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Hello, I’m Una, and I am a giant TV whore. Some of you may know me from my Project Runway recaps here on HuffPo, but what you don’t know is that Project Runway represents about 1/25 of the television I actually watch in a given week. I Gleek out, I Break Bad, I go to the Jersey Shore, bitch. And no only do I consume far more TV than is probably medically sound, but I watch it almost exclusively on my iPod nano, since the great tragedy of my life is that my building’s cable box is defective.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved the Emmys. I loved them even back when Fyvush Finkle won every effing year for Picket Fences. I love them with a trusting and unconditional love that basically serves as beer goggles for the heart. Sure, they don’t have quite the cache and glamour of the Oscars, and yes, since technically the same people can win year after year they run the risk of being predictable… but we’re living in a glorious, creative time for television, not to mention in a culture that finds nothing silly about watching two straight hours of cameras zooming in on people’s shoes as diminutive orange robots with highly gelled hair chase after them with microphones. Which is to say that if you love bloated, vapid entertainment then you’ve come to the right place, friend.
I live-blogged the Oscars back in March, but if you’re unfamiliar with my style, here’s what you can expect:
Stream-of-consciousness reactions to — and judgments of — anything that appears onscreen, including but not limited to celebrities’ clothing, hair/makeup, obscene levels of tooth-whitening and/or clavicle protrusion, and general demeanor
Completely biased opinions about certain shows and actors
Increasingly drunken come-ons to anyone I find remotely attractive
Basic information about who wins what, usually buried within one of the above
OK, let’s do this. Seacrest, IN:
6:05: Giuliana Rancic won’t let Ryan look at her toes on Shoe-Cam. “I played soccer as a child.” HA.
6:06: Jimmy Fallon says he’s nervous. Ryan calls Jimmy’s wife “healthy.” That’s Hollywood for calling someone fat.
6:07: Giuliana urges viewers to text in questions, but reminds us that E! is a “family show.” Then cuts to the cast of Jersey Shore, on deck to make some commentary. Apparently “family” means referring to intercourse as “smushing.”
6:11: Giuliana introduces the Goodyear Blimp. So… I guess no one has shown up yet?
6:13: Gayest correspondent ever introduces the GlamCam360, which looks like a fashion MRI.
6:14: First “celebrities” arrive: Carrie Ann Inaba and Kelly Osbourne pose in creepy GlamCam360, which resembles one of those vomit-inducing Gravitron rides, only, obviously, MORE FABULOUS.
6:16: Ryan asks Jersey Shore kids some burning questions: “Snooki, you promised to stop drinking… during the day?” Stay classy, Seacrest.
6:17: Seacrest to Jersey Shore cast: “Hopefully someday you guys win an Emmy.” Hopefully, the Mayan-predicted end of days will happen first.
6:18: Ty Burrell from Modern Family gets minimized in favor of Lo Bosworth from The Hills. Ouch.
6:20: Stay tuned for… Kathy Griffin! Man, this reminds me of when The Gutt would be the only person on the Oscars red carpet for the first hour.
6:25: Seacrest has mayor of LA Antonio Villaraigosa and Joel McHale. McHale: “I’m almost as spray-tanned as you are.” Then Seacrest says the secret to his boyish skin is placenta. Who’s handing out the Jell-O shots?
6:27: Artie from Glee tells Giuliana he wants to bang Sally Field. He likes you, Sally! He, um, REALLY likes you!
[Commercial interlude, 6:31: Wait, acai is pronounced "ah-say-ee"? Now I feel stupid. Thanks, Garnier Fructis.]
6:32: Kathy Griffin’s mom tells Ryan he’s evil, but will rescind it for a box of wine. In related news, I will take back any bitchy comment from this liveblog for a box of wine. Celebrities, take note.
6:33: Puck from Glee — Rrrowr. Seacrest makes him admit that his ex-GF keyed his car.
6:36: Ryan interviews Kim Kardashian. “Is that the sex tape one?” asks my dad. HA.
6:36: Ryan gives up early; hands off mic to Kim to interview Lea Michele from Glee. They talk about body glitter. No, really.
6:39: When did Claire Danes start looking like Joan Allen? Seacrest pretends to have seen Temple Grandin.
6:41: Tracy Morgan is in a white tux. YES. “I think he should play Louis Armstrong in a biopic,” says dad. “Put that in your blog.”
6:43: Ryan asks Eva Longoria Parker about Desperate Housewives. I stopped watching last season — is that still any good? Nearby, Lauren Graham is wearing a droopy white and black sack. Oh, Lorelai!
6:46: Sofia Vergara is in a sparkly Carolina Herrera. She looks great, even with a Swarovski skidmark down the front.
6:47: Giuliana has Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt. Draper looks dapper, as always.
6:49: Seacrest has Ricky Gervais, who looks like he’s on a soul patch bender.
6:52: Giuliana’s head is like two times the size of Bryan Cranston’s entire body. By the way, who else wants a Breaking Bad/Malcolm in the Middle mashup? Make it happen, Hollywood!
6:53: Breaking: Christina Hendricks is wearing something possibly made out of Grimace from McDonaldland. With fringed sleeves! Updates to follow.
6:57: Glee creator Ryan Murphy is wearing a teal jacket. (Seacrest: “This is the first of this color tonight… for a man.” NICE.)
6:59: Chris Colfer from Glee looks so cute.
7:00: January Jones is wearing a really interesting cerulean Versace. “How does it stay so stiff?” asks Seacrest. (That’s what she said.)
7:01: Tina Fey predicts 30 Rock will lose everything this year. (Let’s hope so — I love me some 30 Rock but the same winners year after year is a recipe for ennui.)
7:02: Christina Hendricks is actually rocking her dress. The fringed sleeves, though, are distracting. Ryan refers to her boobies as her “two cents.” This is why I love the E! red carpet special, y’all.
7:04: Julie Benz from Dexter looks glam in a white one-shoulder column. E!’s second-string correspondents — a poor man’s Courteney Cox wearing a hideous zebra print and a tiny man in a blue bow-tie — can’t pronounce the word “Emmy.” Good times.
7:09: Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer look sexxxxy in Alexander McQueen. They talk about the controversial naked Rolling Stone cover, calling their genitals “bits.” Cute!
7:11: “Come on over and make me look short,” Ryan beckons to Heidi Klum and Seal. Done and done!
7:13: Mindy Kaling from The Office has a vaguely Mad Men thing going on, with a high bun and cocktail dress. “What inspired your hair?” Giuliana asks. “The movie Up,” Mindy deadpans.
7:15: Giuliana tries to get Manny from Modern Family to hit puberty in front of E!’s cameras. “Any ladies you’ve got your eye on?” she old-lady stage-whispers, leaning in like a drunk. “I’m more interested in video games,” Manny hedges, inching away.
7:17: Ryan asks Neil Patrick Harris how two men can make a baby. The E! is for “Educational.”
7:19: Kyra Sedgwick always looks so awesome.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Seven western states and four Canadian provinces have joined forces in a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. An entire new source of long-term revenue is available to British Columbia’s government, which will enable protecting massive tracks of old growth forests and fresh water supplies.
The Western Climate Initiative includes: Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Washington, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and they have agreed to cut the region’s carbon emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The backbone of their plan relies on a system of cap and trade. It is a system that was successfully devised and implemented in the early 1990s to combat acid rain around the Great Lakes caused by the pollution generated from coal burning power plants.
The cap and trade system reduces pollution by requiring utility and other companies to meet tough emission standards. Under this system, businesses that cannot cut their emissions because of costs or technical hurdles would be allowed to buy emission credits from companies that have spent the money to clean-up and lower their emissions.
Most large industrial polluters, automakers and coal-based utilities are scrambling to find companies to sell them offset credits.
In 1990 (Science, Feb 9) Professor Mark Harmon of Oregon State University and others found that the conversion of Pacific northwest old growth forests to young fast growing forests did not decrease atmospheric carbon as compared to old growth forests which capture and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide. In fact, it took those low elevation second growth forests at least 200 years to accumulate the carbon dioxide storage capacity of existing old growth forests.
In other words, British Columbia’s standing old growth forests are valuable but not just as milled saw-timber or pulp. British Columbia’s old growth is a gold mine for burgeoning worldwide offset markets, as well as its bountiful medicines and other valuable non-timber forest products.
Marriott International with over 3,000 global properties has partnered with Conservation International and is the first hotel company to calculate its carbon footprint and launched an aggressive worldwide campaign to lessen its impact.
Each year it uses 3.2 million tons of CO2 or 66 pounds per available room. To offset this they have undertaken a remarkable initiative. Marriott is spending millions of dollars over a long-term period to protect 1.5 million acres of endangered rainforests (because forests absorb and store CO2) in the Juma Sustainable Development Reserve in partnership with the state of Amazonas in Brazil.
If Brazil is renting its forests for millions of dollars then why shouldn’t the government of British Columbia consider its options?
In the late 1960s a young assistant professor (now Emeritus) Peter Dooling at the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia taught a nascent discipline of forest recreation. Dr. Dooling predicted that forest recreation and tourism would become a major industry in British Columbia.
Today, British Columbia tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry rivaling that of forestry. The 2010 Whistler/Vancouver Olympics easily tipped the scale of tourism revenue now far exceeding that of forestry.
As the world recession deepens and the mighty U.S. housing market continues to sputter and stall, tens of thousands of British Columbia forestry workers have been dislocated.
It is perplexing and frustrating that North Americans buying furniture at IKEA must settle for Scots pine grown and manufactured in Lapland when millions of acres of British Columbia’s lodgepole pine are salvage-logged and pulped rather than manufactured and sold throughout the continent (and elsewhere) as distressed cottage pine furniture.
With more than 60 British Columbia glaciers receding, securing fresh water supplies are of paramount importance and maintaining exquisite high elevation old growth forests, which capture, retain and slowly release billions of gallons of snow melt in the springtime is priceless.
While maintaining the integrity of the Brazilian forests are important so too are the last of British Columbia’s contiguous great temperate rainforests. Why not rent some of the old growth forests, take advantage of their potent ability to absorb enormous amounts of CO2 and provide a buffer against climate change.
Dr Reese Halter is a Science Communicator: Voice for Ecology, conservation biologist at California Lutheran University, public speaker and founder of the international conservation institute Global Forest Science. He can be contacted through www.DrReese.com

