Archive for the ‘All’ Category
The Nast-Cartoon Administration
This [election year, 2006] will be known as the year macho politics failed — mainly because it was macho politics by marshmallow men. […] Republicans were oddly oblivious to the fact that they had turned into a Thomas Nast cartoon: an unappetizing tableau of bloated, corrupt, dissembling, feckless white hacks who were leaving kids unprotected. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
A Short Announcement
Since the local retailers seem convinced that the Holiday Season is upon us, I'm trying to decide which would irritate fundamentalists more as I fire my salvos in the war on you-know-what: calling it the "Holiday Season" or calling it "Xmas". I might go with the latter since great numbers of otherwise sensible people (in […]
Webb on Class Struggle
This is an unusually long excerpt (for me) from a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Jim Webb, "the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia." It's an op-ed called "Class Struggle" (15 November 2006). This ever-widening divide [between the wealthiest in America and the less wealthy] is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Economic Equity & Social Tolerance
The Democrats who defeated them can be expected to hold these seats indefinitely. Historically Republican districts going back to the founding of the GOP in the Civil War are turning into Democratic bastions. After the failure of Reconstruction, the South became wholly Democratic, the Solid South, and the basis of a Democratic Party that was […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Post-Election Miscellany
Yesterday, no doubt in a heightened emotional state, I read some blog where the writer said: "It's official! The AP has called Virginia for Jim Webb!" Now, admittedly, I'm an unrepentant pedant at times, but what in the world makes him think that the Associated Press' opinion makes it "official"? I'm sure he realizes that […]
The Secret Liberal Agenda
Thanks to Boing Boing ("The Right was Right about the Left."), I now know that all the secrets of the hidden liberal agenda for the new congress have now been exposed (The Right was Right). Ah well, it's too late now, so let's get on with it! There are twenty-five action items. I doubt that […]
Beard of the Week XX: Election Day
In recognition of American democracy's return from a near-death experience with yesterday's election, this week's beard is presidential: it belongs to Ulysses Grant, the eighteenth president* of the United States (from 1869 to 1877). I have nothing to say politically about Grant. He's always been far down on anyone's list of greatest US presidents, but […]
Reading is Life
I've been catching up on some reading. Thanks to Annie ("Getting tired of fighting the good fight") at Maud Newton's I saw these fascinating paragraphs (from the LA Times) about the "life of Delta librarian Ronnie Wise": People just don’t realize the stress of a Mississippi librarian’s life, he says. People don’t understand what it […]
Disease vs. Cure
Religion is the one area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give good evidence and valid arguments in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs regularly determine what they live for, what they will die for and—all too often—what they will kill for. Consequently, we […]
The Bully-in-Chief
At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his […]
No Republicans Fit to Endorse
The New York Times explains why it won't be endorsing a single Republican Congressional candidate this year — something they can't remember ever happening before: To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Gay Prostitutes & Evangelical "Leaders"
This is a wholly gratuitous quotation: Now that Haggard has been outed by a gay prostitute for having sex with him and buying meth, and has resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, I wonder what it will take for the good people in the pews to call ["]leaders["] like Haggard, Jerry Falwell, […]
In: All, Current Events, Laughing Matters
Wait! Wait! Stay the Course!
I am horrified all of a sudden. I am reading here and there how the Army Times, the Air Force Times, the Navy Times, and the Marine Corps Times are all publishing their editorials this next Monday — oh my goodness! it's the day before the election! it must be politically motivated! — calling for […]
Haggard's Gay Ministry
Speaking of leading evangelical Ted Haggard, who this afternoon admits to buying meth — only once! — from his long-time friend the gay hooker, here's a tidbit from last year that may be enlightening: [Ted Haggard] was always on the lookout for spies. At the time [c. 1984, early in the founding of his New […]
Evangelical Hypocrite Confesses
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, noted evangelical "pastor" Ted Haggard claimed I've never had a gay relationship with anybody. … I am steady with my wife. I'm faithful to my wife. I don't know if this is election-year politics or if this has to do with the marriage amendment or what it is. […]
Leading Evangelical Paid for Gay Sex
Yet another conservative, anti-gay, religious hypocrite bites the … dust: Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church, has […]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Moyers on Wealth, Power, & Democracy
These are paragraphs I selected from Bill Moyers' "America 101", a speech he gave in San Diego on 27 October 2006 to the Council of Great City Schools. […] Despite continued growth in the economy, real median household income declined between 2000 and 2004. Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1 […]
Bond on Civil Rights
Marriage is a civil right. If you don't want gay people to marry in your church, good for you. But you can't say they can't marry in your city. — Julian Bond, NAACP Chair [Said in reference to a state constitutional amendment referendum that would ban marriage equality for gays in Virginia. Quoted in "NAACP […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Bush's "Katrina Foreign Policy"
This [Bush] administration has given us a Katrina foreign policy—mistake upon mistake upon mistake. Unwilling to give our troops the armor that they need. Unwilling to have enough troops in place. Unwilling to give them the Humvees that they deserve to protect them. Unwilling to have a coalition that is adequate to be able to […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Culture of Thugs?
What an interesting question to ask your favorite conservative candidate, which we receive via Pam Spaulding:* Homobigot Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) was approached by Ben Gelt of ProgressActionNow yesterday and was asked to respond to a question from an undecided voter in her district: If you had the choice between saving a soldier's life and preventing […]