February 16, 2009

Mike Brotherton, scientist and SF writer, lists this among the reasons he likes science fiction:

Seeing sides of humanity possible in no other way. How would we react to the discovery of aliens? Or aliens much smarter than us? Aliens with different belief systems and good reasons for having them? Or technology that gives us opportunities and challenges we’ve never had before? Or we will have, but not yet?

As an avid science fiction reader for more than 50 years, I continue reading sci fi novels because they push the boundaries and bonds of my attitudes about societies and beings very different from what I'm used to. They challenge me to examine my beliefs about how to deal with uncompromising adversaries.

Contemplate, for example, the following descriptions of alien cultures whose values clash with those of most of the inhabitants of planet Earth:

Sometimes there is no way to compromise with "alien" beings and cultures, and so the decision is to go to war with them. But is that really the only solution?

A friend of mine from college, a retired CIA polygraph examiner who has written several books on the subject, emailed this article from February 3rds New York Post.

After my post yesterday about wanting to bring back the "banned" movie Song of the South, I hesitate to share my views regarding what the Post piece by Ralph Peters suggests about the way we (America) deal with our "alien" enemies.

But Peters, while beginning his piece with a rather shocking assertion (that motivates you to read the whole article), ends with these statements that contain some common sense:

This is what's bothering me: America (or rather those in power in America) seem to believe that it is this country's right to go out and convert those "alien" cultures to our version of capitalistic democracy That missionary zeal (as all missionary zeal does) generates dislike and distrust -- and even hatred, in the case of the Taliban -- among those we consider "others."

Sci fi novels present a variety of "what if" scenarios in which the protagonists have to learn to survive -- despite, within, or alongside of -- disturbingly "alien: cultures.

Maybe someone should suggest to Obama that he assign a sci fi reading list to his international and military advisers.

January 27, 2009

(No, I'm still not officially back, but this was something about which I just had to post.)

Democrats are giddy at being back in power. But I will suggest that being in power is all about priorities. One should watch carefully to see what the priorities of the new administration are..

The above is from an piece in the Huffington Post by Ian Welsh, What Obama's Nixing Family Planning Money Tells Us

And what it's telling us is that Obama's priority seems to be bipartisanship at any cost.

From PlanetWire.org:

Obama was reported to have asked Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid, to drop a provision that would enable states to provide family planning to low-income families without having to seek permission from the federal government. Other outlets said he was “distancing himself” from the provision as “not part of” his $825 billion stimulus plan.

According to the news tonight, the plan just passed by the House is, indeed, lacking support for family planning. And the Republicans didn't vote for it anyway.,

Providing these family services might not seem very important in light of the priority to restore some economic stability to our faltering capitalistic system. However, an increase in unplanned pregnancies in all of those individual "little pictures" would put a drain on the economy on its most fundamental level.

According to PlanetWire,

...the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research and policy analysis, points out that Medicaid spending has long proven good for the economy. In its own study in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found publicly funded family planning would save the federal government $200 million over five years by helping women avoid pregnancies that otherwise would lead to Medicaid-funded births.

Publicly funded clinics provided contraceptive services last year that helped women avoid 1.4 million unintended pregnancies that would have resulted in 640,000 unintended births and 600,000 abortions. Without these services, abortions would have risen by 49 percent, the Guttmacher Institute says in a statement.

Having worked for a Senate Majority Leader in New York State, I am well-aware of the horse trading that often goes on to get major legislation passed, and so I understand why Obama might have chosen to sacrifice a part of what he wants in order to get Republican approval -- not just for this stimulus package, but for other legislation still to come.

Well, you made your choices and took your chances, Mr. President, and it didn't work.

There's still hope, though. The Senate can put the family services request back into the stimulus plan legislation and then send it back to the House, where the Democrats can just go ahead and pass it again in the form in which they should have passed it in the first place.

Or the family services request can be incorporated into the next stimulus package, which is sure to come soon -- although some legislative bill writer will have to be pretty creative to figure out a way to include it in with shoring up the banking and housing industry.

Whatever the strategy, President Obama needs to put his power behind making the family services request as a priority.

I'm not officially back yet, but I couldn't help posting this one.

I once blogged that if I were going to be marooned on a deserted island, the one guy I would want to have with me is Keith Olbermann.

Well, sorry Keith, but Brian Williams has outdone you.

I watch his NBC Nightly News show every day; I like his delivery.
.
For the second time I watched him on David Letterman's Late Show. He wowed me the first time, and I was not alone

This time clinched it. Williams just doesn't deliver the scripted news with clarity and style (and he has a great smile). He has proven that he has a comic delivery, timing, and intelligence that is far better than any comic I've seen on television.

He had everyone howling.

I wonder if there's a Brian Williams Fan Club.

November 24, 2008

Oh Sarah, oh no!!

November 17, 2008

That's what we are now, I guess, to today's kids. We were educated to be teachers more than 40 years ago, before MTV, before rap, before Marshall McLuhan, before school shootings, and definitely before the Internet. We saw ourselves as professionals and dressed and behaved accordingly. We spent a lot of time preparing for our classes and saw ourselves as the guiders of young minds -- inspirers and role models. And we worked hard to make learning exciting and fun for our students.

Some of us eventually moved into other fields; most of us are retired, now. Schools and kids have changed so much that I know I could never handle one of today's classrooms.

That's not the case for my old friend, John Sullivan, who, although retired from the CIA and a published author, still manages to do substitute teaching. The other day, I got this email from him:

Earlier this month, when I began subbing, I hadn't taught a high school class since I was in graduate school in 1969. During the time our two sons were in high school, I became aware that things had changed, but this awareness didn't prepare me for this new age high school.

One of the two schools in which I subbed is the same high school from which our older son graduated, and there are still some administrators and faculty there whom I know. The student body includes the entire socio-economic spectrum as well as students who, according to the principal, speak 75 languages. There are hints of Blackboard Jungle there, but only hints.

One of the teachers for whom I subbed left a note about one of the classes, to wit: "John, this is the class from hell, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." I went into the class a bit nervous, to say the least, and was very surprised at how well it went. At least half of the kids are Latinos, and for whatever reason, we hit it off. I talked to the teacher the next day, and he kept pointing out that he just couldn't communicate with them, and he was obviously afraid of them.

One of the seniors in one of the AP classes I had is a borderline genius, has a serious stuttering problem and has been accepted to Harvard. A girl in a Freshman AP class came back from lunch, and in reply to my quetion, "how was lunch", said, "It was ok, but some Jewish guy tried to stick my head in the toilet." When she said she hadn't reported it, she also said, "I took care of it. I beat him up."

The only semi serious problem I had was with a disruptive Afghani kid, but it worked out.

One of the bigger adjustments I have to make is the almost slovenliness of the male teachers. Some of them are unshaven, dress like rag pickers and look more like students than teachers. The desk, and working area around the desk of the teacher for whom I subbed yesterday looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. Papers, books, CDs etc. were strewn everywhere.

All of this being said, and as tiring as it was, I have gotten some great feedback from the kids and other faculty with whom I worked. At the end of my last class yesterday (a Freshman AP history class), the kids gave me a spontaneous ovation. I liked it.

