History will record

I haven't ever seen them, but I understand that Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee made some fairly scandalous tapes a few years back that were all the rage. I'm not claiming any moral high ground here, I just never had the opportunity or the inclination to risk a virus on my PC back then. Still, I know enough about them to know that it's not necessarily the clothes that make the man.

Decades earlier, Dick Nixon made his own revealing tapes, and they've turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving, not simply in revelation of Nixon himself, but often in the way they have disrobed the other participants on those tapes, the way that the tapes have stripped their characters bare, to reveal their moles and piercings and just how far to the right they swing; things that, quite frankly, we'd just rather have never seen the light of day.

A couple of days ago, Jeffrey Goldberg highlighted this vile exchange between Henry Kissinger and Tricky Dick that was just released by the Nixon Library in the latest dribbling of disgusting Nixon-tape-isms:

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy," Mr. Kissinger said. "And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."

"I know," Nixon responded. "We can't blow up the world because of it."

Of course, as we all know by now, it's the liberals who are the real anti-Semites. Fortunately for us, and just to make that point (once again via Goldberg), Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League have chimed in to put this all in perspective:

ADL: KISSINGER REMARKS ON NIXON TAPES REVEAL "DISTURBING FLAWS,"
BUT DO NOT CHANGE HIS LEGACY

New York, NY, December 13, 2010 ... The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said a 1973 discussion between President Richard M. Nixon and his top foreign policy advisor at the time, Henry Kissinger, released as part of the Nixon Tapes, "shows a disturbing and even callous insensitivity" toward Soviet Jews, "but should not change history's verdict on the important contributions and ultimate legacy" of Kissinger.

Abe Foxman continues on: "Dr. Kissinger's contributions to the safety and security of the U.S. and Israel have solidly established his legacy as a champion of democracy and as a committed advocate for preserving the well-being of the Jewish state of Israel. The Nixon Tapes should not change history's verdict on the important contributions and ultimate legacy of Henry Kissinger."

I don't have much good to say about Henry Kissinger or his legacy - regarding Israel or for that matter the rest of the world - but that's not what I want to discuss here.

What I do want to comment on, ever so briefly, is Abe Foxman. Goldberg expresses his sadness in Foxman's reaction to Kissinger's vile comments, going on to state "He is a better man than his reaction suggests."

Well, if Jeffrey says so, but I'd have an easier time taking Goldberg at his word if he had said Foxman was a better man. Past tense. Because Foxman's words and behavior of late certainly do not convince me of the quality of his character.

I guess after expressing his views on the "Ground Zero Mosque," one could, to a certain degree, forgive Foxman on the grounds of post-9/11 misguided oversensitivity, or something. But excusing implicit acquiescence to a Soviet holocaust of Jews? You'd think that went just a bit too far. Apparently, you'd be wrong.

UPDATE: Well, that changes everything I said. Goldberg now reports that Marty Peretz ("Muslim life is cheap") is on the side of Foxman and Kissinger.

Space is the Place

The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks tonight.

Passing out the torches

Roger Cohen is right.

The view that American Jews supportive of Israel but critical of its policies are not “real Jews” is, however, widespread. Israel-right-or-wrong continues to be the core approach of major U.S. Jewish organizations, from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

To oppose the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank (“Zionists are not settlers”), or question growing anti-Arab bigotry as personified by Israel’s rightist foreign minister and illustrated by the “loyalty oath” debate, or ask whether the “de-legitimization” of Israel might not have something to do with its own actions is to incur these organizations’ steady ire.

Read the whole thing. It remains a disappointing truth, an unfortunate point that I have been making since I started this blog.

Party time at the government gate

I find it ironic that the same conservatives, such as Mike Huckabee and Jim DeMint and my own Congressman John Mica, who have been ranting about the federal government's fail on efficient airport security measures are arguing that we need to follow the "Israeli model" of airplane security, because the Israelis (really) are so advanced and experienced with security and anti-terrorist measures (I will leave it to Dana Milbank to address the economic reality of the U.S. adopting that model), and possibly have the world's most effective military, are at the same time the precise group of folks that tell us that the Israeli model of qualification to serve to protect and defend your country - by allowing gay men and women to serve openly and honestly - is flawed.

(Southwest Airlines has already adopted an Israeli model, that model being Sports Illustrated cover model Bar Rafaeli. It may be worth noting that Ms. Rafaeli would also be allowed - in fact obligated - to serve in the Israeli military, where she would have served with both straight and homosexual men and women. But this Israeli model chose not to serve. Instead, she took advantage of an exemption for married women, having married a family friend, then divorcing him shortly thereafter. Which - unlike my rabbi who chose to comment on his disappointment with that decision - isn't a judgment call by me at all. I simply note - and I agree, it is an awful and strained analogy - that, whether or not she had joined the IDF, Rafaeli still had and has the right to marry whomever she pleases, a right that gay American soldiers still won't have in most states even after Don't Ask, Don't Tell is repealed, a right that even as more and more states extend it, will not be recognized by the federal government. And just to be clear, DADT will be repealed in this lame-duck session, despite the current hyperventilating about whether Harry Reid is blowing the process. )

Collectivist secretive ideology

A business colleague asked me the other day why all of the Jews he knows are Democrats. He didn't mean anything malicious about it - he's truly curious about all aspects of Judaism, although his ideas about it are a bit confused. He has family in the "messianic Judaism" movement, which means not Jewish at all, but his exposure to real Jews is so limited (among other things, he lives in Idaho) that they provide his foundation for Jewish understanding.

At any rate, I hesitated to answer, because it's much too complex to describe quickly and because I have no desire to get into a political debate.

I considered pointing him to the conservatives over at Commentary, whom a befuddled NoPo last year rounded up to take on the task of explaining to other Republican Jews why so many other Jews, from their perspective, muff their personal interest and go with the wrong team, as if Michael Medved's and Bill Kristol's explanations for liberal Judaism matter a whole lot. It's all, you see, based on their perception of what's good for Jews, as Jews. Liberalism, it so happens, is anti-values, anti-religion, anti-Israel, anti-Jew. The Commentary commentariat requires you, as a foundation for their arguments, to believe that anti-Semitism is a feature of the "Left;" that the President is a danger to Israel's existence; that real support for Israel is on the "Right;" that real "Jewish" values are consistent with conservative values.

For those commentators, it's never about what is right, what is honorable, what is just. Instead, the only question is, what is good for me. So Bill Kristol says: "One also wonders whether the Obama administration won’t present some 'teachable moments' to those Jews who are willing to learn about which political party, and which political persuasion, is friendlier to Jewish interests." Jeff Jacoby says "the loyalty of American Jews to the Left has been unaffected by the failure of the Left to reciprocate that loyalty." Because, you know, if we don't look out for ourselves, who is gonna do it? Gotta look out for number one.

Medved, for his part, substitutes Kristolian selfishness for a view of liberal Jews simply as racists, concluding that Jewish liberalism is all about opposition to Christianity. And Medved minces no words in identifying anti-Christianity as the binding force in American Jewish life. A taste:

Anyone who doubts that rejection of Jesus has replaced acceptance of Torah (or commitment to Israel) as the eekur sach—the essential element—of American Jewish identity should pause to consider an uncomfortable question. What is the one political or religious position that makes a Jew utterly unwelcome in the organized community? We accept atheist Jews, Buddhist Jews, pro-Palestinian Jews, Communist Jews, homosexual Jews, and even sanction Hindu-Jewish meditation societies. “Jews for Jesus,” however, or “Messianic Jews” face resistance and exclusion everywhere. In Left-leaning congregations, many rabbis welcome stridently anti-Israel speakers and even Palestinian apologists for Islamo-Nazi terror. But if they invited a “Messianic Jewish” missionary, they’d face indignant denunciation from their boards and, very probably, condemnation by their national denominational leadership. It is far more acceptable in the Jewish community today to denounce Israel (or the United States), to deny the existence of God, or to deride the validity of Torah than it is to affirm Jesus as Lord and Savior.

