. Do you feel that sick feeling in your stomach? That's what made me lash out at my friend, because I have largely done away with that false distinction in my own mind.

I've gotten into so many discussions about torture with conservatives who basically believe somehow that being a terrorist on not American (sometimes I wonder if such a distinction exists in their mind) allows us to do anything and everything to that person because the constitution doesn't apply. The sort of barbarism that average people will find acceptable only seems to go up as the distance grows between them. Sometimes I wonder if evil people are treated so badly because we don't see them as one of us. Or there is some specious flimsy reasoning that torture saves lives. In the fight against terrorism we can use torture tactics to save lives. How does the argument of the ends justify the means still get traction in people? It's so backward, so outdated that you would believe that no intelligent or moral person could muster the resolve to even try such a backward argument. But they do and they feel good about themselves while doing it. They they hate us liberals for attacking our country for blaming America first. I was going to ask a conservative friend over lunch what the legitimate argument conservatives had for defending torture in our name was, but I didn't bother. There isn't anything I could have learned and quite frankly it made my stomach turn a little.

2009-05-01T08:06:00.001-05:00

I stand by all the misstatements that I've made. - Dan Quayle

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop

2009-04-29T07:53:00.001-05:00

The number of people alive today is greater than the number of people who have died in all of human history.

Clocks made before 1687 had only one hand, an hour hand.

Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself. Two question this fact begs to be asked, who conducts these studies, and how do they conduct them?

2009-04-28T15:09:00.001-05:00

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance. - Laurence J. Peter

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. - Robert Louis Stevenson

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree. - Charles Baudelaire

2009-04-27T08:00:00.001-05:00

A scubba diver cannot pass gas when diving below 33 feet

A dogs sense of smell is one of the keenest in nature. If a pot of stew was cooking on a stove, a human would smell the stew, while the dog could smell the beef, carrots, peas, potatoes, spices, and all the other individual ingredients in the stew. In fact, if you unfolded and laid out the delicate membranes from inside a dogs nose, the membranes would be larger than the dog itself.

Statistically one bungee jump is about as dangerous as driving 100 miles in a car. (About a two in one million chance of death) There have been millions of safe bungee jumps, and only a few accidents. Almost every accident was caused by the jumper not being properly connected to the cord or the cord not being properly connected to the jump platform.

2009-04-25T18:09:00.001-05:00

Beatrice Arthur: Thank you for being a friend

Saturday, April 25, 2009
from The New York Times

Beatrice Arthur, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actress best known for her role as Dorothy Zbornak in TV's "The Golden Girls," has passed away. She was 86 and was suffering from cancer, according to the Associated Press.The actress died early today at her home in Los Angeles with her family by her side, said family spokesman Dan Watt. He did not give further details.Tall and husky voiced, Arthur won her biggest audiences for her television roles in NBC's "The Golden Girls" (1985-1992) and CBS' "Maude" (1972-1978). But it was on the stage that she began and ended her career. In 1966, she won the Tony award for best featured actress in a musical for "Mame," in which she co-starred with Angela Lansbury.In 2002, she returned to New York for her solo show "Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends," which was nominated for a Tony for best special theatrical event.A version of the show played at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood in 2004.Her other notable New York stage appearances include the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof" in which she played Yente, the elderly matchmaker, and "The Floating Light Bulb," written by Woody Allen.In 1995, Arthur appeared on stage in L.A. at the Tiffany Theatre's production of "Bermuda Avenue Triangle," in which she co-starred with Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor. The Times reviewer wrote that the play was "a great reason to see three seasoned pros serve up the best shtick around."Arthur also performed at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1997 in a production of Anne Meara's "After-Play."In an interview with The Times in 2001, Arthur said: "I love performing for different audiences. Their reactions are not always the same. The towns do begin to drift together. Sometimes I forget where I am. But I always leave the light on in the bathroom."-- David Ng

2009-04-24T08:44:00.001-05:00

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic. - Dan Rather

What's another word for Thesaurus? - Steven Wright

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. - Sir Winston Churchill

2009-04-22T09:53:00.001-05:00

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.

On Human Diversity

2009-04-20T09:17:00.000-05:00

"What's wrong with these people?" I didn't have an answer for her. Normally I'd have a problem with complaints. What's the point in trying to elicit sympathy for a situation you're either unwilling or unable to change? I try not to indulge people in their complaining, but this may not have been a complaint, but truly an inquiry. Sometimes people act in ways that are perplexing. I believe in the basic goodness of people. I trust people. I sometimes wonder why because everyday I'm faced with overwhelming evidence that I'm wrong. I keep getting confounded by the absurdity of people. I instantly recognize the judgement in my thinking, but still what's up with these people? They're everywhere. They look and act like normal people. They hold down jobs raise families, have friends, cars, and lives, but when you talk to them you realize they might as well be from another planet. Sometimes it's even destructive, but because I such a peacemaker it seem like I only perpetuate the problem.

The particular situation involved my mother and her students. She can't get them to behave in class and when she called their parents she's confronted with such hostility that she's better off dealing with the children. We had discussed it before she'd said that it "shouldn't have to be is hard", but having no real knowledge of the way the world "should" be we can only speak of the way we wish it was. She has surrendered to the situation, come to terms with he fact that the young people she teaches now aren't going to be as respectful the students she had when she started her career. Times have changed and not all those changes were for the better. She now wants to know why. Why are these people so messed up? How is it that they get through life so uninhibited as to think their behavior is acceptable? By not confronting the parrents does she in some way bare responsibility for accepting it ?

I ran into this phenomenon at work. A coworker and I seen around. We exchange friendly nods and hellos. One day we actually spoke. I couldn't tell if she was flirting. I think she was. The conversation was pleasant enough. She asked me if I was married. It made me feel old because I realized that is wasn't a ridiculous question. Then she asked, "How many kids do you have?" I told her I had none. She said, "I'm sure you've got one or two running around somewhere" She thought it would have been a normal thing for me to have several kids with a few former girlfriends and she went on to tell me about her kids each from different fathers. Further conversation revealed that she and baby daddy were still friends. When she used the term baby daddy it almost floored me. Most of the time I hear there term used in jest or jokingly but here this was a no joke. And I realized she and I had a totally different ideas of what normal was. And it occurred to me in order for her to believe this was normal she'd have to be stupid, which she was not, or live in a world where this was normal, talking to people, living with people who shared she worldview. And of course she must have never been confronted by anyone who didn't world view or at least not enough time in order for her to question it.

Some people just have different standards than we do. I don;t mean to sound elitist, I'm not. It's not something that I'm judging. I am just observing. It's like there is a parallel reality all around us. People with a whole other set of norms and a whole different way off viewing the world. What's interesting about it is that it's difficult to challenge a world view that may be destructive. If I were to have put my coworker on blast for the assumption she'd made about me what good would that have done? It may have given her a value that she was living in a parallel reality, but it would have been quite unlikely to make much of a difference. In a way I was a facilitator of her destructive behavior. By not challenging it I was accepting it. So what's a socially conscience upstanding person to do? Honestly I'm not sure.

Everyone is different for a reason. I may not understand those reasons. I know that in many cases I feel the way my mother does and what to change people, but now I slow down and think about it first before I trying to remake people in my image. I have come to accept that many people are in their own stage of development, that everyone no matter how inconvenient they may be, serve their role to making things in this world work. Human diversity is a good thing even if it isn't always good on an individual level. They serve to teach me patience and the importance or education and good parenting. They sever a contrast against which the good of the people I do associate with can shine. And these may not even been the real reason for that difference, that I may never fully understand. But I do hope to grow in my understanding.

2009-04-17T08:44:00.001-05:00

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. - Doug Larson

Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong. - Dr. Thomas Fuller

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

2009-04-16T11:37:00.001-05:00

The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

There is no time at the north/south pole as all time zones fall in to one place making it impossible to define

The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.

2009-04-13T07:45:00.001-05:00

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rick Cook

2009-04-11T10:37:00.001-05:00

About half of the bones in the human body are located in the hands and feet.

More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.

For every year of education, wages increase by a worldwide average of 10 percent.

2009-04-09T20:52:00.001-05:00

The best way out is always through. - Robert Frost

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. - Frank Herbert

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. - Bill Vaughan

Obama returns to Washington after jam-packed trip

2009-04-08T08:15:00.000-05:00

By JENNIFER LOVEN – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — "There is still a lot of work to do here," President Barack Obama declared in Baghdad. He could have been talking about every stop of his jam-packed, eight-day, six-country overseas trip. Or his to-do list now that he's back in the United States.

In London, Obama joined other world leaders in trying to tackle the spiraling global economic crisis. In France, he sought help from NATO allies in dealing with the deteriorating war in Afghanistan. In the Czech Republic, Obama pledged to end the threat of nuclear weapons. In Turkey, he sought to start repairing America's dismal standing in the Muslim world. And in Iraq, he pushed for Iraqis to "take responsibility for their own country."

The pile of problems on Obama's desk was high before he left, and remains so now that he's home.

The president returned to Washington in the early hours of Wednesday morning, bringing his lengthy debut on the world stage — including his first stop in a war zone as commander in chief — to a close.

Aides said he brought home achievements both large and small, evidence, they said, of the benefits of the extended travel that turned attention away from all the pressing matters at home for the first time in his less-than-three-month-old presidency.

"It's tangible and intangible," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said of the trip's value.

For a nation gripped with worry about its economic future, among the concrete things Obama achieved was an agreement out of the Group of 20 summit in London. The wealthy and developing nations promised to get a handle on risky financial transactions, to act to further stimulate their economies if growth doesn't improve, and to help poorer nations feeling more effects from the global financial meltdown than they can mitigate on their own.

Obama didn't get European nations to step up with the kind of immediate stimulus spending that might quickly jump-start their economies and in turn boost America's, but he billed the meetings as a success nonetheless.