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When you think about it, Alan (“Tits”) Simpson is the ideal jester to deflect attention from the bigger joke — the fiscal reform commission itself. The problem is less Simpson’s dopey comments and more the idiocy of the rest of the commission.
Given what is happening to the real economy in the real world, the prospect of a double-dip recession and the prospect of a lost decade of high unemployment, the idea that the bigger menace is Social Security is just whacko. Let’s recall that Social Security is in surplus until 2037!
Yet the idea that the road to recovery leads though cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and other social outlays that are keeping the depression from worsening, if anything, is gaining traction among opinion elites.
Exhibit A is a doubly dishonest column by the New York Times’ new whiz-kid pundit, Matt Bai, who used a liberal congressman, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, as a prop to make his misleading case.
According to Bai’s column, Security is like a giant lottery, based on IOU’s that will require a Ponzi Scheme of further debt. Now, it turns out that Bai is not just wrong on the issues, but Blumenauer doesn’t believe that Bai attributed to him. In attacking the progressive coalition Strengthen Social Security, Bai wrote:
But this is total malarkey. In fact, the 75-year projection of Social Security’s finances shows that under fairly pessimistic assumptions about economic growth, the shortfall in Social Security’s finances is just over half of one percent of GDP. Lift the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes, and the problem disappears.
More importantly, get wage growth back to its historic trend of increasing as productivity increases (rather than the top getting the benefit of all the economic gains) and the problem vanishes without changing the tax code. Raise wages, and we could increase Social Security benefits.
Bai not only distorted the reality of Social Security, but he also distorted Blumenauer’s views, cherry picking quotes from two interviews to make it seem that the congressman favored such drastic measures promoted by deficit hawks as cutting benefits or raising the retirement age. But the quotes in the column don’t say that — only Bai’s gloss on them — and the congressman believes nothing of the sort.
The trouble is that too many legislators make Delphic comments about whether Social Security should be “on the table,” Bluenenauer’s past vagueness gave Bai an opening, and Bai is all too representative of opinion elites — including the Washington Post editorial page, columnists like David Broder, many Democratic as well as Republican congressmen, and some in the Obama administration.
It was former Budget Director Peter Orszag, seconded by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and the pollsters, who persuaded President Obama that the fiscal commission was a good idea. The theory was that the commission would give the president “cover” and demonstrate that he was fiscally responsible.
But as events have played out, this premise totally backfired. The commission provides plenty of cover all right, as in burial cloth. Its proposals could bury both the economy and this presidency.
The commission has given a platform to clowns like Simpson. But worse, it has lent credibility to the idea that Social Security is somehow a drag on the economy — creating a vicious circle of hawkish legislators and dishonest pundits like Bai feeding on each other.
The reality, of course, is that if the economy (and Obama’s fortunes) are going down the drain, the reason has nothing to do with Social Security’s finances in 2037 — and everything to do with slow growth, high unemployment, and the lingering effects of a damaged banking system right now.
Yet the storyline being peddled by the commission, of a dire fiscal crisis, makes it politically more difficult for Obama to take the necessary steps to get a recovery going.
There is a whole other path to economic recovery and fiscal balance. That other path has five parts:
A lot more emergency federal spending now to create jobs and purchasing power.
Increased taxes on the top two percent.
A continued program of public investment in physical and social infrastructure
A real public option on health insurance, to restrain medical inflation, which is the prime driver of federal deficits in the long run.
A defense of Social Security as a key source of income for the elderly.
This strategy is better economics and better politics. Voters, by overwhelming margins, support Social Security. Over the years, Republicans have tried to tamper with it. And it is lunacy for Democrats to associate themselves with efforts to cut it.
But Obama’s own fiscal commission has painted the president into a corner. Virtually all of the remedies we need to get a strong recovery going are seen as fiscally too costly; and willingness to go after Social Security is being touted as the test of fiscal responsibility.
The campaign to fire Simpson has the right spirit but the wrong target. Obama should draw a line in the sand and make clear that if the commissioners propose cuts in Social Security, he will consider the whole exercise tainted.
Maybe we should be grateful for Simpson and his 310 million tits. If his antics lead serious commentators take a closer look at the commission, perhaps they will also look deeper into the fiscal foolishness of Simpson’s colleagues.
Robert Kuttner’s new book is A Presidency in Peril. He is co-editor of The American Prospect and a Senior Fellow at Demos.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As August draws to a close, we face a somber, sobering anniversary. Five
years ago, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast. The storm — and the horrifying ineptitude of the relief
efforts before, during, and after — left the region devastated. Most of
those who died or were abandoned to “sink or swim” were poor people, people
of color, or both.
Since that day, the Gulf Region has spent five years showing us where
America is falling short. Starting with Katrina — and continuing with
Hurricanes Rita, Ike, and Gustav — we have seen that we are simply not
prepared to deal with the kind of extreme weather that will only become more
common as climate change worsens. We have also seen that we are ill
prepared to bounce back from such disasters. Many homes remain
uninhabitable; many claims for support, whether from five years ago or five
months ago, remain unanswered.
Green Jobs for New Orleans
Watch it on YouTube
Starting with Katrina, the Gulf has also shown us that assertions that we
have arrived in a post-racial era, where the color of her skin no longer
factors into the quality of a person’s life or the prospects of her
children, are woefully premature. People of color have taken the worst of
these disasters, and have gotten the least support in their aftermath.
Indeed, a U.S. District Court recently ruled that the funding formula used
to provide grants to New Orleans residents whose homes were damaged or
destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita very likely disadvantaged black
homeowners.
These storms may have given us a preview of the devastating weather events
that climate change will likely bring down the line, but this year the Gulf
also taught us, to tragic effect, about the immediate and devastating
impacts of our addiction to dirty energy. In April, BP’s oilrig exploded
and poured more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of
Mexico. The biggest oil spill in history laid the price of oil out bare
before us: human death, the contamination of communities, the destruction
of wildlife and ecosystems, and the disruption to the economy.
But in five years, the people of the Gulf region have also shown us
something else. While their tragedy was teaching us where America is still
falling short, their resilience was teaching us how America can begin to
measure up to her own lofty dreams and ideals.
The Gulf Coast is showing that a region that has been dominated by the oil
industry can turn a new, green leaf.
Wind turbine manufacturing has recently created 600 new jobs in the
region.
The Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation is working
with a White House initiative to put solar panels on New Orleans homes, and
is developing an ambitious urban farm project that will create new jobs in
agriculture for workers displaced form the fishing and oil industries.
The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice is training workers for
green jobs in the region.
The Alliance Institute is bringing organizations together across the
region to work on projects like creating independent health care clinics in
underserved areas, or advocating for the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act that
would fund jobs and training in the areas hit hardest by these disasters.
In the Bayou, BISCO is looking both forward and back, pushing for new
industries that will create clean energy and green jobs, and industries that
will restore the region’s damaged wetlands.
BISCO’s approach reflects one of the main lessons of the last five years: we must repair what damage we can, but we can never fully restore what we’ve lost. Instead, we must combine restoration with innovation. The examples I mention above are just the tip of the iceberg of what local groups are doing to build a clean, green, safe future for the Gulf region.
And that collective activity itself barely scratches the surface of what we need to be doing. From wind farms to biofuels to energy efficiency to urban farming, many of the most promising solutions remain on the horizon.
For five years, Gulf residents have been suffering through the worst features of the crises in our economy and our environment. They have also been shining a light towards a future beyond these crises. As we mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it is this resilience and vision that give me confidence. And the fact that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, is a black woman from New Orleans gives me hope that the region’s restoration and recovery will finally get the attention it needs and deserves. As a country, we must invest in the people of the Gulf, we must support the work they are already doing, and we must give them the tools and resources to do more.
The Gulf is showing us the way forward. It is up to us to walk the path.</p
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the Chief Executive Officer of Green For All and one of America's preeminent leaders on green jobs and green pathways out of poverty. Under her leadership, Green For All has become one of the country's leading advocates for the clean-energy economy, and one of its most important voices on the intersection of economics and environment.
This week, Green For All is marking the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by publishing a series of blog entries from local Gulf Coast organizations working to create a green, clean, and safe future for the region. You can find these posts on the Green For All website.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

NEW ORLEANS–Sorry, can’t be sure that’s the planet he’s living on, but this intelligent, well-informed man surely can’t be living on this orb. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to start off his speech at Xavier University Sunday afternoon with this reprise of his town-hall remarks here last October:
“It was a natural disaster but also a manmade catastrophe; a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, women, and children abandoned and alone.”
Note that the “manmade catastrophe” and “breakdown” are linked only to the response to the flooding of New Orleans, not the cause, as if this intelligent, well-informed man is unaware that two separate, independent forensic engineering investigations of the disaster, conducted over a period of a year or more, agreed on this conclusion (in the words of UC Berkeley’s ILIT report): the flooding of New Orleans was “the greatest man-made engineering catastrophe since Chernobyl”.
Chernobyl. That word would surely have gotten this intelligent, well-informed man’s attention, had he only been residing on Earth these last few years.
But the remarks, tapped out on the auto-sinceratron that Presidents now routinely use for such occasion, went on:
“I saw the sense of purpose people felt after the storm”. The “storm” ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast and south Louisiana. As for New Orleans, Prof. Ray Seed of UC Berkeley says that, had the “hurricane protection system” built with federal dollars by a federal agency over four and a half decades (and never completed) been done properly, all the city would have suffered during Katrina would have been “wet ankles”.
Wet ankles. Like Chernobyl, not that hard to remember, even for an intelligent, well-informed man with, as commenters here have reminded me for nearly two years, so much on his plate.
More from Planet Zarg?
“We’re also working to restore protective wetlands and natural barriers that were not only damaged by Katrina but had been rapidly disappearing for decades.”
See, here on Earth, “working” would indicate the allocation of resources, the expenditure of serious funds, to deal with this slow-motion disaster. What the President requested in his 2011 budget for this work is $33 million, one-tenth of the money requested for ongoing cleanup of Great Lakes waters.
The President has left New Orleans now, once again, as last October, finding it inconvenient to spend more than a few hours here. Probably a good idea. He’ll get a better night’s sleep back on his home planet.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

