The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Saturday
Mar242012
The Commentariat -- March 25, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is one you've already seen; it's pre-produced below. Just thought I'd let you know. The NYTX is featuring my stuff on the front page. You can contribute to NYTX here.
What Frank Bruni lacks in style he makes up for in substance. In his column today, he writes about a college acquaintance whose life took an enlightened turn when he began acquainting himself with the big wide world. Read to the end.
Former Miami Police Chief John F. Timoney, in a New York Times op-ed, writes that he and other Florida police chiefs urged the state legislature not to pass the Stand Your Ground law. "As Florida police chiefs predicted in 2005, the law has been used to justify killings ranging from drug dealers’ turf battles to road rage incidents. Homicides categorized as justifiable have nearly tripled since the law went into effect. Back in 2005, the National Rifle Association identified about two dozen states as fertile ground for the passage of laws just like this one.... Today, at least 20 other states have followed suit."
Jeff Gerstein of Politico on how the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act went mainstream (CW: I'd make that wingnut-stream, but I fully acknowledge the Court has a majority winger faction).
Nell Painter, in a New York Times op-ed, tells the story of Carrie Buck, whose "sterilization was deemed necessary [by the Supreme Court in 1927] to halt the propagation of 'the shiftless, ignorant and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South.'” Painter writes that it is curious that Charles Murray, the author of Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, thinks that white people suddenly went into moral decline in the 1960s, since in his earlier (and even more absurd) book The Bell Curve (which he co-authored) mentions Buck in a footnote.
In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Michael Smerconish analyzes the publicly-released 911 tapes in the Trayvon Martin case. Bottom line: "If a voice analysis shows [the person crying 'help'] to be Zimmerman, that will suggest he was justified in using deadly force, that he was crying for help and restraining himself before drawing his gun. If, however, it is Martin crying out for help, Zimmerman's ability to cloak himself in "stand your ground" will evaporate, and that identification will appropriately lead to his arrest." ...
... CW: This Daily Mail story on the Trayvon Williams case is probably the most disjointed "report" I ever read, but the photos are excellent.
Steve Benen has revived his "This Week in God" feature, highlighting a Pew Research poll that found "The number of people who say there has been too much religious talk by political leaders stands at an all-time high since the Pew Research Center began asking the question more than a decade ago. And most Americans continue to say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics." Also, today's "Reason Rally" in Washington, D.C.
Right Wing World
Jurrasic Pork at Brilliant at Breakfast comments on Rick Santorum's creepy ad (see yesterday's Commentariat). I'm glad somebody besides me finds the ad abominable.
Is the president suggesting if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it wouldn't look like him? That's just nonsense. I mean dividing this country up, it is a tragedy this young man was shot. -- Newt Gingrich, on President Obama's remarks about Trayvon Martin (see video in the News Ledes under the March 23 Commentariat)
What the president of the United States should do is try to bring people together, not use these types of horrible and tragic individual cases to try to drive a wedge in America. -- Rick Santorum
Those two comments are really irresponsible. I would consider them reprehensible. I think those comments were really hard to stomach, really, and I guess trying to appeal to people's worst instincts. -- David Plouffe
Professed Religious Fanatic/Cafeteria Catholic. Lisa Miller of the Washington Post: Rick "Santorum observes the teachings of his church selectively." He has voted against or expressed opinions against the Roman Catholic Church's teachings on the death penalty, torture, threatening Iran with bombing, immigration. "'We do well among people who take their faith seriously,' Santorum told Fox News last week. That’s true only if what Santorum means by 'faith' is a set of politically motivated conservative beliefs, which don’t have very much to do with religion at all."
Local News
I have occasionally linked to stories about Art Pope (like this long profile by Jane Mayer for the New Yorker comes to mind). Pope is a North Carolina multimillionaire winger who made his money selling slave-made crap to poor people in discount stores where the clerks make minimum wage and now spends his filthy lucre very efffectively funding right-wing causes & candidates. While Pope stays behind the scenes, Pam Spalding of Pam's House Blend offer this insight into the kind of classy operation he runs -- in this case, advocating for an anti-gay marriage amendment in North Carolina.