No mistaking what Medved is thinking there.

Still, Medved gets one of the reasons partially right. There is a significant unifying force for Jews created by Christianity itself, and particularly, as Medved puts it, the "Christian right." But in focusing on Christianity as a unifying force for Jews, Medved gets cause and effect completely backwards, confuses the offense with the defense, and goes completely off the rails.

Medved thinks liberal Jews are simply rejecting all Christian views. It's a perspective only a "conservative" (as in, right wing) Jew could have, and lacks any fundamental understanding of true liberal American Jewry. The concern isn't about an objection to Christianity, or even vocal Christianity. "We" don't far President Obama's invocation of Christian values, for example. Rather, the perspective of liberal Jews is a recoiling from the demands of what Andrew Sullivan refers to as Christianism, and the subordination of Judaism to a view of Christianity held by a vocal segment of the conservative electorate, the second class status that Jews are given by the evangelical Christian movement that (particularly here in the South, but which has expanded its control country-wide) forms the intellectual (so to speak) foundation of the modern GOP, the understanding that Jews are a useful tool for Christianism, so long as the Right believes we are still fighting the same fight, their fight - against Muslims, or for Israel (but perhaps not the same Israel, or only the same Israel as the means to an end(time), but whatever).

I could go on, and perhaps will at some point, but the difference between Medved's view of the so-called liberal-Jewish / conservative-Christian divide is more reflected in this story than in anything Medved says, and shows why the so-called coalition of Jews and conservative Christian Republicanism is based on a dangerous illusion. The idea that the Republican speaker of a state legislative body should not be a Jew because GOP voters have worked for Christian values - "We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it."

You can talk all day about whether you think one party or the other is more sympathetic to Jewish pet issues, or the issues you condescendingly believe Jews should be concerned about. It seems to me, however, that not being truly welcome would be as good a place as any to start exploring why we usually identify as Democrats.

Finances are tottery

I'm still puzzled about the logic of Obama's unilateral pay freeze on mostly relatively low income federal government employees, while at the same debating whether we can extend unemployment benefits and setting the stage for an extension of the Bush tax cuts (and a massive windfall) for the super-rich.

Look, I am all for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility. But where's the balance on all of this? If a pay freeze that impacts working-class Americans is necessary and wise, in the name of belt-tightening, where's the logic in giving a massive tax break to those who need it least? I mean, the non-electoral mumbo-jumbo logic. Really, if the pay-freeze makes sense, how

much sense does any extension of the Bush tax cuts make? Is any of this fiscally-responsible?

And how much sense does the pay freeze make with respect to economic growth? Let's put less money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it and then somehow expect retail spending to increase. It makes sense only if you believe that the economy is actually on the upswing, that the recession is far behind us, and that the only thing holding the economy back is the fiscal recklessness by the federal government. It makes sense if you think the U.S. has bad international credit and is in danger of turning into a Greek or Irish or Spanish economic collapse.

How much sense does it make when the economic rallying cry is "jobs, jobs jobs?" Where are those jobs going to come from when people have less money to spend?

(As an aside, I am also frustrated by the attempt to characterize the Administration's proposal as something that doesn't preserve tax cuts for all Americans. It does. Just because the wealthiest taxpayers would only be getting a break on the portion of their income up to $250,000 doesn't mean they are not getting a tax break. They are. The Republicans just filibustered a bill that gave a tax break to all Americans, in the hope that they can do better for the mega-rich, because if they can't give the rich more breaks - which will not be spent but rather banked for their kids, providing no economic stimulus whatsoever - then nobody should get anything.)

Hey boy you can't go where the others go

So many on the left are feigning their incredible disappointment with John McCain and his relentless fight against the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell based on ever-changing, increasingly tenuous and hypocritical rationales. And they're right on one key point: it's vile, disgusting and tragic. He's decided that his legacy will be standing on the wrong side of history, standing on the wrong side of justice, standing for an institutionalized anachronism of simple-minded prejudice. He's too foolish (or too bitter) to be embarrassed, too foolish (or too bitter) to recognize that he will be written into history as a leading voice of a dying breed of bigots. And he's too foolish to realize that he will deserve every bit of derision that this particular display earns for him.

Unfortunately, however, I cannot say I am surprised. I cannot read what is in someone's hear, but it seems to me that this is the same John McCain that has always been there, front and center, if people would just pay attention. I wasn't shy about my view of John McCain during the year leading up to the presidential election. Notwithstanding the media branding of John McCain's maverickiness, propped by the insistence that his POW years made criticism of McCain beyond the pale, John McCain has rarely shown himself as a moderate, or honest, or a man of principle, except where it suits him. He's always been defined mostly by what is good for John McCain. In the past, what was good for John McCain appeared to be his media glorification - the moderate, the hero, the maverick, the darling. That maverick-ness came not from doing what was right, but doing what would garner McCain the most admiration, from the populace but mostly from the media. That was his path to the presidency, where he envisioned the source of his greatest worship. It wasn't about making right choices or personal conviction; it was all about what was good for the promotion of John McCain. And remember, as TNC points out, that this is the same man who opposed the MLK holiday. Now he's decided that what is good for John McCain is to be the face of the anti-Obama right, because he can no longer see beyond his anger. His quest for the Presidency finally dead, he no longer owes anything to the media, no longer is focused on the long game of setting himself up to be king. His goal now is to destroy the man who broke all his dreams, and he's pursuing that goal with all the vigor that he once pursued the Presidency.

Moreover - heaven forbid I should say this about a veteran and "hero" - he isn't particularly knowledgable about or shown true leadership regarding matters of the military. In his view, leadership means not bearing responsibility, not taking a stand to do what is right and to encourage others to do the same. He claims that leadership means listening to your subordinates, ignoring the fact that the military leadership has been listening. He then conflates listening (but only to those voices he wants to hear) with following, turning the chain of command on its head. He ducks behind bigotry, and claims that it's a principled stand.

What McCain calls "leadership" looks a lot like cowardice. It's plain, old-fashioned fear.

McCain pretends to back the troops, yet turns his back on so many of them. He claims that "wartime" - that endless state we find ourselves in because of George Bush and Dick Cheney and John McCain - is the wrong time to make a change. Apparently, however, it is the right time to focus not on "war," or on hunting down Osama bin Laden, but instead on spending valuable resources and energy hunting down and kicking out men and women dedicated to serving and defending their country simply on the basis of whom they love or desire, or forcing them to lie about the fundamental truth of who they are. For what values, what freedoms, does he think those soldiers are fighting?

Be disappointed, if you must. But I'm not sure you should be surprised.

Take Out the Trash

This brief post over at TPM sums up so much. The right wing has no shame, and the celebrity "journalists" lack the self-awareness to be ashamed. And we all suffer as a result of the combination.

Boo Radley

This.

The law don't change another's mind

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg embraces the role of the anti-Palin/Gincrich/Foxman/Lieberman regarding the so-called "ground zero mosque":

This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that....

On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, 'What God do you pray to?' (Bloomberg's voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) 'What beliefs do you hold?'

The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.

Did You Really Think About It?