There’s a blog to be written about Greatest Films of All-Time about Workers and work themes but for now, lets look at those made or released in the last year. Whether set in a grocery store, amusement park or airplanes, there’s a DVD for everyone to watch this Labor Day weekend.
In terms of feature films, there are 5 standouts. They are The Maid, Humble Pie, Adventureland, Extract, and Up in the Air. Of these, Up in the Air is the best known given its star George Clooney and its box-office receipts and Oscar run. And it is arguably the best in this particularly specific category of Best Worker Voice Film, due in part to its uncanny timing connected to today’s economy. And its use of actual people who had been laid off playing people who had been laid off was original, poignant, and sad all at once.
But there’s more. While the Chilean film, The Maid centers on the story of a maid trying to hold on to her position after having served a family for 23 years, it also shows the level of dependence that family has relied on her “work” which goes much beyond daily domestic chores. You might say for Humble Pie, with the leading man at 400 pounds and set in a grocery store, that “if you like Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and Napoleon Dynamite, you’ll love this” but only if you had a 30-second elevator pitch to make. Or in this case, a short blog. You could also try the same cheap trick about Adventureland by calling it a Judd Apatow-esque film set in an amusement park but that would undercut the originality of this story, the workers, and the unique workplace where they find themselves. And I don’t want Martin Starr to cringe.
If you like good, entertaining documentary, there are lots of good choices from the last year. Capitalism: A Love Story, Yes Men Fix the World, The Philospher Kings, Parking Lot Movie, and Floored all do a great job of either reflecting workers voices and experiences or channeling them with the equivalent of a 2-ton, 20,000 watt megaphone. Like Up in the Air, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story was the heavyweight in this category, clearly the favorite of a loose-knit jury I polled, and worth seeing to get your juices flowing about the state we’re in and some idea about getting out of it.
But some space is needed to highlight Yes Men Fix the World. Not only is it entertaining and daring as the Yes Men go undercover, including on BBC, goofing on all manner of corporations. But they also manage to champion some genuine causes like Bhopal, post-Katrina New Orleans and more. And perhaps most importantly, they give its audience the sense that “maybe I could go do something like that too”. And what better inspiration for the masses of unemployed and stomped-on workers than that.
As a special mention, notice should be given to a film project that was not quite a film or a TV show: The People Speak. Based on the book by Howard Zinn, and eventually developed into a docu-mini series on the History Channel, it features a large and diverse number of actors from Matt Damon to Marisa Tomei, Kerry Washington, Josh Brolin and Danny Glover. With producer Chris Moore, I’ve tracked its development over the years into the product that aired back in January 2010 (now on DVD as well). The reading by Marisa Tomei of Harriet Hanson Robinson’s recound of the Lowell, MA factory strike is worth the price alone for thoughtful reflection about why we have Labor Day in the first place.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In the 5+ years that I’ve lived in Nevada, I’ve found the state’s politics somewhat baffling. We have a State Legislature that meets six out of every 24 months whether it needs to meet or not. Legislators do not have district offices or staffs. We won’t even discuss the incumbent governor. And, an election that is tied is decided not with a run-off, but with a cut of the cards. (Really. I couldn’t make this stuff up.) Now, we have the 2010 United States Senate election and, boys and girls, it is a doozy!
At the time of the June 8 primary, it was a forgone conclusion that the voters of Nevada would elect whomever the Republican nominee was. Then, people of the state got to know that nominee, it became clear that if a writer of fiction were to publish a story about the candidate — one Sharron Angle — no one would believe such a candidate could ever exist. The incumbent, of course, is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who, while not perfect on all the issues, seems at least to employ a mote of reason in making his decisions.
The United States Senate race in Nevada has become one that everyone, everywhere, seems to be watching as it pits the incumbent, the most powerful person in the Senate, against a Tea Party acolyte. Sure, it has national repercussions and would be watched anyway, but Angle has left people gasping in surprise, shocked and bizarrely amused.
The Christian Science Monitor said of the race, “Every few election cycles a congressional contest comes along that features such high stakes, such combative opponents that it becomes a jaw-dropping political thriller that fascinates average voters and political professionals alike…Harry Reid versus Sharron Angle is one such race.”
Reid, described in the New York Times as sitting “at the top of every list of endangered Democrats — there is no one Republicans would like more to unseat,”is now viewed as the favorite to win.”
What happened? First, try as she might to pin responsibility for Nevada’s unemployment rate on Reid, the the use of adjectives including “contempt, disdain, arrogance” to describe Reid’s attitude and stances on issues in her campaign ads, and blaming “Reid’s policies” for the economic problems facing the nation, Sharron Angle’s biggest, strongest opponent appears to be ……Sharron Angle.
Even if she could dance like Fred Astaire, Angle’s footwork wouldn’t be fancy enough for her to dance away from some of her own positions. Angle’s on record saying “My grandfather wouldn’t even take his Social Security check because he said he was not up for welfare” and that she would get rid of Social Security.
In this state with the nation’s highest unemployment, she stated that it is “not my job as a US Senator” to create jobs. Angle said she would have voted against the extension of unemployment benefits “because the truth about it is that they keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where the people are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn’t pay as much as the unemployment benefits.”
In response to the Government Is Not God Political Action Committee questionnaire — which states clearly in boldface type at the top that it is a “public document” — she said she opposes same-sex marriages; “sexual orientation” as a protected minority and the right of homosexual couples to adopt. The former teacher favors prayer and discussion of religion in schools and the elimination of the Department of Education. She also supports the right of clergy to espouse personal political views from the pulpit.
Think about what you just read and you have to wonder about Sharron Angle. Yet, her supporters are upset that the Reid camp is calling her “too extreme.”
In a Las Vegas Review Journal – Eight NewsNow (the local CBS affiliate) poll voters were asked if they were pleased with their party’s candidates. The results were:
<img alt="2010-08-29-survey.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-08-29-survey.png" width="500" height="394" style="float: center; margin:10px" /?
In this home state of gambling in the USA, it is also somewhat safe to bet that, as he celebrates his birthday on December 2, 2010, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) will smiling about the best birthday present he got this year. So, it arrived almost six months early when the GOP primary voters in Nevada made Sharron Angle their nominee, So what? Early or late, one does not, as they say, look a gift horse in the mouth. When that horse goes lame is and is unable to run effectively, any other horse in the race just moves forward.
And that, my children, is what Nevada politics is all about.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

by Caryl Rivers
The Great Scold of Radio is gone, and I say good riddance.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced she was leaving her popular radio show after three decades, following a controversy over her use of the “N Word” repeatedly on the air.
Dr. Laura was like your mean aunt, the one who disapproved of everything you did, and told you so in no uncertain terms. It didn’t matter if she was right or wrong, or knew what she was talking about, she just let you have it.
She presented her conservative, 50s style ideas as “common sense” and ranted against those who disagreed. Anyone who heard the tape where she repeated the “N” word over and over and told a black female caller not to “NAACP me,” got a glimpse of her attitudes on race. The caller wanted to discusses issues in her interracial marriage and got an earful of intolerance instead.
Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University, says the problem with Dr. Laura is beyond the words she was using. Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Banks observes, “After the call ends, Dr. Laura is ranting and declares ‘we have to be able to discuss these things. Discuss the issue.’ Schlessinger completely ignores her own advice. “She shut the conversation down by being defensive, condescending and off-topic.”
Dr. Banks points out “Cultural competence is not only a key aspect of psychology, but it is becoming a necessity for navigating our increasingly diverse society. Knowing our blind spots is key when it comes to sensitive topics such as race. And Dr. Laura appears to have some baggage to process before she is quick to invalidate another person’s experience of racial discrimination.”
But beyond this inexcusable instance of cultural blindness, Dr. Laura spread myth and misinformation over a wide swath of radioland. She routinely hectored working mothers, saying they ought to be at home with their children–despite the fact that she herself was a working mother for years. But she claimed she was always home with her children for most of the day. Too bad most working moms don’t have million-dollar radio talk show jobs where the hours are so family friendly.
Many callers probably thought they were talking to a Ph. D in psychology when they called in to ask “Doctor” Laura” for advice. Not so. Dr. Laura is neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. Her doctorate is in physiology. (Ask her for a workout, but not for advice on your emotional life.) She is a licensed MFCC (Marriage, Family, Child Counselor), which requires far less training than psychotherapists must have. She is entitled to her opinions, of course, but they do not carry the weight of scientific research.
This was made abundantly clear by a team of psychologists from the University of Colorado who examined dr. Laura’s best selling book, “Parenthood by Proxy: Don’t Have Them If You Won’t Raise Them. ” The team of scholars, headed by Dr. Toni Zimmerman, found the book filled with stereotypes, formulaic advice and information that does not conform to research findings. They said that Dr. Laura was, in fact, upfront about her rejection of empirical social science evidence. Instead, she relied on anecdotes, newspaper articles, “experts” of her own choosing and mainly her own personal experiences.
Zimmerman and her colleagues contend that Schlesinger is interested in promoting traditional gender roles, conservative political ideas and the rejection of any family other than the breadwinner-dad and stay-at-home mom.
In doing so, she rejects as “harmful” the dual-earner family, which represents more than 60 percent of today’s couples. She ignores research showing these couples to be happy, healthy and thriving.
Schlessinger says that children raised in any family that is not traditional will have “emotional handicaps and psychological dysfunction.”
This statement is absurd on its face. Hardly any social scientists would endorse such a notion. Years of research, for example, show no significant difference in emotional and cognitive development between children of mothers who work and those who stay at home.
A major study in 2000 of a representative sample of 1,000 kids from third through 12th grades by Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute found that children gave their working parents high grades on a range of parenting skills. Importantly, the kids’ views of their mothers did not differ, whether their mothers were employed or stayed at home.
Schlessinger often uses atypical scare stories about what happens when women work. For example, to illustrate her belief that dads can’t care for kids, she tells the tale of a father who forgets to drop his toddler off at child care and leaves her in his car all day. (Never mind the reams of research showing that men can provide excellent care for children.)
To push her theory that all day care harms children, Schlessinger cites a news story about a child care center where an infant died. (No data confirms that good child care harms children. In fact, kids in high quality day care are safe and healthy and score well on cognitive skills.)
Setting up outdated models of the “ideal” family and offering advice more suited to the 1950s than to the present is, according to the Colorado researchers, “irrelevant at best and harmful at worst.”
If parents read Dr. Laura’s books, listen to her advice and take her stereotyped messages to heart, they may inadvertently harm their kids. Major studies have shown that when parents endorse gender stereotypes their children may become straitjacketed in their notions of what boys and girls are supposed to be like.
Dr. Laura’s departure from radio, may, in fact, be a boon to the health of us all.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The ultimate lesson of Mr. Beck’s rally yesterday is you cannot say things like “I think the president is a racist,” and then say “I stand by that,” then present yourself as someone who will “restore America.” It offers a surreal reality that makes people feel like they’re in the political twilight zone. At least that’s how I felt.
This type of hate speech directed at the first African American president in United States history is nothing Martin Luther King, Jr. would “commend,” using the word Dr. King’s niece did yesterday, speaking at Beck’s rally. At least not before he received a retraction from the hater who uttered the words.
King’s niece, anti-abortion activist Alveda King, was one of many minority speakers and awardees, a group that also included St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, a native of the Dominican Republic, who received an award for promoting hope. Like Beck, Alveda King linked the rally to her uncle’s speech. “If Uncle Martin were here today, he would surely commend us for giving honor where honor is due,” she said. [...] – Glenn Beck calls for national revival
ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and Tahman Bradley spoke with Sarah Palin backstage:
Bradley: How do you think Dr. King would feel about this rally?
Palin: I hope that Dr. King would be so proud of us, as his niece Dr. Alveda King is very proud as a participant in this rally. This is sacred ground where we feel his spirit and can appreciate all of his efforts. He who so believed in equality and may we live up to his challenge.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have told Sarah Palin to repent and retract her “Don’t retreat — reload.” Dr. King a man whose message relied on the power of words to lift people up out of despair, never trading in Palin’s type of militaristic machismo to prove strength. That Mrs. Palin ignores this biographical and historical fact of King is part of the weird alternate reality that was presented yesterday.
Likewise, if you can forget Glenn Beck’s hate speech history, this shared reality Palin, Glenn Beck and the rally conjured up was indeed inspiring. However, knowing the rhetoric he utilizes daily, along with Palin, I simply sensed the intense degree of desperation from the people attending, individuals so hungry to hear someone, anyone, say something that represents their feelings they’ll gladly take Glenn Beck, even if he’s someone who only walks the walk he talked yesterday, this one day out of his life.
Every single person I talked to said the Congress and federal government is guilty of “runaway spending,” the mantra, with others also talking about a “government takeover.” The frustration with Congress not doing the will of the people was another constant theme. The message discipline and focus was impressive and heartfelt, with no race-baiting, hating signs in my vicinity or on the long path I walked, though it was far too crowded to possibly hit all spots. It was, however, very white.
If there’s one unifying disconnect so many feel, shared by people way beyond Washington, D.C. it’s this: Who will speak for me? Yesterday it was Glenn Beck, helped by many others, including Sarah Palin, and even Dr. King’s niece, in front of a crowd of purposeful people hoping it all amounted to a statement that Pres. Obama and Congress will hear.
In front of multiple tens of thousands, estimates ranging from 100,000 and beyond, Glenn Beck began by saying the “Restoring America” rally had “nothing to do with politics, everything to do with God.” Giving the gentlest interpretation of what he meant, Beck could have stretched his message to a non-partisan rally, but I can’t even buy that, because politics was very much in play, the only people God speaking on stage, though He/She did provide good cover.
One Vietnam veteran walking with the help of a rolling wheelchair and wearing a full upper body brace (he’d broken his back), walking with his wife, inspired me to ask what brought him out amidst such crowds and with such a tough time to maneuver. He said that things yesterday are so bad he had to come, “This is not how our country was intended.” His wife chimed in to say they came “from the other Washington.” I asked his political affiliation, with his wife saying “Independent!” When I prodded the veteran on if their coming to the event was about being anti Obama I got something totally unexpected. He said, “No, I voted for Clinton. He was conservative and ended up with a budget surplus.” We talked about the genesis of the Tea Party, and they both agreed that it started under George W. Bush, “but we’re getting a late start,” said the veteran.
From early morning people started streaming into Washington, D.C., stopping traffic, a people parade over the Memorial Bridge, taxis letting people off, police immediately on them to move, with crowds emerging from the metro as well. I didn’t get to hear Sarah Palin, but did hear Glenn Beck, which was the goal. Mr. Beck has to be impressed and moved with what he saw as he became the megaphone for the multitude.
It’s very sad to see Bob Herbert get so upset about Glenn Beck’s rally. It gives Mr. Beck a space that he hasn’t earned, bringing Dr. King down to Beck’s level for comparison, which is not only inappropriate, but truly silly to even expend the energy. Not giving Beck at least credit for the crowd is at least uncharitable, because credit is due, with it making Dr. King no worse for this truth. Perhaps it’s Mr. Herbert who needs to “chill, baby, chill,” because the only way Beck can share ground with Dr. King is if we allow it, which Herbert does by going to such lengths to refudiate Beck’s rally. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a giant among American heroes who has no equal, certainly no one yesterday came close, regardless of choosing a day that is enshrined in American history, which Mr. Herbert understandably cherishes, as do we all.
But as time marches on no patriot or person owns a calendar day. Real American heroes live beyond a moment, our memories and the manifestations of their dreams how they live on.
Besides, considering Mr. Beck had Dr. King’s niece, abortion rights opponent Alveda King at the rally, it’s not like Beck is ignoring Dr. King, praying for linkage on this one day when Beck is on his best behavior.
Never fear, because Beck’s hate speech will return on Monday.
Taylor Marsh is a political analyst and national political writer out of Washington, D.C.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