News Ledes
AP: "A French judge filed preliminary murder and terrorism charges Sunday against ... Abdelkader Merah on Sunday, whose younger brother Mohamed claimed responsibility for the attacks."
AP: "The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday. The families of the dead received the money Saturday at the governor’s office, said Kandahar provincial council member Agha Lalai. Each wounded person received $11,000, Lalai said. Community elder Jan Agha confirmed the same figures."
Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday urged China to use its influence to stop North Korea's "bad behavior" in a nuclear standoff with the West and hinted at tougher sanctions if the reclusive state goes ahead with a rocket launch next month."
New York Times: "Squinting through binoculars from a forward observation post here, President Obama peered into North Korea on Sunday, getting a firsthand look at the secretive nuclear nation that has been a source of recurring angst for his administration." Guardian story here.
Guardian: "Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators marched to protest against police violence and demand the resignation of New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly on Saturday afternoon. Protesters marched from the movement's original base of operations, Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan to Union Square, where occupiers and police have been facing off for the past week." New York Times story here.
Reuters: "Rallies are being held in cities across the country this weekend to protest the failure of police to arrest a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer for shooting to death an unarmed black teenager. Protesters, some dressed in 'hoodie' hooded sweatshirts like the kind 17-year-old Trayvon Martin wore at the time of his death, gathered for events in Columbia, South Carolina, Washington, D.C. and Chicago Saturday."
Reuters: "James Murdoch has severed all ties with News Corp's British newspaper business, which is at the centre of multiple investigations over phone and computer hacking and bribery, according to regulatory filings."
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Reader Comments (11)
Governor Scott of Florida, a true tea bagger, is as afraid of the NRA as any state level politician. He has the added problem of being rather dense. Do not count on him changing the "stand your ground" law. Neither he nor the legislature will do anything to annoy the gun happy segment of the wing nuts. If many states lead, Florda may follow in order to reduce the deserved ridicule. That is the only chance for sanity, ridicule.
Thank God for Mississippi.
Frank Bruni's column tells it all. The first law of religion, do not allow your children to be truly educated. Home school them, keep them out of real colleges, allow teachers to not tell the truth. I find it interesting that they believe their great truths cannot stand reality. I have stated this before, part of my hypothesis on the secularization of Europe is the simple fact that when you learn the history of your country, you learn the history of your religion. It does not go well.
Rick Santorum is a Santorum Catholic just as Andrew Sullivan is a Sullivan Catholic. During Sullivan's appearance on Bill Maher's "Real Time" on Friday night, he argued that Catholicism was not what the hierarchy decided but what the people lived. Although I have no quarrel with Sullivan's humanism served with a Catholic glaze, I detect a profound disconnect among people who profess to believe the same thing. The worldwide roster of Catholics has begun to resemble a list of subscribers to "Cat Fancier" or "Cigar Afficionado" magazine. Although they all like cats (or cigars), they have differences of opinion about the details. Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember heterogeneity of belief praised by the nuns and priests during my Catholic childhood. In fact, I remember reading about Manicheans, Arians, and Cathars, who were treated quite harshly by the Church for something or other.
@Jack Mahoney your point is well taken. The problem is that all religions have a problem in adapting their ancient ideas to modern reality. My favorite is the sort of apology by the Catholic Church to Galileo 350 years after his death. So in 1992, the Church sort of admitted that the earth revolves around the sun. Of course to clearly admit the mistake, they would have to admit that the theology was not perfect. Not a chance. It is easy to see how many people who are presented with the truths and realities of life have a hard time adjusting to the rules from 1650. There was a recent survey conducted in NJ to Catholics who have left the Church. The bottom line is they could not stand being ordered to live in 1650. So if you want to stay connected, you have to adapt, to put it nicely. Of course in the case of Santorum, the adaptation has nothing to do with morality as long as their is one vote available if you believe in the death penalty.
