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The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.
The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.
Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960′s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.
So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.
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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In advance of Ideas Economy: Human Potential, a conference organized by The Economist for later this month, I interviewed Dr. John Sexton, President of New York University–the largest private university in the United States–on the intersection of faith, pluralism, globalization, and higher-education in the 21st century.
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Rahim Kanani: When you look at the tension and controversy surrounding the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”, what strikes you as the root of this growing division?
John Sexton: It’s very interesting. There’s a slim volume that I read years ago by Albert Hirschman, it’s called The Rhetoric of Reaction. And I was just looking at it this morning because this afternoon, I am speaking to the 5,000 freshmen that are beginning class at NYU next week. He wrote this book in 1991–some 20 years ago–and in it he analyses political discourse in advanced democratic societies. He expresses what he calls, “A concern over the massive stubborn and exasperating otherness of others.” And he goes on to write of the unsettling experience of being shut off, not just from the opinions, but from the entire life experience of large numbers of one’s contemporaries and how citizens in advanced democracies array themselves in a few clearly defined groups. For example in America, the two-party system, each holding different opinions and easily becoming walled off from each other. And here, I quote again, “As the process feeds on itself, each group will at some point ask about the other in utter puzzlement and often with mutual revulsion, how did they get to be that way?”
I hadn’t read this book in several years, but I have the habit of periodically putting out for our NYU community what I call a “reflection”. And a reflection is not a research paper, but it expresses my thoughts on some aspect of the university. In 2005, I wrote a reflection that I called Dogmatism and Complexity, the Research University and Civil Discourse. It was because I was growing concerned about the death of thought in America, and the fact that we were creating feedback loops of information, and we were getting walled off. And in that piece, it’s very rare for me to quote anyone, but I quoted these words from Hirschman and I said, even then he was talking 15 years in advance. I have to say that since I wrote that piece in 2005, this capacity to fail to enter into dialogue has grown, and it’s almost become a need not to enter into dialogue. And this is antithetical in my view to the worldview that’s necessary if humankind is going to advance in what I think, frankly, is the critical century in humankind’s evolution.
Rahim Kanani: What kind of worldview do you deem necessary to advance human civilization in this critical century?
John Sexton: I think the world at this point is miniaturizing. It’s miniaturizing in every way so “gating strategies” are utterly useless at this point. We just learned that you can’t gate off of an economy, something we should have known long ago. Clearly you can’t gate off the flow of people and ideas and information, so the world is becoming miniaturized, and the question I think, and maybe the most important question of the century is, how is humankind going to react to that miniaturization?
Some would say that this creates a situation to be feared, that it’s inevitably going to produce a clash of civilizations. And others would say this is a great moment where humankind literally can pass through a critical threshold and create a higher version of itself. I call it a great ecumenical moment. It really is, in a secular sense, not the religious sense by way of John XXIII and the Ecumenical Council, but it’s an ecumenical moment. It’s a chance for us to embrace this miniaturization and say: we have the wonderful gift of all the varieties of humankind and now if we learn to be in concert with each other and we learn the skills of listening to each other, we can see the wonderful reality of the world, not through the single window we’ve been given, but through the many facets of a diamond.
Rahim Kanani: What is the relationship between NYU and New York City in the context of this ecumenical moment?
John Sexton: I think that New York City is the first experiment in how humankind responds to this basic choice. New York City, I love to point out, is the first city in the world that can say in its public school system, every country in the world is represented by children born in that country. So we literally miniaturized the world in the city. And as I say to our students, if you go out into the boroughs and to the communities of New York, you can taste the bread, hear the language, and listen to the prayers of every nation of the world.
So New York City really is the first experiment in whether or not the world globally can create an ecumenical society. And you know, it’s not perfect, but we’re doing a pretty good job of it and that’s how we envision it at the university. NYU is in a special relationship with the city. We were founded by Albert Gallatin nearly 200 years ago to be, in his words, “in and of the city.” So we say to our students, be ready to take on complexity, cacophony, hyper-stimulation, for NYU is New York City cubed. We don’t have any gates. We don’t gate ourselves off. We don’t have any space to which you can retreat. We don’t have any grass, you walk out of our buildings, and you step on sidewalk. But we are in the city aggressively, and an NYU education is in and of that city. In fact, many NYU buildings are not next to NYU buildings. You walk out of them, look one way or the other, and you can’t see another school building because we’re ecosystematic with the city. That is the incarnation of a philosophy. And the philosophy is that we embrace this ecumenical experiment.
Read the full interview with President Sexton at RahimKanani.com.

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Not at all your typical coffee date.
Anyone who denies that dating is every bit as time-consuming and soul-sucking as a regular job is either married or has gotten incredibly lucky in the dating universe. Or he’s in prison, where romantic relationships take on a whole new perspective.
For the rest of us, however, it’s Dating Apocalypse Now — and maybe forever — travelling on a patrol boat up a river through a romantic jungle. It’s a perilous mission, fraught with lions and tigers and Claires, oh my.
For years, I’d been giving my second job, dating, an overabundance of weight in my life, going all out to meet the right woman and make an impression, worrying about how she’d perceive my clothing, job, car, physical appearance, accomplishments, voice, ad dating infinitum.
Then, one day, I make e-mail and phone contact with Ann, a woman who seems far less concerned with any of those — at least to her — superficial things. She doesn’t even exercise her option for me to buy her dinner, lunch, a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. What she does suggest, for our first meeting, is that I join her for her weekly Sunday morning activity: delivering bags of donated groceries to home-bound men who have AIDS. Immediately, the usual first-date dilemmas — like which Frapuccino drink to order — are rendered inconsequential.
We meet Sunday morning at a restaurant/soup kitchen on Fairfax Avenue, in Los Angeles, where we’re given numerous bags of groceries and a sheet of six addresses in the Hollywood and Santa Monica areas. Ann and I bring the bags of groceries to the men’s homes, where they meet us at the door. They appear to be in various stages of health, ranging from very weak, with lesions on their neck and face, to completely healthy-looking. We make awkward small-talk with them, trying to keep things positive, asking one about his cat we see behind him, another about the colorful flowers outside his door. Some are more talkative than others; all are polite and grateful.
As we drive from one home to another, I think about the things in life that are so much more pressing and important than my dating desires — matters of actual life and death. Of course, they had always been there in the back of mind, but to meet them head-on was very powerful. How minute my personal dating checklist seemed in this scheme of things.
Yet at the same time, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I was feeling even more attracted to Ann because of her humanitarian bent. She had revealed in herself a very good side, a perspective one could have only inferred over dinner or coffee. What other virtues might she have? Was I displaying a similarly virtuous side, and if so, did she feel the same way about me? Because if Starbucks is out and volunteering is in, if we’re both truly the kind of people who see the value in doing something selfless, imagine the good we could do for each other.
Okay, so I’m not totally selfless. In fact, while Ann and I were discussing volunteering and charity, I’ll admit I was imagining us having our way with each other below deck on a Greenpeace ship. But that’s okay, because we saved the world a little first. And if you can save the world a little, and love somebody a little, perhaps merging whale mating sounds with your own, well, that’s a pretty good day.
Of course, a successful romantic relationship requires more in common from two people than simply their agreement about the value of humanitarian work. That’s what Ann and I discovered on our second date, at a Japanese restaurant. Over tempura and teriyaki, whatever chemistry and rapport we’d had during our first date dissipated for no particular reason, slowly, like smoke into the sky. We both saw it leave. That is not an unusual occurrence for a couple within the first few dates. In fact, it’s probably more the norm. In the past, I might have been frustrated by the disappointing outcome. But the only thing on my mind as I drove home that night was that whatever happens, even if the next twelve Starbucks dates take me deeper into the jungle, each day is a gift. And I could not wait to get back on that patrol boat.

