The National Enquirer, which seems to be the newspaper of record on the John Edwards scandal, reports the former senator and presidential candidate is about to be indicted by a grand jury.And at the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Pulitzer for the National Enquirer?"
I am getting the same sick feeling in my stomach about this that I got when I watched the torture "debate" unfold. This is yet another unraveling of certain pieces of the already threadbare social contract --- the reflexive moral consensus on cruelty and selfishness that we all teach our children and at least pay lip service to if not always live up to. Things like whether or not it's ok to torture --- or to let people flounder with no income at all during a serious economic crisis. You can tell that this is one of those things by the punch drunk response of so many, even some on the GOP side, who are having a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea that this could happen.And bandwagoning on Digby is the Liberty Street blog:
It's way outside the normal consensus about what is expected of our government during an economic downturn and it could be the beginning of something really ugly. Up until now there was no question that it would be political suicide, much less morally wrong, to make massive numbers of unemployed, working and middle class workers, pay in order to make an ideological point. But with these incoherent tea partiers and nihilistic libertarians pulling the same kind of out sized influence the neocons did during the Great GWOT scare, this is what happens. We lose our moral consensus.
This crisis, caused single handedly by the Republicans so their handlers can get obscenely rich is beyond the understanding of the Tea-Bag crowd. The Tea-Baggers are not bright enough to realize that they are being manipulated by people like Dick Armey and his ilk to allow the rich to get even richer.And then, one more, Open Left has a post up titled, "The Principle Of Favoring Wealth Over Work."
The part the Tea-Baggers miss is the concept of social contract. That if we live as if we are all in this together, we can all do better.
Throughout his Hall of Fame baseball career, Jim Bunning was famous for the brush back pitch: a fastball inside to a batter crowding the plate. Now Mr. Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky who is retiring after this year, is throwing a political brush back in the Senate on behalf of fiscal responsibility.There is ideology and there is truth. And in this debate, it's not difficult to see which side stands with the latter.
And all hell has broken loose. Mr. Bunning has dared to put a hold on a $10 billion spending bill to extend jobless insurance and fund transportation projects. Mr. Bunning says he won't yield until the Senate finds a way to pay for the new spending with cuts somewhere else in the $3.5 trillion budget. For this perfectly reasonable stance, Mr. Bunning has become the Beltway and media villain of the hour. We'd call it his finest hour.
Every time Washington wants to spend money, the Senate Majority Leader asks for "unanimous consent" to authorize the funding, and in the collegial Senate everyone falls in line. But when Harry Reid wanted consent last week for that $10 billion, Mr. Bunning broke the old-boy rules by shouting: "I object."
The faux indignation has been something to behold. "It is simply unfair for one Senator to attempt to hold the Senate hostage," said Senator Richard Durbin. "Unfair," cried Jay Rockefeller. The Obama Administration has attacked Mr. Bunning for playing "political games" and forcing a furlough of 2,000 government workers. (The horror!)
By the way, Democrats could end Mr. Bunning's stand by invoking cloture and getting the 60 votes they need to proceed. Mr. Reid won't do that because he thinks he's scoring points using Mr. Bunning to define Republicans as "obstructionists." So who's playing politics here?
Mr. Bunning is merely asking the Senate to live by the rules that President Obama said it should when he signed an executive order requiring "pay-as-you-go" budgeting. "Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else," he said, only three weeks ago. But instead of backing Mr. Bunning's stand that new spending must be "paid for," the White House is attacking him.
The real story here is that Mr. Bunning is exposing pay-go as a fraud. When Mr. Obama and Democrats want to spend money on their priorities, they waive the rule by declaring an emergency. They only enforce pay-go to block tax cuts. The Senate will soon follow with another $85 billion spending bill, and rest assured that too will violate pay-go rules.
The rest is here.FPM: I’d like to start off with a local California issue. After the Muslim Student Union at the University of California at Irvine last month disrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, you sent a letter to school’s chancellor, Michael Drake, urging him to ban the MSU from campus. Why did you decide to get involved in the controversy over the MSU and why did you call for a ban on the group at the UCI campus?