photo by Karl Grobl
The mess we made with our wealth
We spend and borrow, ignoring tomorrow. Somehow, that became the American way. We max out credit cards and take out new loans to pay off old ones. And three years into the worst economic crisis the U.S. has seen in a century, our fiscal gurus recommend to keep doing more of the same: Jeffrey Sachs, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner all hail the counterintuitive strategy of racking up more national debt in subsequent stimulus plans (i.e., borrow even more against the future) to bail out our budget today.
What happened to the America in which I grew up, where the adults around me in Ohio worked hard at the same job for decades, lived modestly until they’d saved for big purchases, and retired comfortably with a gold watch while they still had their wits and golf skills intact? What happened to the land of the free, where one could work hard to achieve any dream?
Ancient system revised for the 21st century
Having just returned this summer from visiting remote rural villages in Mali, West Africa, I have to say that I learned more from the locals about cash management than dire poverty. Traveling with U.S.-based nonprofit Freedom from Hunger, I saw firsthand the ways in which villagers combine entrepreneurial zeal with community support to get ahead.
Mind you, for this population living on an average $1.25/day (according to the World Bank, which measures U.S. per capita as an average $128/day), “getting ahead” means being able actually to feed the family three meals a day, and to purchase malaria medication during the relentless rainy mosquito season.
Rural women in Mali use a financial system based on an ancient indigenous tradition called tontines or merry-go-rounds, with a few key 21st-century improvements. They create formal groups of 20-30 members who commit to saving money (e.g., $1/week) and vote on group rules for attendance and fees. The pot of saved money gets split into big-chunk loans enabling members to purchase inventory for their businesses (e.g., goods to sell in the market) or make investments in their families (school fees, health care, weddings and funerals). Interest charged on loans creates the interest paid on savings; each member chooses how much she wants to/can save. An advanced group in Dio Gar Village collected about $1,000 during the meeting we witnessed. All that money then got redistributed among members in business loans and savings interest, and at the end of the hour, the box sat empty again. . . until next week.
Most groups agree upon a “social mission” for their community, like gathering one Saturday per month to clean out the village health center, or working as a team to recruit more savings members. Some profits go toward luxuries we take for granted, such as hiring teachers for their local schools or bringing in adult educators to teach them business management.
Freedom from Hunger, based in California, has a subsidiary office in Mali staffed by West Africans who work with small local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to take the savings group model to scale. Known for its expertise in designing education for very poor, often illiterate women, Freedom from Hunger brings two unique add-ons to the savings process: First, they train local field agents to run classes in health, financial, and business training. Second, they’ve initiated a volunteer “replicator” program so villagers can learn to launch even more groups on their own.
No one’s getting rich yet. So far, the women we talked with just want to help other families get ahead of chronic hunger. One replicator named Bako Diarra, in Wrkla Village, told us that in appreciation of her volunteer leadership, local women sometimes help pick her vegetable (soumbala) crop at harvest time. She felt that when the others clapped for her at savings meetings, that was plenty of payback: “I feel happy and proud,” she said, “and I become more courageous and strong” through leadership.
Banking inside a little blue box
For some reason no one could tell me, all the “banks”–metal boxes about the size of a tackle box–are painted blue. There are up to three small padlocks on the box. Three different women carry those keys, and a fourth hides the box someplace safe in her home. The box gets opened only during public meetings, and the money is counted by the group’s treasurer in full view of twenty pairs of hawk-eyes. The circle has a precise seating placement, for each member keeps track of her own finances plus that of the woman to her right. Some groups employ common objects to symbolize financial transactions: e.g., you put your flip-flop in the center of the circle to show you are requesting a loan this week, or you put four small sticks inside the blue bank-box to represent the four future weeks in which you will make payments on that loan.
Some circles keep written ledgers. But in most of West Africa, members keep all accounting in their heads. They may not have had the chance to learn letters and numbers yet, but they know down to the penny how much Aminata put into the pot last month, and how much the group will gain in late fees from Makona and Massitan showing up late to today’s meeting.
What we learn by observing rather than serving people in poor communities has begun to shift how economists calculate financial realities in the developing world. Portfolios of the Poor (Princeton, 2009) aptly demonstrates with long-term, in-depth financial diaries, that we have no idea how complex it gets trying to feed a family on an unpredictable, tiny income–or how inventive poor families are in saving and borrowing to get by.
Granted, savings circles have a long way to grow. Members may wish to accrue larger sums than a cash-only system can sustain. They may seek access to conventional bank accounts or mobile-phone cash management, to save for their old age or to move money around via village-to-city remittance payments to help their kids get established in college or jobs. Villagers clamor for capital equipment such as motorized wells and mills to increase their efficiency. They strive to move up from the daily grind for subsistence into dynamic strategies for income and asset building.
Given that the women we met in rural West Africa have, as yet, no access to electricity, plumbing, cell phones, or the Internet, it should be surprising how enterprising and ambitious they are. 46-year-old Massitan, who tills rice in Niaro Village, says that “paying my loans on time keeps me alive.” Onion farmer Alimata tells us, “We have a competition among us to see who can work the hardest with her loan. We work all night sometimes. Our men and children work hard too.” Bintou, her neighbor in Louta Goura Village, declares that “school fees are the most important issue” to everyone here. Since the launch of modern savings circles in Mali in 2005, Freedom from Hunger has tracked total members’ savings at over $7.5 million.
What the poor can teach us about progress
Maybe this seems like a world away from my longing for a new pair of shoes or vacation in Hawaii. But what I realized as I sat around the savings circles was that these mothers have more in common with me than not. We want health, peace, and prosperity for our families first, and ourselves second–not because it’s noble, but because that’s just the way mothers think. We want food and pretty clothes, and we never stop lusting after learning.
Many of the women we met extended invitations for us to come back to Africa again next year and check on their progress. They know they have the discipline to get ahead, one dollar and one harvest at a time. Several sighed when they said, “If only we could come and visit you in the United States someday.”
If they could send a delegation, African women could teach us how to manage our money among our own families and communities. That could reawaken us to the possibility of what we can do on our own–without big banks, one person, one village at a time. We could return to the roots of what really works in capitalism and rediscover how far our dreams can take us when combined with hard work and persistent patience. Maybe the time has come for us Americans to take a humble look elsewhere in the world for lessons on how to live.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