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“Now that it’s been documented that a clear majority of New Yorkers prefer the site of the Islamic center to be moved,”a letter in today’s New York Times reads, “it’s time for its planners to seriously consider alternative locations. Such an act would not be seen as weakness, but a grand gesture that they are truly interested in promoting harmony among religious faiths and ethnic groups.”
Remember when Martin Luther King gave that speech to the Negroes of Birmingham, about how they should seriously consider seeking out alternative lunch counters in their own neighborhoods to eat at, given the documented objections to their presence that a clear majority of white Woolworth’s customers had expressed? It was a grand gesture of reconciliation–the harmonies it promoted resounded like the opening strains of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
When I was in elementary school, a bully used to spit on me and my Jewish friends and call us Kikes and Christ killers. I wrote to the ADL and Abe Foxman himself answered my letter. He said I should think beyond our rights and do what is right. So one day a bunch of us walked right up to the bully and apologized. “We did kill Jesus,” we admitted. “We Googled your sacred book and it said so.”
After that, I felt like such a load had been lifted off my shoulders that I went out and set the local Korean grocery store on fire. Sure, they were “good” Koreans (whatever that’s supposed to mean–North, South, they still talk Korean, don’t they?)–but my Dad was at Pork Chop Hill and he lost a lot of buddies there. He never forgave the Koreans and I won’t either. The store manager screamed and yelled and threatened to call the cops, but once I explained my position, he bowed his head graciously and offered to move his business to a location that would be less inflammatory to the sensitivities of Korean War veterans and their families. It was a grand gesture and it went far to promote harmony among the ethnic groups and religious faiths in our small community.
Except the Mormons. We ran them out of town after we read about them on the Jesus is Savior website. “Mormonism is a Satanic religion, straight out of the pits of Hell,” it says. “It is a sex cult, that brainwashes is victims into believing that it is proper and right for wives and daughters to give themselves sexually to the leaders on the Mormon Church. Deny it as some Mormons may, the writings of their FOUNDERS are irrefutable evidence of this woeful evil.”
When I saw Glenn Beck on television last week talking about how America needed to turn back to God, all I could think about were those poor Arkansans that his fellow Mormons murdered in Mountain Meadows, so many of them children, and those child brides they’re always raping, half of them their cousins and nieces. I got so upset seeing him gloating up there on the stairs of the Lincoln Monument, acting for all the world like it was a Victory Monument for the LDS, that I wrote a letter to the editor. I’m not prejudiced or anything. It’s just that I have female cousins and nieces myself, so you can imagine how sensitive my sensibilities are.

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I assume you recall the summer of the “death panels.” That was last year when a few right-wing demagogues, led by Sara Palin, (who else?) warned that the health care reforms under debate would lead to deaths of patients whom doctors considered too old or ill to treat. Now we know they probably helped hasten the deaths of the desperately ill.
Here’s the background. In August, 2009, with the help of unthinking journalism and, naturally, the Fox loudmouths, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the phrase “death panels” set off a fury of raucous town meetings, with organized right-wing plants stirring up the mob, bringing confused innocents along with them on a tide of anger.
Few would listen to or even allow speakers, members of Congress, to explain the issue and call the lies for what they were. Even veteran Sen. Charles Grassley, R., Iowa, who helped write the reform bill (he voted against), told a crowd that there was a genuine fear that “Granny” would die at the hands of a death panel. He regretted that stupidity, but the damage was done.
The section of the reform legislation that caused the furor, which was introduced by a Republican, was optional and totally benign; it merely authorized Medicare (and insurance companies) to pay physicians for their services if, during a period of five years, they are asked to and provide counsel to patients on alternatives to treatment, including hospice or palliative care. Republicans and assorted right-wingers who did not support any health care reform cried “euthanasia.”
Cowed and frightened by the furor, President Obama and Democratic sponsors of the health reforms deleted the section. There have been sad consequences. Those fear mongers who raised the false alarm of “death panels,” may have been responsible for the early deaths of terminally ill patients, who could have lived longer and more comfortably, free of pain, with hospice or palliative care. That is one of the conclusions of a study in the August 18 New England Journal of Medicine on the value of palliative care for terminally ill patients.
As the New York Times reported, “doctors have found that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier and in less pain as the end neared-but they lived nearly three months longer…The findings…confirmed what palliative care specialists had long suspected. The study also, experts said, cast doubt on the decision to strike end-of-life provisions from the health care overhaul passed last year.”
Palliative care, which is optional for the patient, means forgoing curative treatment such as surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, any of which may be more painful or debilitating than the disease. A physician, whose office visits, exams and treatments are partly covered by Medicare, may also advise a patient (for no extra fee) on the possibility of palliative care. If the doctor states that the patient has less than six months to live, the palliative care (which may include pain-killing drugs, physical examinations, and even chemotherapy that is not meant to cure) is usually provided by a hospice organization, whose services are fully covered by Medicare. And, as I’ve written, hospice care won’t end if the patient lives beyond those six months. It’s called “open access.”
Indeed (a personal acknowledgment) I have been on ‘open access” palliative care, with the help of the Hospice of the Chesapeake, for more than six months because the cancer I’m fighting seems not to be growing. I live with uncertainty, but I have the comfort of knowing the hospice professionals are there to help, if things change.
Dr. Diane E. Meier, director of Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Center to Advance Palliative Care told the Times, the study “shows that palliative care is the opposite of all that rhetoric about ‘death panels.’ It’s not about killing Granny; it’s about keeping Granny alive as long as possible-with the best quality of life.”
Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard Medical School surgeon, who has written long articles on medical care for The New Yorker, called the results of the study “amazing.” His latest article, “Letting Go-What Should Medicine Do When it Can’t Save Your Life,” recounts the long suffering of patients who chose to fight cancer with radiation, surgery or poisonous chemotherapy before their deaths.
As the Times reported, while the study could not determine why the patients lived longer, experts pointed out that depression and constant pain deprived patients of sleep, and chemotherapy means th loss of appetite, nausea, hair loss and other debilitating side effects.
Dr. Sean Morrison, president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, told the Times that the study was the “first concrete evidence of what a lot of us have seen in our practices-when you control pain and other symptoms, people not only feel better, they live longer.”
Of course, depending on the diagnosis and prognosis, some people opt for any treatment, no matter how painful, to fight their disease. But there is no way of knowing how many people have been denied access to hospice and the comforts of palliative care for their terminal or extended illness, which may not be cancer. And there is no way of knowing how many people were denied a longer, better quality of life. But my hospice social worker pointed out that many doctors are more inclined to treat illnesses and try for a cure than suggesting palliative care. That’s part of their training. End-of-life counseling and palliative care are fairly new developments in dealing with illness.
If my case is an indication of the process, my oncologist did not know how my cancer was progressing, but he told me that some chemotherapy could not cure it or get rid of it, but may curb its growth. That meant palliative, non-curative care. I could have opted for more aggressive treatment. But I was admitted to hospice, which has cared for me ever since, sparing me from having to go to emergency rooms for small problems. As luck would have it, something, perhaps the chemo, stopped the progress of the cancer-for now.
I’m not accusing doctors of being greedy, but under our system, the vast medical industrial establishment, physicians, specialists, hospitals and labs, get paid more by Medicare and insurance companies for the expensive efforts to cure, which may include Ct-Scans, MRIs, blood tests, radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. And they have great investments in buildings and technology to pay for. In addition, there is a natural conflict between palliative care specialists and oncologists and surgeons who are battling cancer and see palliative care as “giving up.”
Because of the “death panels” furor, doctors won’t get paid (the fees would have been relatively small) to counsel on end-of-life decisions for Medicare patients. But with that section no longer part of the health reforms, privately insured patients in their fifties who have spreading cancers or other terminal illnesses will have difficulty getting covered for getting access to information about palliative care and hospice unless the physician volunteers it.
A note to Palin, Grassley, et.al., your death panels rants have probably denied at least some Grannies of a longer, more comfortable life. Be ashamed.
Write saulfriedman@comcast.net Friedman also writes for www.timegoesby.net