I wonder how Abe Foxman would react if the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee had released this version of the ADL's absurd pronouncement on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque":

Proponents of the State of Israel may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Judaism. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong.

But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building a Jewish State in the middle of the Middle East will cause some victims more pain unnecessarily and that is not right.

The Middle East would be better served if an alternative location could be found.

That's what I thought. I'm getting really tired of being disappointed.

Look Out Any Window

The great George Carlin:

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,

For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.

America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,

And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.

The Israelites

This Turkish Flotilla fiasco unfortunately highlights the problem I have had for some time with Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, the Settlements, and foreign relations. It's not so much that it is evil in a moral sense, but that it is just stupid policy that is dangerous for Israel in the long run. Israel can fortify itself and be a pariah for only so long, and it doesn't matter if it thinks it has the high ground. Time is not on Israel's side, and the continuing failure to find a solution only risks Israel's future that much more. If no two state solution, and soon, then what? Demographics matter. Living your values matters. AIPAC and Abe Foxman and the rabbis and anyone else who blindly supports Israel's current policies are not doing Israel any favors; they're planting the seeds of Israel's destruction. However painful it may be, Israel must find a new path. If Israel is to endure, there is no other choice.

You can get it even if you're straight

Don't Ask, Don't Tell is on the road to repeal, in classic Obama fashion.

P.S. I hope I'm wrong, but after the health care experience, I expect there to be a fair amount (or at least vocal) so-called Progressives who complain that the President's not doing it right, or quickly enough, or something.

UPDATE: Queue the hecklers. Sheesh.

Some things never change

Nothing in this article excerpting from Jonathan Alter's upcoming book is actually surprising. Everyone was pretty much true to form.

The way it is

Still trying to rationalize his embrace of The Bell Curve, Andrew Sullivan continues to believe that there is value in the discussion about how race and genetics determine intelligence.

Andrew, the need to know - one way or another, whether to rebuff or support - says more about those asking the question than about anyone else.

Give up the ghost, Sully. Just. Stop. Defending. It.

Flash his moves for the worshipful

Steve Jobs and Apple explain - again - why they do not let Flash run on the iPad, iPhone and iPod.

Look out for the men who say it's okay sitting in a building far away

Drill, baby, drill.

Good for Bill Nelson. Can the rest of the geniuses (like poor old Lindsey Graham) stop telling us how amazing drilling off the coast of Florida will be, now?

UPDATE: in a show of real leadership (right), it appears that Charlie Crist doesn't like offshore drilling anymore. Better late than never, I suppose.

An old book

I received this comment a week ago from Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, to my end-of-the-year post where I mentioned Columbine on my list of bests of 2009. I had posted it in the comments, and although I don't generally do this on Line in the Dust, I thought this was worth posting in full instead of keeping it buried in the comments. It is re-posted here without change:

Thanks so much for supporting my book Columbine on your blog. Tuesday is the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy and I hope you might mention that the book was recently released in an expanded paperback edition featuring:
— A 12-page afterword: "Forgiveness." Vignettes on three victims in very different places eleven years later, and the central role "forgiveness" played in their recovery. Includes startling new revelations about the killers' parents.
— Actual journal pages from Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold.
— Book Club Discussion Questions.
— Diagram of Columbine High School and environs.
Friday I'm attending the LA Times Book Awards, where Columbine is a finalist--up against Tracy Kidder and Dave Eggers--and then on to NYC for the Edgars (nominated in the True Crime category). Last month it won Barnes & Noble's Discover Award. The paperback is now on the NY Times bestseller list.

I'm excited about the way students have embraced the book. They tell me they are taken in by the vivid way it captures teen-age lives and the adolescent experience. So this year, I'm devoting most of my touring to high schools and colleges. I posted some photos (http://www.davecullen.com/tv-tour/tour-photos-schools.htm) and will be adding video footage. I am also creating Instructor Guides (http://www.davecullen.com/columbine/lesson-plans.htm) for teachers and profs to use the book in classes, and have posted the first guide for English/Writing--more are coming for psychology, journalism, etc.

Some links and background info follows. Thanks again for helping get the word out to a wider audience.

Dave Cullen

Links:
- Book Trailer (3-minute intro video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_BUR8u8a0Q
- Book Summary: http://www.davecullen.com/columbine.htm
- Awards & Reviews: http://www.davecullen.com/columbine/reviews.htm
- Bio: http://www.davecullen.com/bio.htm

Columbine spent eight weeks on the NY Times bestseller list in hardcover, and is currently on the paperback list. It appeared on two dozen 2009 Best lists, including the NY Times, Publishers Weekly, Salon, EW, Amazon and iTunes. It is a finalist for the Edgar Award, LA Times Book Award, and Audie Award, and has won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction of 2009. It was declared Top Education Book of 2009 by the American School Board Journal. Cullen has appeared on Today, ABC World News, Rachel Maddow, BBC-America and most of the major NPR shows.

Columbine relays the before, during and after stories of the massacre. It offers haunting portraits of two very different killers, and the remarkable stories of eight victims grappling with the aftermath for the next decade. Columbine has been cited as the definitive work on the tragedy by Newsweek, the Daily Beast, GQ, the New York Post and the Columbia Journalism Review.
--
Dave Cullen www.davecullen.com

COLUMBINE -- expanded paperback in stores now
Friend me for updates: http://facebook.com/cullendave

Charlie Woody and You

I suppose I should have things to say about the full-scale GOP war on Charlie Crist, the mass endorsements by the crazy Cheney and cynical Romney and just plain schmucky Cantor wings of the party of Tea Party Republican Marco Rubio, and Crist's apparent impending declaration that he will run for Senate as an independent.

I suppose I should. I certainly have no love for Marco Rubio.

And Crist supposedly represents the so-called moderate wing of the party. Shouldn't we want to see someone like Crist pull the GOP back from the extremes it finds itself at these days?

So...why don't I have any sympathy for him?

I don't dislike Charlie Crist, per se. Early in his term as governor, my Democratic friends and I saw him, only slightly in jest, as the best Democratic governor since Bob Graham. But, he has always stricken me as a cynical opportunist, looking for whatever move will advance Charlie Crist, while occasionally forced by an underlying conscience to do the right thing. He's the type of Republican everyone wanted to believe that Rudy Giuliani and John McCain were, until both revealed themselves as dangerous, crazy hypocrites in the last election. Given Charlie's flirtation with Giuliani's presidential campaign (Crist's abandonment of which - and pure right wing cynicism of Giuliani's own - caused the mobster-mentality Giuliani to get his revenge by endorsing Marco Rubio's Senate campaign, further giving the lie to Rudy's so-called moderate label) and his ultimate support of John McCain - again cynically calculated to hopefully lead to a vice presidential nod - it's hard to see Charlie Crist any differently.

See what's going on

Let me make sure I have this right. According to the New York Times this morning, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is pulling his support for climate change and energy legislation because he is upset that the Democrats are going to give priority to immigration reform. In other words, Graham is going to kill climate change and energy legislation because he does not believe the Democrats are doing enough to pass climate change and energy legislation. No, it doesn't make any sense to me, either.

(To be clear on this, the climate change bill should be the priority. It should have been the priority a year ago. We really, really need to stop delaying on this. But let's be clear; if we could get the GOP to face the reality of global climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gases and escape the grip of fossil fuels and the oil and coal industries, we would have had this done long, long ago. Just because we've had one Republican senator who appeared to be willing to try to get things done - so long as he could get something for then industry as well - we'll, you get my point. Anyway, now that Graham was ready to move forward, this bill should be the priority. We all suffer for ignoring it, it's just that everyone can pretend it's not their fault. The time for action - governmental, international, collective and personal - is now.)

