LOVE IN RUINS
"There is no room for love in Afghanistan," the young teenage girl said to me as if it were true and had been true for years, for as long as she could remember. In the twilight of that evening and for several years after, her remark caused me to reflect on the kind of space that love itself can consume. In the tiny precipice of this Afghan girl's heart, where love and all of its beautiful unknowns should have blossomed, it didn't, it couldn't....And then one day, a surprise. A young man brought me a stack of letters. More than 600 pages, it was a secret correspondence of love, one that allowed the imaginations of two lovers to wander, for it was only in those pages and in their dreams that they could walk together. To disclose their love would mean the end and perhaps worse. That day I realized that love existed in Afghanistan - in a single glance, a certain tone, the shadow of a school yard - but not without grave risk or consequence.
(MOTHER JONES)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
HEALTH REFORM DEBATES START HEATING UP
ABC News has responded to the Republican National Committee's "pushback" that the network is excluding "opposing voices" during next week's White House conversation on President Obama's national health care plan. An ABC representative characterized the RNC letter as containing "a number of false premises." Explaining, she wrote that "ABC News alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president." And, further, "ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."
(TV NEWSER)
ABC News has responded to the Republican National Committee's "pushback" that the network is excluding "opposing voices" during next week's White House conversation on President Obama's national health care plan. An ABC representative characterized the RNC letter as containing "a number of false premises." Explaining, she wrote that "ABC News alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president." And, further, "ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."
(TV NEWSER)
Monday, June 15, 2009
Repeat the Question
CAN HEALTH CARE REFORM FAIL?
Sixteen years ago Stanley Greenberg conducted polling for Bill Clinton on the issue of health care reform. Recently, he has been reviewing old surveys and focus groups and memos to the president. He has returned to the field, posing the same questions to the public, to determine how the mood has shifted and how the forces that oppose reform can best be countered. He's looked at each question, remembering how it all went badly wrong. As he reached the last of the questions, he exclaimed: "Oh no. It can't be. Nothing's changed."
(NEW REPUBLIC)
Sixteen years ago Stanley Greenberg conducted polling for Bill Clinton on the issue of health care reform. Recently, he has been reviewing old surveys and focus groups and memos to the president. He has returned to the field, posing the same questions to the public, to determine how the mood has shifted and how the forces that oppose reform can best be countered. He's looked at each question, remembering how it all went badly wrong. As he reached the last of the questions, he exclaimed: "Oh no. It can't be. Nothing's changed."
(NEW REPUBLIC)
Urban Art Thriving in Berlin | Demotix.com
BERLIN'S STREET ART
Street art has a long historic and culture in London, New York, Sao Paulo, and in many metropolitan centers around the world. However in Berlin, it especially seems to be thriving since the wall came down in 1989.
(DEMOTIX)
Street art has a long historic and culture in London, New York, Sao Paulo, and in many metropolitan centers around the world. However in Berlin, it especially seems to be thriving since the wall came down in 1989.
(DEMOTIX)
WERE ELECTIONS RIGGED?
Middle East experts are falling into two broad camps on the Iranian election. One argues that numerous irregularities are de facto evidence supporting claims that a presidential coup has taken place in Iran. A second camp argues caution, suggesting that many in the media had come down with a case of "wishful thinking" that raised expectations beyond reason, and the gap between the expectations and results is leading to an eagerness to embrace the opposition's claims of massive fraud. Into that debate, a new statistical analysis of the election results is making the rounds that suggests that the numbers reported by the Interior Ministry are evidence of large-scale vote-fraud. But polling by our political guru Nate Silver finds the analysis unpersuasive. (CLICK HERE)
(ALTERNET)
Middle East experts are falling into two broad camps on the Iranian election. One argues that numerous irregularities are de facto evidence supporting claims that a presidential coup has taken place in Iran. A second camp argues caution, suggesting that many in the media had come down with a case of "wishful thinking" that raised expectations beyond reason, and the gap between the expectations and results is leading to an eagerness to embrace the opposition's claims of massive fraud. Into that debate, a new statistical analysis of the election results is making the rounds that suggests that the numbers reported by the Interior Ministry are evidence of large-scale vote-fraud. But polling by our political guru Nate Silver finds the analysis unpersuasive. (CLICK HERE)
(ALTERNET)
Sunday, June 14, 2009
KATZENJAMER
I'm a world music fan, with - as you might expect - a heavy concentration on Latin sounds. I don't know how the hell I came across this Norwegian (yes, Norway!) rock band, but I've become infatuated with this "girl" rock group that is kind of a cross between the Dixie Chicks and Spike Jones. Make sure you check out:
I'm a world music fan, with - as you might expect - a heavy concentration on Latin sounds. I don't know how the hell I came across this Norwegian (yes, Norway!) rock band, but I've become infatuated with this "girl" rock group that is kind of a cross between the Dixie Chicks and Spike Jones. Make sure you check out:
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Joe Scarborough Fires Back at Jon Stewart, Compares Him To Bill O'Reilly - mediabistro.com: TVNewser
SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE
Oh no, he didn't? Did Joe Scarborough compare Jon Stewart to Bill O'Reilly? This has all the makings of a feud that may extend beyond the levels of the Jim Cramer/Stewart brouhaha. After Stewart responded to Scarborough's response to Stewart's segment earlier this week, Scarborough brought it all back up again this morning. He made some short jokes and, ironically enough, described Stewart as a "very angry guy". Stay tuned. This will be fun.