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The stimulus worked but was not enough. Here is the result:
This is known as “the scariest jobs chart,” from Calculated Risk.
Robert Reich: The Great Jobs Depression Worsens, and the Choice Ahead Grows Starker
The DC and business elite don’t feel it. They explain the problem by blaming the people they put out of work, saying the unemployed are just lazy, and unemployment checks keep them from looking for work. They’re doing just fine and taking good care of each other.
Frank Sobatka describes one of the main reasons for the problem:
Frank’s right. Our choice is to manufacture or borrow (until we can’t.) Other countries are being smart on trade. Why aren’t we? We really, really need an industrial policy to guide us back to growth. We can build a new economy from old roots. I mean, what were we thinking? We turned our companies into buy-sell commodities with our country and people as “costs.” So we ended up caught in a machine that grinds us up. This has led to and attitude that citizens are an infestation, if you feed them they breed, like “the help” — you have to make them work, certainly no longer as the people in charge.
We thought moving a factory was “trade,” when it is really about evading democracy’s protections of We, the People. We didn’t see that Wall Street was at war with the real economy and We, the People, paying out $140 billion for bonuses but zero for America’s future. We thought getting back to “normal” was an option. But really, It’s The Economic Paradigm, Stupid!
Here’s another part of the problem: Tax cuts are theft. Our investment in infrastructure created the conditions that enable commerce to prosper – the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us – through good wages, benefits and taxes.
What Can We Do?
Here are parts of the solution: We need a democracy tariff at the border to stop greedy employers from stepping around the wage, safety and environmental protections that We, the People fought to build. We need to tax the wealthy and Wall Street to pay to fix up the infrastructure and public structures that enabled their wealth. Tax Cuts Leave Nothing Behind — Infrastructure Investment Leaves Behind Infrastructure. Not only that, Tax Cuts Caused The Deficits, Therefore…
Where Are The Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs? It’s The JOBS, Stupid! Why DC Elites Don’t See This?
P.S. if you have time, please click the links.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

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The Washington Post insists that its columnists either produce top quality work or toe the company line. Dana Milbank falls into the latter group of columnists as he showed once again with his warm praise for former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson’s sexism and ignorance.
Senator Simpson has been in the news lately for writing crank letters to his critics in his capacity as a co-chair of President Obama’s deficit commission. In one of these letters he compared Social Security to a cow with 310 million tits. This letter was sent to Ashley Carson, then the executive director of the Older Women’s League.
Apparently Mr. Milbank does not even understand why Simpson was widely denounced for sexism over this letter.
Mr. Simpson’s lack of understanding of bovine anatomy is humorous, his contempt for Social Security, and those dependent on it, somewhat less so. But the sexism in the letter was his clear implication that the director of a major national woman’s organization could not read a simple graph.
He also concluded the letter by telling Ms. Carson to contact him when she “finds honest work,” implying that representing the interests of tens of millions of older women is not honest work. Is Mr. Simpson equally “blunt” with the lobbyists who represent the interests of Goldman Sachs and British Petroleum? Or, does he view their work as more honest?
If Senator Simpson brought great insights to the debate then perhaps we should overlook his rudeness and sexism, but there is zero evidence that he has advanced beyond the silly platitudes that pass for profundity in the pages of the Washington Post. In his letter he referred Ms. Carson to a presentation prepared by the chief actuary of Social Security for the deficit commission.
Simpson seemed to believe that this presentation would be a real eye-opener to Ms. Carson. In fact, the presentation contained no information that would not be well known to anyone involved in the Social Security debate. All of the information in the presentation is readily available in the Social Security trustees report and other public documents. If the presentation was news to Simpson, then it suggests that he is seriously ill-equipped for his current job.
This is not the first time that Simpson has indicated that he is totally clueless in debates over the deficit and Social Security. I was on a radio show with Senator Simpson back in the mid-90s when the hot fashion in policy circles was cutting the cost of living adjustment for Social Security.
The cost of living adjustment is tied to the rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI). At that time, story went that the CPI hugely overstated the true rate of inflation. Therefore, the Social Security cutters wanted to reduce the annual cost of living adjustment to at least 1 percentage point below the rate of inflation shown by the CPI. This meant that if the CPI showed 3 percent inflation then the cost of living adjustment would be just 2 percent.
This might seem like a small cut but it adds up over time. After 10 years the benefit cut would be about 10 percent, after 30 years it would be almost 30 percent. (Compounding reduces the effect slightly.)
Senator Simpson was a big proponent of these cuts, hurling his usual lines about greedy geezers and high-living seniors. When he was on the radio show with me he argued that the CPI’s overstatement of inflation was well over 1 percentage point and could even be over 2 percentage points. He then said that our children would be living in chicken coops.
Okay, now let’s imagine that Senator Simpson had learned arithmetic in third grade like the rest of us. We know how fast nominal wages/income is rising. Let’s say this averages 3.0 percent a year. If the rate of inflation as shown by the CPI is 2.0 percent, then real wages/income are rising by 1.0 percent a year (3-2 = 1). This would be the rate that we are getting richer.
Now suppose the Social Security cutters of that era were right and the CPI overstates the true rate of inflation by 1 percentage point. Then real wages/income would be rising by 2.0 percent a year. Since the true rate of inflation would be just 1 percent a year, then a 3.0 percent rate of nominal wage and income growth would translate into a 2.0 percent rate of real wage/income growth (3-1 = 2).
Suppose that Senator Simpson’s sources were right and that the CPI overstated inflation by 2.0 percentage points. Then the true rate of inflation in this story would be zero. In this case the 3 percent rate of wage/income growth would translate into a 3.0 percent rate of real wage/income growth.
This would lead to a conclusion 180 degrees at odds with Senator Simpson’s assertion. Instead of describing a situation where our children and grandchildren would be living in chicken coops, the Senator was describing a situation in which they would all be rich. But, he was so clueless on logic and arithmetic that he did not even understand this simple point.
Yet, he can still count on getting praised by Dana Milbank and the Washington Post. See, if you give the company line — knowledge of arithmetic is optional, and you can still be a co-chair of President Obama’s deficit commission.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Poor Labor Day. Gets no respect. It’s the Rodney Dangerfield of celebrations. The runt of the holiday litter. Just hearing the name conjures up depressing images of a last plastic souvenir sports bottle of lemonade poured on the dying charcoal briquettes of summer. It’s the end of the bright light and the beginning of the darkness. Vacation is over and the fun has expired.
White shoes are put back in the closet and storm windows taken out. Watermelons are replaced on the floor next to produce bins by pumpkins. Swimming pools get drained and ice cream trucks convoy back into their hibernatory garages. All the red, white and blue motifs give way to orange and black. The solstice is dead. Long live the autumnal equinox.
As a kid, I was too busy running from the shadow of school’s return and the end of my freedom to pay much attention to the meaning of the holiday. And when I did, it made no sense. Honor work? Who would do that? Might as well set aside a day to venerate broccoli. I thought of work as a thing to be avoided not celebrated. Chores squared.
But then I entered the real world and desired things, like food and shelter and clothing and gasoline, which forced me into gainful employment. And it was surprisingly enjoyable. Not the getting up at 4 am part, but the fruit of accomplishment deal- yeah. Got my social security number at the age of 12. Held over 100 different jobs. Then in 1981, I was able to earn a living at my chosen craft. Making me an extremely lucky man.
Without labor, we would still be nomads, boiling river water to wash down our nightly meal of beans and mush and roots and moss. Getting way too friendly with the livestock. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. From the people who brought you the weekend, not to mention the 40 hour work week and the lunch hour and the smoke break and the potty run and the punch clock dash.
Our society’s love affair with the genetically blessed can get tiresome. The rich and the beautiful and the fast and the strong. The lucky sperm club. People who were in the right place at the right time, and most of those places were wombal. That’s why it’s important to have this one 24- hour period to honor ordinary Americans. Real folks who don’t think “work ethic” is a dirty word. Or a dirty two words. Or whatever.
No, there’s no fireworks to watch or ugly birds to cook or chocolate covered bunnies to steal marshmallows from. Just one Monday off for all those regular guys and gals trying to make ends meet; raising 2.3 kids while juggling a mortgage and trying to cover the monthly cable bill with at least one premium channel thrown in.
One day to celebrate what it is that we do for a living by taking the day off from work. Paying tribute not to some dead presidents or a religious fertility ritual or the valiant who have fallen defending democracy, but to the living. To us. The true American heroes. The ones who keep democracy alive and shaking and moving and growing. You and me. All right. All right. Fine. Mostly you. Happy Labor Day everybody.
Will Durst is a San Francisco based political comedian who writes sometimes. This being an example.
Catch Durst with Johnny Steele and Deb & Mike, Sunday, Labor Day Eve, at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley and then Friday and Saturday, the 10th & 11th at the Town Hall in Lafayette.
His new CD, “Raging Moderate,” now available from Stand Up! Records on iTunes and Amazon.
Coming early next year: “Where the Rogue Things Go.”