After his colossal “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C., Glenn Beck took aim at one of his favorite targets, Barack Obama, but in a novel way. Beck regrets saying a few months ago that President Obama was a “racist.” What he should have said, he now realizes, was that he didn’t agree with Obama’s “theology.” And what is Obama’s theology, according to Beck? Liberation theology.
Here’s Beck’s definition of the arcane area of study known as liberation theology:
As Ronald Reagan used to say, “There you go again.” A few months ago, Beck decided to demolish the idea of “social justice,” by telling Christians that if their priests, pastors or ministers use that buzz word on Sundays they should leave their churches. As he may or may not have known, the tenets of “social justice” encourage one not only to help the poor, but also address the conditions that keep them poor. He called that “communist.”
That approach didn’t work out that well for Beck since so many Christian denominations these days, particularly the Catholic Church, espouse social justice explicitly. So he backed off. But liberation theology? Really?
A little history: Liberation theology began in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s, and was later developed more systematically by Catholic theologians who reflected on experiences of the poor there. The term was coined by the Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian priest, in his landmark book A Theology of Liberation, published in 1971. Briefly put, liberation theology (there are many definitions, by the way) is a Gospel-based critique of the world through the eyes of the poor. Contrary to what Beck implies, the liberation theologian doesn’t see himself or herself as victim; rather proponents call us to see how the poor are marginalized by society, to work among them, to advocate on their behalf, and to help them advocate for themselves. It has nothing to do with seeing yourself as victim. It is, like all authentic Christian practices, “other-directed.”
It also sees the figure of Jesus Christ as the “liberator,” who frees people from bondage and slavery of all kinds. So, as he does in the Gospels, Christ not only frees people from sin and illness, Christ also desires to free our fellow human beings from the social structures that keep them impoverished. This is this kind of “liberation” that is held out. Liberation theologians meditate on Gospel stories that show Christ upending the social structures of the day, in order to bring more–uh oh–social justice into the world. Christians are also asked to make, as the saying goes, a “preferential option for the poor.”
It’s not hard to see what Beck has against “liberation theology.” It’s the same reason people are often against “social justice.” Both ideas ask us to consider the plight of the poor. And that’s disturbing. Some liberation theologians even consider the poor to be privileged carriers of God’s grace. In his book The True Church and the Poor, Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit theologian wrote, “The poor are accepted as constituting the primary recipients of the Good News and, therefore, as having an inherent capacity of understanding it better than anyone else.” That’s pretty threatening for any comfortable Christian. For not only do we have to help the poor, not only do we have to advocate on their behalf, we also have to see them as perhaps understanding God better than we do.
But that’s not a new idea: It goes back to Jesus. The poor, the sick and the outcast “got” him better than the wealthy did. Perhaps because there was less standing between the poor and God. Less stuff. Maybe that’s why Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “If you wish to be perfect, sell all you have, and you will have treasure in heaven, and follow me.” Like I said, pretty disturbing, then and now. It’s hardly “the opposite of the Gospel,” as Beck said. The opposite of the Gospel would be to acquire wealth and fail to work on behalf of the poor.
In its heyday, liberation theology was not without controversy: some thought its emphasis on political advocacy skirted too close to Marxism–including Pope John Paul II. On the other hand, John Paul didn’t shy away from personally involving himself in direct political activism in Poland. It was the Latin American version of social action that seemed to bother him more. But even John Paul affirmed the notion of “preferential option for the poor.” “When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the defenseless and the poor have a claim to special consideration,” he wrote, in his great encyclical Centesimus Annus, which celebrating 100 years of–uh oh–Catholic social teaching.
Liberation theology is easy to be against. For one thing, most people don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. It’s also easier to ignore the concerns of the poor, particularly overseas, than it is to actually get to know them as individuals who make a claim on us. There are also plenty of overheated websites that facilely link it to Marxism. My response to that last critique is to read the Gospels and count how many times Jesus tells us that we should help the poor and even be poor. In the Gospel of Matthew, he tells us that the ones who will enter the Kingdom of heaven are those who help “the least of my brothers and sisters,” i.e., the poor. After that, read the Acts of the Apostles, especially the part about the apostles “sharing everything in common.” Then let me know if helping the poor is communist or simply Christian.
I have no idea if President Obama espouses liberation theology. But I do. And for me it’s personal. Between 1992 and 1994, I worked with East African refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, and participated in Catholic parishes who tried to help poor parishioners (i.e., all of them) reflect on their daily struggles through lens of the Gospel. And the Gospel passages that spoke of liberation for the poor were a lifeline to me and to those with whom I worked. Oh, and it’s not only Jesus. His mother had something to say about all that, too. “He has filled the hungry with good things,” says Mary in the Gospel of Luke, “and sent the rich away empty.”
Liberation theology has also animated some of the great Christian witnesses of our time. Several of my brother Jesuits (and their companions), some of whom wrote and taught liberation theology, were assassinated at the University of Central America in 1989 by Salvadoran death squads, precisely for their work with the poor, as Jesus had encouraged them to do. Archbishop Oscar Romero, the redoubtable archbishop of San Salvador who was martyred in 1980 after standing for the marginalized, also heard the call of Christ the Liberator. So did the four courageous Catholic churchwomen who were martyred that same year for their work in El Salvador.
These are my heroes. These are the ones who truly “restore honor.”
It’s hard to ignore the fact that Jesus chose to be born poor; he worked as what many scholars now say was not simply a carpenter, but what could be called a day laborer; he spent his days and nights with the poor; he and his disciples lived with few if any possessions; he advocated tirelessly for the poor in a time when poverty was considered to be a curse; he consistently placed the poor in his parables over and above the rich; and he died an utterly poor man, with only a single seamless garment to his name. Jesus lived and died as a poor man. Why is this so hard for modern-day Christians to see? Liberation theology is not Marxism disguised as religion. It is Christianity presented in all its disturbing fullness.
Glenn Beck’s opposition to “social justice” and “liberation theology” is all the more difficult to understand because of his cloaking of himself in the mantle of devout believer. “Look to God and make your choice,” he said during his rally on Sunday.
If he looked at Jesus more carefully he would see someone who already made a choice: for the poor.
James Martin is a Jesuit priest, culture editor of America magazine, and author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. This essay is adapted from a post on America’s In All Things

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Broadway shows use a common technique to have the narrator speak directly to the audience to provide both his motivation and necessary background information. In many cases, including in Fela!, it’s done in such a way to make the theater’s audience a part of the show. While telling the story of the Nigerian musician, the protagonist of the show pretends that we were in his audience at the Afrika Shrine, where he held court. What this allowed was a chance for him to relate to us in such a way that we felt we were inside the story, instead of mere onlookers.
What sets this performance apart from others that feign everything from rock concerts to sit-ins in order to incorporate the theater and audience into the overall ambiance is how much Fela! relies on its narrator to become our leader, our beacon of hope, and our hero for the night. It’s so effective because the play calls on its actors who share the lead role – Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo – to narrate pretty much the entire show and thereby escort us on a journey back to the era in focus. Few other characters in the robust cast of dancers deliver lines; and when they do, “Fela” quickly turns up again to join the song and dance and recapture his spot at the forefront of the play.
After all, it’s his story to tell. Still, it’s rare to see one character so prominently shine ahead of all other members of the cast. But that’s what makes Fela! so powerful – the main character not only details his own story through words, but his singing and dancing give you a real sense of how his performances could inspire packs of people. The line between Fela the historical icon and Fela the present performer is blurred throughout the story. A series of flashbacks complete with choreographed dance sequences contribute to the back story while managing to keep the audience attuned to the protagonist’s ongoing developments and revelations. The play spans decades’ worth of events and memories in a tightly-packaged and well-conceived narrative.
This play succeeds thanks to Ngaujah’s and Mambo’s abilities to make “Fela” so likable. They don’t just demonstrate masterful storytelling methods, they make the story truly come alive thanks to careful facial impressions and vivid body language, including how they both frequently move to the front of the stage to acknowledge and bring in members of the first rows of the audience. You get a strong sense of who Fela was, why so many people supported him and his music, and the kind of optimism he imbued in an African national facing turmoil and drama. Yet, as we sit inside the Shrine, we’re entertained and taught to ignore the mayhem that is taking place outside the locked doors.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

“We are not going to sit idly by and watch you dismantle our environmental achievements…which are also economic achievements,” says Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents over 300 of the valley’s major companies (including HP, Google and IBM).
In this exclusive Fresh Dialogues interview, we examine the controversial proposal to overturn AB 32, California’s landmark climate change legislation.
Here’s a recap of the issue:
AB 32 is the Golden State’s attempt to cap carbon emissions to 1990 levels by introducing a version of a cap-and-trade carbon tax, which would hit polluters, power plants, refineries and cement manufacturers hard.
What is Proposition 23?
Supporters call it “The California Jobs Initiative,” and point to the high cost and potential job losses of implementing AB 32; but Proposition 23′s main impact would be to suspend (and effectively repeal) the provisions of AB 32.
And here’s how Guardino describes it:
“A veiled attempt to dismantle California’s environmental achievements.
Watch the Fresh Dialogues video:
In turn, AB 32 supporters have launched a Stop Dirty Energy Prop Campaign to thwart the proposition.
Who is behind it?
Two Texas-based oil companies, Valero Energy Corporation and Tesoro Corporation, provided the initial funding to launch the Prop 23 campaign. Valero donated over $4 Million to the cause.
Guardino’s argument
“This is an economic engine not a caboose and we’re not going to let folks ruin the engine that continues to fuel the renewable energy, clean green economy. It’s not only good for our environment – and it’s critical – it’s also good for our economy and jobs; and we’ve proved that through innovation of products, processes and what we do with our people every day in Silicon Valley.”
Last month the Union of Concerned Scientists signed an open letter in support of AB 32, stating, that the measure stimulates innovation and efficiency and help the state become the global leader in technological innovation in the sector.
Who is winning?
As of today, Proposition 23 is way ahead in the (albeit unofficial) social media popularity index with over 4,500 Facebook “likes” for California Jobs Initiative compared to just under 3,000 “likes” for Stop Dirty Energy.
Although AB 32 has an impressive list of supporters, from business organization, healthcare, and the clean tech industry (obviously); Prop 23 has some deep pocketed supporters (largely from the oil industry) who aim to dominate the debate.
It seems that in light of the economic slump, the urgency of taking action to combat global warming has been lost. California is the canary in the coal mine…and the CO2 is building up fast.
Follow Fresh Dialogues on Twitter.
Check out more exclusive interviews on AB 32 and Climate Change at the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Not only did the visual media fall-in-line with Glenn Beck’s co-opting of Martin Luther King’s “Dream” speech and rally at the Washington Monument, it produced this gorgeous, yet radically paradoxical photo erasing how much the Tea Party is not just overwhelmingly white, and also a pro-White mission.
If Glenn Beck had tried with the best PR minds to create an image for this event that transferred to the Tea Party King’s: “… dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he couldn’t have come up with anything better — given the way this innocent, dark-skinned girl with the heart sticker and American flag casts her eyes (as might be presumed by the caption) up to Mr. Beck, himself.
(caption: Pashai Oway, 6, of Arlington, Va. , holds an American flag while attending the the “Restoring Honor” rally, organized by Glenn Beck, in Washington, on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. photo: Jacquelyn Martin/A.P.)
See also: A 2nd Reason Glenn Luther King Hit it Out of the Park in DC – They Left the Signs at Home.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Share this page Obama hails New Orleans spirit on Katrina anniversary President Barack Obama has paid tribute to the people of New Orleans, five years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed large parts of the city.
His administration would stand by them and continue rebuilding “until the job is done”, Mr Obama said.
Katrina was a natural disaster but also a man-made one, he said, which saw a “shameful breakdown” of government.
More than 1,800 people died when Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005.

Okay, this is a really big deal for two reasons.
Getting your medical records from doctor to doctor is really important. If you’re a vet, this makes it really easy:
The MyHealtheVet Personal Health Record (PHR) is comprised of self-entered health metrics (blood pressure, weight, heart rate, etc.), emergency contact information, test results, family health history, military health history, and other health related information. The Blue Button extract that Veterans can download is a so-called “ASCII text file”, the easiest and simplest electronic text format (see a sample Blue Button file).
Blue Button PHRs can be printed, or saved on computers and portable storage devices. Having control of this information enables Veterans to share this data with health care providers, caregivers, or people they trust.
Also, really big: this effort represents another step toward a more effective Veterans Affairs operation, which better serves their customers, and which learns from the private sector to return better value for the taxpayer dollar. This is happening all over Washington, with VA,yes VA, helping to blaze a new trail.