DeVore: The MSU has been complaining that this is a controversy created by outsiders who are calling for their punishment. But I am not an outsider. I represent a district that’s home to UCI and I’ve been following this issue closely for quite some time.
For years, the MSU has been bringing in speakers – people like [Hamas and Hezbollah supporter] Malik Ali – who call for the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jews. Unfortunately, the school has long had a walking-on-eggshells policy when it comes to the MSU. For instance, it allows them to ban recording of their events, which of course prevents people from finding out about the kinds of things that are said at those events. In the past, if you tried to record something at an MSU event, their members would surround you, and they would get the campus officials to drag you away. UC Irvine is the only UC campus that allows the MSU to get away with this.
It’s different for conservative students. When the College Republicans and conservative students tried to show the Dutch cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2006, the MSU complained and the school initially tried to shut down the event because of threats of violence. At the time, I told Chancellor Drake, “If you shut down this event, in a few years time you’ll have the equivalent of Sharia law on campus.” Eventually, the administration issued a wishy-washy statement of support for free speech, saying that if the students went ahead with it the school wouldn’t shut them down.
The MSU, on the other hand, has repeatedly violated school policy – and gotten away with it. In 2007, the MSU packed a room with protestors when Daniel Pipes was giving a speech. I showed up for that event, not only because I’m interested in Pipes’s work, but because I knew there would be trouble. And there was. The MSU’s members had duct tape over their mouths and they said that they would not be silenced and tried to shut down the event. That was a violation of university policy.
Then, last May, the MSU hosted a fundraising event with George Galloway where they were videotaped passing around a hat for donations to Hamas. First, this is a violation of UCI policy about fundraising on campus. Second, this is a violation of federal law prohibiting raising money for groups on the State Department’s designated list of terrorist groups. It’s not a hard list to figure out and Hamas, as I recall, is on it.
My understanding of radical Islamic thought is that if you keep giving them ground they will keep on taking it. That’s what happened last month when the MSU tried to shut down a speech by [Israeli ambassador to the United States] Michael Oren. Before he could even get his speech launched, 11 of them, all members of the MSU, including its president, stand up and start yelling. Finally they were taken away and arrested. This comes at the end of a very long string of abuses.
So this is something we need to deal with. The MSU at UCI is the most virulent and the most militant of the Islamist groups on American campuses today.
FPM: Why do you think UCI has not dealt with it? More generally, surveying the modern university scene, you could make a compelling case that universities have been too-tolerant of the MSU and kindred groups. What does that say about the current state of academia?DeVore: It’s not just an issue of tolerance. It’s politically correct behavior that you find in some – not all – academic departments, especially in the social sciences. It’s a vision of the world in which America and Israel are cast as imperialist powers, where Zionism is racism, and where the MSU is a member of a noble, persecuted minority that deserves support, and even encouragement, for standing up to these evils. What the MSU has in common with these academics is that they both see the world through the same lens.
Students and workers in California’s public schools—K-12 and higher education—will protest against deep budget cuts on Thursday, March 4.RTWT. My union, CTA, is cited.
“We have never before witnessed this much participation and outrage about the dismal state of education on our state campuses and in our public schools,” says Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association (CFA), a labor union which represents a total of 23,000 tenured and tenure-track instructional faculty, lecturers, librarians, coaches and counselors in the 23-campus California State University. “The call for March 4 protests has hit a nerve. It’s an historic moment.”
In California and across the U.S., tax revenues have slowed sharply after the housing market crash. K-12 spending cuts of $18 billion in the past two years have closed California schools and forced local districts to fire employees. With a $20 billion state budget deficit now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing education cuts of $2.5 billion, while vowing to protect California’s public school students.
“Our message is simple: legislators must protect and expand the budget for public education with adequate funding,” said Kevin Wehr, a sociology professor at Sacramento State University and CFA campus president.
What is an American? Today, as the 20th century -- the so-called "American Century" -- recedes in memory, the question can seem immodest or even grandiose. If we don't know now, after decades wielding almost unimaginable superpower status around the globe, will we ever?I recently posted "Watson and the Shark." See, "American Stories."
Still, there's another way to look at it. The question arises anew because of the conflicted place in which the United States finds itself today.