Then again, it isn't like this is an unusual strategy for the GOP. Depending on the day, health care reform needed to die because it would deprive health care to seniors, or something like that. Financial institution regulation designed to prevent future bailouts is troublesome because it's designed to cause more bailouts. I think I just don't understand right-wing logic.

Alternatively, I'm just not interested in right wing political maneuvering.

Or perhaps Senator Graham has other motives to try to reassert his conservative credentials to his right flank. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

UPDATE: Via Sullivan, Jon Chait makes a convincing case that I am being unfair given Graham's actual motives:

Lindsey Graham is a Republican Senator from South Carolina. His highest risk of losing his seat, by far, comes from the prospect of a conservative primary challenger. Indeed, I'd say that prospect is far from remote, and Graham is displaying an unusual willingness to risk his political future. He has little incentive to negotiate on these issues except that he believes it's the right thing to do. So when Democrats put climate change on the backburner to take up immigration, and so so for obviously political reasons, Graham has every right to be angry. He's risking his political life to address a vital issue, and Harry Reid is looking to save his seat

At one level, I don't disagree. But here's the thing: the danger that Lindsey Graham is putting himself in is because he is, in one narrow area, trying to "do the right thing." Having a hissy fit and saying you're pissed off so you're no longer going to do the right thing isn't courageous, regardless of motive. The right thing to do is to point out that Harry Reid is playing politics, but that Lindsey Graham is still going to "do the right thing."

But there's the rub, because Lindsey Graham isn't a babe in the woods to playing politics, either. And it's not like Graham's climate change bill is the most courageous bill to help the environment either, devoid of gifts to his conservative and industry pals. The courageous Graham made sure to kill cap and trade; his bill increases federal loan financing for nuclear power plants and removes regulatory brakes on nuclear plant construction. His plan expands offshore drilling. It strips the EPA's authority to regulate carbon. In the words of John Kerry - who is a co-sponsor of the bill - it includes "huge" financial support for the coal industry.

Now maybe all of that is necessary to achieve any bill. And, as I have made clear in the past, I am not an absolutist. I understand incremental progress and the fact that you cannot always get the best deal in our hyper-partisan political environment, that the ridiculousness of the filibuster allows one GOP senator to set the entire agenda in order to get the magical (but entirely absurd) 60-vote supermajority. Sometimes qualified, imperfect progress is the only progress possible.

The fact remains that this bill is only politically risky for Lindsey Graham because the GOP - his party - is dangerously insane, willing to destroy America, the environment and anything else that comes between them and political advantage, fundraising and cynical manipulation of a substantial portion of the American populace. The need for courage to counter a dishonest or clinically insane or purely malicious insistence by 40 percent of the Senate that climate change is a fantasy of the left seeking to destroy business and unite the world under some Gaia-based eco-theology or whatever it is they claim is depressing at best. A compromise bill that provides so many gifts to industry and polluters, which Democrats would support in a second (there will be bickering, sure, but they're Democrats) just to make some of progress on the issue of global warming and energy independence, should be an easy sell, if all of the players were honest and committed to doing the right thing.

Unfortunately, they are not. Instead, it is a moral quest for one lone Republican, displaying what we must accept as incredible courage of conviction.

I see Lindsey Graham's dilemma.

But it's a dilemma of his own choosing. Count me off of the list of people who are moved to deep sympathy.

Had a taste for...

So I'm catching up on my notes for posts that just never made it onto Line in the Dust, and I came across this article again about Israeli Arabs enjoying matzoh. Which might make you think that it presents a cultural bridge between the Jews and the Arabs. But, seeing as our family could barely stomach one box of matzoh during the eight days of Passover, maybe that's not the answer the peace process is looking for.

I heard somebody calling you bad names

It might not surprise you to see empirical evidence that the right wing is comprised of a bunch of liars.

Speechless

The people across the street are Tea Partiers. They fly the Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag. That's how I know I live in a safe neighborhood.

I don't think they were at this Tax Day Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., but who knows.

The Israelites

I guess the only thing more disturbing to me than the existence of Jews for Sarah (I mean, really, putting aside the absurdist notion of the anti-intellectual support for the former half-term governor of Alaska, the idea of any Jew joining an organization called Jews for Anything is just, well, it defies words) is the fact that I probably know some charter members, they pass for leaders, and people trust their health and safety to them.

Make a little more money

The latest nonsense from the GOP: the new "Obama $100 Bill" is too European.

C'mon guys, you're getting sloppy. Why not just tell the truth? It's Kenyan. Point out the hidden Muslim imagery, and explain how it is part of Obama's "stealth jihad" to make America a client state of the Taliban.

Buying important things

I haven't dropped off of the face of the earth, and there are a large number of posts just waiting for me to finish up. But I've been too busy dealing with lots of other things.

And playing with my iPad. Which, by the way, I absolutely love. Those who are complaining about the iPad just haven't sat down and really taken the time to enjoy it. Enjoy it. Not use it; just enjoy it. It is the most personal computing experience I have ever had. It makes reading on the web a pleasure, more like a newspaper or magazine or book. The enhanced content applications are a joy, and will only get better. And then there's Netflix and YouTube and Pandora and iBook.

Oh, and, despite the naysayers, it is not just a consumption device. I am writing this right now on the iPad. I've been typing documents on Pages, and my daughter edited one of her essays on the iPad over the weekend while we were running around. Apps let me sketch and play around with pictures - simply letting me do what I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I could never figure out in Photoshop.

Andrew Sullivan has made a point since the announcement of the iPad to tout it's uselessness. They complain that it's just a giant iPod Touch - as if that would be a bad thing - or that it doesn't do anything that their laptop can already do - which misses the point that it's not about what the iPad can do, it's about how the iPad does it.

Sullivan made a particular point to also highlight Cory Doctorow's anti-iPad rant about the "closed" nature of Apple and the App store, Apple's absolute control over the hardware and applications in the App Store, the inability to hack and take apart the iPad - it's too sleek, not geeky enough, too focused on content of which Apple acts as the sole gatekeeper. You cannot "own" the iPad because you cannot take it apart.

And it you buy into what a computing device must be, well, then, point taken. But even if you do have such a limited vision (yeah, I'm turning that back on you guys), it's a generation too late. We went down that road long, long ago when the BASIC programming language was removed from home computers.

When I got my first computer in elementary school - a TRS-80 from Radio Shack - you got a home computer precisely so that you could learn how to program and create. Frankly, there wasn't much else you could do with the computer. So you spent hours upon hours getting words to scroll across the screen, making PacMan emulators, or bouncing balls.

Today, how do most people use any computer - not just a iMac or an iPad or and IPhone, but also any Windows-based PC (despite the fact that Windows-boosters love to lament the supposedly closed-world of Apple), or any Palm or Blackberry phone (which I don't see many people taking apart, either, for that matter)? You buy software. That's the name us old folks used for Apps.

When my daughter entered middle school a couple of years ago, she was required to take a course on "Technology." I thought she was going to get to learn some basic programming skills, how to use mathematics and analytical skills in order to create. What did they teach in that class? How to use Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, and how to access sites like Wikipedia.

My response? Indignation. I got on eBay and, since they were fairly widely available, bid on an old Commodore 64 (OK, I bid on three before I won one), so that I could teach my girls how to program. That C64 has been plugged into the TV twice. Suffice it to say that the kids were most assuredly not interested in dad's old-fashioned ideas about technology and learning and elementary programming techniques.