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Yesterday I went to enroll my son in high school and instead of a welcome sign I found a blackboard with the following contents:
Now I wonder if Teo is enrolled in high school, or in a military unit.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The online marketplace Craigslist has closed the controversial “adult services” listing in the US.
The company has not said why it took the decision, but it has faced an ongoing barrage of criticism from attorneys general and advocacy groups.
They have claimed the listing was a virtual tool for pimps and prostitutes.
The section has now been replaced with a black and white bar that reads “censored”. An “erotic” service is still active outside the US.
A statement from Craigslist executives is expected in the coming days.
'Threat to women and children'

Our foundation just began a major statewide consumer education effort to let people know about what’s in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and how it might help them, especially those benefits rolling out this year that will enhance the peace of mind of Californians when it comes to their health coverage. In fact, a number of those measures kick in on September 23rd.
Civic and community leaders and California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado joined us to launch the initial $5 million phase of this non-partisan, multi-year, statewide education campaign that will initially target three key groups to inform them about new provisions in the law: Latinos, the business community and young adults.
Our board of directors approved this $5 million education effort for one very simple reason: poll after poll and survey after survey demonstrates that, in general, far too many Americans do not understand what is in the legislation that became law last March.
Moreover, the sad state of our nation’s political discourse – the media obsession with the fight instead of the substance of the new health care law – has completely eclipsed any fact-based education about what implementation of the law means for Americans. The success of this new health law is in the interest of everyone. We hope that what we are doing with our partner organizations here in California will provide a model for other foundations in other states to educate their populations about the changes in the law.
With a mission to improve access to health care and improve health status in Californians, we are mission-obligated to invest resources in an effort to provide dispassionate, fact-based information about the Affordable Care Act. From a strategic basis, the health-promoting, disease prevention provisions of the legislation are consistent with our foundation’s new 10-year Building Healthy Communities effort, which focuses on improved health outcomes for children and youth in low-income communities.
And, starting on September 23rd, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop the health coverage of people who develop serious illnesses, and they can no longer deny health coverage to children with pre-existing health conditions. Furthermore, young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26. These peace of mind provisions alone represent major gains for families.
Aside from improving the health of all Californians, successful implementation of Affordable Care Act is critical for California and other states’ bottom lines. When it is fully implemented, the new health care law will bring in more than $120 billion federal dollars over the next 10 years that will be invested in the health and well-being of Californians and their communities.
The proportion of Latinos in our nation lacking health insurance is significantly higher than any other demographic group. This fact, combined with our research which shows that 76% of California Latino adults said they did not know anything about the law, did not understand it, or needed more information about it, led us to begin our education effort on this front, including our Spanish-language resources webpage and a statewide 60-second television spot.
This new law represents an historic opportunity to bring fairness and improved health to our nation. Here at The California Endowment we are doing what we can to ensure that all Californians know about it.
LINKS
Affordable Care Act link to http://www.calendow.org/healthreform/index.html
Building Healthy Communities link to http://www.calendow.org/healthycommunities/
www.calendow.org/salud link to http://www.calendow.org/salud.aspx

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Scott McAdams, the Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Alaska against Tea Party candidate Joe Miller, is a burly dark-haired guy who looks every bit the football player he is. He said he got into politics because he was the Sitka, Alaska, high school football coach and had to go before the school board to try to get the then-club program deemed a recognized school sport.
He spent his early years in Petersburg, another town in Southeast Alaska, then moved to central California, where he graduated from high school. McAdams returned to Alaska and worked as a commercial fisherman in Petersburg, Kodiak and out in the Bering Sea before graduating with a degree in secondary education from Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka.
He’s been married for 17 years to Romee McAdams, who is the tribal recruitment coordinator for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Care Consortium. They have three kids: Kaitlin 16, Chloe 8 and Gavin, 5.
“I get my strength from my family,” he said.
McAdams was elected to the school board in 2002 and then two years ago ran and won a three-way race for mayor. He’s started touting that experience as an elected official, emphasizing in speeches and interviews that he’s the only candidate in the race who’s ever cut a public budget or voted on a public budget. Miller, a Fairbanks attorney, has never been elected to office.
McAdams also points to his tenure as president and a member of the Association of Alaska School Boards, his time on the Alaska Municipal League, and his chairmanship of the Southeast Conference of Mayors as giving him a head start on Miller in terms of statewide involvement.
In an interview, McAdams is low-key and deliberate, choosing his words and waiting for a reporter to finish writing them down before moving on. He says that, as a small-town politico and member of nonpartisan boards, he’s used to a “greater spirit of collaboration as opposed to partisan bickering” and that he would work to tone down the rhetoric if the voters send him to Washington.
“Washington, D.C., is all about partisanship,” he said. “It’s about shaming, grandstanding and scapegoating your political opponent to receive chairmanships, as opposed to being driven by mission or vision.”
That’s a different McAdams than the one who took the podium at the Democrat’s Unity Dinner in Anchorage the night after the primary. That McAdams was robust in his partisanship, rousing the crowd like a veteran pol with his roasting of Miller and the Republicans.
Still, McAdams vows to run a clean and decent race that will offer voters a distinct choice between the two men, their personal styles and their politics. “I think Joe Miller has proven in the course of this election that he will say or do almost anything to get elected,” he said. “I think he ran a combative campaign against Lisa Murkowski that was unfair, dishonest and both Lisa Murkowski and Alaska deserve better than that.”
McAdams hopes people will pay attention to the differences between him and Miller on the issues. He points out that Miller advocates the repeal of Social Security and Medicare, which McAdams does not. While Miller wants to wean Alaska off federal dollars and reduce federal spending overall, McAdams wants the federal government to continue investing in Alaska.
“We certainly do owe it to our kids to do the best we can to live within our means,” he said. “Being a steward of our fiscal resources is important. But Alaska is a young state, and it should remain a place where federal dollars are used to develop our infrastructure.”
McAdams supports safe development of oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as offshore in Alaska’s Arctic — a position other prominent Alaska Democrats hold, even though it runs counter to their national peers. He thinks Alaska’s political leaders need to do a better job of convincing people throughout the country that it can be done is an environmentally sound and responsible manner.
“Ultimately, this campaign is going to be about ideas,” McAdams said. “I think Joe Miller has been very clear in articulating the things he’s opposed to, but I don’t see much vision regarding how we develop Alaska.”
Read more about Scott McAdams at AlaskaDispatch.com.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Comedian Robert Schimmel just passed away from injuries sustained in a car crash, which came as a total surprise, and a sad one at that. Schimmel had overcome cancer and I must admit when I saw the headline, I thought it had come back and killed him. I hadn’t heard that he had been in the crash, so it was quite a shock to say the least. He was one of the funniest (and filthiest) comedians alive and knew no bounds when it came to getting laughs.
My first time seeing him was in San Francisco years ago with my sister and our Dad. We were looking for something to do and saw his name on the marquee of a comedy club. I had seen his Showtime special on cable and knew he was funny. What we didn’t know was that we would literally be crying and gasping for breath as he rolled out one line after another, killing us right up to “the beads,” one of his signature pieces. The place was packed, so our Dad had to sit at another table. Considering how blue the material was, we were kind of glad! And yes, Dad laughed his ass off too.
Years later, I was talking with a few comedian friends I knew and mentioned his name, to which they all volunteered hilarious bits they heard him do at clubs on the road and around town. Comedians have a special bond and you could feel their reverence for Schimmel. He was certainly one of a kind, and will now join his buddy George Carlin in Comedy Heaven, or wherever comedians go when they die (hopefully not Uncle Chuckers Nut Club in East Pork, AK). Whether you are or are not familiar with his work, take a few moments today to watch or listen to some classic Robert Schimmel and have a few blue laughs in his honor:
Hardcore in the Big Apple Part 3