With the national nervous breakdown unleashed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- trauma Americans have collectively been unable to resolve -- our identity remains a shambles. The uncertainty had been building for at least 30 years. In the aftermath of Abu Ghraib and AIG, once-settled matters of morality now appear unrecognizable.
A new exhibition of American paintings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art seems prompted by this deep unease. The show turns to history -- to the era when the question of what an American might be was still brand new and very much up for grabs.
"American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915" centers on 19th century art. Lots of first-rate paintings keep company with dreadful Victorian morality plays. George Bellows, Mary Cassatt, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Charles Willson Peale and Rembrandt Peale (father and son) and others stand out.
Mostly it regards the evolution of genre paintings, which show men and women at work and leisure, engaged in public and private life. A few portraits also make an appearance. They include Copley's classic 1768 depiction of Paul Revere, silversmith and Revolutionary War hero, in shirtsleeves. His chin is contemplatively held in his right hand, a handsomely crafted silver teapot cradled in his left.
The teapot of course nods toward the critical role of tea in the New World's economy. A year before, Britain's Parliament fiddled with the tea tax; results were devastating for colonists. (Witness Revere's grim, shadowed face.) The subsequent Boston Tea Party was an insurrection against a corporate stranglehold on trade, held by the British East India Company working with George III. Copley's brilliant image fuses head and hand as tools for thought, labor and moral action. The portrait describes a person, but it places him in the context of an epic story.
The painting -- as sleek and elegantly crafted as Revere's light-reflective silver -- puts artists in that developing story too. Copley is as much an agent of thought, labor and action as Revere is, and his work speaks to the present as much as to history.
The painting occupies pride of place as the first picture encountered in the show. Across from it is Copley's monumental -- and morally ambiguous -- "Watson and the Shark," showing a notorious British businessman who, in his youth, fell overboard from a merchant marine ship and was nearly eaten by an enormous shark. With the theatrical flourish of Grand Manner style, Copley painted this thrashing melodrama of heroic rescue in London.
The brief legal justification McArdle offers is why there isn’t a slippery-slope argument to be made here. We are fairly sure as a society, or so at least we tell ourselves, that consent is the operative moral variable in sexual relations, and since the consent of children is understood to be deficient, child pornography is always something akin to rape. So, I don’t think another half-century will bring about the normalization of child pornography, though there have been changes in sexual mores equally strange and sudden in the past. I’m more interested in the way the evolution of views about sexuality can repeat itself. McArdle’s posts, along with the Dan Savage letter she links to, represent the second step in the process of recognizing people who have certain desires as constituting a group. With the caveat that I haven’t undertaken a Foucault-like cultural history of homosexuality, from a survey of medical texts and pre-war analogues to gay rights movements it seems to me that this process occurred in the United States sometime around the middle of the last century with regard to homsexuality.Read the whole thing for context and links.
Of course homosexuality in the sense of same-sex sexual acts has been around at least since Homer and probably much longer, but the notion that there is a class of people who experience permanent desire for members of the opposite sex in a manner analogous to the ordinary kind of love and desire between men and women is relatively recent, even if such people may have always existed (not that the forms of heterosexual attraction are stable throughout time and place; C.S. Lewis once wrote that the idea of romantic love was invented by a group of poets living in 12th-century France, and pace Ovid, I almost believe him). Specifically, while the idea of homosexuality has its origins in the Mollies of the 18th century and the Dandies of the 19th, it required the post-war mania for cataloging and extirpating deviancy by rational-technical means to sunder those terms from broader ideas about decadence, aestheticism, Continentalism and Catholicism, which were occasionally unified and apotheosized in infamous figures like Huysmans. Part of this cataloging and extirpation process was the identification of homosexuals as a sub-set of the population who were like other people except with respect to this single pathology. This made its way into general opinion in odd, quasi-medical ways, but the general sentiment directed towards this newly invented population, I gather, was not unlike the way we feel about pedophiles today: a covert, unspeakable menace threatening our children in the midst of us.