But here's the thing. My daughter has an iPod touch. And it does really neat things, and has really neat and exciting Apps. Lots of them. And she has ideas about other Apps that she'd like to see, if only they made them. And look, right there on the iPhone page and the iPod page, there are links to the iPhone and iPad App development tools, the iPhone SDK and programming guide and sample code. Oh, and you can create stuff and, because of the dreaded iTunes App Store, other people can actually use the stuff you create, and, oh gosh, they'll pay you for it, too. This sealed off, closed device and this supposedly restricted market is actually encouraging a huge amount of creativity and the desire to learn and develop and use analytical skills. The disinterest my daughter had in anything resembling the way a computer works is turned on it's head by a glued together device with a gated-community marketplace for software, encouraging creativity through the openness - yes, you heard that - of the marketplace for good ideas, in an App Store that offers more in the way of software than any Best Buy.

And that ignores all of the avenues for creativity and learning and curiosity that are enabled by the devices and the applications themselves. Avenues and opportunities that might not exist in a world where the existence of a certain level of standardization didn't exist in order to unleash the opportunities in that so-called restricted world.

To claim that giving you this opportunity isn't allowing you to "open" it is a complete lack of understanding of what's really going on these days. Even when you could "open" the computer, you couldn't "open" the chip. There were and always have been parts and elements to technologies that were not easily accessible. I used to take apart and build radios - as a kid I was always riding my bike to Radio Shack to get parts to repair the electronics that I had taken apart the week before. It never taught me how to make a transistor, but it taught me that I could create, make things, and make things my way.

For those who actually care to see it, the devices Apple builds give you the keys to creativity and technology. You can take advantage of that, or you can just use it and take advantage of what others have done for you. Just like any other device. That doesn't make it less valuable. It's just different from Doctorow's vision of how the world should be. But kids who are inclined to learn how things work and build and create new things will see the opportunity in the Apple devices that are being derided here, the devices that Sullivan and Doctorow and countless others are getting their contrarian juices flowing over.

The iPad offers the creative and intellectual spark that will enable those who are inclined to use their energies toward creating something new, something better. Having something that works well doesn't mean that all other creativity ends. And it's foolish to think otherwise.

Maybe Apple could build a device that was less elegant and allowed tinkering with the guts so that performance wasn't consistent and you never knew if your software - Apps - would work properly in whatever configuration you had. They could sell fewer devices, have less of an exciting feel to their products, encourage fewer kids to create on them and for them. Maybe we'd be better off without Apple. Or maybe not.

I'm pretty happy, myself.

The Israelites

Via Matt Yglesias, more of the hypocrisy and nonsense of the Right - crybabies and liars, always looking for some reason to claim offense - in this case regarding the President's Passover message. (Image via Lady That's My Skull.)

From France

"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor." - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to the U.S. (Via TPM)

You're afraid

On Monday morning, I hadn't heard about the "Baby Killer" shout in the House of Representatives while Bart Stupak was speaking. I had tried to avoid watching Sunday's final floor debate on the bill. I was confident in its passage by that point and didn't want to get riled up, and I wanted to finish up the weekend with my kids, not distracted. My wife turned on the television briefly, and there was Eric Cantor ranting, and I made her turn it off.

So the next morning when one of my colleagues came by and was commenting on how crazy and ignorant the Republican representatives were, I commented that I thought it was mostly calculated crazy, rather than just plain stupidity. Now, I don't necessarily believe that. Or, to be more honest, I actually do believe they are stupid, but are even more motivated by malice and hatred. Maybe that's shrill, but whatever. The evidence unfolds before us in waves these days.

He couldn't understand my hesitance to call them nuts. Really, I was just trying to be balanced and even handed, and not assume the worst. But watching some of the crazy from Sunday, and watching the post-passage crazy, the threats against elected representatives who voted for reform, the calculated support for such violence by the GOP representatives, and on and on, well, it's hard to be balanced when there's a herd of elephants standing on on side.



Take John Boehner's lunatic rant from Sunday.

See, this was the kind of thing made me believe it's all a performance. Boehner is completely full of it here, and his words are completely disconnected from reality, but it seems to me he's just trying to stoke the flames (which is evil, but not lunatic or ignorant, since he really has to know exactly what he's doing and the impact of what he's doing), to play on the stupidity of what unfortunately comprises a huge chunk of America. I came to my conclusion that this is all a big, nasty, dangerous performance - but a performance - simply because Boehner (of the "treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia" breed of hypocrites) is an asshole and has a history of being completely full of shit, and I already know that, so assuming Boehner's dishonesty is the logical inference.

Remarkably, these clowns cannot even figure out what side they're coming from. They're so concerned about possible Medicare reductions? Riiiight. Message consistency means nothing. Toss as much against the wall and see what sticks. And they rightfully have so little respect for their audience that they have no concern about the cognitive dissonance inherent in the anti-government right betting on an argument that the Democrats are trying to dismantle a government program, all in order to prevent the Democrats from passing a governmental regulatory overhaul.

It's uberfunny and telling that Boehner's co-crazies were confused about the right answer to "Have you read this bill?" Uh...no...? Um...yes...? Um ... ok, hell no we haven't! Better to proclaim your ignorance - rather than be able to actually explain what the bill actually, you know, does - because our theme of the moment is them Dems forced this on us.

The Senate only passed the bill last fucking year, tools; but nobody was able to read it! None of this is about honestly believing in anything; it's about personal and political destruction, it's about power, and it's about manipulation.

Barney Frank is absolutely right. This health care battle is a proxy for all that the right-wing populists hate, which is a long and sorry list. So of course they hurl racist and homophobic insults in their "health care" town hall meetings and in the halls of congressional office buildings; of course they make abortion an issue; of course this is like D-Day. How dare you commie socialist Nazi corporatist free-love hippie anti-Christian tree-hugging terrorist-loving baby-killing sodomites try to take away our America!

These are small minded people who think that America belongs to them and that any change is a threat to them, that see America as a zero sum game where anything that helps someone else is necessarily taking things away from them. So, expanding access to health insurance must be harmful to everyone who currently has access (partially explaining the GOP's dishonest invocation of Medicare).

Similarly, same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage (though I'm struggling to understand the apparent fact that it's ok to have secret illicit gay sex outside of your marriage, as long as you're married to someone and publicly proclaim you homophobia), because traditional marriage cannot survive if gays can have a sanctioned, monogamous relationship. Or something. Acknowledging a human role in climate change undermines the idea that a higher being controls our lives. The list goes on and on. Take your pick.

You're either with us or you're against us. The fight and the anger is about keeping what's mine, and you damn well better keep your un-American hands off of it. It's about fear of the other. It's why McCain called Barack Obama "That One."

It's about cowardice and hate and ignorance. And evil.

It's the Party of Palin, and jackasses like Boehner and Cantor and Palin are only too happy to play along.

Laughin' our asses off

Maybe Joe said frack. In any case, he's fracking right.

Did you really think about it?

Newt perfectly summarizes the way Republican's think:

Calling the bill "the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times," Gingrich said: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Civil rights and ensuring equal access to health care. Mistakes both.

They cynical armchair experts, I'll just let them be

President Obama today will achieve passing the most significant piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Act. That's perhaps a bit hyperbole. Certainly, the Clean Water Act and other legislation deserve a prominent place among the important laws of the past 50 years. But, nothing since the Civil Rights Act has required the investment of political and social capital, and faced such a rabid, dishonest and morally bankrupt opposition - despite conservative claims to be grounded in moral principle, and culminating in a no-bones-about-it racist and homophobic outburst of the kind of vitriol that barely hides under the surface of almost all GOP (and make no mistake about it, the tea partiers are the heart and soul of the GOP) populism - than health care reform.