(TV NEWSER)
Oh no, he didn't? Did Joe Scarborough compare Jon Stewart to Bill O'Reilly? This has all the makings of a feud that may extend beyond the levels of the Jim Cramer/Stewart brouhaha. After Stewart responded to Scarborough's response to Stewart's segment earlier this week, Scarborough brought it all back up again this morning. He made some short jokes and, ironically enough, described Stewart as a "very angry guy". Stay tuned. This will be fun.
(TV NEWSER)
GUARDING THE BACON
Sheila Bair was reappointed by President Obama to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. A Republican, she is protecting the interest of taxpayers as no Democrat has in this administration. Huge financial decisions are being made by the government, involving trillions in future obligations of U.S. taxpayers, and Bair has been a rare effective voice for the interests of ordinary folk. That is why the big guys on Wall Street and their allies in the administration are out to get her.
(TRUTHDIG)
Sheila Bair was reappointed by President Obama to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. A Republican, she is protecting the interest of taxpayers as no Democrat has in this administration. Huge financial decisions are being made by the government, involving trillions in future obligations of U.S. taxpayers, and Bair has been a rare effective voice for the interests of ordinary folk. That is why the big guys on Wall Street and their allies in the administration are out to get her.
(TRUTHDIG)
Kansas City - Fat City - Nothing to see here folks. Rockstar Energy drink is in no way connected with Michael Savage.
BITTER TEA
Michael Savage's "Savage Nation" holds the third-largest radio audience in the country. His son is the founder of the popular Rockstar Energy drinks. Savage is using legal means to silence Web sites and even Facebook groups publicizing any connection between the two. Just to be clear, Michael Savage (real name Michael Weiner) has no connection to Rockstar. Even though his son is the founder and CEO and even though his wife is both secretary and treasurer for Rockstar, Michael Savage is shocked that this would lead some Web sites to believe that he has any connection with the company. In fact, as far as we know, Savage has never even heard of the energy drink that shares the same mailbox as his company.
Michael Savage's "Savage Nation" holds the third-largest radio audience in the country. His son is the founder of the popular Rockstar Energy drinks. Savage is using legal means to silence Web sites and even Facebook groups publicizing any connection between the two. Just to be clear, Michael Savage (real name Michael Weiner) has no connection to Rockstar. Even though his son is the founder and CEO and even though his wife is both secretary and treasurer for Rockstar, Michael Savage is shocked that this would lead some Web sites to believe that he has any connection with the company. In fact, as far as we know, Savage has never even heard of the energy drink that shares the same mailbox as his company.
SEE ALSO
(GAYWIRED, suggested by ALTERNET)
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
BASEBALL AND THE "LITTLE EASY"The Mobile Satchel Paige returned to in 1923 was full of optimism. The Great War had been good to the city, expanding Alabama's only deep-water port and making Mobile a trading hub for products as varied as lumber, tractors, and blackstrap molasses. Mardi Gras was back after a wartime siesta, as was the city's reputation as the Little Easy. It was less commercial and more free-spirited than its Big Easy neighbor to the West, New Orleans. Mobile joyfully embraced prostitution and intoxication and disdained the old evangelist Sam Jones, who a generation earlier had declared, "I'd be a stockbroker in hell before I'd be a director of a Mardi Gras . . . [where] men are drunk and carousing on the streets and girls go about in men's clothing." Keep it up, Jones admonished Mobilians, and "your city will be damned eternally."
(NPR, suggested by Garet Cox)
Friday, June 05, 2009
Obama and the Press | vanityfair.com
HANDLING THE FOURTH ESTATE
The Obama Administration may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops, partisan talking points, and First Family tidbits to a desperate media. Just don't ask them to admit it. The administration has started with 14 professionals working in the office of the press secretary—and an astounding 47 more devoted to other aspects of media and message - which is significantly more than the communications staffs of many Fortune 500 corporations. But the media operation goes deeper than that. It’s more central than in any previous administration, and run more knowledgeably.
(VANITY FAIR)
The Obama Administration may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops, partisan talking points, and First Family tidbits to a desperate media. Just don't ask them to admit it. The administration has started with 14 professionals working in the office of the press secretary—and an astounding 47 more devoted to other aspects of media and message - which is significantly more than the communications staffs of many Fortune 500 corporations. But the media operation goes deeper than that. It’s more central than in any previous administration, and run more knowledgeably.