The Atlantic clearly recognized that Andrews' Daily Dish has a branded identity of its own that was well worth preserving. Click on his name, and you wind up on his page. It's constructed with the same design language, but bears his own clear imprint. And his posts display the same way they always have, requiring jumps only when they extend beyond a few paragraphs.Good thing the dude's going with "TNC" 'cuz Ta-Nehisi gets riled if you misspell his
TNC's blog, on the other hand, has essentially been spiked. Or, more accurately, rolled into the amorphous category of 'culture.' I'm not even sure what 'culture' means, other than that it's an incredibly poor way to pigeonhole TNC's creative output. This blog has covered politics, policy, culture, art, and entertainment with verve and passion, and a huge element of what keeps me coming back to it is that eclecticism. It's the musings of a creative and fascinating individual, not the aggregated output of a group of staffers assigned to similar beats.
I like what TNC does enough that I'll probably give this a shot. But I'm disgusted with The Atlantic for taking away his blog, and leaving him with nothing more than what you get when - for example - you click the name of a journalist on a newspaper's website. It's just a list of his recent offerings, with single-sentence links. That's not a blog. It's an archive search function. It's online journalism with tagging.
If The Atlantic is too dumb to realize what an immensely valuable asset they have in TNC, then that's their problem. But it seems singularly self-defeating to me to take a distinctive individual voice who has built in remarkably short time a passionately devoted following, and subsume his work within a broader category. If they want to cross-post his entries within the 'culture' section of the webpage, great. But they should also cross-post selected entries within 'politics' or 'food' or other appropriate categories. And it should preserve a single page, in classic blog-like format, for the thousands and thousands of readers for whom TNC is the attractive brand that confers legitimacy upon The Atlantic, and not the other way 'round.
Chilean firemen recover a body found in debris washed up by waves generated by a major earthquake at the epicenter in Curanipe February 28, 2010. (REUTERS/Victor Ruiz Caballero)
And at Los Angeles Times, "Chile Sends Army Into Post-Quake Chaos."
The administration's not happy, natch. From Politico, "Liz Cheney Group Accused of McCarthyism."
Whether it is "Women and children first" or "Every man for himself" in a shipwreck may depend on how long it takes the ship to sink, researchers said Monday.More at the link.
When the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, it sank in 18 minutes and the bulk of survivors were young men and women who responded immediately to their powerful survival instincts.
But when the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912, it took three hours to go down, allowing time for more civilized instincts to take control. -- and the bulk of the survivors were women, children and people with young children.
Economist Benno Torgler of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and his colleagues studied the two sinkings in order to explore the economic theory that people generally behave in a rational and selfish manner. The two tragedies provided a "natural experiment" for testing the idea, because the passengers on the two ships were quite similar in terms of gender and wealth.
The primary difference was how long it took the ships to sink.
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the researchers found that, on the Titanic, children had a 14.8% higher probability of surviving than a man, a person accompanying a child had a 19.6% higher probability and women had more than a 50% higher probability.
On the Lusitania, in contrast, fit young men and women were the most likely to make it into the lifeboats.
Social class was also important. On the Titanic, first-class passengers were about 44% more likely to survive, while on the Lusitania, passengers from steerage were more likely to emerge safely.
The authors considered other possible complicating factors, but concluded that the most likely reason for the differences was the amount of time passengers had to effect escape.
They suggested that when people have little time to react, gut instincts may rule. When more time is available, social influences play a bigger role.
As luck -- of the bad variety -- would have it, your ship runs into an iceberg (like the Titanic) and begins to sink." Not to worry; you proceed to your preassigned evacuation area. As the ship begins to take on water and begins to sink, the captain orders everyone to abandon ship. A panic ensues; a number of frantic passengers jump into the water, and several lifeboats cannot be released from their cleats and cannot be lowered into the water.The answer, of course, is that the metaphor is perfectly applicable to contemporary world politics, because we can conceive of the earth as a vessel with a finite carrying capacity (as a theoretical assumption, not a fact). Those in the "lifeboat" are the developed nations of the advanced industrialized north. What incentive do they have to help the less developed nations of the south? According to the logic of the Queensland University study cited at the Times, there's little incentive in the short term for states to abandon their rational self-interest (cut economic production, reduce consumption) to help the nations of the south through more globally sustainable policies. (Think Copenhagen.) But perhaps over the long term, if states had more time to "escape" the tragedy of the global commons, and cost-efficient technologies, new resources, etc., became available, advanced nations would agree to binding limitations on emissions, and hence production and potential living standards.