I cannot say that I was a huge proponent of doing this, now. Health care reform - or rather health insurance reform or, as I branded it last year, "health security" - was a key and fundamental and essential policy goal - but I worried about the timing. I hashed out my concerns and my internal debate on these pages. Still remembering the Clinton initiative, I believed that health care reform was a land mine, and that Obama's political skills would be best initially served by focusing on closing Guantanamo, on ending Don't Ask Don't Tell and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, of moving the U.S. away from the use of fossil fuels.

I feared that a bruising battle over heath care - insurance - reform would doom his ability to do those other things, and more. Better, perhaps, to make HCR a second term issue.

Yet here's the thing. Political capital is meant to be spent. Elections are not won to simply decide how to win the next one. Majorities exist to be used. And if you pass on the opportunity to make fundamental and lasting change when the opportunity presents, the time may never come again. Nothing is guaranteed.

President Obama understands this, and America will have to as well.

Moreover, President Obama is also making progress on those other initiatives. We may hear ongoing "Progressive" complaints about the speed and effectiveness of those initiatives, but look - progress is hard, especially in this toxic environment. It requires a lot of hard work, but also a lot of care, to make sure not only that it is done right, but that it gets done at all. It requires patience and persistence, and patience and persistence are the hallmarks of this President.

Expect a very busy seven months until the mid-term elections. But also expect to be patient on each of the the issues. The issues that confront America are not simple ones that yield easy answers. And this is not a President who rushes into action in order to be shot down on the front lines.

Today is an historic day, and this is an historic President, and not for where he came from. Everyone who voted for Barack Obama should be proud of their President and of themselves. From his careful, deliberate, patient posture to his respectful courting of those concerned about abortion restrictions (Bart Stupak) to the my-way-or-no-way so-called Progressives (Dennis Kucinich), he has achieved something that, despite the unrealistic fantasies of much of the left upon his election, was by no means ever certain and which has never been achieved. It's another first for Obama, but more than that, it's a first that really matters, that isn't just symbolic.

And he didn't do it alone. I want to be careful and not overlook something - someone - very important here, who was President Obama's equal and partner in this process, so let me make this point. Despite the misogynistic hatred of Nancy Pelosi that pervades our discourse, Pelosi is proving to be one of the great Speakers of the House. She deserves immense credit for getting this done, and done smartly. From the perspective of policy and process, she has been everything for which the Democrats could have been hoped.

This is the time we've been waiting for.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias, this morning: "Nancy Pelosi is perhaps the greatest progressive Speaker of the House that we’ve ever had."

They're gonna fix it in time

Yglesias nails it:

Compared to the health care system I would like to see, this bill doesn’t cover enough people, doesn’t do enough to control costs, doesn’t do enough to emphasize prevention and public health, and is too soft on the health care industry. But relative to the status quo, this bill covers a lot of people, helps to control costs, emphasizing prevention and public health, and reigns in the health care industry. The reasons to be disappointed with this bill are all reasons to be disappointed with the status quo, and the disappointing nature of the status quo is a reason to be enthusiastic about this bill. What’s more, if the bill passes you can pass more bills in the future! If it fails, politicians won’t want to touch health care again for decades.

Great Divide

Oy.

Open our eyes

“The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.” – HL Mencken

Lived a lie

I don't know about you, but I'm fed up with listening to the GOP complain that a process that has taken a year lacks proper deliberation and is being jammed down their throats, or that using the reconciliation process to tweak the Senate bill after the House passes it is unprecedented and unethical. It's a crock, and the fact that the media keeps playing dumb and playing along is absurd at best. So it's good to see E.J. Dionne tackle the nonsense head on.

Republicans, however, don't want to talk much about the substance of health care. They want to discuss process, turn "reconciliation" into a four-letter word and maintain that Democrats are "ramming through" a health bill.

It is all, I am sorry to say, one big lie -- or, if you're sensitive, an astonishing exercise in hypocrisy.

The only news there is that someone is willing to point it out.

It's all bunk

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G. K. Chesterton

Whoa no

Via Chris Bodenner, guest blogging at The Dish:

"If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum [the killer whale] would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives. Says the ancient civil code of Israel, "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable." (Exodus 21:28) ... But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn't kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal," - Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association.

Boo Radley

What Glenn says. Look, you may not like Alan Grayson's style - he's aggressive and a smart-ass and fed up. If you don't like it, fine. But he's got a solid grip on reality. To compare him to Michele Bachmann? Now that's crazy.

UPDATE: Let's compare and contrast. Here's proposed legislation from Alan Grayson, to allow medicare buy-in.

Michele Bachmann's principal contribution to health care reform? Introducing the "death panel" lexicon to the floor of Congress. For good measure, carbon dioxide is beneficial to the earth. The census is dangerous. And gays are targeting our nation's youth.

But Alan Grayson is crazy.

The way it is

I've been calling them the "so-called Progressives." Ygelesias rebrands them as the "rejectionist left." In either case, Yglesias is right on point with this comment:

There’s always time, if a bill passes, to try to fight to change it for the better. You just don’t vote “no” on a major expansion of the social safety net simply because you feel you’ve been slapped in the face. In many ways, public option supporters have been slapped in the face while annoying moderates have been mollycoddled. And yet, the result of the process is a good bill that will make Americans better off. When faced with a bill like that, you vote for it.

Everybody knew what they were talking about

So NPR informed me this morning that Bart Stupak is leading 11 other Democrats in the House to oppose passing the Senate's health care reform bill over their opposition to abortion. I had to bite my tongue and not yell at the radio about that - as well as NPR's ridiculous portrayal of the GOP's ability to derail reconciliation - because I was driving the orchestra class carpool to school.

But...what the F? OK, Stupak and his 11 lemmings are schmucks, hiding behind the abortion argument as their way to avoid voting for health care reform and get on the good side of their conservative districts. They're cowards. What's new?

So what's NPR's excuse? Don't they have the sense to say, what's objectionable about the Senate bill? Can't anyone call the bluff of complete bullshit artists? Just like with everything else, they just report the sound-bitten arguments of the politically motivated, and fail to fill anything in with, you know, context, facts, information, serious enlightenment.

Bart Stupak cannot vote for HCR because of his moral highground over abortion? Where does the reform bill provide for financing of abortion? How does the Senate bill or President Obama's policy in any way change the current U.S. policy? Anyone? Anyone?

Could those intrepid NPR reporters explain what this is all about?

It's about abortion. It's about principles.

Well, that sure clears it up.

Morons.

There's a jackhammer

Same sex marriage has become legal in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Taiwan was shaken by a moderately strong earthquake. Coincidence?

The elephants

A friend sent me this from today's news:

03.03.10 - MEDIA NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Zoo Deeply Saddened by Elephant’s Death

Sanford, FL (March 3, 2010) - The Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens’ 63 year-old female Asian elephant Mary died late Tuesday evening March 2. Bonnie Breitbeil, Director of Animal Collections said, “This is a very sad occurrence. For her advanced age, Mary was a healthy individual with age-related illnesses, and due to her age, our staff monitored her activity hourly. A necropsy is being conducted to determine the specific cause of death. Staff is deeply saddened as we feel we have lost a very dear friend. Additionally, elephants, just like people, go through a mourning process and Maude has been able to say goodbye to her following her death.”