I'm sure that there are some young "old time" teachers out there, and I have the utmost respect for them. I watch my daughter, who is home schooling my grandson, carry on the tradition of this family as she stimulates a love of learning and a curious intellect in our energetic six-year-old.

Encouraging changes in the teaching and learning of today's schools is an essential part of President-elect Obama's plan for improving education. But government can only do so much. The dedication of parents and teachers to creating and providing exciting learning environments is key. And school bureaucrats need to retool themselves into committed educators as well.

Meanwhile, teachers like John will continue to make a difference, one classroom at a time.

November 13, 2008

Camille Paglia, in the November Salon.com issue, has this to say about Sarah Palin in a lengthy piece that also deals with Barack Obama and a lot more:

I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

Years ago, I read Paglia's books -- blogged about her version of feminism here. Paglia almost always takes the devil's advocate position on issues -- which always stimulates heated (but worthwhile) discussions.

While I don't really agree with Paglia's assessment of Palin's political potential, I understand that there's always a possibility. Who really knows what fuels Palin at her core; she was played and used by her party and the press.

And, it turns out, it wasn't just Palin who was played. According to the New York Times, both the press and the public were played into believing the lies about Palin put forth by a fake expert and phony think tank.

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

There you have both the power and the terror of the Internet.

Given Paglia's comments and the hoaxers' success, I'm much less inclined, now, to look at Palin as a bubble headed hockey-mom. Granted, she was not ready to be vice-president. But, if she really has any smarts, she has learned from the fiasco of her campaign, and she has learned something about whom to trust and not to trust. Certainly, she had all kinds of cards stacked against her this time.

Meanwhile, here are some links to articles about the phony baloney web site and the tricksters who pulled it off.

Huffington Post
The New York Observer

And don't forget the Times article link above.

The hoaxers' website is here. When you go there, you will see that "Einstadt" claims that he really exists and is not a hoax.

And so we're confronted with the dilemma of whom to trust out there on the Internet.

Whom do you trust/believe of those you read on the Internet, and how do you know their trustworthy?

Maybe it's all just phony baloney. Like the stock market.

November 5, 2008

My 92 year old mother is up late since I am watching the election returns. Obama has won and is about to speak.

"Look, Mom,"I say. "That's the new president of our country."

I'm never sure she hears me and/or understands. But this time she looks hard at the television screen, taking in the crowds, the shouting, the man.

"Is he black?" she asks.

"Yes," I answer, explaining (now that she seems to be paying attention) that his mother was white and his father was black, and he is now the president of the United States.

She continues to look intently at the television screen as Obama begins his acceptance speech.

"Can you make it louder?" she asks and moves to a chair nearer the tv, where she sits and listens and watches until he's done.

I'm not sure what it all meant to her, but I sure know what it all means to me. We have a truly democratic leader as president.

On my daughter's blog, she reflects on her feelings about the election and tells of how this election has been a unique "teachable moment" for my grandson:

This morning I explained to my son why this is so historical. Why it's a big deal that an African American could be President. To do so, I had to introduce slavery as part of our history (mind you, he's only 6 and in first grade)...he askes SO many questions. "Why did men take them from their homes?" "What do you mean, can you explain more about how they were treated badly?"

And as I explained the best I could in appropriate terms for a 6 year old, but also without sugar-coating the truth, I saw tears fought back in his eyes. Our SIX YEAR OLD felt the injustice those men and women must have felt. Our child felt the horror and sadness of it. "Just because of the color of their skin?!"

He was aghast and stymied. Disgusted and outraged.

The only way I could make him feel better was to assure him that in the end, other men felt the way he just did. Which led to teaching him a bit about the civil war, Abe Lincoln and Harriet Tubman. It helped a bit, but there was no totally shaking him from the sadness he felt to learn how human beings had been treated.

I told him I was proud that he cared. Proud that it mattered to him. And that in the end, that is why it was historical today.

Don't tell me kids can't get it. And don't tell me a kid can't help direct his learning. Homeschooling rocks!

And my son b!X parties in Portland, missing his Dad, who would have been overcome with joy at the reality of President Obama.

Yes, mom. He's black and he's our president.

November 1, 2008

For the last year and a half, a team of psychology professors has been conducting remarkable experiments on how Americans view Barack Obama through the prism of race.

That's the first line of an article in the New York Times that links to online tests that you can take to assess your attitudes about race and skin color, particularly in relation to the presidential race between McCain and Obama.

The article goes on to say:

A flood of recent research has shown that most Americans, including Latinos and Asian-Americans, associate the idea of “American” with white skin. One study found that although people realize that Lucy Liu is American and that Kate Winslet is British, their minds automatically process an Asian face as foreign and a white face as American — hence this title in an academic journal: “Is Kate Winslet More American Than Lucy Liu?”

After you read the article, you might want to test yourself here or here.

I took one of the tests on the first link above. The results said that I prefer black people to white people and that I prefer McCain over Obama. I am positive that neither statement about me is true. And the two results are conflicting anyway. So, I'm skeptical about that series of tests, but I plan to try out the rest of them anyway.

The second test is a whole other approach, and I think I'm just not quick enough to connect what I'm seeing with the right key.

Nevertheless, I'm going to go back to both sites and try more of the tests. As the Times article states:

....with race an undercurrent in the national debate, that also makes this a teachable moment. Partly that’s because of new findings both in neurology, using brain scans to understand how we respond to people of different races, and social psychology, examining the gulf between our conscious ideals of equality and our unconscious proclivity to discriminate.

Incidentally, such discrimination is not only racial. We also have unconscious biases against the elderly and against women seeking powerful positions — biases that affect the Republican ticket.

As the article goes on to explain, our attitudes and biases probably are formed by some combination of "nature" and "nurture." Understanding that can, indeed, make this a very "teachable moment" for a great many Americans.

While I don't have a bias against McCain's age or against Obama's race, I admit that I do have a bias. And it's in favor of a liberal policy agenda. Whoever has that has my vote.

October 27, 2008

Got this in an email. Don't know its origins, but I liked the message:

October 26, 2008

I'm blogging today from my daughter's computer, sitting in her comfy desk chair and lumbar-wrapped in an ACE bandage, while my grandson is upstairs in bed, fighting what looks like the flu (poor little guy).

He seemed fine yesterday, when we all went out and picked out a bed and mattress for me to buy for my new digs.

Today I'm feeling in between worlds as I mentally begin my re-entry into the world I have to leave. I have set a "move" date of November 13 -- an arbitrary date, but I like the number 13 since most people don't.

But for the moment, I'm enjoying the quiet, the peacefulness, the loving acceptance that suffuses this home of my daughter and son-in-law and grandson. This home that will soon be mine as well.

Before I leave, I will listen again to the video below -- a rousing reminder of the freedom to come. Listen to "Les Misbarack."

October 23, 2008

Got this in an email. Don't know who the author is, but it's a great piece, so I'm sharing it here.

Dear Red States:

Peace out,
Blue States

October 12, 2008

Caught in the act of being an a**hole.