You are fortunate to be on one of the functional lifeboats. Your boat is lowered into the water, and it is immediately surrounded by a number of the passengers who have jumped into the water. The officer on your boat announces that the lifeboat can accommodate an absolute maximum of 60 passengers; anymore will cause the boat to capsize. You and the other passengers are confronted with several excruciating questions:
* There are ten available places left in your boat. How should you decide which passengers are allowed into your boat: the first ten to board it? Children, old people, the sick?
* What about the people in the water? Would you allow them to climb over the sides of the boat? Would you prevent, by force if necessary, more than ten coming on board?
* Would your thinking about these questions be different if you were one of those in the water rather than in the lifeboat?
* To what extent is this metaphor applicable to contemporary world politics?
One of the ultimate protections of being a tenured faculty member, historically, has been being immune from layoff in all but the most extraordinary circumstances. Under policies issued by the American Association of University Professors and largely accepted by higher education leaders, only institutions that declare "financial exigency" -- a state so dire that it "threatens the survival of the institution as a whole" -- can eliminate the jobs of tenured faculty members.There's a list of institutions moving in that direction, at the link.
Given the strict criteria on when an institution can declare exigency, and the obviously unwelcome scrutiny such a declaration would bring about, institutions have hesitated to invoke that status. As a result, while institutions eliminate adjunct positions all the time, the tenured faculty member has been protected.
But maybe not so much anymore. In a series of recent actions, colleges appear to be ignoring the exigency requirement either when eliminating tenured jobs or considering the possibility of doing so. Administrators defend their moves as necessary to manage institutions in tight financial times, but faculty leaders see an erosion of a key right.
Consider these developments ...
In celebration of the 2010 World Cup, Budweiser is casting "Bud House," a Web-based reality show that will feature a house full of "passionate" soccer fans -- one from each of the 32 qualifying countries -- and, very likely, beer.Mostly, I just liked the video:
Not since the "Jerry Springer Show" has there been a better recipe for a fistfight.
The project is looking for both male and female soccer fans to live together under the watchful eye of the Internet audience. Budweiser has promised "luxurious accommodations, thrilling excursions," and a once-in-a-lifetime chance for soccer fans. Thousands have apparently submitted applications, and whoever makes the cut will get flown to the actual Bud House in Capetown, South Africa, home of the 2010 World Cup.
Budweiser has enlisted the help of the Feed Company, the online buzz firm that has helped light the fuse on viral spots such as "Guy Backflips into Jeans."
A Tea Party Test: The Tea Party movement in Texas is as strong, organized and active as any in the country. Debra Medina is seen as the candidate of the Tea Party movement in the state and has openly courted its supporters in her underfunded bid for governor. Medina was rising in the polls -- thanks, in no small part, to voter disgust with the back and forth between Perry and Hutchison -- but that upward trajectory appears to have slowed in the wake of her remarks that seemed to suggest that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job. (Perry, too, has worked to hard to co-opt the energy of the Tea Partiers and will enjoy some segment of support among the group). Rightly or wrongly, Medina's showing will be taken as a baseline for the Tea Party movement in the state; the higher she goes, the bigger national story the race will become. Also keep an eye on Rep. Ron Paul's primary race. Even though Paul is regarded in many circles as a founding member of the Tea Party crowd, he is facing several primary challengers more directly affiliated with the movement. Be careful not to read too much into how much of the vote Paul's opponents get, however. There is a certain segment of Republicans in his 14th district who make it a policy every two years to vote against him; Paul's primary challenger in 2008 got 30 percent of the vote.See also, the Texas Tribune, "Judgment Day."
This is only my personal opinion: What the GOP obstructionists are doing is not democratic. They should not be in the business of representing ordinary Americans. If they can't change their ways right now, we've got to let them go.The link there goes to the meme that the GOP has set a record for the filibuster, but of course, the question of protecting minority rights in a democracy is central to the political philosophy of limited government. I've written about the deathwish Democratic Party tyranny of the majority many times. We're just getting the latest iteration with the coffee party apparatchiks. Also at that Facebook link, a "coffee party" video:
Listen to that. It's pretty pathetic, really.