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The author at work.
Arf! Man’s best friend, here, with some advice on dog ownership. Okay, I’ll admit I’m a bit nervous, as this is my first essay, though I’ve dabbled in limmericks and knock-knock jokes. But I think this is important information, so it’s kind of a public service. Besides, I was bribed with some leftover chicken, and for leftover chicken, I’d sell my mother–hell, I’d sell your mother.
Anyway, I’ll keep it short, because I realize humans are busy. You should know, however, that dogs are busy, too. So many butts to sniff, so little time. And we dogs don’t live as long as you humans, so we like to make the most of every moment. Granted, most moments we’re either sleeping in the sunlight or licking ourselves. But if you could get away with that for the bulk of your daily schedule, wouldn’t you? That’s what I thought.
I believe it was Rin-Tin-Tin who once said, “Bark and the world barks with you; howl and you howl alone.” Although I haven’t the foggiest idea what he meant, it sounds impressive and I wanted to start out with a classy quote. It was a toss-up between that, and Old Yeller’s “Let he who is without mange, chew the first bone.”
The first question a prospective dog owner needs to ask is, “Am I really willing to do what it takes to be a good dog owner?” And by “do what it takes,” I mean, of course, letting your dog run free, feeding him expensive cuts of meat, and making sure he has easy access to female dogs who’ve not yet been fixed. Ah, memories… But I digress.
Once you’ve made the decision to become a dog owner, the most important thing to remember is that dogs and humans are very much alike. And I’m not just talking about people who look like dogs–although they have always been a great source of amusement to us. Especially Broderick Crawford and Winston Churchill. But I digress.
I mean our hopes and fears and desires are the same. We all want and need food. Sure, when you humans run out of food, you go to the store and get more, rather than start gnawing on part of your house, but the desire is the same. And, to be fair, one of my friends once saw Rosie O’Donnell gnawing on one of her shutters.
We also get lonely, just like you do. You cope with it by going out and having a meaningless string of affairs to validate your sexuality and keep death at bay. We cope with it by doing a lot of whining and some more gnawing on part of the house. Especially that one bottom wood slat, which by now is getting really tender from marinating in drool all day. Yum.
And, please, when we’re lonely, play with us. Don’t assume that just because you leave us inside with the TV turned on, we’ll be okay. We get tired of watching daytime talk shows, too. Especially the one that dealt with Bullimic Drill Instructors And The Mothers Who Still Love Them. Oh, please!
Speaking of playing with us, we love doing tricks. But how about some variety? I mean sitting, rolling over, and fetching a stick can be amusing–to Forrest Gump, maybe. But after about eight minutes of it, we invariably begin rubbing our butts against the nearest fence, just to relieve the boredom–an activity, which, by the way, I recommend in and of itself as a superb tension-reliever. Think of it as Canine Yoga.
The point, here, is–give us some challenging tricks. We can follow instructions longer than one word. So instead of telling us “Fetch!”, tell us “Dig up that tomato plant, chew it up beyond recognition, and scatter it throughout the yard!” Trust me, we’re up for the challenge. I’ve done it many, many times.
Which brings us to my next point, and it’s a biggie: Never hit us. We don’t like it. Okay, most of us don’t like it. I do know one Schnauzer who does like being whacked and insulted in German while she wears a halter top and three-inch heels, but she has a number of other emotional problems she’s currently working through in Freudian Canine Therapy.
One of the things we like the most is the privilege of being able to sleep on the floor in your bedroom with you. This allows us to giggle at the sight of humans having sex, (an endless source of amusement) and to enjoy an extended period of time with your scent. Most of you do smell pretty good. But for those of you who don’t, here’s a news flash–it’s called a shower. Eau de Roadkill is not our favorite fragrance.
Well, I hope this has been helpful. I’d like to spend one day as a human, to get a better fix on your perspective. If I could, I’d spend it as Joe Pesci. Why? I just like his style, and he reminds me of this Beagle I knew in Bakersfield. Besides, he’s little and people respect him. I can relate to that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a part of the house that’s been marinating all day in drool, and it’s got my name on it. See ya.

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As the curtain rises on this week’s show, we find that most if not all of the remaining designers are still not feeling Michael Costello’s win last week. Christopher states unequivocally that Michael C’s skills are “not in line with the rest of us.” Meanwhile April and Peach have formed a sort of Survivor-style alliance which, I have to admit, is touching since in real life, would these two even look at each other on the street? Ah, Reality TV – breaker down of age and culture barriers!
It’s a team challenge broken down into two teams which shake out predictably. Michael C, being last week’s winner, gets to choose first and picks Gretchen for his team (I guess he did get a swelled head last week from the win; otherwise what in the Sam Hill was he thinking? Us winners have to stick together? But Michael C – it’s Gretchen!!!). The rest of the team members are chosen schoolyard-style by each person picking the next. Michael C and Gretchen’s team is rounded out by Christopher, Andy, Ivy, and A.J. The other team is April, Mondo, Michael D, Valerie, Casanova, and Peach. Michael C’s feeling good about his team (who have 4 wins between them to the other team’s zero wins) because they are “the best of the best.” Yes, but you have Gretchen, you idiot – a sure sign that someone’s going to be done very wrong – since her advice throughout the season thus far has dashed many a dream.
Back at the workroom, Uncle Tim explains that each team is to create a six-piece collection that follows the emerging trends of Fall 2010. They will each choose from two inspirations, one concept, and one textile. The budget for the collection will be a whopping $1K. Garnier’s Peter Butler will consult with them on the hairstyles for their looks.
Tim encourages them to use their HP Touchsmart notebooks during their one-hour sketch period before going to shop at Mood. Gretchen immediately takes over what will become Team Luxe. She wants their menswear for women look to be tailored and clean because the other team has (her words) “koo-koo drama.” She gushes, “you guys, I’m so proud of us, we’re working so well together it’s blowing my mind” (by which she really means they’re all listening to her and doing what she says). “We don’t have time for that right now,” Ivy hits back, but she’s actually fallen into line as Gretchen’s aide-de-camp. I guess she’s finally realized it’s not The Ivy Show, but she could be a co-star on The Gretchen Show.
The other team huddles around a table and comes up with a military theme for their collection augmented by lace. Everyone plays well together. Casanova likes military and loves lace – he “feels like a fish in the water.” There’s a touchy moment when Peach feels like no one’s listening to her but it’s quickly repaired and they’re all happy families. Their official name is Team Military & Lace.
Apropos of nothing: A brief cameo from Mood’s store dog, Swatch.
Team Gretchen – I mean Luxe – is a complete disaster out of the gate and I start allowing myself to envision that these sanctimonious winner-types might find themselves actually losing for once. Gretchen’s ideas are fueling their creative process (except for Michael C who has finally seen the handwriting on the wall – albeit too late): winter shorts, grandpa sweaters, leggings with camel panels. The whole thing will eventually look like a 1970′s Ivy League fashion spread. Christopher’s taken on the role of Gretchen’s consigliere, advising her on what’s going on with other team members. They all decide early on that Michael C is the weakest link and I so wish Anne Robinson would make an appearance to give him the news – and btw sorry, MC, but you deserve it because no one in their right mind would consciously pick Gretchen for their team. Ivy gets all schoolteacherish on him and he leaves in a huff. “Michael C is a total time suck, he doesn’t know how to sew,” says Gretchen.
The other team, let’s call them the Underdogs since they are, are steamrolling along. Everyone has their assignment and they are working well together as a team. When it comes time for their Garnier hair consult with Peter Butler, April and Valerie advise the stylists to keep it simple, but messy, “because you always get messy in battle.” This team’s working hard and smart because they all know what failure is like whereas the other team is all we-have-it-in-the-bag. This is evidenced further by Gretchen and Andy’s hair consult where they decide that they’re going for a modern approach to Hollywood glam. The model looks like Lauren Bacall. “Wow,” says Gretchen, “and….we’re gonna win!” I just know I would’ve hated this beeyotch in high school.
Tim Time – he consults with each team as a group, starting with the Underdogs. He’s a little cautionary over the use of lace, warning that it “can look old very easily.” (Cut to Michael C sniping from across the room “I notice that they’re going for some bordello trashy look”) Casanova is scared because Tim always comes down on him with a rough critique and today’s no exception: “I’m going to be blunt. Casanova, your look is looking like the mother of these women. It needs to be youthened up.” Casanova’s crushed and swans off to lie down on the couch and have a big old sulk. His fellow teamies Michael D, Ivy and Peach can’t rouse him and finally Peach gets all mom-like telling him to have a good rest and “we love you.”
Here’s where I have to show you the shoes Casanova is wearing in the workroom.
Tim visits with Team Gretchen and Miss G explains that they’re all doing about three pieces each but she feels like she is in every piece even though she’s not the one sewing. (Remember this statement later, everyone.) Tim allows as how they are all ambitious about how much they’re planning to do but he feels a responsibility to tell them that he met with the other team “and by comparison this is looking very ho-hum.” From Tim this is the worst thing ever, it’s up there with senior citizen garments.
The models enter the room for their fittings and Casanova is still out in the lounge on the couch feeling sorry for himself. He calls his Aunt Lucy and tells her in Spanish he’s tired of this shit, which is helpfully translated in the lower third. It’s only when his model comes out to give him a pep talk and tell him not to let what others say get to him that he realizes that perhaps he is being too sensitive and returns to the workroom. Meanwhile, it’s clear on Team Gretchen that both A.J. and Michael C are dragging the team down. A.J. doesn’t have anything ready for his model to try on. Michael C doesn’t seem to have done anything but a cowl blouse that has to be completely re-styled by his teammates. The fact that he has immunity from winning last week’s challenge has most of them apoplectic with rage as they feel – and have expressed to his face – that he’s not going to even try to help the team win.
And the Brother Sewing clock ticks on.
The morning of the runway show, Gretchen wakes up at 4am and makes a to-do list for their team (oh, how I wish we had been able to see said list!). Their team is so far behind the eight ball it’s frightening. Some of their models actually help pitch in to them finish sewing the garments. As the group heads off to the runway, their team feels quite confident of the win. (One of the show’s best lines must go to Michael D, who is on the competing team: “They have a sweater called the Grandpa Sweater! What the f—!”)
The guest judge today is Georgina Chapman, actress and fashion designer/co-founder of Marchesa. The first team up is the Underdogs. G thinks her team has it because she doesn’t think the Underdogs’ work holds together as a collection though she likes them individually. It’s an unfortunate choice to have Team G’s show begin with A.J.’s weird shirtdress with the two tone leggings. The best thing on these models is their hairstyles, which are the only luxe thing about the collection. The winning team turns out to be Military & Lace (the Underdogs). Group hug!
The losing team heads backstage into the dishing area in total shock. Ivy says their collection was a lot more cohesive and it told a story (and the story was 1976 Ivy League Co-Eds). Gretchen opines that the collection doesn’t look like any of their work, and that’s a Project Runway first, as if that’s a good thing. They decide as a group to stand together and not blame any one person. A.J. presciently says he hopes G won’t flip a switch to which G responds, “that’s not my style.” Vraiment?
And just so you see wazzup…
TEAM MILITARY & LACE
Casanova
Mondo
April
Michael D
Peach
Valerie
TEAM LUXE
A.J.
Andy
Ivy
Christopher
Michael C
Gretchen
The judges are oohing and aahing over the Underdogs. Young, fun, hip, modern, edgy – says La Klum. She absolutely loves Casanova’s outfit – “it’s super-chic, it’s hot, I want to be that girl!” MK singles Casanova and Peach out for special praise. When asked who they think should be the winner, they pick Casanova, and Casanova nobly picks Peach because the top of her outfit is so well made. (Let’s look in our crystal ball ahead to the future where Casanova and Peach join forces and start a clothing design company on the Lower East Side called Casa Peach and Peach gets a buzz cut and tatts and stops wearing black capris. Hey, it could happen!)
Team G heads out for the losing team critique. G is the spokesperson and starts out by saying that they all collaborated, “we worked really hard” (sniff sniff). When she starts to cry the others start too, even Michael C. She declines to name names: “We worked really hard and I don’t think there was a weak link.” Ivy chimes in: “It’s like having a baby and someone says it’s ugly. I think it’s beautiful.” G makes an impassioned plea that the judges please be mindful of who they want to see more from because we think that’s the fairest way for you to choose “because we’re not going to choose. We stand united.” At this point Michael C takes her hand, Christopher and A.J. stand arm in arm, and Gretchen puts her arm around Ivy.
MK says the team effort is commendable but it probably took some of them down a notch and raised others up a notch, ending up with “vanilla boring.” Nina points out that almost every outfit in the collection has a proportion problem, plus no sex appeal and no design. “The colors are,” she pauses to look for the right word, “ghastly.” The judges are honestly appalled at the name Team Luxe since it’s the furthest thing from luxe they can imagine. Ivy’s look is singled out as the worst. MK gasps: “The Golden Girl vest!” Nina chimes in, “The vest with those granny shorts!” Next worst is A.J., whose outfit Heidi says is “a little bit air hostess” with “horseback riding pants.” A.J. defends himself weakly by saying he wanted to show he could do a more tailored piece, not like his crazy outfits in the past.
And then, in perhaps the quickest turnaround ever seen on Project Runway, Gretchen completely backpedals from her earlier staunch belief in the collection and the team and goes all Judas Iscariot on everyone, saying, “We very late in the game realized that Grandma had arrived.” She admits that she styled everything, “I also feel like I had to style maybe a crappy collection – I was trying to save it.” Heidi is confused, “What do you mean you’re trying to save it? Before you loved it!” And then the fun really begins as it dawns on Gretchen that by taking responsibility for everything, she could very well go home (“I don’t want to go home, it’s not my time”) and she throws Michael C squarely under the bus. She whines that she had to spend so much time helping him since his technical skills were the weakest and therefore she had no time to focus on what makes her strong. She says now that everyone sucked, no one was on their game – including her. Her lapdogs Ivy and Christopher agree that Michael C is the weakest link. None of them will name another team member since Michael C has immunity. Off they go to await their fate.
The judges decide to give the win to Casanova, who’s pleasantly surprised and delighted. As for Team G, they’re frankly astounded by Gretchen’s about-face. Heidi says it seems like Gretchen was the leader even though there was no leader. “She had the whip in her hand, she was driving that bus, everyone was too afraid to open their mouth.” G and A.J. end up in the bottom two. Even though the judges say they are only judging on this challenge and not past history, a statement I find very hard to believe, they send A.J. home instead of Gretchen who clearly was responsible for the direction the entire collection took (and admitted it). A.J. did what Gretchen told him to do – and he’s not the first to go home for that mistake. A.J. to camera, “It’s really hard to know that you’re going home for something that doesn’t have a trace of you in it.”
Tim Gunn is incensed and comes in not just to tell A.J. goodbye and to clean up his space, but also to give Team G a piece of his mind – he doesn’t get it. “I fundamentally do not understand your behavior and demeanor and affect on the runway…I don’t know why you allow Gretchen to manipulate, control, and bully you.” He says A.J. took the bullet. They’re all in total shock since this is by no means part of the script. Ivy confides to camera that Tim is “kind of right” and it made them all have “an A-ha moment.” All I can say is, Tim’s my dream man for calling Gretchen out like this. He was before, but doubly so now.
Here is Tim not getting it.
Gretchen tells the camera that her feelings are hurt, claiming she’s not manipulative, she “just wanted to help.” It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out in weeks to come. We’ve clearly turned a corner now on the contestants’ dynamic.
And sew it goes!
Project Runway airs Thursday nights on Lifetime TV at 9pm ET.
See my recap of Episode 4 here
Episode 3 Recap
Episode 1 and 2 Recap