Emanuel also cited the commitments from NATO allies "to do their part" in Afghanistan, even though nations agreed only to make modest new contributions to short-term security and training efforts, and not to join the heavy fighting in the volatile south and east of the country. Obama also made some strides toward addressing the international nuclear threat by launching talks with Russia toward a new arms-control pact.

There was a less quantifiable side of the ledger, as well.

Between Obama's outreach to local students at town halls in France and Turkey, as well as speeches and well over a dozen private meetings with individual foreign leaders, aides felt the president established a new-sheriff-in-town vibe.

Obama said over and over that he was in Europe to listen, not dictate. The subtext was that his leadership would be a sharp U-turn from that of President George W. Bush, and that he hoped that putting a new stamp on U.S. foreign policy would pay dividends from more cooperative allies.

The two-day stay in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation that straddles Europe and Asia, was a key part of that strategy. Obama hoped to refresh relations with a Muslim-world partner with whom relations became strained over the Iraq war.

"America is back," was how Emanuel put it.

There's no doubting that Obama was well-received.

The question is whether the world's problems will get any better as a result, and the answer won't be known for a while. Diplomacy is a slow process and so is changing the policy of any one nation, much less several — "moving the ship of state," as Obama likes to put it.

Also unclear: where the line will fall with the fickle American public, between excitement at having a leader who makes a big splash overseas and annoyance that that same leader is lavishing attention on the pet priorities of other parts of the world.

The previously unannounced Iraq trip was confined to the main U.S. military base there, Camp Victory. Attention from the new commander in chief proved a huge morale booster, judging from the wildly cheering audience that greeted the president at a former palace of the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"I love you," shouted one of the hundreds of soldiers gathered in a marble-covered atrium. "I love you back," yelled Obama, positioned before a massive U.S. flag.

Although violence is down overall in Iraq from its peak, it has surged lately with a string of deadly bombings, including one in Baghdad just hours before Obama's arrival. The White House scrapped plans for the president to helicopter into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to see Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other leaders, citing not security fears but a sand and dust storm that reduced visibility. Instead, the leaders traveled to see him at Camp Victory.

Obama publicly noted the bombings, expressing concern that recent security gains could deteriorate around the upcoming national elections. He said his administration would "use all of our influence" to keep that from happening. He also urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make quicker strides in reconciling the country's still-divided factions — for instance, by integrating minority Sunnis into government and security forces, something the Iraqis have repeatedly promised and had trouble delivering.

Obama had a message for Americans, too. With over 4,260 lives lost and $600 billion spent, he paid heartfelt tribute to the "enormous sacrifice" made by the U.S. in Iraq.

"It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis," he said, earning the loudest applause line of his five-minute address to troops. "They need to take responsibility for their country."

And now Obama is back home, focused on his own.

2009-04-07T07:31:00.000-05:00

The system of democracy was introduced 2 500 years ago in Athens, Greece. The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades--King David, Clubs--Alexander the Great, Hearts--Charlemagne and Diamonds--Julius Caesar.

In some situations you can be fully clothed and still be naked. "Naked" means to be unprotected. "Nude" means unclothed.

Postmodernism

2009-04-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

How do we know what is really true? It is the question at the core of postmodernist philosophy. My first real encounter with postmodernism was in a church group. Sometimes we'd go to other churches and temples and have discussions with people of other faiths and denominations. In order to be polite we glosses over the real rifts in religious belief. A good friend in our group who refused to do it. He couldn't get over Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the light" and that "there is no other way to the Father but through me." He pointed out that we believed that all Jews are going to hell. Now to him this seemed pretty cut and dry, but everyone looked at him like he was crazy. When it came down to it people didn't believed what they profess to believe. The consequences of such beliefs never seem to penetrate the walls of their sculls into their actions. If all the Jews were going to hell then why didn't we stand up now and try to save their souls? Because no one actually believe this to be literally true.

Another time we were at the temple I spoke with the rabbi and were were talking about Moses and the Torah. We talked about how the book speaks of things Moses couldn't have known say about his own death and things that happen after he dies, but traditionally it is said that Moses wrote the Torah. He said something remarkable to me. "There is literal truth such as what happened and there is the traditional truth, the ideas that shaped the thinking of Jews for hundreds of years" and he said "the historical Moses probably existed". He probably existed? Not only only didn't he write the Torah he probably didn't even exist? How does he read for the Torah each Sabbath and say the prayers and and claim t be a rabbi without being a hypocrite. He's a postmodern rabbi, or at least that how he described himself. He believe the truth of the Torah in a general and traditional sense that it's shaped his life and that of his ancestors, but that specifically none of it may have actually happened. I asked him if he felt conflicted by it. He didn't. In fact he seemed like the most peaceful person I'd ever met. His level of intelligence and profundity of his speech about God is one of the most impressive people I've ever met. And so while I still have some trouble wrapping my mind around this idea of postmodernist philosophy, I have a certain reverence for it because of my respect for him.

The next time I heard this term postmodernism was in the comment to an earlier blog post called When I Tell The Truth I was talking about self identity and how defensive people can get over their worldviews. In the comment my friend spoke of how he is a postmodernist and that it's possible that light and sound as we currently understand them are tentative truths that will one day be proven to be more complex or completely different than what we now believe them to be. At first I was admittedly disturbed by this. Disturbed because this is a pretty intelligent guy and he just said something really stupid, but did he? I started to think about it and about postmodernism and about the rabbi. It wasn't stupid it was challenging, and far from stupid. The more I looked into it the more I realized that my aversion to what they were saying may be in part to do with my own postmodernist philosophical beliefs. I'm probably in the same place as the rabbi and my friend. Does Jesus have any historical significance, or course he does, but does that me he really existed? No. And half the stuff people exclaim to be actually true I take a face value but I don't believe.

How is it possible to believe something is true and false at the same time? I must have compartmentalized believe and scientific reasoning because clearly I do believe in Jesus and science and they conflict and it doesn't bother me at all. I love being a christian and I love going to church. What does it all mean if it isn't literally true? I've learned so much about life from christian theology. Beyond the usefulness of the church's teachings is the fact that I love the stories of the bible and the traditions of my faith. I mean there is no better book than the bible to find depth and complexity. It seems the serious way in which people interpret passages kills the spirit of the text. My brother is perfect example. He may be considered an agnostic. In discussions about theology our core views on the literal truth of christian theology doesn't differ much. The major difference is that I have a great deal of respect for religious people and religion in general where as he does not. Our mother has often tried to reason with him to try to get him to pray or to believe in God or go to church. Her arguments are rational and it isn't going to convince him. He needs an emotional connection with the tradition.

And so there's this split where intelligent people aren't going to believe in the reality of ghosts or angels or demons or men in bellies of fish or man living a thousand years. I remember Bill Maher saying that "If Jack and the Bean Stalk were in the bible these people would believe it's true" and I don't disagree. Because the actual reality of it is ridiculous. But Jack and the Bean Stalk isn't of the same sort of story as the Prodigal Son or the Good Sumerian. The people behind the phenomenon that is Christianity include many profound thinkers that describe in religious terms what is real. We can speak of the psychology of the religious mind or we can respect the intelligence and sincerity of the tradition and speak of it as if it were real. We can do this because the consequences are real and because it could be real. I don't know if that makes me a hypocrite, in someways I feel like I am, but if my the rabbi and my friend are hypocaust's that puts me in good company.

2009-04-05T07:51:00.001-05:00

If little else, the brain is an educational toy. - Tom Robbins

I am a deeply superficial person. - Andy Warhol

An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living. - Nicholas Chamfort

Everyday Insanity

2009-04-04T18:05:00.001-05:00

It's 6:30 a.m. and I'm on my way to work. It's a 10-minute ride. Usually my coworker and I will do a little small talk to pass the time, but not this morning. She’d been going through some difficult times in her life and she told me about how she’d been preying to God for help. The exact content of the prayer isn't the point so much as the method. She said as soon as she stopped asking for change is when it happened. She let go and handed it over to God’s will her prayers were answered. We were talking about surrender. It much like the 12 step process. After we admit we are powerless we submit our life to a higher power. Having never been in a 12-step program all of my experiences of them are from movies and television. We got to work and I started to think about the concept of surrender in my own life. How got rid of the “should” statements in the background of my thinking. And I started to think how so many people in my life could benefit from this concept of surrender I had to write about it to better understanding for myself.

In the movie You Kill Me Ben Kingsly plays an alcoholic hit man who is forced into AA or else get whacked by the mob. He’s an atheist. If you're not familiar with AA I did a little wiki for you and pasted a link to the original 12 steps. Let’s just say there is a lot of God talk in AA and is a real obstacle for non-believers. AA is by no means a perfect solution to alcoholism, but it’s helped countless people overcome addiction and its model is used by copycat support groups of all kinds. While in the movie the conflict of ideology made for some hilarious dark comedy, fact is there really isn't any real conflict between surrender and atheism. In the movie Kingsly's sponsor told him to choose something big he chooses The Golden Gate Bridge as his higher power. It didn’t really matter what he surrendered to, he just had to let go. Seeing him surrender control to the bridge was strangely beautiful and hauntingly real. He almost jumped off that bridge, something two people every week. The ultimate reason people jump is because they can’t surrender.

That discontent that leads people to jump off bridges comes from a single word, should. Should. The word represents the separation that lies at the core of our existence. It forms the gap between life as it is and life as we expect it to be. Many people who are driven to jump may feel justified in their reasons. They may have been victims of violence, illness, or disaster. But it isn’t the situation in their life that kills them it’s their inability to deal with it that kills them. We believe that no one should be the victim of rape. No one should ever have to lose a house in a flood, or die of cancer, or go blind. We know that these things will never come to an end, but we believe they should. I’m not saying anyone should be raped, or murdered, or suffer and die, but this the way of the world. These are the flip side of the joy of existence. This is life as it is. Everything is as it "should" be. It is as it should be because that is already that way. It is insane to believe that reality will conform to our way of thinking. Shakespeare said, "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking that makes it so." There's every reason to try to improve the dreadful conditions of this world, but to say they should be any other way then they are is a chasing of wind.