Documented by CBS News:

After Palin finished her remarks this morning, the man holding the stuffed monkey seemed to notice that a video camera was pointed at him, at which point he removed the Obama sticker from the doll’s head and crumpling it up in his hand. He then handed the doll to a young boy who was watching the rally from his father’s shoulders. The boy’s parents later told CBS News that they weren’t acquainted with the man who gave their son the stuffed monkey.

If you're embarrassed by the way you protest, there must be something wrong about the way you protest.

This guy deserves all the ridicule he gets. Pass it along.

October 10, 2008

From here

In October 1, 2008, the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was redeployed for 12 months on what is expected will be a permanent mission to respond to the threat of terrorist attacks on American soil and perform crowd control of unruly American citizens in the case of civil unrest. The force was renamed CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force and is now under the the daily control of United States Northern Command's Army North, whose mission is to protect the United States homeland and support local, state, and federal authorities.

From here

[Congressman Brad Sherman] revealed that United States Congress was threatened with martial law if George W. Bush's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was not passed.

"...the only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified. Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple thousand the second day. And a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That's what I call fear fear-mongering, unjustified, proven wrong. We've got a week, we've got two weeks to write a good bill. The only way to write, to pass, a bad bill: keep the panic pressure on."

On October 4, 2008, political consultant Naomi Wolf issued a statement on KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle, arguing that the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to perform crowd control on American soil, along with the threats of martial law reported by Brad Sherman, was in fact part of a coup d'état which has taken place in the United States. She called for the immediate arrest of George W. Bush. Watch the entire interview and get really scared.

Wolf connected her statements to the point of her new book: Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries.

Naomi Wolf is exactly my daughter's age and is considered one of the leaders in the third wave of feminism. Her writings are provocative and put forth extreme points of view as a way of broadening the debate and forcing deeper examinations of the issues she explores. She calls herself a "liberal feminist" rather than a "radical feminist," and I'm right with her on that distinction.

Now, she warns that America is already a police state and intimates that only a revolution can give us back our liberties. In her previous book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, she listed the 10 steps necessary for a state to take control of individuals' lives:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Treat all political dissidents as traitors.
10. Suspend the rule of law.

In her interview, above, she explains the ways these 10 steps have been completed in America.

This election needs to be our second Independence Day, the day the American people revolt against the coup d'etat carried out by the Bush administration and his Republican supporters.

We need to make Barack Obama the George Washington of a Second American Revolution.

October 6, 2008

On October 3, I posted material about a "My Holiday with John McCain" piece that has been circulating via email.

Today, this comment was left on that post:

(Note from a friend: This shocking account was written by Ana Dubey, a friend of my cousin and her husband, who have known Ana for many years. Ana has a PhD in psychology and has a private practice in San Francisco. My cousin's husband went to business school with Ana's husband, who has since started and sold a number of successful companies. Ana's husband is currently a Managing Director of a private equity firm in the Bay Area. Ana and her husband are not political activists and don't have any personal ax to grind. In fact, in writing this account of her experience with John McCain, Ana is acting outside of her own economic self-interest as she and her husband are among the top 3-5% of our population who would benefit from the McCain tax/economic policies. Please pass this on to anyone you know who might vote for John McCain.. Also please post it on blogs and send it to newspapers and radio stations).

Actually, many blogs have been posting about the vacation account, including what is known about the originator. A post on Telling Thoughts.com, where John Hay tried to track down the author, pretty much covers the information that is so far available. And according to that blog post:

Update 3* 17/9 - NB. Am now advised that the author is Anasuya Dubey PsyD. Apparently Ana is a highly regarded person and a Clinical Psychologist who was operating and studying in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005. We are trying to contact her. If anyone can supply me with her email address it would be most appreciated. Please send details to john@tellingthoughts.com

Update* 18/9 - NB. Received an email this morning 18/9/08 @ 6.32 am from a Dr Michael Bower who claims to know Ana personally. He claims she has informed him that she has been speaking to a magazine which has requested her not to contact other media until a decision is made as to whether to go to print with Ana’s story.

If the story is true, it should be widely circulated before election day. If it's not, that fact needs to be verified soon and the story buried.

Fair is fair.

October 4, 2008

In a ten-page mini-biography, the current issue of Rolling Stone exposes McCain for what he is and always was: a conscience-less and undisciplined self-promoter.

The article, an indictment of McCain, not only as a manipulative politician, but, perhaps more importantly, a soulless human being, includes information like the following:

The reckless, womanizing hotshot who leaned on family connections for advancement before his capture in Vietnam emerged a reckless, womanizing celebrity who continued to pull strings.

Even McCain admits to an "immature and unprofessional reaction to slights" that is "little changed from the reactions to such provocations I had as a schoolboy."

During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place.

And this account of McCain's first war-time plane crash (he crashed planes several times before that) reveals that he probably fools himself better than he fools others:

As the ship burned, McCain took a moment to mourn his misfortune; his combat career appeared to be going up in smoke. "This distressed me considerably," he recalls in Faith of My Fathers. "I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal."

The fire blazed late into the night. The following morning, while oxygen-masked rescue workers toiled to recover bodies from the lower decks, McCain was making fast friends with R.W. "Johnny" Apple of The New York Times, who had arrived by helicopter to cover the deadliest Naval calamity since the Second World War. The son of admiralty surviving a near-death experience certainly made for good copy, and McCain colorfully recounted how he had saved his skin. But when Apple and other reporters left the ship, the story took an even stranger turn: McCain left with them. As the heroic crew of the Forrestal mourned its fallen brothers and the broken ship limped toward the Philippines for repairs, McCain zipped off to Saigon for what he recalls as "some welcome R&R."

Later, these observations:

If heroism is defined by physical suffering, Carol McCain is every bit her ex-husband's equal. Driving alone on Christmas Eve 1969, she skidded out on a patch of ice and crashed into a telephone pole. She would spend six months in the hospital and undergo 23 surgeries. The former model McCain bragged of to his buddies in the POW camp as his "long tall Sally" was now five inches shorter and walked with crutches.

By any standard, McCain treated her contemptibly. Whatever his dreams of getting laid in Rio, he got plenty of ass during his command post in Jacksonville. According to biographer Robert Timberg, McCain seduced his conquests on off-duty cross-country flights — even though adultery is a court-martial offense. He was also rumored to be romantically involved with a number of his subordinates.

Although McCain stresses in his memoir that he married Cindy three months after divorcing Carol, he was still legally married to his first wife when he and Cindy were issued a marriage license from the state of Arizona. The divorce was finalized on April 2nd, 1980. McCain's second marriage — rung in at the Arizona Biltmore with Gary Hart as a groomsman — was consummated only six weeks later, on May 17th. The union gave McCain access to great wealth: Cindy, whose father was the exclusive distributor for Budweiser in the Phoenix area, is now worth an estimated $100 million.

In 1989, in behavior the couple has blamed in part on the stress of the Keating scandal, Cindy became addicted to Vicodin and Percocet. She directed a doctor employed by her charity — which provided medical care to patients in developing countries — to supply the narcotics, which she then used to get high on trips to places like Bangladesh and El Salvador.