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A mysterious fire last Friday destroys all of the voting machines in Harris County (Houston), Texas. Arson investigators have not yet issued an opinion. Meanwhile, a well-funded right-wing group emerges in Houston and begins raising unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud. A video on their website pictures only people of color when it talks of voter fraud. White people are shown talking patriotically about the need for a million vigilantes to suppress illegal votes.
In the video, an unidentified spokesman for “TrueTheVote” says, “If we lose Houston, we lose Texas. And guess what? If we lose Texas we lose the country.” The former Mayor of Houston, Democrat Bill White, is running against secessionist Republican Gov. Rick Perry this year. White’s counting on a big turnout in his home town. The fire and the voter suppression campaign guarantee a greatly diminished turnout.
TrueTheVote’s video is well produced. Participants speak in calm and knowing tones, disguising the racist agenda behind their project. We don’t yet know where the group’s money comes from. But they have money.
As I’ve said before, right-wing voter suppression campaigns are the most under-reported political scandal of the last 50-100 years. But there’s never been anything like the criminal destruction of all the voting machines in the nation’s fourth largest city. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect the machines in Houston were destroyed by an arsonist. Warehouses don’t regularly and spontaneously combust at four in the morning, especially warehouses containing all the voting tools in a pivotal city in a pivotal election.
In other details, the suppression campaigns follow a familiar pattern: raise suspicions of widespread voter fraud. Accuse “others” of stealing elections from us (read: white people). Threaten would-be voters with criminal charges. Limit polling locations in poor and minority precincts. Distribute spurious “felon lists” that disenfranchise legal voters who happen to share a name with a felon. Staff phone banks that make election calls to minority and poor voters giving incorrect polling locations and dates. Dress up vigilantes in cop clothes to intimidate would-be voters.
Regular Huffington Post contributor Greg Mitchell wrote one of the best accounts of such a suppression and intimidation campaign in his book about the 1934 California governor’s race, The Campaign of the Century. At least since then, voter suppression has been a part of nearly every election cycle.
There are simply no machines available to replace the loss of Houston’s machines. That means either a return to paper ballots (there may be very few scanners to count them) or a greatly reduced number of polling locations. The latter would require the emergency suspension of state law and run afoul of the Voting Rights Act. In any case, confusion will reign, and confusion reduces turnout.
What about that TrueTheVote statement, “If we lose Houston, we lose Texas. And guess what? If we lose Texas we lose the country.”? That may be the only true thing TrueTheVote has said. For much of the country, Texas is a vast right-wing breeding ground. Actually, Democrats have nearly reached parity in the state House of Representatives. All the elected officials in Dallas are Democrats. Austin, too. Most of the judges and many of the officials in Houston are Democrats.
With a strong turnout in Houston, White could very well beat Perry. Without a national effort to counter the largest voter suppression effort in my memory, that turnout won’t happen. Even if the fire is ruled accidental, its consequences remain the same. If a great number of Houston voters are disenfranchised as a consequence of the fire and the right’s election vigilante effort, democracy loses, and so does the country.
Keep in mind that population shifts will hand Texas several new congressional seats lost in the Democratic rustbelt. This election will decide the players who will draw new lines in redistricting. The stakes are high. The question is, do Democrats have the will to do battle with right-wing forces who believe they can choose who votes and who doesn’t.

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Ali Abunimah has a terrific op-ed in the New York Times today on why the upcoming Israeli-Fatah negotiations are doomed to fail.
Actually, the very fact that a piece like this would appear in the Sunday Times is news in itself. Author Abunimah really broke through an iron wall when he got this column in the Times, on Sunday no less. (Abe Foxman is just one of the many Times readers who will spit out their breakfasts).
Abunimah takes on the analogy US mediator George Mitchell makes (and I used to make, I admit) between US sponsored Northern Ireland peace talks which succeeded and these talks which can’t.
The main reason is that the United States supports Israel in its refusal to negotiate with Hamas (its main Palestinian adversary) while it it pushed the British to negotiate with the Irish equivalent of Hamas, the IRA (Sinn Fein).
Another reason is that the United States played honest broker rather than backing the stronger side (the British and their clients, the Irish Protestants). Also, there was no real equivalent of AIPAC which intimidates members of Congress into opposing any real negotiations and into supporting the Israeli hardliners. (It’s as if the United States’ was 100% down with the Protestant Unionists).
Also, the leading Irish politicians like Ted Kennedy were outspoken advocates for negotiating with the IRA. And for peace. (Short hand. The difference between the US role in the two negotiations is the difference between Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer).
Bottom line: this week’s negotiations are probably going nowhere because (1) Hamas is excluded and (2) the United States is in Netanyahu’s pocket.
Abunimah really deserves a medal for spelling this out so sharply and effectively.