My mom teaches chorus to misbehaving kids. One day after practice she calls me saying "you know it should shouldn't have to be this hard " and I asked her "why? why should it be any easier?" She didn't have an answer. We spend so much of our time arguing with reality. Fact is these kids have emotional problems associated with absent or neglectful parents, kids having kids, and the loosening of acceptable behavior in society as a whole. They act just the way they “should” given their situation. Then we may say they shouldn't have to live in such a world, but why shouldn't they? Certainly they do. Do we know how this world should be? Are we so arrogant that we know better than the infinite intelligence that is existence? We want things to be a certain way, but is that the way they aught to be?

Some of the greatest growth comes from suffering. Some of the greatest nations rise to greatness because of hardship. Had it not been for the economic depression or the War in Iraq we wouldn’t have a great President. No saying that it justifies their existence, their existence justifies itself, but it’s an illustration of how things we think should not exist have consequences we couldn’t have ever foreseen. Not saying that we should stop trying to make the world better. By all means do it. If there is something that you should be doing that you aren't, stop now and do it. If there is nothing you can do about it give up on your belief that it’s shouldn’t be the way it is. Don’t do it just because it will make you happier, though it’s not a bad reason, do it because you realize there is not good or bad outside your own mind. Beyond the substance of your gray matter there is no good or bad, it just is.

Do you ever think of yourself as being richer than you are, smarter than you are, better looking than you are? Do you ever dream of having special abilities? Do you wish you could make someone love you? Do you wish there was a way to make the world better? Do you want to save people from their own ignorance? Either it will happen or it won’t. Find out witch it is and get rid of all the junk in your mind that argues with reality. Like hitting your head against a wall expect the wall break, you are insane if you believe you will can change the way things are. It isn't easy to come to acceptance, to really, but to be happy you have to. No matter how close you come to you a goal, even after achieving your dreams there will always be a gap, a should. Life will never be as you want it to be.

You don’t have to be an alcoholic to benefit from the 12 steps created by AA. We know it works for them, and for our problems being a lot less urgent it can work for us too. The truth of the steps is born out by it's results. The specifics of them aren’t the point but the general truth they point to is profound. So what can they teach us about surrender? First surrender is not defeat. It is the triumph over self-delusion, it’s coming to terms with what is, it’s stopping where you are right now and getting real. It’s ending the unspoken assumption that reality bends to our will. Surrender is freedom. I can't say that I have learned how to surrender completely, but I'm getting better. I'm slowly coming to understand my own unspoken demands on existence. When I think about how almost everyone implicitly demands life to be a certain way it seems like utter foolishness and yet we're compelled to continue to do it. So I guess I’m putting myself on a 12-step program of my own design. It’s process than a destination. Try to close the gap. Try to let go. Acceptance is good. Breathe. Smile.

2009-04-03T06:12:00.001-05:00

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

Invention is the mother of necessity. - Thorstein Veblen

I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty. - George Burns

When I Tell The Truth

2009-04-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

Is it possible to be too honest? A friend posed this question to me and I had to say yes. I didn't know if he was too honest, but often times when people are said to be "too honest" it means they're just rude, crass, or lack tact when criticizing. This was not true in his case. So I was thinking he could have the nasty little habit of shattering people's illusions. I've had friends like this (I had fallen into the category at one time), people who can't help but correct other people's factual errors. We're so invested in intellectual honesty that we get into trouble. What is it that makes us want others to see the world as it is? Being intellectually honest means correcting common errors in logic, fact, or mistaken beliefs. Often others want to hear the truth, but after I tell them they may reject it. If they reject it why does it upset me? The truth is true regardless of my acceptance of it. So why would it be offensive if someone else didn't accept it? Of course not everything is objectively true or false and in situations like those it can threaten our very sense of self. I've learned how not to be "too honest" and it has made my life unexpectedly better.

We can be absolutely right and people may still disagree with us. If I say sound travels faster than light there is no debate. I am wrong. There is an absolute truth. Light travels faster than sound. Anyone who has witnessed a thunderstorm knows this to be true (not to mention a host of scientific investigation into the basic laws of physics). But if I believe that sound travels faster than light why would it matter if I refused to believe you if you told me otherwise? Does it harm you in any way because I don't believe such an obvious truth? Sometimes it can feel that way. When someone doesn't agree with us we sometimes see it as a threat to our self identity. It's said that love is so powerful because your beloved sees you for who you are and accepts you flaws and all. If someone sees you for who you are and rejects you it can seem like annihilation as many a failed relationship can attest to. Babies play peek-a-boo because they need to know the world still exists when they close their eyes, that there is an external objective reality. They confirm this through the gaze of another. We need our worldview to be validated by others, and often it is. We surround ourselves with like-minded individuals and we enjoy their company. And that's just concerning what is objectively true, but what about more subjective aspects of our worldview, like the opinions we base off those facts?

The best opinions are based on objectively true facts and sound arguments about those facts. Sometimes, however, we hold the opinion first and find the facts later. I learned there is a part of our mind dedicated to defending our worldview. I call it the inner lawyer. I told someone this and they said "So he lies to us?" no the lawyer doesn't lie he spins. He presents the best possible case. He uses the facts to serve his client. Maximising the positive, minimising the negative, our inner lawyer works to defend our worldview. When you hire a lawyer sometimes you ask him for advice, such as when you're buying a house or signing a contract. You genuinely want to know all your options. Other times you get arrested, maybe you're guilty maybe you're not, but when you call your lawyer you're not going to want to calmly weigh your options, you scream at him "do something!" In this metaphor you aren't facing jail time you're facing irrelevance. You want a defense of your self-image. Someone disagrees with you. Someone who threatens your worldview. Your inner lawyer goes to work defending your beliefs and coming up with facts and arguments to defend it. It's good to recognize this inner lawyer in yourself, but it is even more important you realize that the people you try to convince of your way of thinking have their own inner lawyers.

People believe some stupid things. In the last presidential election I remember Barack Obama being called everything from a terrorist to a communist. I have many good relationships with Republicans who for no other reason than their ideology hate Barack Obama. We'd be having a discussion about something completely unrelated to politics, then out will come a comparison of Obama to Hitler. Offended as hell, but understanding the concept of the inner lawyer I would say in response "Both Hitler and Obama are very good speakers" and leave it at that. I could have torn their argument to shreds (during the election when I was a volunteer for the Obama campaign I often did so when speaking with voters), but I realize that they have an inner lawyer and they will defend their worldview despite a lack of truth to support it. I so wanted to bust their bubble, but what good would that have done? They will still hate him. It would only have caused an argument, hurt some feelings, and left us both off feeling worse than we did before. Still I have to admit the comments about Obama often upset me and I respectfully ask them to keep it to themselves. I wonder, do they think they are being too truthful?

One of my favorite quotes is by William Blake "When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do." When I worked to defend Obama's record against malicious attacks from conservatives it was a good idea to speak my mind, but now that he's the President it's better to let sleeping lawyers lie. It's always going to feel good to be proven right, but at what cost? Would you rather be right or happy? Not saying the two are mutually exclusive, but sometimes you have to choose peace over conflict. Save your energy for fighting battles that matter. Just because you know the truth it doesn't diminish you if someone doesn't accept it. Be convinced enough in your own worldview so that no one can threaten it, or let go of having a worldview altogether.

food for thought

2009-04-01T07:18:00.004-05:00

Ostriches are not taken seriously. They can run faster than horses, are responsible for more deaths than sharks, and the males can roar louder than lions.

90% of our technology, upon which we base so much of our modern lifestyle, was created within the last 150 years.

Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

It's Just A Game

2009-03-30T08:05:00.001-05:00

There was a married couple. The husband played golf. When he came home from a golf game the wife knew not to ask how the game went. It went one of two ways. He would talk for hours about each great shot he took which bored the hell out of her, or he's be upset for days ranting over how this or that is unfair or wrong. One day day the husband comes home clearly upset about the game. He's not talking to her, though he's not being rude either. He's being passive aggressive. Normally the wife she would have put up with this but for some reason not today she said "honey it's just a game." And he said "it's more than a game, it's a way of life, golf is life" and she said "well then that means life is just a game" Sometimes we take things too seriously. Sometimes we need a little perspective to realize that we don't have to react to things so seriously all the time. That life has it's ups and down and that in the long run this thing that seems so important now is so insignificant.

Things aren't as important as they may seem. As I've grown older this is the one thing I've learned over and over again. The more events in your life you have to look at the more and more you realize that things you thought were life-altering were momentary disturbances. I found myself laughing and I couldn't begin to explain why, but I was reflecting on my life and I bust out laughing at how ridiculous it is. I used to fret over how hard it is to find a good person to date or even be in a relationship, and I think about how everyone wants this same thing so you would think it would be easy, but it's not. Now while this could be a source of anger, resentment, or sadness, and for many it is, the absurdity of it and how trivial it is made me laugh out loud. Age is a lot more than a number it represent the possible number of significant experiences you may have had in your life. And while a 40 may have the same number or significant experiences as a 20 year old it isn't representative of most 20 or 40-year-olds.

I'm going to be 30 in about 18 months and I think how different I will be when I'm 30 versus when I was 20. It's like I'm the same person, but at the same time I'm not. I've grown so much in that time that from the standpoint of my personality I'm unrecognizable. And when I'm 40 I hope I've lived enough to be even more myself than I am now. The game of life doesn't really have a universal scoreboard. There is to billboard in the sky there is no winners or losers but it is still a game. Some games aren't about winning. Some games are just about getting further along on the the board. Some games you focus on leveling up you character, making alliances, and exploring the world. The point of the game is to have fun and to feel a sense of accomplishment. SOme people aren't really good at those games. They get bored and give up. I hope I will never be that person. I like this game I'm having to much fun to quit now. I'm addicted to this game called life.

2009-03-29T07:55:00.001-05:00

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Samuel Johnson

The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless. - Paul Johnson

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. - Robert X. Cringely

Did you Know...