Tom Gosinski, a young Republican, kept a detailed journal while working as director of government affairs for the charity. "I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. senator has driven her to . . . cover feelings of despair with drugs," he wrote in 1992. When Cindy McCain suddenly fired Gosinski, he turned his journal over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, sparking a yearlong investigation. To avoid jail time, Cindy agreed to a hush-hush plea bargain and court-imposed rehab.

Ironically, her drug addiction became public only because she and her husband tried to cover it up.

Following his failed presidential bid in 2000, McCain needed a vehicle to keep his brand alive. He founded the Reform Institute, which he set up as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — a tax status that barred it from explicit political activity. McCain proceeded to staff the institute with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, as well as the fundraising chief, legal counsel and communications chief from his 2000 campaign.

There is no small irony that the Reform Institute — founded to bolster McCain's crusade to rid politics of unregulated soft money — itself took in huge sums of unregulated soft money from companies with interests before McCain's committee.

And if the following don't convince you that McCain is NOT the candidate to vote for, well....

At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded.

Indeed, McCain's neocon makeover is so extreme that Republican generals like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft have refused to endorse their party's nominee.

"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," says Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."

After reading the whole of the Rolling Stone piece, one can't help wondering if the email to which I refer in my post below is true. One also can't help wondering how Fundamentalists and and others who say they value morality, ethics, and other requirements of the Ten Commandments can support the ego-centric McCain. I guess he spins well, and so they rationalize because they are mesmerized.

This issue of Rolling Stone also includes a harsh indictment of Sarah Palin in an article entitled "Mad Dog Palin". This from that:

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

I think that if you quoted the above to a Palin admirer, he/she would give the response that Brian Williams (on the Letterman show last night) said that he expected to get from those individuals: "So..... your point is?"

Maybe this is going to be one of those times when most of the people do get fooled.

October 2, 2008

Sometimes you get a viral email that you wish were true.

Today I got one about someone who supposedly went on vacation and ran into John McCain. The email is falsely attributed thusly: "Mary Kay Gamel is a literature and classics professor at UC Santa Cruz."

I emailed Mary Kay Garnel, and this is the response I got from her:

I have received thousands of emails and phone calls about the Turtle Island account.

I did NOT write that account, forward it under my name, or ask for it to be widely distributed.

I have never been to Turtle Island (which costs $2000/day), have never met Senator McCain, was a classics major, not an English Literature major, and never eat pancakes.

I regret the misinformation which is circulating, but it is not my doing, and I protest the misuse of my name.

How I think this happened: on 16 September I received this account 3rd-hand and forwarded it, with full email trail information and the name of the purported author (whom I don't know), to several friends with whom I discuss politics. It was further forwarded, and at some point the trail was deleted and I was misidentified as the author. I suspect whoever did this thought that my name and contact information would make the story more credible.

Snopes.com is investigating the account; current status "undetermined."

This is NOT an organized effort on the part of any political candidate.

I hope you will pass this information on to anyone interested in this story.

And finally, the story itself isn't necessarily false. But we'll never know unless the author herself comes forward.

MKG

I AM ENDING THIS POST WITH THE TEXT OF THE VIRAL EMAIL AND SEND OUT A CALL FOR THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR TO STAND UP, TAKE OWNERSHIP, AND VERIFY WHETHER OR NOT THE ACCOUNT IS TRUE.

If you got this email, please don't forward it as attributed to Mary Kay Gamel.

I don't know where you are, but, thanks to my (not so local) geek wizard I am on the verge of being good to go on my desktop; he will finish up his tweaking tomorrow. He has my wholehearted recommendation to anyone who has computer trouble. As far as I'm concerned, he's a saint.

Where we all are is a little more than 30 days away from the decision of our lifetimes and a little more than an hour away from an event that is certain to affect that decision.

And we are a couple of weeks past an event that certainly should have been more publicized, as 1400 Alaskans held an anti-Palin demonstration in Anchorage. Be sure to look at the photos!

And we are about a month past the day when Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote a Huffington Post article about Sarah Palin that ended as follows:

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

I have a feeling that the majority of the people voting for the McCain/Palin ticket will be male. Most women, I think, can see right through the perfumed smoke-screen of her informal (and uninformed) charm.

September 26, 2008

That's the possibility that I'm really worried about regarding Barack Obama's electability. And it's not just America's blue collar workers who might not be comfortable with his ease and grace.

Obama is smooth. His movements are fluid; his manner polished. His communication is effortless, informed, fluent, and diplomatic. He is smart. And he is smooth.

And that's what worries me. I'm worried that too many of us have come to expect -- and even seek -- much less from out leaders. I'm worried that we have become used to bumblers and bunglers, that we are suspect of anyone who does not have to struggle to be understood, who is able to explain complex issues simply and directly, who exudes a statesmanlike confidence in any situation.

Yet, that's what we need as our leader. That's what the world needs as leader of the United States. We need a statesman, a diplomat -- an intelligent, informed, and smooth operator in the most positive sense.

We need to be done with confidence men and choose a leader who can both inspire and deserve our confidence.

September 15, 2008

I found the link to what follows, at Women Against Sarah Palin.

Count me as a feminist who never believed that being PTA president meant you could be, well, President. The more time we spend on dippy ruminations--how does she do it? Queen Bee on steroids or the hockey mom next door? how hot is Todd, anyway?--the less focus there will be on the kind of queries that should come first with any vice presidential candidate, and certainly would if Palin were a man. Questions like:

Please do read the whole article by Katha Pollit, "Lipstick on a Wingnut," in The Nation.

"No matter that patriotism
is too often the refuge of scoundrels.
Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising
remain the true duty of patriots."

I got this in an email. I don't know who wrote it, but it sure deserves to be widely posted:

September 11, 2008

I used to do one of these every week, feeling that it's good to keep life on this planet in wacky perspective. So, here, are some news bits you might have missed (and/or that I think bear repeating).

September 10, 2008

Two young women started a blog

If you feel the way we do, send them your comments..

September 7, 2008

If you want the truth about Sarah Palin, these are must reads.

"Sarah Baraccuda." That's what a woman who has known Palin since their schools days says many of her neighbors call McCain's running mate because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness.

In an article in the LA Progressive, Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska (where Palin was mayor) chronicles the unethical shenanigans of GOP's VP choice over the course of her career.

If you want to learn the honest truth about Sarah Palin, it's a must-read, and I thank Susan from Tampa for pointing me to another LA Progressive article (this one by Charlie James, an American journalist who lives in Toronto), which led me to Kilkenny's.

James' article begins thusly:

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively

James goes on to report:

.... many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.

“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”

“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.

and

“Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole,” someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin’s tenure in Alaska state and local politics.

“She’s a bigot, a racist, and a liar,” is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.

Go and read both articles, and then wait and see what Hillary Clinton has to say when she speaks in Tampa later today.

AND, as an added bonus, read this article that is a link from the LA Progressive.

In it, a fellow student of McCain's at the Naval Academy tells why he will not vote for the GOP ticket:

John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit, and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4-inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. I could tell many midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact, he barely managed to graduate, standing fifth from the bottom of his 800-man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No, John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

This article sheds much needed light on McCain's celebrated POW status and war injuries he sustained.