Hardcore in the Big Apple Part 4

Hardcore in the Big Apple Part 5

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Last spring, a new grassroots organization called Parents Across America wrote a letter to President Obama, pointing out how parents had been left out of the education discussion at the national level. From the administration’s “Race to the Top” proposals to their proposed “Blueprint” for revising NCLB, parent input has been either dismissed or ignored.
We wrote an article for Education Week, called Shutting Out Parents, about how this conscious disregard of the parent perspective was unacceptable, and must be reversed.
We explained how we wanted to see a quite different set of reforms, focusing on strengthening neighborhood schools rather than closing them down, by providing smaller classes, more parent involvement, and a well-rounded curriculum. Moreover, we pointed out how these reforms are research-based, rather than the highly experimental policies of privatization and test-based accountability currently promoted by this administration.
Why do we reject the administration’s priorities? Many parents have already seen the devastating effects of such top-down policies in our children’s schools, massively increasing the amount of test prep, narrowing the curriculum, sacrificing art, music and science, and degrading the quality of education in numerous ways.
The President responded in a speech by mischaracterizing his critics as supporters of the status quo, which could not be further from the truth. As public school parents, no one understands better than we there needs to be positive, meaningful reforms in our schools.
We wrote a follow up letter to the President, recently published in the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet. In it, we asked him to insist that parent input in decision-making at the national level be instituted at the U.S. Department of Education.
We also focused on the problems inherent in the euphemistically called “School Improvement Grants,” a federal program that is forcing districts across the country with large numbers of poor children to close down their neighborhood schools, convert them to charters, or fire half their teaching staffs.
Like the misconceived “urban renewal” concepts in vogue in the 1950′s and 1960′s , we have seen how these sorts of policies have ripped apart communities and hurt our most vulnerable children.
At the same time, schools across the country are experiencing huge budget cuts, causing the loss of thousands of teaching positions, and even larger class sizes. This is not change we can believe in.
Since our letter was published, we have received enthusiastic response from parents across the country, who are understandably distressed about how their ideas for positive change are being dismissed or ignored.
And we are not alone. See the responses to the recent 2010 PDK/Gallup Poll, “A Time for a Change,” in which only 34% of Americans gave Obama an “A” or a “B” on his education policies. The poll showed especially low support for the administration’s insistence that public schools be closed down or privatized rather than helped to improve.
More recently, Arne Duncan has gone on a tour of the country, in an attempt to show that he is responsive to the concerns of students, parents and teachers, but has shown no signs of changing his policies.
Our letter to Obama is below. If you agree with our views, leave a comment below, join our Facebook page and/or email us at parentsacrossamerica@gmail.com.
__
Dear President Obama:
Several weeks ago, we wrote to you about our concern that your proposed “Blueprint for Reform” did not acknowledge the critical role parents must play in any meaningful school improvement process. We also expressed our serious reservations about some of the Blueprint’s strategies.
Our goal is simple – to ensure that our children receive the best possible education. As parents, we are the first to see the positive effects of good programs, and the first line of defense when our children’s well-being is threatened. Our input is unique and essential.
Recently, Secretary Duncan announced that he would require districts that receive federal school improvement grants (SIG) to involve parents and the community in planning for schools identified for intervention. We appreciate this response as a first step; however, more needs to be done.
First, leadership must come from the top. We would like to see meaningful, broad-based parent participation not just in our local districts, but at the U.S. Department of Education, where critical decisions are being made about our children’s education.
Second, we need more than rhetoric to feel confident that only educationally sound strategies will be used in our children’s schools. The current emphasis on more charter schools, high-stakes testing, and privatization is simply not supported by research. Disagreement on these matters is not a result of parents clinging to the “status quo,” as you have recently asserted. No one has more at stake in better schools than we do – but we disagree with you and Secretary Duncan about how to get them.
We need effective, proven, common-sense practices that will strengthen our existing schools, rather than undermine them. These include parent input into teacher evaluation systems, fairly-funded schools, smaller class sizes and experienced teachers who are respected as professionals, not seen as interchangeable cogs in a machine. We want our children to be treated as individuals, not data points. And we want a real, substantial role in all decisions that affect our children’s schools.
More specifically, and urgently, we insist on being active partners in the formulation of federal school improvement policies. The models proposed by the U.S. Department of Education are rigid and punitive, involving either closure, conversion to charters, or the firing of large portions of the teaching staff. All of these strategies disrupt children’s education and destabilize communities; none adequately addresses the challenges these schools face.
We also insist on being active partners in reforms at the school level, with the power to devise our own local solutions, using research-based methods, after a collaborative needs assessment at each individual school.
Our voices must count. If you listen, you will make real changes in your School Improvement Grant proposals as well as your “Blueprint” for education reform.
We look forward to your response and a brighter future for our children and our nation.
Sincerely, Parents Across America
Natalie Beyer, Durham Allies for Responsive Education (DARE), NC
Caroline Grannan, San Francisco public school parent, volunteer and advocate, CA
Pamela Grundy, Mecklenburg Area Coming Together for Schools, NC
Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters, New York, NY
Sharon Higgins, public school parent, Oakland, CA
Susan Magers, Parent Advocate, FL
Karen Miller, Public education advocate, Houston TX
Mark Mishler, active public school parent, former president, Albany City PTA*, NY
Sue Peters, public school parent and co-editor, Seattle Education 2010
Bill Ring, TransParent, Los Angeles, CA
Lisa Schiff, board member of Parents for Public Schools*, member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco*, “School Beat” columnist for BeyondChron, CA
Rita M. Solnet, President, CDS, Inc.; Director, Testing is Not Teaching, FL
Dora Taylor, Parent and co-editor of Seattle Education 2010, WA
Julie Woestehoff, Parents United for Responsible Education, Chicago, IL
___
*for identification purposes only

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Bravo to reporter Jeff Stein for even getting this story in the Washington Post which is the most pro-Likud major newspaper in America. (I am trying to avoid using the term “pro-Israel” in this context because I consider support for the Likud approach to be anything but pro-Israel).
Read the opening paragraph. You will want to read the rest.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