2009-03-27T06:11:00.001-05:00

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

The only cause of death is birth.

Cats can produce over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs can only produce about ten.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

About 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens each year.

99% of the solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

Words of Wisdom

2009-03-25T09:41:00.001-05:00

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after. - Slovenian Proverb

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that! - Tom Lehrer

The least of learning is done in the classrooms. - Thomas Merton

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question. - Albert Camus

The Lottery Winner and the Paraplegic

2009-03-24T21:50:00.000-05:00

It started off a normal conversation. It's one many of us have had. What would you do if you won the lottery? I was having this conversation with my mother. Her dream was to be able to give as much of the money away and still have enough to live comfortably. It would have pissed of a lot of people in my family, my brother and I included, because we wouldn't be getting the bulk of the money. She'd give to charities and churches and schools. My brother and I would get quite a bit, but not as much as we'd have liked. I had read about a lottery winner support group. I told my mom about it. She couldn't understand. Why would a lottery winner need a support group? As it turns out winning the lottery isn't as good as it seems. There are three reasons. The first is progress principle. The second is the adaptation principle. The last is simple, greed destroys relationships.

The progress principle states that we get more pleasure from working toward a goal than actually attaining it. Losing weight is a lot more satisfying than already being at a healthy weight. Earning money is always more satisfying that already having money, Shakespeare said it best "a goal won is done, life's joy is in the doing" This is because in our biology. The brain is a system of stimulus and response. The closer the stimulus is to the response the better the connection between the two. Long-term goals mean a large separation between the two. This is why most animals seek only sex and food and avoid dying. It's immediate reward or punishment system is how natural selection works. Both are enjoyable and so we seek them out. Dying and pain are bas so we avoid it. The longer the time from completing a task to the reward we get the less we are motivated to do it again. The joy is in the small success along the way to your goals. In the case of the lottery winner we greatly over estimate the joy or getting rich quick.

The adaptation principle states that we react more to change than steady states. That given a steady state over time we will adapt to it. In the case of the lottery winner that mean she will enjoy the winning less than she thought and then over time she will get used to the winnings. Having no way to move up any more in wealth she goes right back to wanting money just as much as before winning the lottery now instead of wanting a million collars she wants tem million dollars. It's sometimes referred to as the hedonic treadmill. We seek more a more material pleasure only to find out it doesn't make us lastingly happy. We're pulled back to our original state of happiness and we move on to a new goal. It feels like we're making progress but we're really moving in place.

And of course there is greed. I love my mother, but her giving my money away really could damage our relationship. And one of the few exceptions to the adaptation principal is a lot of loving relationships. The more socially connected we are to people who care about us the better off we are emotionally and physically. We live longer and happier lives when we have strong ties to our family and friends and to the community at large. Winning the lottery can threaten that in a large way. We often underestimate just how much it can change our life for the worse. Many lottery winner become shut ins because so many people hit them up for cash and when they say no it damages their relationships. Some resort to moving away and other form support groups.

So what's the deal with the paraplegic? Well if winning the lottery is supposed to make you happy then breaking you neck has got to be the worldly opposite. Just about the worse thing that could happen to you other than a painfully slow death. But think about it from the point of their of these facts the progress paradox suggests that going to zero means you can only up. Physical therapy slowly gives you more function the stimulus response connection couldn't be stronger. Effort and reward are almost the same. The adaptation principle suggest that we'd be sad for a long why, but we'd get used to being immobile/ And the effect to relationships usually bang people who care about you to your side truly showing you how much they really care about you. I'm not saying I don't want to win the lottery or that I want to break my neck, what I'm saying is that we have a hard time predicting what will make us happy. And that maybe we should take these things in mind the next time we set a goal. Understand where real joy comes from and do that instead.

The Real Problem With Pain

2009-03-23T22:29:00.001-05:00

There is an old philosophical conundrum known as the problem of pain. It is that with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent god, why does evil exist? The argument is old and so many have fought it on one side or the other. God created free will because it's good and free will created evil, but God being all-knowing would have known that creating free will would create pain and couldn't he have made a world where free will wasn't necessary? I don’t mean to rehash the entire argument here because this isn’t really about the philosophical argument of the problem of pain. I discussed this problem pain in am earlier blog post some years ago soon after hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast. It was one of my most memorable posts because I got so many angry res ponces about it at the time. It’s called Devil’s advocate.

I literally was arguing the case against God. Thousands die and millions lost their homes are you telling me somehow free will caused this sort off suffering? Free will may explain why people murder babies in their cribs, but how does it explain hurricanes? Mostly what you'll get a “shit happens” response. Or the ugly but inevitable “they deserved it” The arguments of the problem of pain are nothing new. People have argued these points for centuries and no good answers seem to be found. I find it interesting and I’m sure to revisit it again but that’s not what this post is about. What this is more about in the necessity of pain. How we need pain in our everyday life in order for us to really be happy.

There was a philosopher who posed the mental experiment demonstrated in the movie The Matrix. The question was “if you could spend the rest of you life inside a machine that would give you everything you want, every pleasure imaginable and no pain ever would you choose to be hooked up to the machine?” The question cuts directly to the point. Can we truly choose a life without pain? Most people say no. Why? Because it’s not real. A life without pain is no life that we know. It would feel false and all the pleasure in the world could not make up for living a fake life in a vat of goo making you dream forever. In order for anything to have meaning it has to be real.

Pain therefore is necessary because it’s what makes us real. Pain is reality. Pain shows us that our life is real and that the choices we make have lasting consequences. How can he take full measure of our lives if there is only one state of being? The ups and downs, the horror and the beauty is what gives us perspective. What we see is the contrast of one thing against another. We cannot see joy without suffering. We cannot know love without apathy. We cannot have ecstasy without agony. And we cannot overcome evil if there is no evil to overcome. Strife above all else gives meaning to our lives. Having come though come though illness or war though makes those who do stronger happier people. They then enrich our lives with their life story. And though it’s hard to admit it we need suffering, we need evil, we need pain in order for life to have any meaning at all.

Why else do we like moves that make us cry? Isn’t the best kind of sex the kind that hurts a little? Why does absence makes the hear grow fonder. Why do we like to be scared in movies and on roller casters? We want these experiences because this is what it means to be alive. When people are about to die they say they felt more more alive then at the moment they were about to die. This is what it means to be real. Reality is gritty and uncomfortable, horrible and beautiful, sickening and enlightening. Life is more than we can ever come to understand, greater than ourselves, our knowledge, and our beliefs. After we;re dead and gone the world will still be here. We are. Nothing less will do. So this isn’t to say that we have to like pain, it’s to say that the real problem with pain is that we need it.

The Happiness Hypothesis

2009-03-22T07:58:00.001-05:00

Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
by Jonathan Haidt

What makes us happy? This is the central question of The Happiness Hypothesis. We are not all the same and no one thing is going to make everyone happy, but there should be some general principals that can guide us to a better life. Is money the answer? Does a lack of pain and a comfortable life make us happy? How about the ties that bind us to friends and family? It's a pretty big question and book goes deep into these and many others trying to get a glimpse of the secret of life.

It's a good read. I've read twice already and I'm reading it again because it's so densely packed with insights that you're bound to miss a few the first time and the third time it seems like even though I remember what I read, the significance of the wisdom takes a while to sink in. This is a great book if you like to ponder deep philosophical principals but also have a respect for modern science. The book is full of studies that examine the question posed by the philosophers and spiritual leaders of the past. It's a worth a few reads because each time you read it you are a different person. And how you approach this book determines what you will take away from it.

From Publishers Weekly

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, lamented St. Paul, and this engrossing scientific interpretation of traditional lore backs him up with hard data. Citing Plato, Buddha and modern brain science, psychologist Haidt notes the mind is like an "elephant" of automatic desires and impulses atop which conscious intention is an ineffectual "rider." Haidt sifts Eastern and Western religious and philosophical traditions for other nuggets of wisdom to substantiate—and sometimes critique—with the findings of neurology and cognitive psychology. The Buddhist-Stoic injunction to cast off worldly attachments in pursuit of happiness, for example, is backed up by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's studies into pleasure. And Nietzsche's contention that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger is considered against research into post-traumatic growth. An exponent of the "positive psychology" movement, Haidt also offers practical advice on finding happiness and meaning. Riches don't matter much, he observes, but close relationships, quiet surroundings and short commutes help a lot, while meditation, cognitive psychotherapy and Prozac are equally valid remedies for constitutional unhappiness. Haidt sometimes seems reductionist, but his is an erudite, fluently written, stimulating reassessment of age-old issues. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Using the wisdom culled from the world's greatest civilizations as a foundation, social psychologist Haidt comes to terms with 10 Great Ideas, viewing them through a contemporary filter to learn which of their lessons may still apply to modern lives. He first discusses how the mind works and then examines the Golden Rule ("Reciprocity is the most important tool for getting along with people"). Next, he addresses the issue of happiness itself--where does it come from?--before exploring the conditions that allow growth and development. He also dares to answer the question that haunts most everyone--What is the meaning of life?--by again drawing on ancient ideas and incorporating recent research findings. He concludes with the question of meaning: Why do some find it? Balancing ancient wisdom and modern science, Haidt consults great minds of the past, from Buddha to Lao Tzu and from Plato to Freud, as well as some not-so-greats: even Dr. Phil is mentioned. Fascinating stuff, accessibly expressed. June Sawyers

Did you know...

2009-03-21T13:53:00.000-05:00

There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.

Ostriches kill more people annually than sharks do.

Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.

The Ottoman Empire once had seven emperors in seven months. They died of (in order): burning, choking, drowning, stabbing, heart failure, poisoning and being thrown from a horse.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in plane crashes

Shadow and Self

2009-03-20T14:03:00.001-05:00

* * *

It's a miserable day. I just got over one of the worst illnesses I've had in my life. I had a case of food poisoning. Salmonella had contaminated millions of food products in which peanut products were used. I happened to have eaten one of those products and only later did I realize that it was recalled. I thought I was going to die. To date more than dozen people have died from the contamination. It was my first day back at work in nearly a week. I was still pretty weak and I was having breakfast with a few of my coworkers. We're talking about nothing when the topic of acting comes up. It's said that actors rarely watch their own performances even the really good actors have a hard time looking at themselves. And I got to thinking, we are all like this.

