The Commentariat -- January 11, 2012
Sorry, slow morning! Comments are open in this section. I haven't said much, but here's hoping you do.
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer: "Today, New York Times writer Mark Bittman titles in his op-ed blogpost, 'We’re eating less meat. Why?' You might think he would answer that question. He does not." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.
Right Wing World
Rob Boston in AlterNet: "To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.... There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth." Boston lists five founding fathers -- and outlines their religious views -- who could not get elected today.
New York Times Editors: "Where the Iowa caucuses illuminated the dark essence of social conservatism, the New Hampshire primary was a journey into the dingy, cramped quarters of the right wing’s economic policies.... In a flailing effort to address the pain of the middle class, the Republicans repeated familiar charges that Mr. Obama advocates a redistribution of wealth.... It was all exactly backward. Americans are angry about income redistribution — from the middle class to the tiny sliver at the top, not from the top down.... The Republican hopefuls are deluding themselves and trying to delude the voters."
Joshua Green of Bloomberg News takes in a screening of “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” "the film produced by Jason Killian Meath, a former Republican National Committee aide, [which] is being funded by Winning Our Future, an organization run by longtime aides to Gingrich. Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), and a Gingrich supporter, has given Winning Our Future $5 million to help air the film in South Carolina."
John Dickerson of Slate: "The GOP critique of Romney ratifies the Democratic idea that the free market can breed excesses. None of Romney's rivals would admit they're saying that, but when you pile on this completely and in such blunt terms you are embracing the anti-corporate energy that has always been behind the Democratic attack. When Barack Obama talks about the excesses of Wall Street, conservatives say he is punishing success. If so, then Romney's rivals are doing the same thing." ...
... Steve Benen: "Romney has tried to argue that critics of his private-sector layoffs are borderline communists, trying to 'put free enterprise on trial.' And yet, when there is no difference whatsoever between the message Dems are pushing and the attacks from Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Jon Huntsman, it suggests the Romney line is a bust. But more importantly, it also suggests the progressive line is what resonates with voters — even Republican voters." ...
... Maureen Dowd eviscerates the Willard doll.
Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Representative of Texas finished a strong second in the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, which in many ways was the more telling outcome in a race where Mitt Romney’s dominance was never in doubt.... Even if political analysts continue to regard the libertarian-leaning Mr. Paul as a protest candidate, with no shot at the nomination, his success here — on top of a third-place finish last week in the Iowa caucuses — means he will probably continue his campaign for months and perhaps to the summer convention." ...
Rick the Red. Barbie Nadeau in the Daily Beast: "On the campaign trail, [Rick] Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy 'to escape fascism,' but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party. 'Rick’s grandfather Pietro was a liberal man and he understood right away what was happening in Italy,' [Malacarne] Santorum [a cousin of the candidate's] told Oggi. 'He was anti-fascist to the extreme, and the political climate in 1925 was stifling so he left for America. After a few years he returned to Italy with his wife and children, including Aldo, Rick’s father, who passed away late last year.....' She goes on to explain how the family then became pillars of the Communist Party in Italy."
The first part of this segment is a little boring, but beginnng at about 3:45 min. in, Maddow gets down to enumerating the positions of the GOP presidential candidates on contraception. If you believe American women & men should have the right to have sexual relations in a responsible way, you really cannot vote for any one of these medieval would-be kings. At the end of the segment, Maddow interviews Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. Listen to it.
News Ledes
New York Times: "At a time of growing tension over its and mounting belligerence toward the West, Iran reported on Wednesday that an Iranian nuclear scientist died in what was termed a 'terrorist bomb blast' in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist attached a magnetic explosive device to his car.... Iranian officials indicated that they believed the United States and Israel were responsible."
AP: "Some Occupy Wall Street protesters spent the night at New York City's Zuccotti Park after metal barricades surrounding it came down. By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, only about 10 of them remained. The barricades were removed late Tuesday. About 300 cheering protesters began filling the park."
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Reader Comments (4)
I posted this at the NYTX, too.
..."I agree with you about Bittman’s column, Marie. He glossed over the horrendous cruelty of animal abuse in factory farming, and how people are becoming more aware of this. More people now are educating themselves about what they eat, and realize that the harmless looking package of red meat with cellophane wrapping in the supermarket bin may very well have been DOA when the cow/pig/lamb arrived at the slaughterhouse, either from outright abuse or from inhumane transport in getting him to slaughter. Or possibly was a very sick animal and just got shoved in the truck. Not much attention paid by the “slave” labor.
Were I to teach a high school (or college) course in environmental issues, I would include reading (nobody said it better than Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle,”) and take my students on a fieldtrip to a factory farm (where, of course, they wouldn’t let us in). Then to a slaughterhouse. I have done all of these things, which is a VERY big reason I do not eat meat.
To be fair, I have also seen cows, pigs and lambs humanely raised with open pasture and kindness. I still won’t eat them, but I can understand why people who can afford it make that choice.
BTW, I posted a comment about factory farming and Bittman’s sliding over and around it in his column. The trolls over at NYT tanked it. Hardly anybody wants to be reminded of the nasty way we consume. Sorta like “collateral damage” in war. Denial is so much more comfortable and doesn’t keep us awake at night!"
This business of being more qualified for a presidency because of business experience–-read Mitt Romney––is such a fallacy. And no one seems to remember that Obama in 1983 worked for Business International Corporation in New York, a publishing and consulting group that collected data on international business and finance. He worked in the financial-services division interviewing business experts, researching trends in foreign exchange, following market developments. He also edited a reference guide on overseas markets. So––let's see––this experience plus community organizer, lawyer, professor and senator makes for a pretty well rounded kind of guy, doncha think?
"The men of wealth, the business men, manufactures, and merchants, bankers and brokers, are the men who excert the worst influence on government in every country...they act on the beautiful maxim, 'Let the government take care of the rich and the rich will take care of the poor,' instead of the far safer maxim, 'Let government take care of the weak, the strong can take care of themselves."
Orestes A. Brownson at Harvard in the thirties
I was a vegetarian @ 1979-1989. This came about after watching a horrible film of how cows and chicken are raised. Also, during this time I learned of the health benefits of whole grains, fresh produce etc. At the time my friends and family thought I was nuts (I did start eating more nuts). Forward ahead 20 years. Today many more people are aware that excess eating of meat is bad for one's health. Today it is the norm among my family and friends to prepare meatless meals.
At the health food chain store Whole Foods the meats are labeled on a scale of 1-5. A rating of 5 means the animal was raised under ideal conditions (free range, natural diet). This is a relatively new system for them. I hope this means people are giving thought to what they'd eat.
Perhaps less known to people are the impacts of fishing practices throughout the world on sea creatures. Finding seafood that is sustainably caught is difficult, even at Whole Foods. Therefore, I rarely eat seafood, although it is quite healthy.
So, from my experience I can say that people do eat less or no meat for a reason!
Julie in MA
@ Julie-
Loved your comment! I wanted to let you know that I am one of the lucky people who can find sustainable fish. I live on the Oregon Coast, and we buy our seafood right off the boats from local fishermen. They do not use nets, nor do they trawl or use long lines. They have small fishing boats and catch only enough to sell to their customers. The sight of crab boats coming in at night with their signal lamps, framed by the moon, is a meditation. And fresh Dungeness crabs are nirvana.
Very sad that so many fish are farmed, which is unhealthy not only for the farmed fish, but more so for fish swimming free--with whom they hybridize--introducing diseases and infections unknown in the wild.
There is an upside to living on the "edge of the world!"