John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately, this was often the case; new POW’s arriving with broken bones and serious combat injuries. Many died from their wounds. Medical care was nonexistent to rudimentary. Relief from pain was almost never given and often the wounds were used as an available way to torture the POW. Because John’s father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

The articles linked to above are must-reads, especially for anyone who is even thinking about voting for "an infamous...hothead" and a "vindictive and mean...racist," because that's what the Republicans are offering in this year's presidential election.

September 4, 2008

Phyllis Schlafly. Hearing that name still makes me cringe.

This gives you some idea of who she is, still at age 81:

For four decades, right-wing icon Phyllis Schlafly has been an anti-feminist spokeswoman for the national conservative movement.

......Schlafly asserted women should not be permitted to do jobs traditionally held by men, such as firefighter, soldier or construction worker, because of their "inherent physical inferiority."

......Schlafly also contended that married women cannot be sexually assaulted by their husbands.

"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape," she said..

She was everything we 70s equal right supporters feared: a woman who had the resources to spread the anti-woman notions of "fascinating womanhood."

The only differences between Palin and Schlafly are age and the fact that Schlafly preached that a woman wouldn't raise a family and have a job at the same time. Of course, Schlafly did not practice what she preached in that case.

Gloria Steinem, in her L.A. Times opinion piece, makes the point:

This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

and

Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

The L.A. Times piece also says this about the Sarah Palin:

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

Palin's speech last night was scary because it was a perfect combination of content and delivery. She came across as, indeed, your neighborhood hockey mom who wins popularity as a cute, funny, and entertaining dinner speaker. What she says is not deeply thoughtful; but it is entertaining. Her delivery is so engaging that even non-conservatives might be sucked in by her natural charm and sarcastic wit.

I hope today's women are smarter than that.

August 31, 2008

Sure, I like the idea of a woman as president or vice-president. And, since I thought that Hillary Clinton had enough competencies and credentials to be a decent president, I was rooting for her.

But I would never vote for a woman just because she's a woman. And I would never vote for a particular ticket just because there was a woman running on it. And I believe that women across America who try to live by Liberal ideals will use their vote to try to ensure that the next president is one who champions those ideals.

I know that pundits, and others, are speculating about Barack Obama losing the votes of women who wanted Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic presidential nomination -- or, at least, the VP slot.

It just goes to show you how little these speculators must think of the intelligence of women. If we believe that the current administration has been an abysmal failure on every policy front, we are not going to vote for a Republican ticket that would continue those policies, even though that ticket includes a woman.

I will admit that, if the case were such that a competent, credentialed, charismatic man were running against an equally competent, credentialed, and charismatic woman, I would probably vote for the woman.

But such is not the case with the upcoming presidential election.

And, especially in this case, just because you're a woman doesn't mean that you champion the ideals that Liberal women hold dear. And, conversely, you don't have to be a woman to champion the ideals that Liberal women hold dear.

Feminists and other Liberal women who had originally supported Clinton, will vote for Obama. Wait and see.

And, while you're waiting, read this great post on that issue on Don't Gel Too Soon.

August 27, 2008

That's what this is, isn't it.

For the first time in my life I've actually watched a political party convention on television. It feels like I'm watching the rebirth of a nation, the enthusiastic start to a constructive revolution.

And I loved the line from Hillary about the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Suit." The speech writers all outdid themselves across the board. Every speech was packed with quotable, chantable phrases.

Hope, heart, and humor. That's what drives the Obamaphenomenon. Even I feel optimistic.

August 23, 2008

Four days with my daughter and family put me in another reality, one suffused with conversation, laughter, play, sunshine, and time -- things I don't have here, where the insistent needs of a 92 year old woman hold just about every moment hostage.

I was able to sit in the dappled shade and finish the mystery novel I started to read last month. I was able to relax enough to ease the spasms I've been getting in my back from an out-of-place rib. I sat on the floor and with my grandson and his various construction, rescue, and police vehicles. I slept like the dead.

I never got to post a new piece on the education issue. That will have to wait until next week. As for now, I'm struggling with re-entry.

Meanwhile, if you're hungry for something more important to read, go over to No Utopia to this post about what conservative and writer Andrew Bacevich had to say to Bill Moyers during a PBS interview.

Bacevich's responses include this:

Well, I think the clearest statement of what I value is found in the preamble to the Constitution. There is nothing in the preamble to the Constitution which defines the purpose of the United States of America as remaking the world in our image, which I view as a fool's errand. There is nothing in the preamble of the Constitution that ever imagined that we would embark upon an effort, as President Bush has defined it, to transform the Greater Middle East. This region of the world that incorporates something in order of 1.4 billion people.

I believe that the framers of the Constitution were primarily concerned with focusing on the way we live here, the way we order our affairs. To try to ensure that as individuals, we can have an opportunity to pursue our, perhaps, differing definitions of freedom, but also so that, as a community, we could live together in some kind of harmony. And that future generations would also be able to share in those same opportunities.

The big problem, it seems to me, with the current crisis in American foreign policy, is that unless we do change our ways, the likelihood that our children, our grandchildren, the next generation is going to enjoy the opportunities that we've had, is very slight, because we're squandering our power. We are squandering our wealth. In many respects, to the extent that we persist in our imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom because imperial policies, which end up enhancing the authority of the imperial president, also end up providing imperial presidents with an opportunity to compromise freedom even here at home. And we've seen that since 9/11.

August 15, 2008

(This is the third of my series of posts about the issue of education in the upcoming presidential election, in response to the challenge issued by Ronni Bennett in her blog, Time Goes By.)

Let's face it. We Americans look to our leader to set an example as well as set policy. When it comes to computer and communications technology, McCain and Obama, as a recent NPR All Things Considered segment affirmed:

.....have very different digital resumes. Their habits were shaped, in part, by what they were doing when the digital age arrived.

Obama has been seen walking with his BlackBerry — so absorbed you worry he might bump into something.

McCain, on the other hand, says he rarely uses e-mail or the Internet.

OK. So, Obama sets a better example than McCain about the usefulness of technology. How does that translate into their policies, which, in turn will drive how important technology will be in education.

On the GOP side, from here

Asked if McCain had taken a position on broadband internet access in schools, Graham Keegan [who has worked with McCain since his 2000 presidential bid]said the senator had not yet released his stance on classroom technology. At a news conference after the forum, she said that position would be unveiled in the coming weeks. .

As might be expected, McCain's technology initiatives would focus on the private sector and the free market, assuming, as Republicans tend to do, that the benefits would filter down to the common people:

McCain has proposed a program to provide tax and financial benefits for companies that provide broadband services to low-income and rural users, Powell says. "It may require some government assistance, either through financial subsidy policy or through other kinds of creative tools, like community or municipal broadband services."
[snip]
The real key for McCain, Powell says, is to hire more people with technology experience throughout the government who can envision technology solutions for education, health care, homeland security and other issues.

On the other hand, from here:

Obama has called for the creation of a new Cabinet-level position: a "chief technology officer" who would make sure the federal government imports the best technology tools from the private sector. That's according to William Kennard, a technology adviser to the Obama campaign.
[snip]
Obama's philosophy on technology is "more activist" than that of GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Kennard tells NPR's Michele Norris.

"Obama understands that the future of our economy depends to a large extent on how we can ensure that Americans have access to technology and we empower Americans to use it," he says.