Why is it so hard to see ourselves as we are? Do we need our delusions in order to be happy? I remember reading that depressed people tend to have a more realistic view of themselves and the world. Happy people also tend to be delusional about the amount of control they have. In an experiment where the subject was given a task such as turning on a light with a switch that had no influence on the light blinking on and off, happy people tended to believe that they had an effect on the light about 40% of the time. Researchers have discovered that people who are happy tend to dismiss their own weakness and externalize failure. They blame circumstances rather than themselves. They also believe that those circumstances can be changed even when they cannot.

I tend to be a realist. I like to understand things for the way they are, but is it worth sacrificing your peace of mind? No. And so I strive for the middle ground, I am a delusional realist. I'm delusional just like other happy people, only I know and am delusional and aware of my reality though I don't fully accept it. I know I'm not as funny as I think am, or as good looking, or as smart, but when I think of myself, I think positively, because the alternative isn't worth the sadness. I too cannot look at myself in a video recording without cringing a little. The camera doesn't ten pounds our minds subtract it. As I sit looking at myself ready to turn away I linger a little just so that in the back of my mind I can store that realistic self image in a dark and safe place where it will not bother me.

The Beholder

2009-03-18T08:46:00.001-05:00

* * *

There is so much beauty in this world. Sometimes I just seem to be drowning in it. I'm walking down a spiral staircase and I look and I see a pattern. It's swirling as it goes down like a giant man made nautilus. It was incredible and to think if I wasn't paying attention I would have missed it. I've come down these stairs so many times and I missed it. I start to wonder how many wonderful things I've been missing because I'm too preoccupied. It is that instinct to see what is interesting and to tell others about it that drives me to write and that draws me to other people who have an eye for the wonders of everyday life.

Beauty doesn't come in visual forms. It can be situational. I call it a life poem. It's beautiful in its own mysterious way. Situations where the irony is so thick that fiction would deem it to unrealistic. Life is filled with unbelievable plot twists, larger than life characters, people so incredibly crazy that their insanity can only make you smile with delight. People ere funny, laugh out loud funny. I remember meeting someone who had such bad conversation skills it was like he was angry at me, every question elicited a one or two word answer. At first I thought he may have been preoccupied, but the later when I asked if he was busy before the conversation started he said he wasn't and I asked several times if something was wrong. I couldn't believe he didn't see himself at all. His self image was so twisted that all I could do is laugh to myself. Life is a sitcom and God has a great sense of humor.

I call it the eye. It's a way of seeing the world with wonder. Instead of taking it all for granted, people with the eye see the beauty m the absurdity and the tragedy and the wonder of everyday existence. I have the eye. As children I think we all have it. If you look at children they stare at people and their parents scold them saying it's not polite. I walk through life filled with a reverence for existence. I'm the child who still stares. I'm drawn to other people with the eye. Artists and writers, teachers and musicians. I am the disobedient child. One of the misfits who thinks the greatest pleasure in life is life itself. Next greatest joy in life is being able to share a glimpse of what I see with other people who can appreciate it.

2009-03-16T10:53:00.001-05:00

* * *

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. - Oscar Levant

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. - Eric Hoffer

Things are only impossible until they're not. - Jean-Luc Picard

7 Things You May Not Know

2009-03-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

* * *

R.S.V.P. comes from the French phrase, 'répondez, s'il vous plaît,' which means 'please reply.' According to western etiquette, you should reply promptly if you receive a formal invitation.

Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know your there.

The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

Maine is the only state whose name is a single syllable

One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.

A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has 118.

Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.

Look before you leap. Plan before you act. Think before you speak. You hear these idioms and it sounds like good advice. What could be wrong with being thoughtful and making plans? Well as it turns out, a lot. Often times what happens is that I end up making plans I never act on spending a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to do and not doing anything. I want to lose weight so I come up with a weight loss plan I never implement. I want to write a book so I write an outline and make a writing schedule and a research notes and plan to work and noting gets done. But I found something out about myself, making plans are important, but sometimes you have to just jump in. Here's why.

Planning takes a lot more energy than it seems. I didn't realize this until one day when I was recalling my struggle to lose weight. I have been trying to do this for most of my life and I would make these plans. I knew how to diet I knew how to exercise and I had made the necessary plans to do it. I would get started, then I would get frustrated and then I was back where I was before I started or even worse off. I never actually did what I planned. Now I go to the gym almost everyday. I eat right most of the time. I've lost 60 lbs already and am confident that I will get to my goal weight if I continue on the path I'm currently travelling. I don't draw up those plans anymore and I'm starting to think that is was those plans that got in the way. I used up all the energy I should have been using to get through the difficult task of implementation on planning.

Not only that sometimes the plan isn't realistic. A plan is like a map. It's a way of telling you where you are and where you want to be. But what happens when you get lost? You look on the map then you look at the world and you realize that they don't match. What do you do? You can "bend the map" to reality; try to rationalize why you're lost and basically lie to yourself. You say "the map is still right this like could have dried up, and this road my be new, or this building may have been torn down." You can try to make the map fit the world. This is a mistake bound to get you lost for good, bound to the map you're unable to see the world as it is. The better choice is to abandon the map and take look around and try to understand the way to your destination.

If the world and the map don't match, abandon the map, not the journey. I used to think that I was going to eat perfectly on my diet. I knew it was going to be hard, but I thought it was possible. But I don't eat perfectly, so why am I using a map that says I do? I look at the map then I look at the world and they don't match and I abandon the trip. What I should have done is pack the map, know the map, but when reality doesn't match the map take clues from the world and keep on the path to my destination. Not only am I going to get where I'm trying to go, I'll enjoy the tip at lot more. Now I lose weight and eat anything I want. How is that possible? Because I have no guilt when I mess up, because that's reality, I mess up and I shouldn't feel bad about it. On my very next meal I go back to my diet as planed.

I still pack the map it does come in handy, but when I notice that the world isn't matching the map I trust the world rather than the map. I take not of the mistakes on the map like eating junk and I try to avoid those pitfalls in the future. But without relying on the map I no longer say the pitfalls "shouldn't be there" when you realize that you don't get to create reality you just accept it for the way it is. The world is the way it is regardless of my opinion about it. I don't judge it anymore I take it into myself and even word er at it's complexity and contradictory elements. I don't feel lost anymore. When you think about it how can you ever be lost. When ever I ask the question "where am I?"I answer "I am here" you can never be lost.

Obama to Lift Stem Cell Restrictions

2009-03-09T08:10:00.003-05:00

President Obama is expected today to end an 8½-year ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

President Obama is expected to sign an executive order today reversing Bush era stem cell restrictions.White House officials said Sunday that the president's order will give the National Institutes of Health 120 days to develop ethical guidelines for the research.

"Encompassed in [the executive order] will also be the requirements around guidelines that will be drafted by the NIH [National Institutes of Health] as they ... work with others around the country to make sure we're handling the issue responsibly," said Melody Barnes, the director of the president's Domestic Policy Council.

The president will also sign a memorandum that Barnes says will "restore scientific integrity in government decision making." It will help ensure public policy is "guided by sound scientific advice," she said.

The memorandum will cover all scientific research, including such areas as energy and climate change. The Bush administration was often accused of allowing politics to color its scientific decisions, something the administration denied.

Actor Michael J. Fox, a longtime advocate for embryonic stem cell research, expressed his enthusiasm for the president's plan and commended Obama for "recognizing the inherent value of research freedom and creating an environment in which it can flourish."

"Today is a new day. I'm thrilled to see President Obama has honored his commitment to get politics out of science," Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, told "Good Morning America." "The last few years have been incredibly frustrating for patients and researchers who believe that embryonic stem cell research has the potential to bring better treatment."

One of those who will be on hand for the signing at the White House is 34-year-old Roman Reed, who was paralyzed from the waist down at age 19, while playing college football.

The Fremont, Calif., resident and his parents have become tireless advocates for embryonic stem cell research. They were instrumental in getting California to fund this research, when the federal government would not.

Reed told ABC News he is convinced embryonic stem cell research holds limitless promise.
"I know one day I will get out of this chair and pick up my son and hold him right," Reed said. "I promised my family that I would walk again, and I will make that dream come true."
Reed's father and mother have accompanied him to Washington.

"The last eight years have been frustrating," said Don Reed, Reed's father. "It's hard to have the president of the United States be an obstacle. We want the president on our side."
The significance of the move has been hailed by disease advocacy organizations as a positive step toward new treatments for a variety of conditions.

"We are delighted to hear that President Obama will be signing a stem cell executive order on Monday, restoring a level of scientific freedom to this country that we believe is critical to the future," said Katie Hood, CEO of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in a statement issued Friday. "Our foundation is optimistic about the work that will now continue toward better treatments and cures for the millions of people impacted by injury or disease."

The announcement resounded through the research community as well. Sean Morrison, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology in Ann Arbor, said he was "overjoyed" at the news.

"President Obama's executive order signals a new day in which science policy will be based on science and in which the federal government can invest in the best ideas with the greatest potential to improve public health," Morrison said. "America will once again seek to be the world's engine for biomedical discovery, leading the way toward new treatments for disease."
But the executive order that ends President Bush's 2001 ban on such research will likely bring no such end to the fierce political debate that surrounds the use of embryonic stem cells.
On Friday, ABC News' Karen Travers reported that Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del. -- co-author of the stem cell legislation that President Bush vetoed twice -- welcomed the White House decision.
"I could not be more excited to hear that President Obama will finally lift the stifling restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research -- something I have actively fought for over the last five years," Castle said in a statement. "This single action symbolizes a new day for scientific research and highlights the importance of a strong federal role in promoting potentially life-saving science."