(VANITY FAIR)
Thursday, June 04, 2009
THE VIRUS OF RACISM
Some pundits are engaging in blather about the emergence of a "New Racism", insisting rather ironically that whites rather than people of color are the real victims of personal and institutional racism. This article does a tremendous job in describing the reality of an emerging "New Racism". It's fault, I think, lies in treating the two as separate things and in talking about "Old Racism" as something whose time has passed. They can be more easily explained as permutations of each other not unlike a virus that has reconstituted itself. The "old racism", defines differences in terms of fixed biological categories. The emerging strain operates in various guises, proclaiming race-neutrality, asserting culture as a marker of racial difference or marking race as a private matter. While the old crude form of racism uses biological referents and pseudo-scientific legitimations and buttresses its appeal to white racial superiority, this new strain cynically recodes itself within the vocabulary of the civil rights movement, invoking the language of Martin Luther King Jr. to argue that individuals should be judged by the "content of their character" and not by the color of their skin.
(TRUTHOUT)
Some pundits are engaging in blather about the emergence of a "New Racism", insisting rather ironically that whites rather than people of color are the real victims of personal and institutional racism. This article does a tremendous job in describing the reality of an emerging "New Racism". It's fault, I think, lies in treating the two as separate things and in talking about "Old Racism" as something whose time has passed. They can be more easily explained as permutations of each other not unlike a virus that has reconstituted itself. The "old racism", defines differences in terms of fixed biological categories. The emerging strain operates in various guises, proclaiming race-neutrality, asserting culture as a marker of racial difference or marking race as a private matter. While the old crude form of racism uses biological referents and pseudo-scientific legitimations and buttresses its appeal to white racial superiority, this new strain cynically recodes itself within the vocabulary of the civil rights movement, invoking the language of Martin Luther King Jr. to argue that individuals should be judged by the "content of their character" and not by the color of their skin.
(TRUTHOUT)
OBAMA MORE POPULAR THAN CHENEY WITH GOPers
A new survey shows that the Cheney and Sotomayor debates threaten to further Isolate the GOP. President Obama's job approval stands at 57 percent among likely voters, virtually unchanged over the last four months and just a point off his all-time high. But Cheney's persistent visibility does not appear to be helping matters for the Republicans. With a 51 percent unfavorable rating, the former vice president is at his lowest level of popularity since Democracy Corps first measured it in 1999.
A new survey shows that the Cheney and Sotomayor debates threaten to further Isolate the GOP. President Obama's job approval stands at 57 percent among likely voters, virtually unchanged over the last four months and just a point off his all-time high. But Cheney's persistent visibility does not appear to be helping matters for the Republicans. With a 51 percent unfavorable rating, the former vice president is at his lowest level of popularity since Democracy Corps first measured it in 1999.
Cheney is a deeply divisive figure, popular only with the conservative base of the Republican Party but unpopular with everyone else, including independents and moderate Republicans. In fact, President Obama (+5) is more popular with moderate Republicans than Cheney.
(Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner)
AARC Public Library - Church Committee Reports
WHY WE WORRY
One unfortunate byproduct of 911 was the excuse it provided for a relapse to things Big Brother. Published in 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee Reports are the most extensive review of intelligence activities. They detail the formation, operation, and abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies and help explain the subsequent limitations placed on them.
(AARC LIBRARY)
One unfortunate byproduct of 911 was the excuse it provided for a relapse to things Big Brother. Published in 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee Reports are the most extensive review of intelligence activities. They detail the formation, operation, and abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies and help explain the subsequent limitations placed on them.
(AARC LIBRARY)
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Truthdig - Reports - Reagan Didn’t Do It
BOTH SIDES TO BLAME
In 1997 a cabal of powerful Democrats and Republicans enabled the wave of newfangled financial gimmicks that resulted in our current economic collapse. They blocked any effective regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives that turned into the toxic assets now being paid for with tax dollars. Earlier, Ronald Reagan had signed legislation making it easier for people to obtain mortgages with lower down payments. But as long as the banks that made those loans expected to have to carry them for 30 years they did the due diligence needed to qualify creditworthy applicants. The problem occurred only when that mortgage debt could be aggregated and sold as securities to others in an unregulated market.
(TRUTHDIG)
In 1997 a cabal of powerful Democrats and Republicans enabled the wave of newfangled financial gimmicks that resulted in our current economic collapse. They blocked any effective regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives that turned into the toxic assets now being paid for with tax dollars. Earlier, Ronald Reagan had signed legislation making it easier for people to obtain mortgages with lower down payments. But as long as the banks that made those loans expected to have to carry them for 30 years they did the due diligence needed to qualify creditworthy applicants. The problem occurred only when that mortgage debt could be aggregated and sold as securities to others in an unregulated market.
(TRUTHDIG)
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