On the way to a meeting held by BP claims czar Ken Feinberg in Slidell yesterday, Derrick Evans wheeled his diesel pickup truck and FEMA trailer to a Mississippi River ferry crossing south of New Orleans. Derrick is probably the world’s most experienced hand at dragging FEMA trailers. Over the past few years, he hauled 30 ft aluminum sided Katrina icons more than 30,000 miles across the country speaking out for the disenfranchised and homeless afflicted by the aftermath of Katrina.
Derrick traces his heritage back to emancipated slaves who first settled Turkey Creek, MS, after the Civil War. He’s a teacher and activist who has dedicated his life to helping vulnerable people along the Gulf Coast, a population that repeatedly confronts natural disasters and chemical assaults. “It took me a while to realize, but at its heart this whole thing is an environmental problem,” he says.
Now the oil disaster had spread its poisonous tentacles across an entire coast of treasured marshlands, upending the lives of fishermen and people who depended on the wetlands and oceans for their livelihoods–and their sanity.
So Derrick and supporters of fishermen and their families gave the KatrinaRitaville Express an overhaul. They decorated the much-traveled FEMA trailer with slogans appropriate for the current disaster, combining the Katrina disaster with BP’s. It was not too difficult since they share common traits. Marked with brilliant colored tape, messages shout out from the trailer in colors of the of the rainbow: “Resilient not Dumb!; We still B-PEED ON; Stop Feeding Folks Jumbo Lies.” For the time being, Derrick has renamed it the “Tarball Express.”
People here embrace it. From gas stations to river crossings, locals relate to FEMA trailers the way New Yorkers view the site of the twin towers. It’s an icon of tragedy and destruction, a symbol of toxic contamination and fear.
Yet it inspires hope. Last weekend, Derrick dragged the trailer to a commemorative event in the lower 9th Ward for the 5th anniversary of the Katrina catastrophe. The FEMA trailer was a perfect symbol for the community still heavily scarred by the natural disaster and a failed public response. Now the trailer was BP’s baby.
Back in the bayou, Derrick waited in line at the Mississippi River ferry crossing wondering if he would be able to board. A few days before, he and I had run into an over-zealous barge captain who threatened us with arrest for photographing the trailer crossing the Mississippi (even though there were no warning signs). Post 9-11, security experts decided the secret workings of car ferries would be perfect targets for terrorists roaming the bayou. After a thorough background check, police were satisfied we had no terrorist intentions and we went on our merry way.
As we waited in line for the ferry, a CNN news flash popped up on my cell phone. “Oil rig explodes in the Gulf!” I turned up WWL news talk radio, which for three months covered the BP oil disaster 24-7. Since the well was capped, the radio powerhouse moved on to more important topics, ie, the future of the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints and the latest hanky-panky of local politicians, a colorful lot in these parts.
But today, the oil spill was the topic du jour. Garland, Spud and the rest of the WWL radio hosts were consumed again with the oil disaster, questioning oil industry experts about what may be going on. Sketchy details were emerging that a petroleum production platform 80 miles off the Louisiana coast had exploded and burned. Its crew of 13 donned survival suits and jumped into the Gulf, bobbing like orange slices in a Louisiana punch bowl.
Memories of watching the Deepwater Horizon disaster flooded over me: the underwater cams showing mysterious mechanical objects floating eerily a mile below the surface, the heart-stopping flow of a giant black and brown oily plume laced with bubbles of methane.
Could this be a similar nightmare?
Information was spotty. What kind of well was it? Was it actively producing oil? Was it still on fire? Were crewmembers injured? We turned around from the ferry crossing and headed to downtown to a meeting of local groups dealing with the current BP oil catastrophe, not knowing if another one was headed our way.
Derrick parked the Tar Ball Express on a street near the hotel. People drove by and honked in support of the zany slogans taped to the side. We rushed to the meeting and put our heads together. An AP report said the Coast Guard reported a mile-long oil sheen in the water. That sounded serious. “Let’s go,” Derrick said, exhausted from traveling hundreds of miles across the Gulf to meet with fishing communities over the past few weeks.
We cranked up with truck and headed south, trailer in tow, rolling by the huge Mississippi River levy and massive chemical plants that spew who knows what into the air. News reports filtered in. The Coast Guard seemed to contradict reports of an oil sheen. The 13 crewmen of the rig were rescued and safe. The raging fire on the platform was extinguished. It wasn’t a drilling rig, but a production platform owned by a Texas company called Mariner Energy. The platform collects and processes oil and gas piped in from a maze of other underwater wells.
By the time we pulled into the Venice marina early evening, the crisis had passed. There was no media filing live reports from the dock as they did during the BP blowout. Reports confirmed the fire was out and apparently no oil had escaped. It was just another oil fire, another brush with disaster that continuously threatens this petro-coast. The bayou and the Gulf had dodged another bullet. But it was a scary reminder that tens of thousands of oil and gas wells in the Gulf pose a threat to all who depend on these waters. The Gulf is resilient, but there’s a limit to what it can take. At some point, our thirst for oil and gas will deliver a knock-out to this national treasure and fertile marshland that is fast slipping into the sea.
Yet we seem oblivious to the damage around us. Government scientists insist the oil is largely gone despite protests from fishermen who say they see oil in the water each day. The day of the platform explosion, NOAA opened up 5,000 sq miles of fishing, stating “today’s re-opening announcement is another signal to tourists that the northern Gulf is open for business.” That’s right, one of the natural wonders of the world is now open for business.
We took pictures of the Tarball Express as the sun faded into the carbon-rich marshlands. A towering gas plant and refinery loomed in the distance. The scene presented a quintessential paradox of a paradise locked in a losing battle. It was another day lost to the powers that most likely will destroy it.
This post originally appeared on NRDC’s Switchboard blog.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The best way to reinvigorate American democracy is a “None Of The Above” voting option laden with consequences. Americans seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with their political choices. But there has been very little change in the character, style and identity of those running for public office. Look, it’s the new sheriff wannabe – just like the old sheriff. Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly the “change” candidate becomes the pinstripe portrait of establishment protection once elected. Candidates from the left, once in office, veer to the center and often keep going until they become indistinguishable from the conservatives they ran against. Candidates from the libertarian right, once they are elected, continue funding the very federal programs they so despised as outsiders. And where does that leave the voters, left and right? Unhappy, angry and always setup to vote for the next “change” candidate who will inevitably turn out to be just like the rest. Do we ever rid ourselves of the old sheriff? How can dissatisfied voters register their discontent in a meaningful way? Right now they can’t. Same old, same old. The winner in every election? Entrenched power.
In Congressional districts and Senate races across the nation incumbents run for reelection thinking they have a job for life – hoping they have a job for life – doing everything within their power to secure that lifetime job. Usually their challengers are just more of the same looking for exactly the same thing. If they ever existed, there are no more citizen-office holders. American politics is a profession. It’s not a calling. It’s not a public service. No one is taking time from their “regular life” to serve the public interest in government – and then return to their “regular life” when their term is over. Instead we are besieged by pros, moving from one office to another, striving to reach their highest level of election. They never see their term as being over. When they look to the future the only vision they have is of their successful reelection or perhaps some higher elected office.
Lately it’s been the Republicans who have faced the most internal insurgents. Yet, despite the publicity, the so-called Tea Party candidates have really had a very limited success in deposing rank-and-file Republican incumbents. And as yet none of these Tea Party people who have been victors in GOP primaries have won a general election. If the Tea Party is the most remarkable revolutionary change we’re going to see in Republican candidates that doesn’t say much for revolutionary change.
Among Democrats there’s been even less upheaval within the ranks of candidates for the House and Senate. If Rep. Joe Sestak beating out turncoat Sen. Arlen Specter is the outside edge of Democratic insurgency, what sort of real change can that be for America’s current majority party?
The only state currently offering a “None Of The Above” option is Nevada. But to what end? Yes, they count the NOTA votes, but they don’t really matter since the named candidate with the most votes is the winner in Nevada even if “None Of The Above” is the leading voter getter. Sort of like – “Heads I win, tails you lose.” In Europe, Greece has a NOTA option and France, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland have a “blank vote” option. These too are all just protests, however, none having the power to halt the actual candidates from taking office.
We should take the lead here in the United States. In all elections for federal office there should be a “None Of The Above” option with real consequences. For example, if NOTA wins an election, getting more votes than the Democratic or Republican parties or any other candidate, all parties with ballot lines would have one week to nominate a new, different candidate and a special election would be held within 30 days. A party without a new nominee would lose its ballot line. Should NOTA win again, the process repeats and repeats until some political party finds a candidate who can garner enough popular support to beat “Nobody.”
The pressure on all parties would be tremendous. If they failed to nominate candidates the public could really support they would be forced to find new ones or surrender their automatic ballot line. Put up or shut up. Right now some polls show that the voters in Nevada don’t want either the Republican challenger or the current Democratic senator. What other choice do they have? Imagine who would be the Nevada nominees if NOTA could force a change. We just might be done with the tired, old, lifetime office-holders and the occasional far-out, crazy challenger everyone knows can’t handle the office. A meaningful “None Of The Above” voting option might push the political parties toward sending up qualified people looking to serve the public interest instead of self-aggrandizing job-seekers in search of lifetime luxury feeding at the public troth.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