Shortly afterward, ABC News' Jake Tapper reported outrage from another Republican in the form of a statement issued by House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

(ABC News/AP)"Advancements in science and research have moved faster than the debates among politicians in Washington, D.C., and breakthroughs announced in recent years confirm that the full potential of stem cell research can be realized without the destruction of living human embryos," Boehner's statements read. "The question is whether taxpayer dollars should be used to subsidize the destruction of precious human life. Millions of Americans strongly oppose that, and rightfully so."

David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences for the Washington, D.C.-based Christian advocacy group Family Research Council, expressed similar disappointment.

"There are adult stem cells that are helping to improve patients' health and saving lives, and these new iPS cells that are providing basic research tools to study disease," Prentice said. "It's really a waste of resources to be moving in that direction now. It's a waste of funding, and it's a waste of lives, both in terms of the embryos and the patients waiting for these advances. ... I think it's clear that this is perhaps just fulfilling a campaign promise that was ill conceived."
Public Mostly Supportive of Embryonic Stem Cell ResearchWhat has traditionally made embryonic stem cells such a hot-button issue is the fact that, in order to obtain them, researchers must destroy human embryos -- a step that some say violates the sanctity of human life.
In August 2001, Bush signed an executive order barring federal funds for embryonic stem cell research on all but a couple dozen existing embryonic stem cell lines.

But proponents of the study of embryonic stem cells say much of this research uses discarded embryos from in-vitro fertilization procedures, which in all likelihood would have been destroyed anyway.

As the discussion over the potential promises of embryonic stem cells has evolved in the last decade, so too have public opinions of the research. Currently, most Americans appear to support the loosening of restrictions on embryonic stem cell research; according to the results of a January ABC/Post poll, 59 percent of Americans support loosening the restrictions, while 35 percent oppose doing so.

The relaxation of federal funding restrictions sits well with most Democrats, as well as with most independents. Republicans were more likely to oppose lifting such restrictions, with only 40 percent supporting such a move and 55 percent opposing it.

President Obama is expected to sign an executive order today reversing Bush era stem cell restrictions.Indeed, the president's order comes more than a month after the Jan. 23 approval by the Food and Drug Administration of the first study of a treatment based on human embryonic stem cells aimed at treating those with spinal cord injuries.

Researchers Overwhelmingly Positive"This decision is a major step forward for stem cell research in the United States," said Martin Pera, professor and founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC. "The move will enable NIH-funded researchers to work on valuable new embryonic stem cell lines ... to determine which cell lines are best suited to treat particular diseases."

"This is a huge step forward and typical of Barack Obama, who is an incredible breath of fresh air and exactly the president the U.S. and the world needed," said Helen Blau, director of the Baxter Laboratory in Genetic Pharmacology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "Thank goodness this senseless ban has been lifted."

Still, Dr. Allen Spiegel, dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and vice chair of the National Institutes of Health Stem Cell Task Force, said the years of restriction on embryonic stem cell research has been a major setback for U.S. researchers.

"In hearings before Sen. [Arlen] Specter [R-Pa.] and [Tom] Harkin [D-Iowa], I stated that banning funding for research on human embryonic stem cells was like tying one hand behind the backs of stem cell investigators," Spiegel said. "Lifting the ban cannot eliminate the effect of years of delay, but harnessing the full power of NIH to review and fund scientifically meritorious research projects will accelerate progress toward the goal of helping people suffering from diabetes, neurologic diseases, and many other conditions."

Other researchers remained cautious in their enthusiasm.

"I'm super excited, but the devil's in the details," said stem cell researcher Dr. George Daley, associate professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "I'm still worried that he might say that only some types of lines will be allowed."

"I hope he'll say the decision should be made by scientists and allow the NIH [National Institutes of Health] to decide based on the recommendations of experts and scientists outside of politics and religion," he said. "This is where the NIH [National Institutes of Health] has served us so well in other areas, and we've been missing that for the past eight years."
Reports from Sunlen Miller, Jake Tapper, Karen Travers, Gary Langer and the ABC News Medical Unit contributed to this report.

Smore more food for thought

2009-03-07T22:12:00.001-05:00

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.

Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music.

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

In 75% of American households, women manage the money and pay the bills.

HIV/AIDS has created more than 14 million orphans — 92 percent of them live in Africa.

Butterflies taste with their feet

Food for Thought

2009-03-01T20:53:00.001-05:00

*
Twelve newborn babies are given to the wrong parents each day

Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."

"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose."- Evan Esar

Canada has it’s name derived from an Indian word meaning "Big Village".

Today you will breath in 1 liter of other peoples' anal gases.

"Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness." - Cullen Hightower

A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet.

Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.

"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." - Casey Stengel

If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.

The Man Who Could Be King

2009-01-18T08:25:00.016-05:00

August 28th, 2008 in Denver Obama accepted the Democratic Party's nomination as its candidate for president of the United States. His acceptance speech was 40 years to the day of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech. January 15th, 2009 marked what would have been the 80th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Today we commemorate Dr. King's birthday as a national holiday. Tomorrow, in a country that within living memory, denied black citizens the right to vote will inaugurate its first black president. A man with a funny name and African blood will stand where 43 white men have stood before him and take the oath of office.

The coincidence doesn’t go unnoticed, but the questions do remain unasked. Is Barack Obama the next Martin Luther King, Jr? What would Dr. King say about the election of Obama? Is the election of the first black president of the United States mean that Dr. King's dream has been fulfilled? Does Obama's election indicate that racism is no longer an insurmountable obstacle in America? Will Obama's election have any impact upon a number of social ills within the black community? What would Martin Luther King, Jr. say about Senator Barack Obama's election as President of the United States? The reason people refrain from asking such questions is not that they don’t merit asking, but that we’d feel presumptuous proposing an answer.

Dr. King is and will remain one of the most respected Black Americans in our history. He had an abiding belief in the basic goodness and decency of America. He never abandoned his confidence that a majority of Americans would ultimately embrace the basic precept of our Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." As we celebrate one man's accomplishments on the eve of another’s he would probably smile and say "Amen" as he listened to Senator Obama say, more than once, that we have a "righteous wind at our back, but we can't slow down now." Maybe we don’t ask those questions because we are afraid of what the answer may ultimately be.

On the issue of race, Dr. King would remind us of what Dr. Dubois said in 1903: That the problem of the 20th Century was the "color line" and, that "race" has been the most divisive theme in the history of America. He would say, therefore, that the challenge of the 21st Century is how the United States can transition from its legacy of slavery and segregation, a legacy that has defined race relations in America for previous generations, to a multi-racial society predicated on the pursuit of excellence. He would probably say that as a country, we must come to terms with our past. We cringe at the mention of slavery, ignore the realities of modern day self-segregation, and racial discrimination is all but accepted as inevitable. Until we face the truth of this legacy, race relations principally between whites and blacks will continue to define much of who we are as a nation.

Martin bequeathed to us a unique and historic opportunity to chart a new direction. However, he knew this could not be done without a substantial base of support within the white community. Obama’s diverse victory represents an ethnic, age, gender, and voter demographic political tsunami. November 4th, 2008 is likely to realign the political landscape of America for years to come. During the 40 years following Martin's assassination the most recurring question asked has been who if anyone, is most like Dr. King? Dr. King was one of a kind. Who today is most like Michelangelo, Mozart, Galileo, Aristotle, or Shakespeare? Until the election of Barack Obama, in the 12 years from 1956 to April 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. may have done more to foster racial, social and political justice in our country than any other person or event in our history. Now, confronted with the magnitude of domestic and international issues that will require his attention, a Black American President may do more to foster racial, social, political and justice and economic opportunity in America than has been achieved by any other person or event, including that of Dr. King. Does that make him the next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? No.

The sweeping victory of Barack Obama ushers in a new era of leadership that will affect every aspect of American institutions and that sounds a death knell for the top-down, power-oriented leadership prevalent in the 20th century. A new style of 'bottom-up, empowering' leadership focusing on collaboration is sweeping the country. A new wave of 21st century authentic leaders will take over U.S. institutions of every type: business, education, health care, religion, and nonprofits. These new leaders recognize that an organization of empowered leaders at every level will outperform "command-and-control" organizations every time. Our foreign and domestic challenges require a different political matrix of problem solving. We need to build a new political constituency to implement successful solutions. We need a leader who can inspire a new generation of all Americans to be the best that they can be. Dr. King would most likely say that President Barack Obama appears to understand this better than any other political leader today and is ready to fill that role.

He might direct our attention to the speech that President-elect Obama delivered following his primary victory in South Carolina. Obama said,

"This election is about the past versus the future. It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distraction and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach a politics of common sense and innovation - a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity."

The current culture in America is a by-product of today's black experience and of the legacy of slavery and segregation. In language, dance, fashion, sports, and music, it is this black experience that has fueled the engine of much of our popular culture. President-elect Obama has tapped into and ignited this fuel of potential talent and creativity. Obama is a musical artist blessed with perfect pitch. Obama's ear and ideas are more in tune with the hopes and dreams of a new multi-racial Internet generation than any other national leader in America.

Anecdotal stories are beginning to come from the barber shops and basketball courts in the hood, following Obama's election as president, suggesting that young black men are starting to re-examine and reconsider whether or not their dreadlocks, baggy low-rise pants, do rags and use of Ebonics are the most "authentic" expression, and validation, of their black manhood. The pursuit and celebration of educational excellence may be taking hold as a realistic, potentially possible alternative lifestyle. If Obama can be elected President of the United States of America, then, opportunities may exist, that they never seriously considered as "real" for them, to pursue and become who they want to be. Dr. King might advise us to carefully observe, whether, in the near term, President Obama's inspirational political "music" transcends the gangster rap of the hood and engenders its own authentic constituency among young black men. He, like many of us, would notice that Obama has motivated an enthusiastic new generation who has embraced him as their spokesperson and messenger.