Joe Montisano, CEO said, “Mary was a favorite among Central Florida Zoo guests and staff and a great animal. Her life was dedicated to educating children-of-all-ages about Asian elephants and certainly for a large percentage of our guests, who will never see an elephant in the wild, she represented that connection. She was a great ambassador and touched the lives of many people in her years on the planet. We will miss her.”

Mary was born in 1946 at the Nehru Zoological Park. She came to the U.S. in 1952 with the Polack Bros. Circus. She retired from the circus in 1956 to the Dallas Zoo before coming to the Central Florida Zoo in May 1983 where she was the matriarch of the group despite Maude outweighing her by 3,000 pounds. Mary was the third oldest Asian elephant on record at an AZA accredited zoo in the U.S.

Mary touched many people’s hearts throughout the years and zoo guests have enjoyed the annual birthday celebrations and seeing Maude and Mary during weekend elephant demonstration and encounters. Mary has a special place in the hearts of her animal keepers having enjoyed interaction with them especially having her stomach rubbed and sneaking up on new keepers.

“As with any geriatric animal, the Zoo has been preparing for this day for many years and the expertise gained from caring for Mary at her advanced age will contribute to the zoological community’s care of geriatric elephants, said Montisano. “Additionally, our staff has been working closely with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) and the Elephant Species Survival Program (SSP) to look at the best option for Maude as we move forward.”

The Asian elephant is an endangered species due to centuries of hunting and habitat destruction. They inhabit the grasslands and jungles of Southeast Asia from western India east through the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Elephants are herbivores and feed on hay, grains, fruits, and vegetables. Asian elephants can live up to 60 years of age, can attain a weight of 11,000 pounds and can reach heights of ten feet at the shoulder.

Donations in her memory are being collected at the Central Florida Zoo and will be sent to the Elephant Conservation Program to help endangered elephants in the wild.

-zoo-

For more information contact:

Shonna Green
Director, Marketing and PR
407.323.4450 ext. 115
501.258.8707 cell
shonnag@centralfloridazoo.org

The Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens is a 116-acre private, nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wildlife and to engaging and educating our guests by sharing knowledge and celebrating our natural world.

Last stop on a postal route

Ezra Klein discusses the postal service as a dying industry, which I think is right, in the modern era of emails and PDFs and electronic banking and such. We're not there yet, given the potential break-downs in the system - what happens if my DSL goes down or the battery on my (new!) iPhone dies? But, the time for moving toward a more limited physical mail system is approaching.

Still, the selfish contrarian in me wants to know how limited mail delivery would affect me, particularly in light of the specific events in my life. To be more precise, I subscribed for Netflix today, and I really like the idea of a one-day turnaround on my DVDs - that World's Greatest Dad should be arriving in tomorrow's mail! (Really, that's what I picked for my first movie from Netflix? Really.)

OK, I know the answer there is to just stream the movies through the computer or directly to my television - which is wildly more efficient than DVDs by mail, assuming sufficient bandwidth - but then how would I have a witty riposte in my post about the postal service?)



UPDATE: Well, that's a weird and disturbing - and very funny - movie. Williams is fantastic. "Bruce Hornsby" is really tall.

Feel the shifting tectonic plates, you can get it even if you′re straight

There must be a heck of a lot of gay sex in Chile.

Preacher in the Ring

On this Purim, a series of essays on Jewish Values and Torture.

Time to dust my broom

I don't entirely understand curling, but I have to admit that my youngest daughter and I have enjoyed watching it as much as anything else during these Winter Olympics. It's always tense, keeps you engaged for a long time, and (because the Americans - are all the players from Minnesota? - aren't really the best) the CNBC coverage isn't nearly as Rah-rah Team USA jingoistic as the rest of the Olympics, which let's you just enjoy the skills and drama.

Still, wouldn't it be that much more fun if they still played with old-fashioned straw brooms?

What do you know?

Progressives are crying foul at President Obama again because the Administration's health care reform proposal going into Thursday's summit (that I proposed, thank you very much) doesn't include a public option, and because White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the votes aren't there for a public option. However much I would like to see a public option, the President is right on this, and it's not cowardice to try to get this done in a way that it can get done.

The so-called Progressives just never learn. I'm beginning to think they'd love to see a Speaker Boehner. Because Gingrich worked out so well for the progressive cause.

Better on the other side

Kevin Drum complains about the lack of discussion about the dangerous impact of selling insurance across state lines, then hears from and points to David Adensnik at Conventional Folly, who in turn found this New York Times article that actually explained the folly (shocker) of the Republican infatuation with an (unregulated) intrastate insurance exchange.

Healthier adults would buy cheaper policies out of state, the budget office said, while less-healthy adults would stick to in-state insurance because it covers the services they need. Premiums would rise for the latter group as the risk pool became less healthy and more costly.

“From a consumer protection point of view, the result of allowing sales across state lines would be that the state with the least restrictive regulatory scheme would have an advantage and could undercut all the others, and you would have a race to the bottom,” said John Rother, executive vice president of policy and strategy for AARP, the lobby for older Americans, which supports the Democrats’ legislation and markets insurance itself.

Put simply, facts like this are the reason the GOP doesn't want to attend the President's health insurance reform summit. They can't put their ideas up to actual, honest public scrutiny, and holding an event like this is the only way the broadcast media will really tell the story to the public.

The question's many sided

Kevin Drum asks a silly question:

If the economy sucks, it's Obama's fault. If the economy prospers, it's a dangerous mirage brought about by Obama's failed policies. What do you think are the odds that the media will buy this?

Get a job

As David Leonhardt and the New York Times report, and despite the right-wing arguments and media collusion to the contrary, the stimulus bill has worked.

We love our Swaggart and Haggard

Lacking their own ultra-Orthodox Tim Tebowitz, the Rabbinic Alliance of America, apparently the Hebraic version of Focus on the Family, channels Pat Robertson, in the person of their spokesrebbe Rabbi Yehuda Levin:

"When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it's shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama's kooky coalition.

We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.
"Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

"We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough."

So I guess it's not ironic that this press release blaming the Haitian earthquake on homosexuals and the potential repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell made it out via the ChristianNewsWire. (Thanks, Goldblog.) Obviously, these disturbed so-called rabbis couldn't find another source that would be as receptive to their screed. (A quick google shows that these clowns have made a habit of attacking the gays. It seems to me that they protest too much.)

I guess all those gay soldier serving in the Israeli Defense Force must explain a whole bunch of natural disasters.

On a serious note, this past Saturday, my rabbi did a sermon about how Judaism doesn't read the Torah literally, and how that has helped us advance as a people and a religion. Someone didn't tell these guys. Then again, since the RAA doesn't recognize non-Orthodox Jews as being Jewish, I don't think they'd be interested in my rabbi's opinions.

(This should cause a tremor or two.)

It's the persecuted ones that will find the light

Yglesias, quoting Daniel Levy, comments on how, despite the growing recognition that the status quo in Israel is untenable, there is a total unwillingness to actually take any action to change the course of history and move toward peace with the Palestinians by, you know, actually doing something different.

But then Matt proceeds to touch on the issue that constantly frustrates me (I was even thinking about it over the weekend), to wit, the recognition among the majority of American Jewry that a two-state solution is absolutely necessary, but the fact that criticism of Israeli policy that doesn't work toward that end is impermissible. The best example of this on a almost daily basis is Jeffrey Goldberg, who is constantly having things both ways. Fundamentally, he knows what needs to be done. But don't say it (unless you are Jeffrey), because then you are the next Stephen Walt. That's not completely a criticism; I get that he's actually trying to sort it out, and I appreciate that he's motivated (I hope) by good faith, unlike many others. But it doesn't leave much room for anyone else to sort, and it doesn't help anyone get to a solution, either.