I don't follow this show all that closely. I've basically watched every other week. My wife likes it so we've been hanging out on the couch watching shows. But it's powerful television, despite all the nasty things people say about all the participants on the gossip websites. I would have probably proposed to Tenley. I like her even more than Ali at this point. But I don't begrudge Vienna a bit. She's a Hooters girl. And that makes her scum for some folks? And oh, she posed nude, so she shouldn't have a chance for love and prince charming? I'm happy for her. That said, The Bachelor is more about broken dreams than anything else. I'll update if I can find it more video, but Tenley defines class in her response to Jake. He's a good man, and I can see why women love him, but he need to rein in the love a bit. He tells everyone he loves them. But you can only have one. Readers can tell me otherwise in the comments, but I think Jake and Vienna did the nakie -- they went for a test drive, so to speak. I don't see that level of intimacy with Jake and Tenley, and that's just it: Jake needed something more risque. I'm the other way around, for example, when I married my wife. I was rogue, and I married pure beauty. I'm the luckiest guy that way. But maybe Jake wanted to walk on the wild side for once, being the cookie-cutter stud that he is. In any case, hard all around, but that's why people watch.
If Republicans are to have a serious chance of capturing control of the Senate in November, they are going to have to win in traditionally Democratic states like California, where Senator Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat, is showing signs of vulnerability.And here's this on moderate Tom Campbell :
But before Republicans get a clear shot at Mrs. Boxer, they will have to overcome deep divisions within their own party — divides that reflect both the grass-roots energy surging through the conservative movement and the tensions between the party’s moderate and conservative wings.
Mr. Campbell is a self-described fiscal conservative who supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. “He would have more appeal to moderate voters than any other Republican nominee — other than Arnold or Pete Wilson — has had here for the past 25 or 30 years,” said Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic consultant in the state, referring to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr. Wilson, the former California governor.Campbell's frankly RINO. His positions on traditional marriage and abortion are a joke, IMHO. But he's caught in an even larger issue -- tepid support for Israel -- that may well torpedo his campaign. The Los Angeles Times defended Campbell last weekend. See, "Tom Campbell's Israel Problem." But Philip Klein debunks the Times' editorial. See, "Campbell Defended Muslim Donor Who Rallied Support for Hamas, Hezbollah":
But the positions that might help Mr. Campbell in a general election are a burden in the Republican primary. And the hurdle is not only on social issues. When Mr. Campbell was finance director for Governor Schwarzenegger, he supported temporary tax increases to deal with the state’s worsening fiscal crisis, and Ms. Fiorina and Mr. DeVore have criticized him for that.
The Los Angeles Times editorial page has decided to give U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell the benefit of the doubt -- for now -- on his past voting record on Israel and his numerous past associations with terrorist-linked radicals. But the editorial acknowledges that "His positions are fair game" and urges those who are concerned to challenge him within the confines of reasonable debate. I'm happy to oblige.That's the video above. Read the rest of Klein's piece here. It's devastating.
The editorial board was not pursuaded by Campbell's relationship with Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who donated to the Campbell campaign and later pled guilty to conspiring to help associates of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (More on their relationship here, here, here and here.) But in the Al-Arian case, Campbell defenders can claim that when he defended Al-Arian on civil rights and academic freedom grounds, Campbell didn't know the full extent of the evidence that would later link Al-Arian to terrorism. It's much harder to make that excuse, however, in the case of many other radicals with whom Campbell was connected. Let's take the example of another supporter, Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, whose views in support of Hamas and Hezbollah were well known -- and captured on videotape back in 2000. Yet Campbell was still defending him even as other politicians were running for cover.
Here is a video (originally from the Investigative Project on Terrorism) of Alamoudi rallying a crowd at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on October 28, 2000, declaring, "We are all supporters of Hamas" and "I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."
LBCC full-time teacher's union President DeWayne Sheaffer said, "The purpose of the rally is to let people know that public education in California has taken enough cuts."The union has sent e-mails to LBCC faculty as well. The action is billed as a push to "Stop the CUTS," and outside agitators from CSU will be on hand, not to mention AFT and LBUSD activists. A roundup of local actions is here.