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The Reverend Al Sharpton was right when he thundered at his Reclaim the Dream rally that he had the message but talk show exhibitionist Glenn Beck had the mall. The Mall of course was the Lincoln Mall. But Beck owns more than the Mall. He now speaks for the majority of whites in America. White voters made up nearly 80 percent of the 2006 midterm electorate and nearly 75 percent of the 2008 vote. The trends show that white voters vote in even greater numbers than blacks, Hispanics, and Asian voters in midterm elections.
Despite the PT Barnum, con man hype, Beck speaks to the majority’s unvarnished hostility to liberal Democrats, big government, the elites, Wall Street, abortion, gay rights, taxes, and obtrusive government, and most of all President Obama’s policies, and him. Beck and Palin have masterfully stoked white disaffection with Obama. A July Washington Post/ABC News poll found that a bare 40 percent of whites approve of the job he’s doing. This was the lowest rating among this crucial voter demographic since the start of his presidency.
There was more bad news. In rapid succession, forty-three percent of white voters strongly disapprove of the job Obama is doing, while less than 20 percent strongly approved. More than half of college-educated whites disapproved of the job he is doing, and, among white college-educated women, Obama’s approval numbers dipped below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency.
The disaffection with Obama was not just from white Republicans, or even white independents. That was expected. It came from white Democrats. The racial split among Democrats was evident in the Democratic primaries. Democratic presidential foe Hilary Clinton consistently and in some states handily beat out Obama among white Democrats. The split did not evaporate with Obama’s win. Conservative congressional Democrats get elected largely with white votes in conservative leaning districts and they have been the least enthusiastic about Obama’s policies.
The ABC/Post poll then is no aberration. Three months earlier a New York Times poll found that Tea Party activists who are Beck’s fervent backers are overwhelmingly white, male, conservative, middle-income, and GOP-leaning. Nearly all passionately believe that Obama is shoving the country to socialism. All harangue the federal government for giving the company store away to the poor. The poor in this case are blacks, and Hispanics. To many the equation is government programs equal hand outs to undeserving blacks and the poor and that in turn equals money snatched from the pockets of hard working whites.
That Becks plays hard on their fears and loathe of Obama, Democrats and government with a generous underlay of race is nothing new. It’s a recycle of the media buzz depiction of the angry white male. Richard Nixon stoked the fury of blue collar, white ethnic, rural voters with his slam of the Democrats for coddling criminals, welfare cheats, and fostering a culture of anything goes permissiveness, and of course, big government Great Society pandering to the poor. The crude thinly disguised code words and racial cues worked. Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Democratic presidential opponent Hubert Humphrey.
The tag of law and order and permissiveness became a staple in the GOP attack play book for the next four decades. With tweaks and refinements, Reagan, Bush Sr. and George W. Bush used it to ease their path to the White House. In the mid 1990s, Newt Gingrich and ultra conservatives recycled the strategy to seize Congress, and pound out an agenda that made big government, tax and spend Democrats, and soft on crime liberals the fall guys for everything wrong with America. It touched the familiar nerve with a majority of white males.
The 2008 presidential election was a near textbook example of how you can win an election, and still lose a key voting bloc, in this case white voters. The deck was horribly stacked against the GOP. It had a failed, flawed George W. Bush presidency. It was plagued by corruption and sex scandals. It was widely blamed for crashing the economy. It had an aged, politically disheveled, presidential candidate, and a laughingstock vice presidential candidate. It lugged the baggage of two unpopular wars. Yet, its presidential standard bearer, John McCain still got nearly sixty percent of the overall white vote. In each of the three major elections since 2008 — the GOP’s wins in the 2009 New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races and Republican Scott Brown’s stunning upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate contest — the GOP candidate ran far better among whites in their state than McCain did against Obama in 2008.
Beck knows that history and the political mood of the majority of white voters well. He’s stoked it for months on his TV show and he stoked it again at the Lincoln Mall and mocked Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement along the way. He speaks for the white majority in America.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
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Starting school is an exciting time, and can be stressful for both parents and children. The carefree days of summer are over, and it’s time to get back to work. Trouble is, the level of “work” at modern American schools has become rote, overwhelming, stressful and often ineffective in developing the critical thinking skills necessary to compete. For many kids, school feels more like a destination than a discovery, and a race instead of a journey. For many experts and parents, it has become a race — to nowhere.
Vicki Abeles is the director of the new documentary called, The Road to Nowherean in-depth expose of modern family life with the mounting pressures on kids to perform, unending amounts of homework, little free time and the drastic toll it is taking on the health and well being of our youth today. The film has enjoyed rave early reviews, and is currently being screened across the country in schools and communities, complete with discussion guides for conversation afterwards. Abeles is starting a movement — and it is about time.
Abeles saw the stresses and pressures of modern academic life take its toll on her own children, and offers a vulnerable and painful account of her own middle school daughter spiraling downward into suicidal thoughts, and her elementary school aged son agonizing over homework at night when he should be out riding a skateboard. She took action and began to interview parents, teachers and administrators. She was shocked to discover her dilemma is widespread and rampant.
It has been eight years since the “No Child Left Behind Act” was mandated by the Bush administration. For the first time in history, all children were expected to produce equally, a mold we had never put them in before. While some children are academically oriented, others are creative, or more “hands on.” What is the end result? Teachers are teaching to the test so they don’t lose their bonus, administrators rely on state exam results to receive funding, and kids are the losers. They learn to spit out the information, and forget it 10 minutes later.
Teaching to the test, and overwhelming kids with content, while eliminating recess, field trips or project based learning has created kids who are stressed out, sleep deprived, cheating to get by, not having time to learn how to think. Some call American education “a mile wide and an inch deep.”
I have four children in the school system and have seen the changes myself. Teachers seem resigned at the content they have to “cram in” and hate losing the ability to creatively teach a subject they love, or adapt to the varied needs of their students. They are frustrated, fed up, and many are leaving in droves. It takes a special person to teach our youth, and until we value their role as being one of the most coveted in society, we will get what we deserve. In Singapore, the government selects the top 20 percent of graduating seniors, and offers them a full ride, and a stipend to be trained as a teacher, as they consider it the highest valued profession.
One of the primary concerns Abeles addresses in her film is the issue of homework. Sara Bennett wrote the book, The Case Against Homework. And describes the amount of homework given to kids has skyrocketed in the past several years. Even kindergarteners are given packets of sheet work to complete each week. Kids are asked to sit in school for seven hours at a young age, and then come home and sit for more. As one teacher described, “it is no longer about learning.”
Dr. Denise Pope, founder of the Challenge Success program at Stamfordd, said that most of the countries that outperforms us academically give significantly less homework. Studies have shown that homework is ineffective and has no correleation to academic performance in the elementary school years. In middle school, one hour is the maximum amount to be effective, and at high school, no more than two hours.
When parents are honest about it, most weeknights are spent fighting over when to get the homework done, and it becomes the dominant family conversation night after night. In fact, in order to get it done, parents often end up editing, correcting or even doing the homework for them — which is effectively teaching them to cheat. What sort of message does this send? Family time, private time and leisure time have tumbled to the bottom of the priority list.
Dr. Denise Stopiek is Dean of Education at Stamford. She has found a dramatic difference in college students in recent years. “Kids today are taught everything in a formulaic manner. If they see a question that was not on their test, they fall apart.”
In a review of colleges students entering into the prestigious University of California schools, such as UCLA, UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara, fully 50 percent of incoming freshman with top SAT scores and honor roll grades, have to take remedial courses in math and English in order to simply be prepared for freshman level academics. Kids agree they often have to cheat, cram and put all their effort into their college entrance resume as the holy grail of high school.
Dr. Pope conducted a massive study to determine how many kids cheat these days. They devised a test the checked eight different ways a student can cheat and found that less than 3 percent of the 5,000 students surveyed had never cheated at school. As one student complained, “the point of school is to learn, not to always memorize. We have to learn to live without sleeping, eating or having any time off.”
What do we do about a problem so large, complex and yet so dire at the same time?
Allow a child to find their passion. Not every kid is destined for Ivy Leagues.
Be an advocate for children and their unique needs. Negotiate for less homework, carve out more unstructured time for play and private time, and try to create downtime in the evenings to relax.
Define Success on Your Terms. Consider the qualiites you want your children to have as adults, and allow them to make mistakes. “If we take the play out of childhood, we take away the tools to learn how to be an adult,” said Pope.
For all you parents and grandparents are out there feeling anxious about another year of meltdowns, break downs and overwhelm, check out the website for Race to Nowhere and try to catch a screening in your area. Let’s join Abeles in her movement to restore balance to our children’s lives, and start out own discussion here with any comments and suggestions on how improve the balance of education for our children.
*Want to hear more? Listen to Kari and Vicki Abeles discuss the issues on the Lifestyle Mom Radio Cafe from LA Talk Radio.

Follow Kari Henley on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/karihenley

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

August 22, 2010 represented fantasy author Ray Bradbury’s 90th birthday. In celebration of that event, this week’s Post-Mortem podcast examines his career, including the many film and television adaptations of his work: Fahrenheit 451, The Best from 20,000 Fathoms, The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, etc. Plus, correspondent Lawrence French fills us in on the details of the celebration in Los Angeles, which declared August 22-28 to be “Ray Bradbury Week.”
We then cap off the episode with a quick discussion of showman supreme William Castle, the man who made Percepto, Emergo, and the Punishment Poll household words. Well, not household, maybe, but legendary amongst cinema geeks everywhere.
NOTE: This episode begins with a tender and explicit tribute to Ray Bradbury, and is definitely NFW.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Several weekends ago Daphne Merkin wrote a moving piece in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about psychoanalysis and the therapists that go with it. Aside from an eloquent account of her forty years in therapy, I found the questions she raised about its ultimate value intriguing. First, it caused me to reflect on my own experience with psychologists. I’ve had two. Both of whom kicked me out. Well, not exactly. It wasn’t quite as cold and callous as that, but they did tell me in so many words that it was time for me to get my act together.
As I get older and witness the prevalence of this endless therapy syndrome and read articles like “My Shrunk Life,” by Ms. Merkin, I realize what a selfless, professional and giving act it was for my doctors to send me out into the world where the expectation was clear that I apply and practice what I’d learned. I was always free to go back with other “issues,” but they were not interested in keeping me on the couch, stuck, mired in something that I could not undo or change. It makes me think of how birds learn to fly. There is a reason why they get pushed out of the nest whether they want to go or not. And guess what? It works. They learn. They fly. They may flutter and flop, but after a few attempts, they’re on their way.
I wondered why similar conversations never seemed to be a reality for Ms. Merkin. Of all those shrinks, had it not occurred to one of them that not being dependent on therapy might possibly help her? I also wondered what it must be like to keep digging at the same old wounds for 40 years. Would it not make them worse and less likely to heal, like scratching at a scab? I felt sorrow for her and others who have devoted valuable time focused on the past in lieu of living for the future. And, I struggled with my own desire to hold the doctors accountable for not calling it a day and evaluating themselves as to whether their efforts were working — or not.
See, I think of shrinks — the good ones, that is — as teachers. We’re there to learn how to look at ourselves and live life in a healthy way … supposedly. And like anything else where we pay for “lessons,” there should be levels, with criteria to measure whether one is making progress or not. But to swim around in the vapors of the past for no real gain or to not have a marker that deems the time (and money) well spent, is crazy at best and irresponsible at worst. Eventually, someone needs to ask — and answer — the question, “What’s the point?”
I know people who religiously sit in their appointments week after week, month after month, year after year and all they are able to do at the end of the day (or week or month or year) is keep talking about what they talk about. At some point, someone must question if the effect of all that talk is paralyzing. At some point, someone needs to assess whether there has been any change and if not, make one. Change something. Try something else.
Personally, I benefited immensely from what both of my shrinks taught me because they did just that. They taught. As a result, looking back, this is what I learned about what makes a therapeutic relationship successful, effective and worth the time, effort and money.
No B.S. You need someone who is willing to tell you that you are full of shit. Otherwise, the game keeps going around and around and the patient keeps going in circles. In many cases, the net outcome is that you create situations where current behaviors are justified with explanations from the past.
Move on. Seeing the past is important, but not at the expense of moving forward. A good shrink will balance what needs to be brought into the conscious mind with creating a new consciousness that will carry you into the future. Bottom line, if you don’t let go of the bogeymen, you will not be free to move ahead in the right direction.
Start doing, stop thinking. I got homework from my shrinks because of the value in taking cognitive thought to behavioral action. Again, we could have sat and talked about it all day, but if I was unable to put the learning into motion, the entire therapeutic effort would be moot.
A chance to grow up. A good shrink also understands the importance of sensitizing patients to the feelings and needs of others rather than allowing the individual to exclusively perpetuate the self-absorbed environment that so often accompanies self-analysis.
The silent treatment is not so golden. Despite conventional wisdom, there is nothing wrong with psychologists speaking up and offering their knowledge and observations. What I appreciated most was that my shrinks didn’t make me sit there in the dark groping around for information inside memories that may or may not be relevant to developing a healthy state of mind today.
In the final analysis, the aim of good psychotherapy should be that of a therapist who creates the space necessary for patients to bring themselves into the room in an honest way and manage the destructive aspects of ego out.

Follow Donna Flagg on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/donnaflagg

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com