John L. Esposito and Sheila B. Lalwani
Washington – Women are murdered in so-called honor killings everyday, and the public has a right to know more about these crimes and their victims.
Take India for example. On Saturday, the first-ever Indian Peoples’ Tribunal on so-called ‘Honour Killings” gathered prominent lawyers and activists from major Indian non-government organizations, including the Human Right Law Network, the Women’s Legal Forum and the Women’s Christian Association of India, to raise awareness for these crimes. The event followed an incident earlier this summer when two young people from different backgrounds pledged to marry one another but were killed by their loved ones. Family members perpetrated the so-called honor killing to restore their communal standing. Some praised the murderers as heroes, and authorities treated the crime with impunity.
Were the victims Muslim?
No. That’s the point.
Gender equity and violence against women are two issues rightfully attracting more attention in the mainstream press, but in the court of public opinion, Islam is seen as an instigator of women’s oppression. Studies show that gender equity is cited as a reason for the public’s mistrust of Islam. Mass media message and biased campaigns – such as the one Ms. Pamela Geller waged in Chicago in August – that link so-called honor killings to Islam miss the opportunity to address what is truly intolerable: Gender-based violence. Such violence refers to crimes committed against females and cuts across numerous faiths, cultures and societies.
According to the 2009 United Nations Human Development report, approximately 5,000 people – the vast majority of them girls and women – fall victim to so-called honor killings annually. So-called honor killings are murders, usually committed against female family members accused of impugning the family honor. These crimes are symptomatic of highly patriarchal systems, where women are held responsible for maintaining personal, family and community honor.
These murders occur in the Islamic World; but, they also take place in other countries, such as India and Pakistan, and victims can be Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Sikh. The killings are often treated as a family matter and become extra-judicial. Even in rare cases in which perpetrators are prosecuted, sentences are often disappointingly light.
When so-called honor killings are linked to Islam, they ignore non-Muslim victims and ascribe the issue to “Islam” when these crimes are a cultural phenomenon with a past that pre-dates Islam. So-called honor killings occurred in ancient civilizations, including Babylonia, Biblical Israel and Rome.
In fact, there is no justification for so-called honor killing in Islamic law or religion. Similarly, there is no scriptural reasoning for these crimes in Hindu or Sikh sacred texts.
The Geller ad campaign omitted that in recent years, Muslim scholars, commentators and organizations have condemned these so-called honor crimes as an un-Islamic cultural practice. To illustrate, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent Shii spiritual leader, issued a fatwa banning so-called honor killing and describing it as a “repulsive act, condemned and prohibited by religion.” Shaykh Ali Gomaa, Egypt’s grand mufti, also has spoken out against these crimes.
The United Nations has also taken actions to comprehensively address gender justice and has not addressed so-called honor killings are an exclusively Islamic problem.
These statements rarely get the attention they deserve and the public is left to contend with false information that fuel personal agendas and undermine the progress that has been made over the last several years to build global awareness on violence against women. Muslim fathers love their daughters just as much as fathers elsewhere.
We live in an unequal world, and women of every religion are victims of cruelty. Let’s keep that at the forefront of the debate and address how to make so-called honor killings and other forms of gender violence history, which is exactly where these crimes belong.
Everyone – Muslim and non-Muslim – would be better served that way.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Labor Day Weekend is the last hurrah for summer. BBQs, friends and music. TheComet.com a lot to choose from for our Top 20. The good, the bad, the cheesy. We opted to only include songs that have the words “summer,” “vacation,” “sun,” or at least some kind of water or heat reference in the title or lyrics. We also had to give honorable mention to the worst. Here is our playlist:
1. “Summertime Rolls” by Jane’s Addiction (1988)
From Jane’s Addiction’s groundbreaking debut “Nothing Shocking,” Perry Farrell and company penned a dark and funky summer song that’s pure poetry. Only Farrell can dream up “a girl whose fingernails are made of mother’s pearl.”
There was so much space
I cut me a piece
With some fine wine
It brought peace to my mind
In the summertime
And it rolled
2. “Big Wave” by Jenny and Johnny (2010)
This is truly a beautiful pop song by power indie couple by Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and singer/songwriter Johnathan Rice. Instead of the empty sugar calories of Katy Perry, “Big Wave” actually addresses the affects America’s economic crisis to a soaring summer tune.
Living your life in the gray
Is the new American way
We’re spending what we haven’t made
And we save our money in good faith
And we work hard for our living wage
But still the banks gotta break
Big wave, do do do
Big wave
It’s going to hit you with a big wave
3. “Summertime” from “Porgy & Bess” by George Gershwin (1935)
Just listen to this song and you can feel the sultry summer air of Charleston, South Carolina in the early 20s – the backdrop of the “Porgy & Bess” opera. Now a jazz standard, “Summertime” has been covered by some surprise stars, including Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, the Zombies and Stereophonics.
Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high
4. “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Crofts (1972)
Sometimes a song is meant to be a societal balm. To a backdrop of the Vietnam War and massive cultural shifts, “Summer Breeze” reminded a generation of the simple beautiful things.
See the curtains hangin’ in the window
In the evenin’ on a Friday night.
A little light a-shinin’ through the window
Lets me know everything is alright.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
5. “Morning Sun’ by Robbie Williams 2010
Robbie Williams is not fully understood stateside, and we think he likes to keep it that way. “Morning Sun,” off of Williams’ eigth studio album “Reality Killed the Video Star,” is the official charity single for Sport Relief 2010. This tune is simply ethereal and the video a space odyssey.
6. “Farewell My Summer Love” by Michael Jackson (1973/Remix 1984)
This is one of the King of Pop’s best. Originally recorded in 1973, but released in 1984, this song captures the innocence and pure talent of young Michael.
Don’t turn around
You might see me cry
Farewell my summer love, farewell
Girl I won’t forget you
Farewell, my summer love, farewell, yeah
7. ”Waterfalls” by TLC (1995)
Off of the group’s second album “CrazySexyCool,” “Waterfalls” is an unforgettable poetically harsh look at inner city life and its casualties of families and dreams.
Don’t go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to
I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you’re moving too fast
8. ”Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass (1972)
We did say that songs that mention water count for this list! Who can resist pining away for a sailor’s love from a harbor town? Crank up the volume when you listen and dance as if no one’s watching!
The sailor said: Brandy, you’re a fine girl
What a good wife you would be
But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea
(dooda-dit-dooda), (dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit)
9. “Waterloo” by ABBA (1974) Okay, so this song isn’t really about water – but love, Napoleon and war. It still has the word ‘water’ in it. So it counts!
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – promise to love you forever more
Waterloo – couldn’t escape if I wanted to
Waterloo – knowing my fate is to be with you
10. “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock (2008)
Only Mr. Richie could take Lynryd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” mash em up with a little hip-hop and have a blissful, fun-lovin’ summer hit.
11. “The Boys of Summer” by Don Henley (1984)
Off of Henley’s 1984 solo album “Building the Perfect Beast” this song is definitely a summer anthem. Though when the single was first released, some of us at The Comet offices suffered from lyric confusion and thought Henley was singing “Poison Summer.”
But I can see you
Your brown skin shinin’ in the sun
You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone
12. “Summer Nights” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (1978)
“Grease” is the word, and this tune is timeless. Ah, how deceiving summer can be. All is good, but what happens in September when school starts?
Summer lovin’ had me a blast
Summer lovin’, happened so fast
I met a girl crazy for me
I met a boy, cute as can be
Summer days driftin’ away, to uh-oh those summer nights
13. “Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran (1958)
This 1958 his is the grand master of summer songs and captured youthful escape at its best.
14. “Suddenly Last Summer” by The Motels (1983)
Ah the wonderful angst of the 80s. Lead singer Martha Davis explains in a hot, dusty voice that though the seasons change, summer never ends.
One summer never ends, one summer never began
It keeps me standing still, it takes all my will
And then suddenly last summer
15. “Summer Nights” by Rascal Flatts (2009)
This boot-stomping country pop hit is perfect for a BBQ party.
The sun is getting low
There it goes, here we go
Here comes the moon, yeah
Things start getting all heated up
When it starts getting cool, yeah
Summer nights
16. “Another Lost Summer” by Blanche (2004)
The alt-country band delivers a despairing ode to another summer that’s failed to meet expectations. But, did we really want to plant those seeds?
I guess it’s too late to plant those seeds
Another lost summer
It’s not worth it to pull the weeds
Are you ready drummer
They’ll just die
Like I’m doing inside
17. “Summer of ’69″ by Bryan Adams (1984)
This song represents the ultimate in nostalgia and lost youth. The only odd thing is that Bryan Adams was 10 years old during the summer of 1969. Additionally, most people who spent the summer of 1984 listening to it were not even born yet in 1969. Hmm.
I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played ’til my fingers bled
It was summer of ’69
18. “Endless Summer Nights” by Richard Marx 1988
Richard Marx is a great songwriter and this ballad made many a girl swoon. Thankfully in real life, Marx married his summer love. Awwww.
And I remember how you loved me
Time was all we had until the day we said goodbye
I remember every moment
Of those endless summer nights
19. “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama 1983
This song from Bananarama’s self-titled debut became the soundtrack to summer heartbreak in the 1980s thanks to the film “The Karate Kid.” It is cruel, so cruel, to have to be single, hot and listen to this song.
It’s a cruel, (cruel,) cruel summer
Leaving me here on my own
It’s a cruel, (it’s a cruel,) cruel summer
Now you’re gone
20. “Vacation” by The Go-Go’s (1982)
This song caused much debate in The Comet offices. Once upon a time, we really loved this song. Now, since it was used in a Sandals Resort commercial, it just makes us think of fluorescent bikinis.
Vacation
All I ever wanted
Vacation
Had to get away
Vacation
Meant to be spent alone
Simply the Worst:
1. “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (2010)
Sometimes it’s best not to say anything, when you have nothing nice to say.
2. “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow (2002)
We love Ms. Crow. Fantastic singer/songwriter. But this song is the worst piece of schlock. What possessed her to write the lyrics: “I don’t have digital/I don’t have diddly squat”??
3. “Summertime” by New Kids on the Block (2008)
If you think the song is bad, just take a look at the video for this boy band comeback.