The "Stand for Schools" page is here:
The CTA action is part of the larger radical "Occupy California" mobilization, which I've covered previously. See, "'Mobilizing Conference' for Public Schools Revives '60s-Era Campus Radicalism."
Some of the promotional materials sound all sweet and wonderful. Educate for the Future, for example, argues that radical mobilization is necessary for a "Truly Sustainable Democracy."
But take a look at "Reoccupy," and the discussion of property rights there, at "Occupation at Hibernia Bank, San Francisco":
And here's the statement on the March 4th mobilization from "Occupy Boston":We will no longer take this lying down. We will no longer wait for a political solution to homelessness and affordable housing that the ruling class will never deliver. We seek not reforms, but a new reality. If we need real housing, we must take it ourselves. If we need real education, we must create it ourselves. If we need a new society and economy we must build it ourselves. We reject the disenfranchisement of our society and recognize that we must take the power back – we must begin by creating realities from our dreams. We must take back the power and the control of our lives, no longer will it be left to the international corporations, local business interests, and governments to decide how our lives will run from their cozy boardrooms and country clubs.
The actions of students in California have so far been contained in the Universities but it cannot remain that way; the conditions in the schools are inseparably tied to the conditions in our communities, across the state and across the world. The privatization of schools and social services parallels the privatization of our society. Our current social reality tells us it is unacceptable to demand more money and resources for schools as that money must come through the decimation of other social services. We recognize it is futile to demand action from a removed, alien body. We will become that action we want and we will build and create those resources we need. We seek new spaces and unheard of relations. We will begin to create our own realities and our own services. We must find real freedom in thought and action, not this manufactured lie that is spit out to us in every living moment. We seek the creation of new forms of life, built upon common understanding and solidarity instead of competition and alienation.
We seek to overcome the false separation of the student struggle that keeps us from realizing our common reality with all sectors of society. We are all denied a creative life by the global powers, denied the possibility for the exploration and elaboration of new forms of being besides this exploitation and oppression they force us to endure. We now join comrades across the state who have already begun this struggle – the people who fight against the criminalization of life. Our path to liberation is bound with theirs, we all share an absent future and the possibility for a new life. If they take our means of survival, rights to housing, education, welfare, union jobs, and other public services, we will take their banks. It remains for the people of this state to seize what is rightfully theirs.Occupy Everything!
In order to break the illusion of this future that is laid out before us we must to take matters into our own hands. To break the illusion, we must take what we need. No more asking politely. We are to take and appropriate. We are to occupy and live.Given all of this, I am requesting a formal statement from CCA President DeWayne Sheaffer. Where does CCA stand? Demonstrably, the March 4th union action is the spearhead of a national revolutionary movement. Top leaders in the state labor movement are speaking "truth to power" through their calls for hardline mobilization. And clearly, these radical militants don't want "more funding" for schools. They want power and expropriation.
March 4th is not just a National Day of Action to Defend Education. It is also the National Day of Action to Stop Police Brutality. It is also the National Day of Action Against Capitalism. It is also the National Day of Action to Fight for Our Lives: To Fight for Our Futures.
We are with you California and New York and everyone else (you know who you are).
Occupy Everything for Everyone
See you March 4th
Ann links to the CNN story. But make sure to watch the whole thing.
Over a period of four days spanning from February 23 to Feb. 26, Reynolds published a total of 287 links to 144 separate domains. In that small space of time, there were 26 domains that he linked to three times or more.Go to Simon's report for the full tabular data, here.
The two domains he linked to most often — Amazon.com (22) and Pajamasmedia.com (19) — aren’t surprising; Amazon has a referral system that allows Reynold to get a cut out of every click-through sale and Pajamas Media hosts his own blog. PJTV.com — also a Pajamas Media outlet — received a high number of links as well.
Of those domains that received three or more links, many of them were right-wing, but a few weren’t, including BoingBoing (9), Autoblog (3), New Scientist (3), Popsci.com (4), Popular Mechanics (4), Slate (3), and others. As is evident from the above list, though many Instapundit links are political in nature, he also often links to non-political stories — usually tech articles.