Obama supported a Clinton administration plan to provide all schoolchildren access to the Internet at school; McCain opposed it, Kennard says. He says Obama and McCain also differ when it comes to the universal service fund — a long-standing mechanism for providing phone service to rural areas that Kennard says Obama "embraces."

"The reality is that if we rely simply on the free market, there will be many people in this country that will have to do without. This is fundamentally about economic development. It's about making sure that people in rural areas can participate in the information age," Kennard says.

It sounds to me that Obama is suggesting a coordinated effort, across the nation, to educate people (from schools to government agencies) on how to apply technology to make their daily work more effective. And he would appoint someone to be in charge of that effort.

McCain, on the other hand, has a less structured approach, seeming to suggest that private sector experts be hired by the government to "envision" how technology could be put to best use in all aspects of government, including education.

Why do I keep thinking of "Haliburton," "Blackwater," and outsourcing when I hear McCain's approach?

The eSchool News piece cited before adds this about McCain's long-term vision:

The president or other federal officials could promote more technology-based education, but long-term changes would largely be up to principals, superintendents, and school board members, Graham Keegan said.

A comment on that site, left by an experienced teacher, pretty well sums up what happens when you continue the approach supported by McCain that leaves it up to the individual school administrators to decide how important technology is to educating their students for success in the future:

You can't have quality, functioning, technology without an onsite technology specialist. I was in one school that had one and it was wonderful. I also had more computers than students. Of course it was a wealthy, suburban system where most of the kids would have learned whether they had technology or not. Then I was in 2 poor urban systems. In one I had a half-broken MAC and a donated model I had to beg for. At another school I had 5 computers. 1 worked properly, but neither of the two printers hooked to it worked. Having technology entails taking responsibility for keeping it functioning.

If good, effective leadership requires both setting example and setting policy, the best candidate is obvious

August 10, 2008

Earworm: The Mills Brothers singing "Paper Doll." Of course it was a totally sexist song. But it was the forties. I was five years old. What did I know. It sure sounded pretty.

And I loved to play with paper dolls. The ones of famous movie stars.

I guess I was surprised that there are still paper dolls for sale out there

Even more surprising is the new

Actually, there's a McCain one as well.

I suppose that's one way to get little kids aware of the election coming up. Although I imagine it would be more appealing to girls than boys, who tend to like more physical activities where they don't have to sit still for so long. At least that's the case with my 6 year old grandson.

August 8, 2008

(This is the second of my series of posts about the issue of education in the upcoming presidential election, in response to the challenge issued by Ronni Bennett in her blog, Time Goes By.)

Anyone who follows the news knows that environmental and energy issues are in the forefront of today's politics. I can't help wonder how different things might be today if those leaders who screwed up these two survival necessities had been exposed to a different kind of education, one in which critical thinking, creative discovery, complex problem solving, and honest communication had been at the core. These are the skills that all people need to become all they can be, for themselves and for their communities. The educational challenge is one of developing human capital.

A July 29 New York Times Opinion piece by David Brooks begins with this question:

Why did the United States become the leading economic power of the 20th century? The best short answer is that a ferocious belief that people have the power to transform their own lives gave Americans an unparalleled commitment to education, hard work and economic freedom.

Brooks points to two research efforts that show that the skills slowdown is the biggest issue facing the country. and that It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap. Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy.

Brooks goes onto say

.... it’s worth noting that both sides of this debate exist within the Democratic Party. The G.O.P. is largely irrelevant. If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research. ........ McCain’s policies seem largely oblivious to these findings. There’s some vague talk about school choice, but Republicans are inept when talking about human capital policies.

from here:

.....McCain ..... has yet to move his discussion of education from conservative generalities to specific policy proposals. Sure, McCain nods toward introducing "competition" in public schooling and, like every national politician, he has become a proponent of educational "accountability." But generally, McCain's pronouncements on education seem calculated to buttress other aspects of his agenda, such as privatization of public services, opposition to abortion rights, and even support for immigration reform.

Since McCain first advocated vouchers, a growing body of research has confirmed that they do not improve students' academic performance or help close the achievement gap between affluent white children and poor children of color. Furthermore, the value of the vouchers McCain and other conservatives have proposed -- $2,000 -- is equal to less than half the average annual tuition at an American private school -- $4,689. That means vouchers won't give poor families many educational options beyond inner-city parochial schools, which are far less expensive and exclusive than secular prep schools focused on ensuring college admission. Voucher programs stack the deck against families who prefer a secular education for their children. In Milwaukee, the site of the largest private-voucher experiment to date, 102 of 120 participating schools are religious-affiliated.

From here and attributed to NEA president Reg Weaver:

“McCain’s plans have erased any doubts that he would continue the misguided policies of the Bush administration. The spending scheme recently outlined would reportedly save $100 billion, but it doesn’t mention the critical casualties of those cuts: America’s children. The move would take away even more resources from public schools that are already underfunded. Under McCain’s scheme, 4.2 million disadvantaged children would be shortchanged in needed reading and math help due to the shortfall of $10.7 billion between the McCain plan for Title I and what was promised in the No Child Left Behind law.

“McCain’s scheme would also shortchange states and schools by $12.5 billion by reducing services to 3.6 million children with disabilities. Like President Bush, who proposed $14.2 billion less than what Congress provided for education during his presidency, McCain’s scheme has shown he is quite willing to mortgage our children’s future.

from here, quoting Sen. John McCain's education adviser, Lisa Graham Keegan:

In defending McCain's perceived lack of interest in education, Keegan said that it wasn't because the candidate is not passionate—but because he believes a "renaissance" in education is possible and that his plan will be more meaningful, and more at odds with the current public education system. (Update: Margaret Spellings declared that education was not McCain's passion.)

"It's very easy to write a detailed program for an old system," Keegan said in criticizing Sen. Barack Obama's plan, which has been on his Web site for months.

As far as McCain's education plan to be unveiled in the fall, Keegan said it will focus on standards, accountability, delivering information on these issues to the public, and more direct intervention. He will "insist" on giving principals the power to use differential pay for teachers. And, expect the issue of international benchmarking to appear in his plan, too, she said. wants to move away from sanctions and instead use tutoring and public school choice as "opportunities" for children and families rather than as punishments for schools. And perhaps more importantly, he wants to make the aid available to families immediately without waiting two or three years. And maintaining the current sanction of restructuring schools at five years if they are failing to meet adequate yearly progress isn't a priority for him, either. In addition, McCain will work more closely with governors to come up with other options for addressing failing schools, she said.

Obama's positions on education are very different from McCain's:

from here:

Speaking by satellite to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama slammed his opponent John McCain for voting against education funding.

“He voted against increased funding for No Child Left Behind to preserve billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans – tax breaks he wants to extend without saying how he’d pay for them. He voted against increasing funds for Head Start, and Pell Grants, and the hiring of 100,000 new teachers again and again and again,” Obama said.

He accused McCain of only wanting to recycle old Republican ideas, “In fact, his only proposal seems to be recycling tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice. Now, I’ve been a proponent of public school choice throughout my career. I applaud AFT for your leadership in representing charter school teachers and support staff all across this country, and for even operating your own charters in New York. Because we know well-designed public charter schools have a lot to offer, and I’ve actually helped pass legislation to expand them. But what I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers.”