Follow Tamara Conniff on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/tamarastar

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Stephen Hawking has touched off a Big Bang, and his publishers couldn’t be happier. But just like the original Big Bang, Hawking has created an explosion out of nothing.
In his latest book, the famed physicist says, “Because there are laws such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself out of nothing. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
Hawking’s statement is no big deal. It’s not original, it’s not certain, and even if true it’s no threat to authentic faith.
Hawking may have abandoned the dappled religious language of his previous utterances for the harsh light of atheism, but there’s nothing new in what he says — not even for himself. Way back in 1988, when he published his first popular book, A Brief History in Time, Hawking held much the same views. He just didn’t happen to mention God at the time:
Hawking was far from the first scientist to declare that it is unnecessary to invoke a supernatural creator to explain the Universe. Way back in 1783 Pierre-Simon LaPlace improved on Newton’s gravitation mechanics and eliminated the requirement of an occasional supernatural shove to keep the planets in orbit. Years later, when Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte asked LaPlace why he had not mentioned the Creator in his treatise, the scientist coolly replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.”
Since then, the history of science has been a steady march away from the supernatural. Darwin eliminated the need to invoke a designer to shape life’s many variations. Plate tectonics supplanted an angry God as the rational explanation for earthquakes. Genetics rather than Genesis best explains variations in human skin color. And so on.
Those who feel the need to shore up their faith with mysteries in nature stand on an ever-shrinking archipelago of the unexplained. They cling to what is derisively known as God-of-the-Gaps theology. Their island chain is down to three main enigmas: the origin of life, the origin of consciousness, and the origin of the Universe.
Science has all but solved the first question. We may never know exactly how the first chemical replicator got going or how it encased itself in a cell, but the general territory is clearly taped. The spontaneous creation of amino acids, RNA, and lipids have all been demonstrated in the lab. With Nature’s ability to perform billions of chemical experiments a day for billions of years, it’s no real mystery at all but more of a search through a humongous haystack.
The origin of consciousness remains a knotty problem, but one that is clearly organic. You can alter consciousness with drugs, switch it off with anesthetics, and watch it tragically fade away in Alzheimer’s patients. Moreover, every attribute of consciousness, even self-awareness, has been demonstrated to exist in other animals. It hardly cries out for a supernatural explanation.
The third problem is the one Hawking addresses. In line with most cosmological physicists today, Hawking believes that our Universe — the huge, galaxy-studded bubble we inhabit — is just one of countless such bubbles that form spontaneously and with random configuration. Since he calculates the sum of positive and negative energy in our Universe to be zero, there is no constraint on the void to produce an infinite number of such bubbles.
Imagine a deck of cards. If you shuffle at random, you could deal out cards all day and never see a royal flush. To see them come out in perfect series order, from low to high, one suit after the other might take more than a lifetime. Yet, if you dealt forever, you’d be guaranteed to see the perfect series order not just once but an infinite number of times. That’s the Hawking argument for the world we live in. To call it the Hawking argument is to give him excess credit, however, for many other scientists have made the same assertion.
Is it true? Maybe. It is a reasonable extrapolation from incomplete evidence. However, there may be other explanations that have yet to be explored in a scientific manner. Two things are certain. The evidence clearly shows that the Universe we inhabit is not the handiwork of an omnipotent, perfect Creator. Whatever the true explanation, the traditional interpretation of Genesis makes no sense. There are just too many inefficiencies, extravagances, and plain bad “design” for that to hold. If you’re not aware of how just bad an intentional designer would have to be to produce the world we live in, let Neil deGrasse Tyson enlighten you:
The other certainty is this: authentic faith does not depend on traditional creation stories. “Faith” is a vague term, but I suggest it has two essential characteristics: it is a belief that ultimately some good will come of it all, and while its components may be reshaped by evidence it is a belief that transcends the evidence. In short, people who feel that such and such scientific claim must be false or their whole religious belief system will collapse don’t really have faith. They have a membership in a particular ideology.
Ideologies come and go. Faith is an enduring characteristic of most human beings. I have, in various essays, suggested ways that faith might be empirically true. I won’t reiterate them here. Let me instead close with these thoughts:
* Every single word of what Hawking now says might be true, and yet something wonderful may yet happen.
* Beyond all doubt, God exists — in the minds of his (or her) followers. Whether God is more than a belief is itself a question of belief, but that belief makes a difference in our world.
* The future is not wholly determined, and to the extent that we control our destiny, our fates depend not on pure reason nor on pure faith, but on just the right intertwining of the two.

Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/claynaff

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As David Poland correctly predicted just a week ago, Lionsgate has moved the newest Tyler Perry film, For Colored Girls, from its original January 14th, 2011 slot into the heart of the awards season. It will now open wide on November 5th, which is incidentally the same weekend that Precious (which Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey put their names on after the fact to insure a Lionsgate distribution) debuted in limited release, wracking up a record $108,000 per each of its eighteen screens. The film is a change of pace for Perry, as it is the first time that he is directing a film based on a prior source, the 1975 Ntozake Shange play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. The play itself is a collection of twenty poems dealing with various social issues (rape, abortion, etc) that are performed by seven women known only by a color (‘Lady in Blue’, etc). The cast is pretty huge, and includes a handful of Perry veterans (Kimberly Elise, Janet Jackson, etc), along with Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, Phylicia Rashad, and Thandie Newton making their debut in the Tyler Perry sandbox. To be blunt, nothing would make me happier than seeing a Perry film as a possible Oscar contender.
He’s the only mainstream filmmaker outside of Clint Eastwood who consistently makes adult dramas. I can’t defend Madea Goes to Jail or Why Did I Get Married Too? (the last five minutes of that sequel contains the biggest ‘shoot yourself in the foot’ ending since Spanglish), but he has solid work on his filmography. I Can Do Bad All By Myself is a low-key and engaging musical drama, and Angela Basset and Lance Gross are stunningly good in Meet the Browns. All of his films, both good (The Family That Preys) and bad (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which he did not direct) boast fine performances by underemployed actors of color. Viola Davis is terrific in Madea Goes to Jail, and Daddy’s Little Girls contains the first leading theatrical role for Idris Elba, as well as a fine supporting performance from Louis Gossett Jr. And anyone who consistently casts Cicily Tyson gets a gold star just for that. There are any number of undervalued black actors who I’d love to see stretching their (melo)dramatic muscles in Atlanta (cough-Tony Todd-cough), and I’d love to see Eddie Murphy try dramatic acting again in an environment where he wasn’t the biggest star on the set.
I contend that The Family That Preys, a dark and morally complicated family drama with great work from Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates, would have been a serious contender had Perry been a more respected name at that point and/or it hadn’t been written off as a ‘black film’. I’m not saying it’s a masterpiece, but it’s a damn good melodrama with several ‘Oscar bait elements’. It’s also better than several of the actual Oscar contenders from 2008 (The Reader, Revolutionary Road, etc). It’s easily Perry’s best, most complicated, and satisfying picture yet, so of course, it’s his lowest-grossing film. All of his films certainly have problems (racial and class stereotypes, the need to swing for the fences in his comic work, making light of genuinely unpleasant behavior, etc), but he is growing as a filmmaker and his flawed stories are almost always ones worth telling and worth watching, especially as so few mainstream filmmakers are making old-fashioned melodramas. And for all the talk about his religious leanings, his films are firmly rooted in the Veggie Tales brand of Christianity, preaching compassion, forgiveness, and empathy over divisive social issues. We’ll see if critics of the future hold Perry to the same esteem that we hold Douglas Sirk today.
If Tyler Perry the fine director of actors has truly made the most out of the opportunity to work with a writer who doesn’t have Tyler Perry’s flaws, than we may be in for a real treat on November 5th.
Scott Mendelson

Follow Scott Mendelson on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/ScottMendelson

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

You would think that the leader of the free world wouldn’t even have to think about where his or her pants come from, but you would be wrong.
In this recording, we get an insider’s view into the presidential seams. LBJ was certainly known as a guy who go on and on, but if it takes him this long to get some pants how long did it take order up a battalion?
Listen for yourself in How to Order Presidential Pants
Thanks to the New Yorker for pointing this out in Quick Picks this week.

Follow Jack Hidary on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/jackhidary

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Tropical Storm Earl has reached the eastern Canadian coast, following a rapid acceleration.
Earl was heading north-east at 74km/h (46mph), with maximum sustained winds estimated at 111km/h, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.
But the centre said it was unclear whether the storm had accelerated back to hurricane strength when it made landfall in Nova Scotia.
It said it had received reports of 70,000 power cuts.
Canadian authorities said Earl made landfall near the boundary between Shelburne and Queens counties at about 1030 (1330 GMT).

Having been so inspired by the message T-shirts from last weekend’s Restoring Honor rally in Washington, I spent the week traveling America’s 50 states, photographing bumper stickers. They are a great way to have a voice in the public debate! See if you agree with these ones… or not!
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com