Below is a breakdown of all the domains Reynolds linked to three times or more ...
With healthcare legislation mired in partisanship, "tea party" activists on the march and GOP leadership dominated by conservatives, Capitol Hill looks like a parched landscape for the withered moderate wing of the Republican Party.More at the link.
But green shoots are sprouting in Washington and on the campaign trail. A small band of Republican moderates in the Senate broke a logjam on jobs legislation. They added to their ranks with the arrival of another New England Republican, Scott Brown. And several moderate Republicans are in a good position to win Senate seats in November.
Rep. Michael N. Castle, one of the most liberal Republicans in the House, is heavily favored to win an open Senate seat in Delaware.
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, handily won the party's primary despite opposition from conservatives.
Other centrist Senate candidates -- such as former Reps. Tom Campbell in California and Rob Simmons in Connecticut, and Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida -- still face conservative opposition in primary contests that are seen as battles for the ideological soul of the party.
But more is at stake. Additional moderates in the Senate could provide a more durable foundation for breaking logjams than any White House summit or lecture on bipartisanship.
"Casting votes that are opposed by the party leadership is very difficult," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats to end a filibuster on the jobs bill. "I'm very optimistic the elections this year are going to bring back a resurgence of the center."
That seems paradoxical as Democrats prepare to enact President Obama's healthcare bill without any Republican support. Senate Democratic leaders are moving to use a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation to protect the effort from filibuster. The idea is for the House to pass the Senate's healthcare bill, then for both chambers to pass a companion bill by a majority vote.
In a CNN interview Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he expected no Republicans to vote for the bill.
In a separate interview, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said on "Fox News Sunday" that House Democrats were short of votes to pass the Senate healthcare bill, but that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) probably would find a way to pass it.
"I wouldn't count her out because she is very good at muscling votes," Ryan said.
Although conservatives have dominated legislative strategy and intraparty debate over the future of the Republican Party, centrists have a stronger hand in swing states.
Plus, check out the photo-stream from McCartney and other at last year at Coachella, "Coachella Music Festival 2009 - Day One in Photos."I love you
I love you
I love you(BGV# 1 I can't explain the feeling's plain to me, say can't you see?)
I love you
(BGV#1 Ah, he gave me more, he gave it all to me, say can't you see)
I love you
(BGV#1 I can't explain the feeling's plain to me, say can't you see?)
(BGV#2 How can I tell you about my loved one?)
I love you
(BGV#1 Ah, he gave me more, he gave it all to me, say can't you see)
(BGV#2 How can I tell you about my loved one?)
I love you
(BGV#1 I can't explain the feeling's plain to me, say can't you see?)
(BGV#2 How can I tell you about my loved one?)
I love you
(BGV#1 Ah, he gave me more, he gave it all to me, say can't you see)
(BGV#2 How can I tell you about my loved one?)
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.
But I look around me and I see it isn't so. Oh, no
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
And what's wrong with that?
While it is pretty well known to my family and immediate friends, I don’t usually talk about it to my co-workers or new acquaintances. I’m not sure if I was born this way or if it developed over time though the passion definitely increased over time and my exposure to others of the same bent. Hearing how others talk about it, the demeaning language, the sneering, the derision, causes me to be very guarded. There have even been stories in the news lately about people being beaten up because of it.
Sure, going to parties where everyone else is of the same orientation makes it easier to let my guard down for awhile but, I still am uneasy in case I say the wrong thing in front of the wrong person and it comes back to haunt me. It is a worry when applying for a new job because unlike race and creed, this isn’t protected.
Online is a lot easier because it is more anonymous than the real world. Hiding behind a screen name allows for a freer interaction, but even then it has to be in the right chat room, Twitter feed or Facebook environment because I’ve been slammed, called names, and had my beliefs attacked viciously when I’ve opened up to people.
Coming out of the conservative closet is akin to coming out of the closet as gay or lesbian. Now, before anyone gets all bent out of shape because of the analogy please take a chill pill. I have greater respect and understanding of those who have any type of “secret” that affects their outlook on the world and how the world looks at them.