Obama also discussed merit pay for teachers, “And when our educators succeed, I won’t just talk about how great they are; I will reward them for it. Under my plan, districts will be able to give teachers who mentor, or teach in underserved areas, or take on added responsibilities, or learn new skills to serve students better,

In sharp contrast to McCain's haphazard thoughts and non-policies on education, Barack Obama has spelled out his well-thought out plan for putting American education on the road to becoming what it should be: a system of helping all children and adults become all they are capable of being. It's all there, on his website, in red, white, and blue, with financial capital supporting human capital.

Obama summed it up here:

A truly historic commitment to education - a real commitment - will require new resources and new reforms. It will require a willingness to break free from the same debates that Washington has been engaged in for decades - Democrat versus Republican; vouchers versus the status quo; more money versus more accountability. And most of all, it will take a President who is honest about the challenges we face - who doesn't just tell everyone what they want to hear, but what they need to hear.

I am running to be that President. And that's why I'm proposing a comprehensive plan to give every American child the chance to receive the best education America has to offer - from the moment they're born to the day they graduate college. As President, I will put the full resources of the federal government behind this plan. But to make it a reality, I will also ask more of teachers and principals; parents and students; schools and communities.

August 2, 2008

Thanks to Jim Culleny for his daily poetry emails.

August 1, 2008

Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By is one of the few weblogs that I have time to frequently read. Recently, she wrote:

So here is what I propose: that each blogger reading this today – whatever else you write about on your blog - take on one issue or a small aspect of one issue, follow it in the mainstream press, on alternative media and political sites online, on other blogs as it is debated and once a week, write about what you’ve learned on that issue. Make yourself an expert on it, do some research, give us the facts, tell us what the candidates are saying, how it's being spun by their surrogates - and your opinions too, if you are so inclined.

Education is one area in which I have abiding interest, based on twenty years of experience that includes classroom teaching, training teachers, and developing and implementing statewide policies, including the state's Learning Standards.. And, I have opinions. Very strong opinions. Especially about student assessment.

Everyone knows that what's on the test determines what gets taught. And, in general, not enough effort is put into developing engaging ways for "how" it all gets taught. Everyone knows that, in terms of students developing a love of learning and then learning well, the current "teaching to the test" approach is an overwhelming failure. Student learning needs to be assessed so that we know if they're learning how to apply what they've learned, or not.

This piece on the website of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching presents a different approach:

In the ambitious New Standards Project, a national initiative that regularly brought teachers together from around the country to learn techniques for integrating instruction and assessment, participating teachers learned to literally merge these two activities in such a way that they were indistinguishable. Lauren Resnick of the University of Pittsburgh, one of the visionaries behind the project, noted that rather than bemoan the inclination to teach to the test, we should take advantage of it. We should make exercises so compelling, and so powerful as exemplars of a domain, that honing one's ability to solve them represents generalizable learning and achievement. Viewed in this light, teaching to the test is no longer vaguely disreputable because the skills and knowledge are themselves general and are the very things we wish students to acquire.

from here:

McCain focuses his statements on education on school choice –that is, if a school fails a student, then the student should have the freedom to move to a different school. McCain believes that many schools are failing, and No Child Left Behind helps to illustrate the problem. Obama believes that public education was broken before NCLB –and that NCLB was intended to fix the problem, but was poorly conceived, never properly funded, and was poorly implemented.

Hmm. I believe that, while "school choice" does work to the advantage of some students, what most students need is access to a system of 21st Century public education that does what it's supposed to do -- prepare students to think about what they're learning and to want to continue learning so that they can live fulfilled, productive and positive lives. Duh. Is that what's happening? I don't think so.

OK. So, what are the education platforms regarding assessment of the two presumed candidates?

from here

McCain's education platform is built on merit pay for teachers and school vouchers for families who would like to trade in their students' failing schools for private schools. According to McCain, families whose children are stuck in failing schools should have choices and opportunities that are not limited by entrenched bureaucracy or unions.

Pretty flimsy platform, it seems to me.

from here:

Standardized testing is stuck in the crossfire in the debate over accountability, and Obama has stepped up to take aim. He says that too often standardized tests fail to provide valuable or timely feedback. Meanwhile, “creativity has been drained from classrooms, as too many teachers are forced to teach to fill-in-the-bubble tests,” Obama says. While we do need some form of assessment, he says those tests should be measuring what is valuable for students to learn. “I will provide funds for states to implement a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students’ abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas,” says Obama.

Thanks Barack. I couldn't have said it better.

July 11, 2008

When I bought my non-hybrid 2008 Ford Escape, I just couldn't resist all the bells and whistles I got on this demo model. I had thought about a hybrid. But the wait was long and my old Subaru would consistently refuse to start, and no one, including the dealer, could figure out how to fix the problem.

Anyway, here I am with a car that averages 22 miles a gallon at a time when gas prices are spiraling and the only place I don't have to drive to get to is the mailbox.

So, I get on the Net and google "turn gas engine into hybrid."

And, guess what! There is a way to do that. And, supposedly, it's not a big deal. Many sites advocate just doing it yourself with stuff you can buy at the hardware store, but that just seems like a dangerous way to do it. Suppose you ruin the engine you have.

The smart thing to do, it seems to me, is buy something already manufactured to do the job. The best site I found about using water to turn a gas engine into a hybrid is "fuelfromh2o."

This is how they explain the process:

The process is as follows, you start with water and an electrolyte NaHCo3 [Sodium Bicarbonate]. You add DC current, the H2o breaks down into H2 & O [we just call it HHO]. We introduce it into the engine by use of the engines vacuum. The HHO combines with the gasoline and air in the combustion chamber and is burnt. Once burnt, it converts back to H20 [water]. Its now going to absorb the inner heat from the engine normally at 350 - 400*F and turn into super heated steam. Then its pushed out during the exhaust stroke and out the tail pipe. There it condenses back into to water vapor and eventually collects back into water. So you start with water and end with water.

So what are our results, first and foremost a really odorless exhaust. Lowered Co2 emissions, NO2 emissions go almost to 0, In short the exhaust emissions drop off the scale as you know them and you produce water vapor from your vehicles tailpipe. Why vapor instead of water??? Because the hydrocarbon fuel [gasoline] produces enough heat during combustion to keep the burnt HHO in a water vapor state, so it will totally condense into water outside of the exhaust system [eliminating any internal corrosion].

OK, I think. If it's that easy, why isn't everyone running out to buy what they call an "HHO Generator?"

Well, one reason, is that it's not that cheap. Another, I suppose, is that most people, like me, don't want to fool around and try to install something like this themselves. The smart thing would be to have someone do it who knows what he/she is doing.

I go to their list of distributors. There aren't any near enough to make it possible for me to go there to have a HHO generator installed.

It does seem like such a good idea! Why isn't the reality more widespread?