Crowds of 25,000 to 100,000 and more, mostly white people under forty years of age, and African-Americans never before seen in such magnitude since Martin's civil rights and peace movement in the '60s, assembled to see and hear Senator Obama during the democratic primaries for president. The television pictures of the ethnic demographic, gender, age and color mosaic of Obama's supporters in Grant Park in Chicago on that historic night of November 4th, 2008 were and are an affirmation of Martin's 1963 "Dream" of a future America. Dr. King would note that President-elect Obama's speech to the nation and world that night reflected the knowledge of Obama and his speechwriters of many of the themes and words articulated by him in his speeches during the Civil Rights Movement. In referring to his successful election as President of the United States, Obama said to his supporters, who had gathered in Grant Park in Chicago on election night, that his victory was

The answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment , change had come to America.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America-I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you-we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partnership and pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our politics for so long. This election has many first and many stories that will be told for generations.

But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voices heard in this election except for one thing -- Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin. And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times when we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes, we can.

America we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves-if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time.

Among the many extraordinary moments of Obama's speech at Grant Park, those that Martin might have commented upon would be the High-Definition TV pictures showing the panoramic kaleidoscope of age, gender, and race assembled, and the tears rolling down the cheeks of Reverend Jesse Jackson and the beautiful picture on stage that evening of the affirmation of the Black family, as represented by President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters. Frank Rich writing in the Sunday New York Times, in a column captioned "On the morning after a black man won the White House, America's tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy." Said,

Let's be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as given by political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night."The most conspicuous clichés to fall, of course were the twin suppositions that a decisive number of white Americans wouldn't vote for a black presidential candidate -- and that they were lying to pollsters about their rampant racism. But the polls were accurate. There was no "Bradley effect." A higher percentage of white men voted for Obama than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton included."

If there were any doubts the 1960 are over, they were put to rest on election night when our new first family won the hearts of the world as it emerged on that vast blue stage to join the celebration in Chicago's Grant Park. The bloody skirmishes that took place on that same spot during the Democratic Party Convention 40 years ago. This is another America, hardly a perfect or prejudice-free America, but a nation that can change and does, aspiring to perfection even if it can never achieve it.

Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech

2008-08-30T10:35:00.001-05:00

Thank you so much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, everybody.

To -- to Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin, and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation, with profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for presidency of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Let me -- let me express -- let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest, a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

(APPLAUSE)

To President Clinton, to President Bill Clinton, who made last night the case for change as only he can make it...

(APPLAUSE)

... to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service...

(APPLAUSE)

... and to the next vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next first lady, Michelle Obama...

(APPLAUSE)

... and to Malia and Sasha, I love you so much, and I am so proud of you.

(APPLAUSE)

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story, of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that's always set this country apart, that through hard work and sacrifice each of us can pursue our individual dreams, but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams, as well. That's why I stand here tonight. Because for 232 years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women -- students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

We meet at one of those defining moments, a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit cards, bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

(APPLAUSE)

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

(APPLAUSE)

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

We're a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment that he's worked on for 20 years and watch as it's shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty...

(APPLAUSE)

... that sits...

(APPLAUSE)

... that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

(APPLAUSE)

Tonight, tonight, I say to the people of America, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land: Enough. This moment...

(APPLAUSE)

This moment, this moment, this election is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.

Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

And we are here -- we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight.

(APPLAUSE)

On November 4th, on November 4th, we must stand up and say: Eight is enough.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, now, let me -- let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and our respect.

(APPLAUSE)

And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.

Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but, really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time?

(APPLAUSE)

I don't know about you, but I am not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.

(APPLAUSE)

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives -- on health care, and education, and the economy -- Senator McCain has been anything but independent.

He said that our economy has made great progress under this president. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.

And when one of his chief advisers, the man who wrote his economic plan, was talking about the anxieties that Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a mental recession and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

(AUDIENCE BOOS) A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made.

Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third, or fourth, or fifth tour of duty.

These are not whiners. They work hard, and they give back, and they keep going without complaint. These are the Americans I know.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn't know.

(LAUGHTER)

Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies, but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans?

How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

It's not because John McCain doesn't care; it's because John McCain doesn't get it.

(APPLAUSE)

For over two decades -- for over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy: Give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

In Washington, they call this the "Ownership Society," but what it really means is that you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck, you're on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You're on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, even if you don't have boots. You are on your own.

(APPLAUSE)

Well, it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

You see, you see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage, whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma.

We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president...

(APPLAUSE)

... when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of go down $2,000, like it has under George Bush. (APPLAUSE)

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off and look after a sick kid without losing her job, an economy that honors the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great, a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because, in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill.

In the face of that young student, who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree, who once turned to food stamps, but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

(APPLAUSE)

When I -- when I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business or making her way in the world, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman.

She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight and that tonight is her night, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine.

(APPLAUSE)

These are my heroes; theirs are the stories that shaped my life. And it is on behalf of them that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

What -- what is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours -- ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

(APPLAUSE)

So -- so let me -- let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president.

(APPLAUSE)

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

(APPLAUSE)

You know, unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

(APPLAUSE)

I'll eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

(APPLAUSE)

I will -- listen now -- I will cut taxes -- cut taxes -- for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

(APPLAUSE)

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

(APPLAUSE)

We will do this. Washington -- Washington has been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years. And, by the way, John McCain has been there for 26 of them.

(LAUGHTER)

And in that time, he has said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil than we had on the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution, not even close.

(APPLAUSE)

As president, as president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America.

(APPLAUSE)

I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars.

And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power, and solar power , and the next generation of biofuels -- an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.

(APPLAUSE)

America, now is not the time for small plans. Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy.

You know, Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance.

(APPLAUSE)

I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries, and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability.

And we will keep our promise to every young American: If you commit to serving your community or our country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

(APPLAUSE)

Now -- now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American.

(APPLAUSE)

If you have health care -- if you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

(APPLAUSE)

And -- and as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

(APPLAUSE)

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their job and caring for a sick child or an ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses, and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have the exact same opportunities as your sons.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime: by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow.

But I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy.

(APPLAUSE)

And, Democrats, Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our intellectual and moral strength.

Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient.

(APPLAUSE)

Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents, that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise. And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad.

If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

(APPLAUSE)

For -- for while -- while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats that we face.

When John McCain said we could just muddle through in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.

You know, John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives.

(APPLAUSE)

And today, today, as my call for a timeframe to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush administration, even after we learned that Iraq has $79 billion in surplus while we are wallowing in deficit, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need; that won't keep America safe. We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

(APPLAUSE)

You don't defeat -- you don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances.

If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice, but that is not the change that America needs.

(APPLAUSE)

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe.

The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

(APPLAUSE)

As commander-in-chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

(APPLAUSE)

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly and finish the fight against Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts, but I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression.

I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation, poverty and genocide, climate change and disease.

And I will restore our moral standing so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

(APPLAUSE)

These -- these are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes, because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and each other's patriotism.

(APPLAUSE)

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.

The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together, and bled together, and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America; they have served the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

So I've got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first.

(APPLAUSE)

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices. And Democrats, as well as Republicans, will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past, for part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose, and that's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

The -- the reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

(APPLAUSE)

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

(APPLAUSE)

You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

But this, too, is part of America's promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer, and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values.

And that's to be expected, because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.

(APPLAUSE)

If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.

And you know what? It's worked before, because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's about you.

(APPLAUSE)

It's about you.

(APPLAUSE)

For 18 long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said, "Enough," to the politics of the past. You understand that, in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same, old politics with the same, old players and expect a different result.

You have shown what history teaches us, that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

(APPLAUSE)

Change happens -- change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that, as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming, because I've seen it, because I've lived it.

Because I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work.

I've seen it in Washington, where we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans, and keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

And I've seen it in this campaign, in the young people who voted for the first time and the young at heart, those who got involved again after a very long time; in the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did.

(APPLAUSE)

I've seen it -- I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day, even though they can't afford it, than see their friends lose their jobs; in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb; in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

You know, this country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit, that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night and a promise that you make to yours, a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.

(APPLAUSE) And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

(APPLAUSE)

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead -- people of every creed and color, from every walk of life -- is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back...

(APPLAUSE)

... not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party

2008-08-26T18:05:00.000-05:00

How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party

A president driven by ideology. A Congress rife with corruption. A political party hellbent on a "permanent majority." A leading scholar examines the radicals who hijacked the GOP — and wrecked the longest conservative ascendancy in American history

By SEAN WILENTZ

The failure of the administration of George W. Bush — and the accompanying crisis of the Republican Party — has caused a political meltdown of historic proportions. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bush enjoyed the greatest popularity ever recorded for a modern American president. Republicans on Capitol Hill, under the iron rule of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, fattened their coffers through a fearsome operation overseen by corporate lobbyists and GOP henchmen that functioned more like an empire than an old-fashioned political machine. "Republican hegemony," the prominent conservative commentator Fred Barnes rejoiced in 2004, "is now expected to last for years, maybe decades."

Now, only four years later, Bush is leaving office with the longest sustained period of public disapproval ever recorded. No president, at least in modern times — and certainly no two-term president — has risen so high only to fall so low. Indeed, Bush's standings in the polls describe one of the most spectacular flameouts in the history of the American presidency — second only, perhaps, to that of Richard Nixon, the only president ever forced to resign from office. And in Congress, the indictment and downfall of DeLay and a host of associated scandals involving, among others, the Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, have badly damaged the party's image. The supremacy of the GOP, once envisioned by party operatives as a "permanent majority," may be gone for a very long time to come.

At first glance, the collapse of the Republican Party seems rapid and unexpected. When viewed within the larger context of American history, however, the party's breakdown looks familiar, even predictable. As in earlier party crackups — 1854, 1932, 1968 — the demise has involved not a single, sudden explosion but a gradual unraveling followed by a sharp and rapid deterioration amid major national calamities. If Bush and the Republican majority in Congress accelerated the demise of Ronald Reagan's political era with their assault on traditional American values and institutions — including the rule of law itself — it is a decline that began two decades ago.

A few examples serve to place recent events in historical perspective. In 1848, the Whig Party, which had emerged more than a decade earlier to oppose the Democrats of Andrew Jackson, captured the presidency for the second time in its history and consolidated what looked like a formidable, nationwide political base. Yet differences over slavery and territorial expansion had always hampered party unity, and in 1854, amid the sectional warfare caused by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Whigs ceased to be a national force, replaced by the anti-slavery Republican Party as the nation lurched toward the Civil War.

Three generations later, in 1928, the Republicans, although the dominant party, were battered by scandals and old battles between conservative party regulars and self-styled progressives. GOP power brokers wisely chose as their presidential nominee Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, whose engineering projects and disaster-relief efforts had earned admiration across party lines. Hoover crushed his Democratic opponent, Al Smith, in what looked like the culmination of the party's growth since the Civil War. Four years later, though, following the stock-market crash of October 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the Republicans went to pieces — and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after burying Hoover in a landslide, inaugurated the New Deal.

In 1964, the Texas liberal Democrat Lyndon Johnson wiped out the right-wing hero Barry Goldwater and ushered in a true working majority of Democratic reformers in Congress. Political commentators hailed a second birth of New Deal liberalism, and some experts even wondered if the Republicans would soon go the way of the Whigs. Yet the Democrats had long been battling among themselves over civil rights issues, and Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 triggered the defection of the once solidly Democratic South. A mere four years after Johnson's outsize triumph, Democratic infighting over his escalation of the war in Vietnam, as well as over racial turmoil in the nation's cities, paved the way for Richard Nixon's election. The breakdown of the Democrats, coupled with Nixon's downfall in 1974 in the Watergate scandal, blew the ideological center out of American politics and cleared the way for the conservative age of Ronald Reagan — the age only now beginning to come to an end.

The decay of Reagan Republicanism dates to 1988, Reagan's final year in office. With no clear-cut successor from the right on the horizon, the party chose Reagan's dutiful vice president, George H.W. Bush. A scion of the old GOP establishment, the son of a U.S. senator from Connecticut who was a Wall Street banker and golfing partner of President Dwight Eisenhower, Bush had shifted both rightward and southwesterly over the years. Although he was never able to forge a convincing political identity as a Connecticut Yankee in Texas, as president he dealt with the enormous federal deficits left over from Reagan's "supply-side" stewardship. In 1990, he finally broke his "no new taxes" vow — thereby earning the enduring contempt of the Republican right. The quirky but effective third-party candidacy of Ross Perot in 1992 was a sure sign that Bush had lost touch with the GOP's anti-government base, and his inability to cope with a recession tolled his end.

Bill Clinton's victory over both Bush and Perot seemed to spell a revival of center-left liberalism in a new form. But during his first two years in office, Clinton's missteps and defeats, coupled with the self-destructive fracturing of the Democratic Congress, handed the Republicans an opportunity to regroup. Their recapture of the House for the first time in 40 years — by forging their "Contract With America" during the midterm elections in 1994 — seemed to portend that Clinton, like his predecessor, would be a one-term president. Yet the brash ideological leadership of the new House speaker, Newt Gingrich, foreshadowed the GOP's turn to the far right and further hastened the unraveling of the conservative ascendancy. Clinton outfoxed Gingrich in battles over the federal budget and held the line against GOP demands to slash Medicare and cut taxes, and most of the public blamed Congress for the partisan bickering in Washington. In 1996, only two years after Democrats had been repudiated at the polls, Clinton won re-election with an increased plurality, marking the first time a Democrat had won two presidential terms since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.

The outcome incited congressional Republicans to a fury, and conservative leaders even more doctrinaire than Gingrich — including House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay — took advantage of the anger to hijack the party. In 1998, after a network of right-wing operatives discovered Clinton's sexual trysts with the young White House intern Monica Lewinsky, the congressional right-wingers forced Clinton's impeachment. But public backlash over the impeachment drive contributed to Gingrich's downfall as speaker and Clinton's acquittal in the Senate. With Clinton's popularity soaring and his troubles behind him amid peace and prosperity, it looked as if 2000 would bring a solid Democratic victory.

But nothing went right for the Democrats. Their nominee, Vice President Al Gore, believed that the Lewinsky scandal had made Clinton a liability and distanced himself from the very administration he had served so ably. Rather than building on the legacy of the previous eight years, Gore embraced the bogus idea of "Clinton fatigue," signaled by his naming Joe Lieberman, the sanctimonious Clinton critic, as his running mate. The left wing of the party backed the protest candidacy of Ralph Nader, and the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, ran as a "compassionate conservative" who would uphold the kinder, gentler mode of his father as a kind of Clinton-lite. The press, following its dismal performance as mouthpiece for impeachment prosecutor Ken Starr, gave credence to a string of pseudoscandals about Gore, tarnishing his integrity and casting him as a privileged, self-regarding dissembler. Nader's nihilistic campaign to destroy Gore won him enough votes to throw New Hampshire to Bush, and the election ultimately turned on the razor-thin margin in Florida. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court, including four Reagan-era appointees (and the man Ronald Reagan had named chief justice, William Rehnquist), finally intervened, stopping the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and made Bush president.

Clinton's precarious center-left alliance did not hold. With Bush's court-engineered victory, the conservative ascendancy entered a new and even more radical phase. But that phase would prove to be its last.

George w. Bush was easilyunderestimated by the press and his Democratic opponent. When he entered the White House, he looked like the luckiest political leader on the face of the earth. A man whose early efforts in business and politics had failed, Bush had persevered thanks to well-connected family and friends who repeatedly saved him from his failures and gave him his chance to make a fortune when he sold his financial interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team. In 1994, Bush won his first of two terms as governor of Texas — a high-profile job with, as stipulated in the state's constitution, undemanding day-to-day authority. Having learned the nastier arts of politics while helping out in his father's national campaigns and apprenticing with the ferocious Republican operative Lee Atwater, Bush formed an alliance with one of the greatest political tacticians in the country — Karl Rove, another Atwater disciple. After Sen. Robert Dole lost his presidential bid in 1996 — and with Rove pulling strings in the background — Bush emerged as a top candidate for the 2000 nomination.

Bush's family connections, once again, proved invaluable. For nearly half a century, from 1952 to 1996 — except for 1964, the year of Barry Goldwater — the Republican Party's national ticket included a Nixon, a Bush or a Dole. Through thick and thin, the party's top leadership had retained a coherence that was familial as well as political. And when Ronald Reagan transformed the party in 1980, he wisely did not uproot its establishment, as the Goldwaterites had tried to do in 1964, but rather absorbed it into his grand new coalition by naming George H.W. Bush as his running mate. Twenty years later, another Bush was waiting in the wings.

Although born in Connecticut and schooled at Yale and Harvard Business, the younger Bush had successfully assimilated himself to Texas business and political culture as his father had never managed. The black sheep of the family, Bush also, at the age of 40, took Jesus Christ as his personal savior. That conversion, he said, freed him from a well-documented addiction to drink. It also brought him into much closer connection with the right-wing evangelical base that Reagan had brought into the Republican Party and with which Bush senior never forged a convincing bond.

The younger Bush perfectly embodied a new melding of the Republican right and the GOP establishment, a process essential to the success of the conservative ascendancy since 1980. The only other serious challenger for the nomination was neither a son of the party establishment nor a Reaganite ideologue: Sen. John McCain. A hero of the Vietnam War (a conflict from which Bush had escaped by serving in the Texas Air National Guard), McCain married a wealthy second wife and made his political home in Arizona, where being a conservative and a maverick fit the Goldwater tradition. His independent stands on campaign-finance reform, regulation of the tobacco industry and health care irked the party's leadership but gained him favor inside the news media.

Read the entire story in the issue of Rolling Stone, on stands August 22, 2008.

Malcolm's Blog

The internet is spying on you

The GOP's rude awakening on health-care repeal

Bill Maher on Jon Stewart's Rally

Just Libertarianism?

S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals

LAPD drops ties with the Boy Scouts

VP of Exodus, Randy Thomas, decries Maddow, defends Cohen

VP of Exodus, Randy Thomas, decries Maddow, defends Cohen

A culture war cease-fire

Go Forth and Steal, Says English Priest

Obama vs. Fox News

Obama and gay rights

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

Why I'm Grateful for Joe Wilson and the Fury of Racists

The National Conversation on Race

Obama School Speech Sends the Right Message to Many Who are Usually Tuned Out

You can’t pray gay away

Debunking gay-to-straight therapy

Having a Beer

Can Prejudice be Justified?

Jon Stewart vs. Lou Dobbs and 'birthers'

More GOP crazies

Sonia Sotomayor: What we learned

How to argue with the irrational

Racism goes mainstream in GOP

Is Brüno a force for good or evil?

Bruno

How the ’Family Values’ Political Scandals May Benefit Gay Marriage

A Texas gay raid and Stonewall

Got Game?

Gang Leader for a Day

Racist Robots inTransformers 2

Gay exorcism video abuse or freedom of religion

Marijuana as medicne

A growing number of states are legalizing marijuana to treat pain or illness, but standards are lax. Is this just another way to get high?

Sen. John Ensign's affair

EMT attack by police videos

Iran’s divisive election

Obamanomics: Protesting success?

Renegade: The Making of a President

My anti-tourture diatribe

On Human Diversity

Obama returns to Washington after jam-packed trip

Postmodernism

Everyday Insanity

When I Tell The Truth

food for thought

It's Just A Game

Did you Know...

Words of Wisdom

The Lottery Winner and the Paraplegic

The Real Problem With Pain

The Happiness Hypothesis

Did you know...

Shadow and Self

The Beholder

7 Things You May Not Know

You Are Here

Obama to Lift Stem Cell Restrictions

Smore more food for thought

Food for Thought

The Man Who Could Be King

Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech

How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party