One other note. The Cathars were not just 'treated harshly'. Almost all of them, about a quarter million, were slaughtered in a crusade under orders of Pope Innocent III. Their crime was they did not believe the Pope had the God given right to be in charge.
Oh, one more thing. I was confused by a headline this morning.
Dick Cheney has a heart?
Since all religions are man-made with one of the sole purposes being control of the populace someone like Bruni's friend whose education and experience revealed this fact allowed him to explore the possibility of a whole different set of beliefs and truths. And to think this person sought out his old roommate in order to tell his story of enlightenment is quite something.
@ Marvin––And just you wait. After Cheney passes into the great beyond where he will continue to shoot at imaginary fowl, we will get to read and hear about his heart-felt this and his great heart-felt love for that. Death has a strange way of enlarging small men into monuments.
Marvin, thanks for your insights. I agree that 1650 is a terrible thing to wish on someone, which is one of the reasons I left the church at 15. As for the Cathars, I was writing ironically. I don't think that the Manicheans and Arians were given much quarter, either.
I would like to respond to the final anecdote in Frank Bruni's moving column. For those who haven't read it, this is a spoiler alert of sorts. Read his column before my comment.
The behavior of the woman he describes at the end might seem out of the ordinary, even outrageous. It certainly is, in a way. But if you talk to people on the front lines of providing abortion services, those who work in the clinics, you will discover it is not unique at all. Women who man the picket lines against other women coming in for abortions also become patients; it happens a lot. And they usually have the same explanation: "I am not like those other women; my story is unique." Sadly, they don't seem to see the fallacy in their reasoning.
Thanks for all of the terrific comments today. I'm going to at least obliquely address a couple of them in my column for tomorrow's NYTX, a column I have not yet begun to write & which I don't know how I'll find the time to write inasmuch as I must do some weeding (as opposed to "weading") & mulching today AND I am compelled to watch two hours of "Mad Men." Contrary to the opinions of some (e.g., my husband, the literary critic!), I think "Man Men" has been a fine example of character, plot & setting all speaking to existential matters. It's art!
@Realitychex; I stopped posting when I felt Marie was overwhelmed by her workload and my comments were inferior to the high standards set by others who respond to the current events covered by this site. Today however I must break my "oath not to post"; dust off the soap box and add my two cents into the slipstream of the ethereal internet.
Mr. Brooks has stripped naked, painted himself with the blood of the warpath and reminds all of us that under the right circumstance we will rip the throats of others with our canine teeth. Ricky Santorum campaigns at shooting ranges while professing to follow the teachings of Jesus; who, if history has it right, went peacefully to his own cruel death. Republican and Democratic 'pigiticians' fattened at the feed trough of the N.R.A. stop stuffing their faces just long enough to demand an inquire into the shooting death of a boy. Wearing a hoodie, clutching a fucking bag of candy and a fucking Coke for his little brother. Geraldo Rivera claiming it's just cause by costume. The MSM smells and sells blood. Black snake oil salesmen demand "an eye for an eye" and call for a million man army to hunt down the perp. The shooter; who was raised by TeeVee and nurtured by the violent conclusions of crime stopper cop shows; dreamed of pulling the trigger and becoming a hero.
Nothing motives like fear and for my thought, fear is what is driving this. Fear is what caused it; fear is what is being sold to us by the MSM.
The only response I thought worthy of the situation was, fittingly so, by the President; "That could have been my son." Well, really
he was. Trayvon was everyones son and every fucking day we kill our sons and daughters in the streets of America because we won't stop our culture of violence and we allow groups like the N.R.A. to profit from the killings. I'm out. JJG
Thank you for all the work you do on these posts. I link to you so regularly that sometimes it's embarassing! I don't give you the credit you so richly deserve for all the great posts you locate and report on. Thanks for all you do.