As the fuelfromh2o site says:

This technology has been around since the middle 1800's. YEAH THATS RIGHT!!! Back before the take off of the industrial revolution and the real use of oil and coal to power our factories and vehicles. But oil and coal was easier technology and easily found and CHEAP. GUESS WHAT "NOT ANY MORE"! So if you could gain performance, better fuel efficiency, smaller bills at the gas pump. WOULD YOU DO IT??? Whether you purchase our HHO units or go to a competitor's store or website and purchase theirs. Just as long as you the consumer realize that you have been methodically led into a money pit concerning energy and fuel.

SO NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT???

I would love to do something. Anyone have any suggestions??

July 9, 2008

Nope, not Rachel Ray. She's sort of the antithesis of the Rachel who has really impressed me recently.

Rachel Maddow, who has her own program on Air America, and has been on MSNBC's Countdown as a political analyst, recently has stood in for usual host, Keith Olbermann (who, by the way is the one man with whom I'd like to be stranded on a deserted island.)

Maddow has the presence and the personality of a true news media star. She's brilliant, articulate, appealing, confident, and down-to-earth. She's also openly gay, and the way she presents herself visually reflects that fact in a very professional way. She has developed her own female -- but not particularly feminine -- style, and it works.

I suppose, if I had to be stranded on a deserted island with a lesbian, I'd just as soon it be Rachel Maddow.

July 8, 2008

The title of this post is an ineffectual parody of the Crew Cuts "Sh-boom."

The point is that I'm singing the praises of T. Boone Pickens, whose ad I caught during some television show. I think maybe it was during Countdown tonight. I wrote down his website url, and I'm blown away. Well I probably would actually be blown away if I ever made it out to his wind farm.

PIckens has been an oil man all of his life, and he has come up with a plan to create a renewable energy network so that this country can break its dependence on foreign oil. It's all there in his Pickens Plan, which includes the following statements:

So, the man's got a plan, and he says:

If you go and read some of the comments in the forum, you learn things about Pickens that we liberals might have some problems with. On the other hand, at least he's trying to organize a well-thought-out effort to convince whoever will be president that investing in building alternative energy sources is necessary for the economic health of this country.

Hmm. I wonder if there is someday going to be a way to convert my little suv's engine to use natural gas or electricity. Probably not. I'm sure the auto industry wouldn't want that to be an option. After all, the only other option would be to buy a new hybrid-of-some-sort car. And I won't be able to afford that.

Hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang (sh-boom)
Ba-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-ay
Life could be a dream
Life could be a dream, sweetheart

July 4, 2008

Actually, as much as the weeds around here need whacking, they're not getting it. They are pretty much out of control. Weeds: plants considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome, especially one growing where it is not wanted,

It's not just the weeds around here that are out of my control. I am still living under the tyranny of my mother's growing dementia and dependence combined with my brother's demoralizing rules and realities.

Not much freedom for me here, on this Independence Day.

Maybe I should go out and buy my own little weed whacker, vent my frustrations on that army of undesirables that are intruding over every path from the door to the world. Whack! Whack! Take that, you creepy things.

I did murder a whole bunch of Japanese Beetles today as they attempted an orgy on my tomato plant. Whack! Whack!

One can only hold in anger and frustration for so long. Yes, I think I need to go out and whack those weeds, clear a path, clear my head. I know that those weed whackers are pretty loud, loud enough to muffle the yelling I need to get out of my system.

Someday I will be able to celebrate a real personal Independence Day. Until then, I need to go out and get a weed whacker.

On Independence Day back in 2002 I blogged that there should be a "Interdependence Day," and a commenter sent me to this page, where there is a Global Declaration of Interdependence, as follows:.

And tonight, as I watched part of New York City's fireworks, I couldn't help wondering how all of that money spent on fireworks all over this country could have instead been used for much more important and humanitarian purposes.

But rulers know how to pacify the people using bread and circuses, how to make them forget what the late George Carlin so eloquently reminded us about.

July 1, 2008

Here's a piece of performance art that needs to get lots more exposure.

June 15, 2008

That's what Bill Moyers, in his speech to the National Conference of Media Reform, indicated that the media is becoming.

Already, newspapers and magazines (and soon TV programming) are encouraged to sell key words to advertisers – so-called “in-text advertising” – in the online versions of stories. Can you imagine advertisers going for stories with key words such as “health care reform,” “environmental degradation,” “Iraqi casualties,” “contracting fraud,” or “K Street lobbyists.” I don’t think so. So what will happen to news in the future as the already tattered boundaries between journalism and advertising is dispensed with entirely, as content, programming, commerce and online communities are rolled into one profitably attractive package? Last year the investment firm of Piper Jaffrey predicted that much of the business model for new media would be just that kind of hybrid. They called it “communitainment.”

Moyers also said great stuff like:

...this Administration – with the complicity of the dominant media – conducted a political propaganda campaign, using erroneous and misleading intelligence to deceive Americans into supporting an unprovoked attack on another country, leading to a war that instead of being “quick and bloodless” as predicted, continues to this day. (At least we now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.)

and

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent while enhancing the power of the state and the privileged interests protected by it.

Democracy without accountability creates the illusion of popular control while offering ordinary Americans cheap tickets to the balcony, too far away to see that the public stage is just a reality TV set.

Nothing more characterizes corporate media today – mainstream and partisan – than disdain towards the fragile nature of modern life and indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

This leaves you with a heavy burden – it’s up to you to fight for the freedom that makes all other freedoms possible.

Be vigilant; the fate of the cyber commons is at stake here, the future of “the mobile web” and the benefits of the Internet as open architecture. We’ll lose without you: the only antidote to the power of organized money in Washington is the power of organized people at the netroots.

You can go to the FreePress site and read, listen to, or watch the whole amazing speech.

A couple of years ago, I agreed with Molly Ivins that Bill Moyers should be president. Maybe what he should be is Barack Obama's Carl Rove.

It's too bad that there isn't a Corporation for Public Blogging (like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Maybe if there were, b!X would have been able to continue his city-based and well respected journalistic (but not economic) success, the Portland Communique.

Surely there must be some foundation or trillionaire somewhere who might want to give out grants to independent citizen blogger/journalists? I nominate b!X to be first on the list.

May 2, 2008

Yesterday was the "National Day of Prayer."

In acknowledgment of the occasion, I quote here from my favorite scientist/atheist's weblog, Pharyngula.

I can scarcely believe my country is officially pandering to such willful stupidity — elevating evangelical kooks to positions of prestige, trumpeting the virtues of sectarian religion, and actually crediting the successes of America to the fact that a subset of deluded, demented fools sit on their asses and beg an invisible man to protect us and help us kill people in foreign countries. What a waste, and what an encouragement of further waste.

I feel like just declaring this the official National Day of Derangement and writing it all off, maybe spit in the soup of people who say grace, or flip off any group I catch trying to do a collective exercise in ritual invocation of nonexistent beings, but the Minnesota Atheists have a more productive idea: they are calling this a National Day of Reason and are setting up to demonstrate in the Minnesota capitol in St Paul today. They actually have a prime position, and all the legislators leaving their workplace to join in the National Day of Inanity will have to troop by them. In my dreams, these politicians would feel a little sense of shame at the foolishness of the official events, but in reality, I'm sure they won't.>

Categories: non-belief, politics, religion

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