UPDATE: Heh. Goldberg plays whack-a-mole with Stephen Walt again today.

Don't take this as support for Walt. It's not. But I find these words from Goldberg somewhat ironic, given the ease with which he plays the other side:

Slipshod, even malicious, renderings of history are par for Walt's course, and I'm glad that John Judis has taken the time to point out this particular calumny. But I feel for John Judis. I've only met him a couple of times, but suffice it to say, he's not Marty Peretz when it comes to questions about Israel. But now he'll be accused of being part of the Israel Lobby by Stephen Walt, because Stephen Walt's definition of an Israel lobbyist is anyone who criticizes Stephen Walt.

[Emphasis mine.]

The band played on with no one around

Evan Bayh finally got tired of being one of the leading Democrats that Democrats love to hate. Matt sums up what is probably a pretty common view of the Bayh surprise retirement:

Obviously, Evan Bayh’s never been my favorite Senator. And the more one learns about both the manner of his departure, and the thinking behind it, the clearer it is why. Simply put: He’s an immoral person who conducts his affairs in public life with a callous disregard for the impact of his decisions on human welfare. He’s sad he’s not going to be president? He doesn’t like liberal activists? He finds senate life annoying? Well, boo-hoo. We all shed a tear.

He’s ditching his seat in a manner calculated to throw control of it to a conservative Republican. And nothing about his stated reasons for leaving suggest that he thinks replacing Evan Bayh with a conservative Republican will make the lives of Americans better. Nor does anything about his states reasons for leaving suggest that he thinks replacing Evan Bayh with a conservative Republican make the lives of foreigners better. But he’s acting to ensure that it happens anyway. Because he doesn’t care about the welfare of the American people or the people of the world. It’s not a recipe for good conduct as a Senator and it’s not a recipe for good conduct when it comes to choosing a way to depart.

This guy wants to be President? Well, so long as basic decency isn't a requirement, the sky's the limit.

UPDATE: Here's Ta-Nehisi:

That is just amazing to me. I don't know Evan Bayh, so I don't know if this is narcissism or what. But to leave your colleagues in such a bad way strikes me as an extraordinary act of selfishness.

Not calling the president or Harry Reid because they might try to "talk him out of it," is telling. I don't know what to make of people who talk big in front of cameras, but can't look their comrades in the eye.

Possibilities

Health insurance rates are going up (a lot) in California - specifically, according to Anthem Blue Cross, because healthy people are forgoing coverage due to the poor economy. They're also going up elsewhere.

Which puts the lie to the charge that health care reform would be the cause of increased insurance rates. Rates are going to go up, regardless. Health care reform would begin to impose some restraint, as well as increasing the pool of insured to address the problems with health care access.

But, despite the evidence that increased insurance rates are independent of reform (or, given the reasons mentioned above, they're the result of the lack of reform, but we'll tread softly on that one for now) - President Obama and the Democrats will be attacked and blamed for all rate increases once HCR is passed. It will happen.

And our media will fail to inform you differently.

Internal revenue

The FOX News crazies and their Tea Party viewers can pretend that Barack Obama is a socialist because of widespread ignorance like this:

About a third of the $787 billion stimulus was made up of tax cuts, but Americans evidently don't realize they got them: a CBS News/New York Times poll shows that only 12% of respondents knew that President Obama had lowered taxes during his time in office; 53% said Obama kept taxes the same; 24% said he raised taxes; and 11% said they didn't know.

Look, I was opposed (and I wrote about it on this blog) to such a high percentage of the stimulus being in the form of tax cuts. It wasn't and isn't stimulative, and it isn't perceived by people as government action. It was theirs in the first place, whatever. And Democrats - particularly radical liberal socialist Nazi Muslim ones (like there's any other kind) - don't get credit for tax cuts. Even from Democrats, forget reactionary right wingers.

That being said, the current attitude is to blame Obama for this public lack of awareness of what the government and the Obama Administration did to help them out (and make no mistake, the stimulus has helped, saved an incredible number of jobs, and prevented a free-fall into a full-fledged depression) - it's his job to sell what they did, or some such. We've entirely replaced the idea of a public servant with the idea of a political animal. The President is now fundamentally required to be a marketing department, and politics these days is no longer about policy but about politicking; it's all about sales and packaging your goods rather than doing the public good.

It's the perception of reality from a press that has become subsumed in the broader media, and a media that views its own world that way. They program based on weekly viewership ratings; you're supposed to change storylines and television shows and lineups and characters to boost those numbers. It's what the broadcast media do.

Speaking of the press, Oscar Wilde once wrote:

In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.

Unfortunately, journalism has also been eaten up by Media.

But why do we need to govern our country this way? And if we must, why can't those we rely upon embrace a meager sense of responsibility to truth and the popular good?

Maybe, just maybe, much of the fault of our political and partisan chaos, the lack of understanding of fundamental social issues and current events, could rest in our so-called journalists, who'd rather present sides, who's up and who's down, the crass commercialism and marketing of politics, rather than the sober elucidation of fact. The witty yet serious Brian Williams and the erudite Diane Sawyer and the peppy Katherine Couric and the bearded Wolf Blitzer backed by the Greatest Political Team in the Known Universe could clear this up. They really could.

But it's not their job, they'd tell us. Their job description, as it were - which they themselves have the privilege to define - is to merely report on the horse race and on what Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are saying, and what they're saying about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama; to tell us about the gaffes and the titillation and the hardships and poll numbers and anger, but not about what the stuff actually says and means. If you don't understand what's in the stimulus, or how the stimulus has actually saved jobs and increased consumer spending - the exact purpose of the stimulus - well, that's your problem, not the problem of the Fourth Estate entrusted, we thought, with keeping us informed rather than just entertained, and entrusted, we also thought, with giving us the knowledge to make us better and more aware citizens rather than merely giving us alternative sources designed to validate our preexisting worldview, evidence be damned. If you don't know that the health care proposals actually provide for interstate exchanges or why mandates are necessary to get coverage for people with preexisting conditions, well, that's your problem, too.

Because Sarah Palin is interesting to them, and as for facts?

Well, just look outside; there's lots and lots and lots of snow out there (not that if you are where you care that there's lots and lots of snow you cannot just look outside and figure that out yourself) and I guess that means it's an opportunity to mock the idea of global warming, because simply saying global warming means it can never snow again and the media is doing us a service by debating and ridiculing the concept of climate change; or, when it's not merely mocking the issue, it's taking an issue that really isn't open to reasonable, sane and intelligent debate, and nevertheless engaging in a reasonable- and earnest-sounding, yet ultimately substance-free, debate. The media has, like it or note, determined that the standard-bearer for conversations of issues is a never-ending loop of the Cheney-Lieberman Vice Presidential Debate. Because that turned out so well for everyone. Using the snowfall as an opportunity to discuss what is really meant by global climate change, how it impacts everyone, and what needs to be done about it? Not their job. Leave that to NOVA.

In short, if a snow storm doesn't give us the opportunity to fill the air waves with commentary about how dumb and obnoxious and wrong Al Gore is, then what good is the media, anyway? Big, fat Al Gore is eating his words. Get it? (Yeah, FOX went there.) All class.

Journalism today is simply about giving voice to opinion.

That's what today's media is there for. Substance is in the eye of the programmer. And the Nielsons have spoken.

Wilde was right then as he is right now. "But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing."