The Commentariat -- Oct. 13, 2014
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Emanuella Grinberg of CNN: "For the first time this year, Seattle and Minneapolis will recognize the second Monday in October as 'Indigenous People's Day.' The cities join a growing list of jurisdictions choosing to shift the holiday's focus from Christopher Columbus to the people he encountered in the New World and their modern-day descendants." ...
... Carrie Gibson of the Daily Beast: "Honoring Columbus is an idea whose time has past. That is not to say that we don't have plenty in our history that merits a day of celebration." ...
... Christopher Wanjek of Live Science debunks (October 2011) "the top 5 misconceptions about Columbus." ...
... CW: I'll bet you're wondering what the idiots at Fox "News" think about this. Here's a quote:
Christopher Columbus brought Western ideas, brought technology, brought the future to North America. He is somebody worth celebrating. -- Jonathan Hoenig ...
... Just as accurately as the Fox "News" accounting, Flip Wilson recounts Columbus's first crossing:
** E.J. Dionne: "Outside groups empowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision are using mass media in ways that turn off Americans to democracy, aggravate divisions between the political parties and heighten animosities among citizens of differing views. Studies of this year's political advertising show that outside groups are blanketing the airwaves with messages far more negative than those purveyed by the candidates themselves.... There is far too much complacency about big money's role in this year's campaigns, on the grounds that both sides have plenty of it.... Citizens United is deepening our divisions and turning more citizens into bystanders." CW: Thanks again, Supremes! Read the whole column. ...
... Chisun Lee, et al., of the Brennan Center for Justice: A Brennan Center "report collects abundant evidence of state and local election practice over the last four years, and concludes that weak regulation of coordination between candidates and the type of 'independent' spending groups Citizens United unleashed has allowed those groups to serve as de-facto arms of candidate campaigns. Since independent groups are not subject to many campaign finance laws, including spending limits, this effectively allows wealthy donors to circumvent those laws altogether." ...
... CW: Let's be clear here. The conservatives on the Supreme Court -- those high-falutin "independent" justices for life -- who are supposed to protect us from the craven hustlers in the other two branches of government, have in fact facilitated, or rather ordered, candidates for elected office to be even more craven hustlers. The Roberts Court is the first Supreme Court in my lifetime that has been blatantly anti-democratic & has purposefully undermined the Constitution those originalists & their "balls-&-strikes-calling" Ump-in-Chief are sworn to uphold. This isn't my "opinion"; it is supported by factual findings in the studies Dionne cites.
Robert Pear: "Federal officials say they have repeatedly criticized, and in many cases penalized, Medicare health plans for serious deficiencies, including the improper rejection of claims for medical services and unjustified limits on coverage of prescription drugs. The findings, cataloged in dozens of federal audit reports, come as millions of older Americans prepare to sign up for private health plans and prescription drug plans in Medicare's annual open enrollment period, which will begin on Wednesday and continue through Dec. 7."
Michelle Boots of Alaska Dispatch News: "A federal judge ruled Sunday that Alaska's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, paving the way for gay couples to begin marrying in the state for the first time. 'The court finds that Alaska's ban on same-sex marriage and refusal to recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered in other states is unconstitutional as a deprivation of basic due process and equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,' U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess wrote in an order in the case Hamby v. Parnell, released Sunday." Burgess is a George W. Bush appointee. ...
... Greg Abbott Explains the Facts of Life in a Legal Brief. Lauren McGaughy of the Houston Chronicle: "Attorney General Greg Abbott [-- the Republican nominee for governor --] says Texas' same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children. Writing in a brief filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, Abbott said....,
Texas's marriage laws are rationally related to the State's interest in reducing unplanned out-of-wedlock births. By channeling procreative heterosexual intercourse into marriage, Texas's marriage laws reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births and the costs that those births impose on society. Recognizing same-sex marriage does not advance this interest because same-sex unions do not result in pregnancy.
... CW: Yeah, I thought so. Single women get pregnant & don't marry their partners because the gays. The stupidity of this argument alone should convince judges to knock down marriage equality bans. ...
Texas's liberal gun laws are rationally related to the State's interest in reducing unplanned out-of-wedlock births. By channeling procreative heterosexual intercourse into marriage via shotgun weddings, Texas's gun laws reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births and the costs that those births impose on society. -- Constant Weader, channeling Greg Abbott
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "A day after a Dallas nurse became the second person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, it's still unclear how she contracted the disease ... and the medical community has not taken kindly to the CDC's suggestion that she was somehow at fault. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer for Texas Health Resources, said she was following 'full CDC precautions,' including wearing a gown, gloves, and a mask, while caring for [Ebola victim Thomas] Duncan, who died Wednesday. However, Dr. Thomas Frieden, who leads the CDC, said on Face the Nation that the fact that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital hasn't identified what went wrong "is concerning because clearly there was a breach in protocol. The comment exacerbated concerns about whether U.S. hospitals are prepared to handle Ebola patients, and whether the problem lies with the recommended procedures, or hospital workers failing to implement them."
Linda Stasi of the New York Daily News: "According to a new national poll, the more educated you are, the less you fear an Ebola outbreak in a major U.S. city, while the less educated, the greater the fear. Well that's what the latest Reason-Rupe national poll shows anyway, along with the fact that Tea Partiers fear the coming Ebola apocalypse more than Democrats and Republicans." ...
... "The Fear Equation." Michael Specter of the New Yorker: "Our response to pandemics -- whether SARS, avian influenza, MERS, or Ebola -- has become predictable. First, there is the panic. Then, as the pandemic ebbs, we forget. We can't afford to do either. This epidemic won't be over soon, but that is even more reason to focus on what works. ...
... CW: Here's something I wondered about, & Specter has the answer: "Rob Carlson..., who has written widely about genetic engineering and vaccine development, says, 'We could have pushed the development of a synthetic Ebola vaccine a decade ago. We had the skills, but we chose not to pursue it. Why? Because we weren't the people getting sick.'" ...
Also another case of Ebola was discovered in Texas, prompting an immediate and total ban on travel to and from the Lone Star state. Kidding! We only yap about banning travel to and from places as recommended by the John Bolton foreign policy think tank wizards at Fox News. -- Driftglass
The Tea Party Economy. Paul Krugman: "The world economy appears to be stumbling.... Growth is stalling, and the specter of deflation looms.... Historically, the solution to high levels of debt has often involved writing off and forgiving much of that debt.... [But now] the policy response to a crisis of excessive debt has, in effect, been a demand that debtors pay off their debts in full.... That ... doesn't work."
... Exploding Toasters! Before the [financial] crash, one in five mortgages that were being marketed by the biggest financial institutions were exploding and costing people their homes. No one would permit toasters to be sold when one in five exploded and burned down somebody's house. But they were selling mortgages like that and every regulator knew about it. -- Elizabeth Warren, in an interview with Thomas Frank. Thanks to James S. for the link.
CW: Apropos of a discussion Akhilleus & I had in the Comments section last week ...
... Jason Easley of Politics USA: "
Sen. Bernie Sanders knocked John McCain off of his usual Sunday morning warmongering turf by following a typical McCain appearance on CNN State Of The Union with a fact laced shredding of McCain's pro-war propaganda.... It was a rare first to see CNN or any other network have a guest on to rebut McCain's constant Obama bashing and calls for military acceleration":
... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly: "In general, people with political views similar to Bernie Sanders do not get within half a mile of a Sunday morning microphone [because the Sunday show bookers don't invite them].... Whatever the cause of this breakthrough, it was a welcome development. John McCain's views on foreign policy are radical and represent a lunatic fringe. You'd never know it if all you did is watch teevee, but Sanders' views are much more mainstream." ...
... Charles Pierce reviews what-all else you missed on the Sunday shows.
Kirk Semple & Tim Arango of the New York Times: "Kurdistan Workers' Party, or P.K.K..., commanders say their halting, nine-year-old peace process with the Turkish government and, indeed, the future of the region, will turn on the battle for Kobani and on Turkey's response. If Turkey does not help the embattled Kurdish forces in Kobani, the commanders say, they will break off peace talks and resume their guerrilla war within Turkey, plunging yet another country in the region into armed conflict.... Despite increased pressure from the United States and pleas from outgunned Kurdish fighters in Kobani, Turkey has refused to deploy its military against the Islamic State..., or to open the border to allow reinforcements, weapons and supplies to reach the town. In a shift, though, Turkey will allow American and coalition troops to use its bases...." (See link in yesterday's News Ledes on this last point.) ...
... Griff Witte of the Washington Post: Great Britain's "most prominent propagandist for the Islamic State [-- Anjem Choudary --] ... and other enablers remain free to spread their seductively messianic ideology on the streets of the United Kingdom and globally, through the Internet. They do so by taking advantage of the very rights they condemn as un-Islamic.... Counterterrorism officials and experts say Choudary and the many shadowy groups he has fronted have directly contributed to the indoctrination of dozens of people who have gone on to plan or commit attacks in the United Kingdom. His network, they say, has also become a vital facilitator in the flow of some of the thousands of Europeans who have swarmed to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, and who could return to carry out attacks in the West...."
November Elections
Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Republican allies are pumping millions of dollars into a final swarm of television ads in the run-up to Election Day.... But much of the advertising by outside groups is coming later -- and at a much steeper cost -- than many on the right had hoped, largely because top conservative donors were slow to open their checkbooks. That foot-dragging has forced super PACs and politically active nonprofit groups to pay a huge premium for last-minute ad buys, and it shows the extent to which their top financiers have dictated the timing and strategy of outside groups this year."
Jonathan Ellis of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader: "The political world outside of South Dakota learned some stunning news last week: [Republican nominee] Mike Rounds, the guy everybody assumed would be the next senator from South Dakota, actually has been running a campaign more suited for sheriff of Mayberry County than U.S. Senate.... Even last spring, national Republicans were growing increasingly alarmed by Rounds' anemic fundraising.... Rounds failed to raise the resources necessary to defend himself in the cutthroat world of U.S. Senate campaigns, where millions of dollars can be beamed into a race with the flip of a switch." ...
... Martin Longman: "What's still unclear is if the DSCC is primarily concerned with electing their candidate, Rick Weiland, or with electing independent candidate, Larry Pressler. Either way, they hope that Mike Rounds is truly roadkill because that will save them a senate seat that they had every reason to believe was lost."
Danny Vinik of the New Republic rips the Denver Post's endorsement of winger Cory Gardner: "The paper & Cory Gardner disagree on almost every issue." ...
... Luke Brinker of Salon: "Denver Post submits superb entry for most asinine endorsement of 2014 cycle. The paper bemoans Washington gridlock -- and endorses a shutdown-supporting Tea Partier to solve it!"
Jason Zengerle in the New Republic assesses Alison Grimes' (D for Dismal) campaign against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "So preoccupied with not making mistakes, and demonizing the opponent, the modern political campaign often forgets what would seemingly be its most important task: to make an affirmative case for its candidate." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.
James Hohmann of Politico: In the Michigan gubernatorial race, the candidates debate. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has a small lead over Democrat Mark Schauer.
The Washington Post Editors endorse Democrat Anthony Brown for governor of Maryland as the lesser of two duds.
News Ledes
Guardian: "MPs including the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, have voted to recognise Palestine as a state in a symbolic move that will unnerve Israel by suggesting that it is losing a wider battle for public opinion in Britain. The vote of 274 to 12, a majority of 262, on a backbench motion has no practical impact on British government policy and ministers were instructed not to vote.
** Huffington Post: "Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a decade of stagnant spending has 'slowed down' research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe. 'NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. 'Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.'" CW: Thanks, GOP!
New York Times: "A day after American officials said Turkey had agreed to allow its air bases for operations against the Islamic State, which they described as a deal that represented a breakthrough in tense negotiations, Turkish officials on Monday said there was no deal yet, and that talks were still underway."
Washington Post: "Top clergy considering whether Catholicism must change its approach to sex and marriage on Monday ... [said] the Church must 'turn respectfully' to non-traditional relationships -- including unmarried and same-gender couples -- and 'appreciate the positive values' those unions may have. The comments came in a document cardinals prepared as a sum-up of what's happened during the first half of the two-week long 'synod' Pope Francis had called."
AP: "French economist Jean Tirole won the Nobel prize for economics Monday for research on market power and regulation. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Tirole for clarifying 'how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.'"
Boston Globe: "A prosecution witness could testify that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev knew his older brother was involved in a triple homicide in Waltham in 2011, according to a defense motion filed in federal court Friday. Prosecutors made the revelation of the existence of the witness in a letter in August, according to Friday's filing, which asked for a variety of information from prosecutors, including legible copies of documents from the Russian government and information and evidence related to the Waltham killings. The case remains open, even after a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev reportedly confessed and implicated Tamerlan in the killings."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Hundreds of protesters marched to the St. Louis University campus in the heart of the city early today and announced that they planned to stay. The protest culminated at the private school's Midtown campus just west of Grand Boulevard shortly before 2 a.m. after a march that started near the site where a teenager was fatally shot five days earlier by a city police officer. Police say the teenager fired at the officer first."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Hundreds of people turned out Sunday night for an interfaith service where clergy urged a wider call for reforms in response to police violence against minorities. Generational divides became apparent during the three hours that people spoke at Chaifetz Arena, at St. Louis University. At times, the crowd chanted calls for younger speakers -- demanding instead to hear the people who've been on the streets of Ferguson since the Aug. 9 police shooting of Michael Brown."
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Reader Comments (23)
If Citizens United could get over turned, <just wishing here>
when would that be? Any wild guesses?
Or will we totally lose our raggity democracy?
It's barely recognizable now.
mae finch
Jason Zengerle of TNR says Alison Lundergan Grimes is running the worst campaign of the year. I had commented earlier wondering whether she was pandering to her base or really was against gun control, the AFCA and for big coal. Now it appears that she refuses to answer the question of whether she voted for Obama who is one step below dog in the state of Kentucky. I wondered, as a democrat, where her loyalties lay. Our man of the media, Chuck Todd actually said Grimes should disqualify herself as a candidate because she refuses to answer the Obama-vote question. Really Chuck?
Jason says Grime's candidacy "is showing just how absurd and ultimately self defeating the modern political campaign has become."
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119800/alison-lundergan-grimes-2014-senate-campaign-disaster
I must, like many of you, get hundreds of emails asking for money from candidates all over. I am so fed up with the campaign "big" money business I refuse to give a dime to anyone (except my state governor and representatives). Every day I simply do a "select all" and delete. Yes, E.J. Dionne, I am one of those that have become "turned off"–––oh, how I long for C.U. to be overturned and we have campaign finance reform––simple and actually democratic. It's Monday–-I feel optimistic.
Yesterday Steve Kornacki floated an intriguing possibility. If Greg Orman and Larry Pressler win, there'd be four Independents in the Senate (Bernie Sanders, Angus King, Orman and Pressler). If the Senate were otherwise split 48-48, and these four decided not to caucus with either Democrats or Republicans, they'd have real power.
Parliamentary politics anyone?
In a sea of stupid, this one sentence in Greg Abbott's brief stands out: " By channeling procreative heterosexual intercourse into marriage, Texas’s marriage laws reduce unplanned out-of-wedlock births and the costs that those births impose on society."
Guess this mental giant never heard of birth control. One of Planned Parenthood's enduring slogans, in fact, is "Every child a wanted child." And they do a lot to further that goal. Oh, right, Abbott probably believes that all contraceptives are really abortion drugs. Striking how the obvious solution to the problem doesn't cross his radar, although it is clear to the non-zealots of the world.
Stan Freberg's Christopher Columbus Discovers the New World.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXmCIFKRrTY
Faux News headline: "'Columbus Day' or 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'?"
In other words, the way it's always been (because that's always right) or some bullshit made up by the "PC Police".
Or to put it more accurately, "A Day for White People or a Day for Ignorant Brown and Red People Who Don't Even Speak English"
But it's true that Columbus, who got a tad lost along the way to India, brought technology (weapons of war) and the future (genocide, slavery) to the Americas. What would they have done without him?
Randy Newman reminds us of what else he brought:
The Great Nations of Europe
[CW: Lyrics removed.]
So how 'bout we call it "Introduction of Smallpox Day", or "Europeans Discover Biological Warfare Day"?
According to the site Science Clarified, "The Caribbean island of Hispaniola had more than a million inhabitants when Christopher Columbus landed there in 1492. Within twenty years, more than a third of the population was dead. Some died at the hands of cruel Spanish masters, others starved to death, but the majority of native islanders died from an epidemic disease they had never seen before—smallpox."
Thanks, Chris!
Also, the Faux idiots still insist on declaring that Columbus "discovered" America. For people like the Fox bots and most of their viewers, the term "indigenous people" is a punch line, a joke. They care almost as much about indigenous people as they do about women's rights, which is to say, not at all.
@Akhilleus: That Randy Newman is a genius & an oracle. In the final lyrics of the song, he predicted the Ebola epidemic -- at least the epidemic as seen through the eyes of teabaggers. (I thought the word in the lyrics was "buck," not "bug," -- "from out of Africa," which would have predicted Obamaphobia, too.)
Marie
Bernie Sanders, complexity on television, and advocacy.
Amazing to see Bernie Sanders on CNN in a capacity other than as the MSM example of an outsider who simply won't get with the program: bombs for poor browns, lower taxes for rich whites.
Thinking about why people like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are so rarely provided with an ability to debate the issues, as opposed to rubber stamping what the Bubble People approve, it's tempting to reduce it to the fact that all major television networks are now owned by multinational corporations which have little interest in promoting any world view that might negatively impact their ROI or the economic health of their many holdings. This, certainly, is a factor. But just as big is the reticence of many producers, who have achieved the summit of television news, to disrupt or challenge viewers' complacency with complexity.
Difficult issues demand careful consideration. But this reluctance to accept such a task plays perfectly into the conservative sweet spot. Since Reagan, conservatives have gone after solutions that are both ideologically acceptable and EZ to sell to the base and low information types.
Does crime appear to be a problem? The difficult answer, one supported by many progressives, requires us as citizens to address the root causes; poverty, poor schools, low wages, few opportunities, unemployment. If you buy into such a long term, but potentially highly successful process, you must commit resources and personnel to trying to solve what a difficult problem.
The EZ solution, the conservative demagogue solution? More jails. Longer prison terms, draconian solutions designed to crush and to humiliate. A solution that all but guarantees more, and worse, crime.
But who cares? We came up with a "solution", one that's EZ to understand, EZ to sell, and one that appeals to the right's inbred sense of justice, meaning, punishment for those who are not like us. But also a solution that plays well for producers who see taking their time with a difficult issue as the bane of their lives.
This sort of thinking, the EZ Way, has spread like a virus through television news. Deep thinking is deep sixed in favor of snarky sound bites: "Read my lips", "Dead or Alive", "With us or against us", "War on Christmas".
So it's no wonder that right-wingers predominate on the Sunday morning shows where producers have no interest in spending the time to think through difficult issues like ISIS or ebola. Fear is EZier to do and much more lucrative, as it attracts and keeps an audience.
But it's not as if television is inept or unable to handle complexity. Ed Murrow did it on a regular basis half a century ago when TV was still in its adolescence. "Harvest of Shame" was televised the day after Thanksgiving, 1961, and depicted the terrible plight of migrant farm workers whose backs were broken to fill the Turkey Day cornucopias of millions of Americans. Murrow, of course, was attacked for being an advocate rather than a journalist. But how can anyone on Fox, which screams 24/7 in favor of right-wing EZ, but usually terribly wrong, solutions to our many problems, be thought of as anything but an advocate? How can Chuck Todd not be thought of as an advocated for slip shod thinking? For bothsiderism?
A famous quote from "Harvest" came from a farmer who showed up at the morning shape-ups to pick their workers each day: "We used to own slaves. Now we just rent 'em."
Today, over half a century after Murrow's startling documentary, his descendents side with the renters. And if slavery were still intact, you know Fox would pro-slavery all the way (for all intents and purposes, they act as if slavery were still legal).
Television can accommodate complexity. For the most part it chooses not to, and so rather than simply reporting on the moribund state of American politics, it is complicit in that state, a pernicious partner in moral dissipation. It doesn't have to be an advocate, like Murrow, for good causes, but there has to be a better way than fiddling for dollars while Rome burns.
Marie,
When I first heard the song, sometime around 1999, my thinking then was that Newman was referring to AIDS which was said to have come from Africa, but lately I've thought the same thing (about ebola) when he sings:
A bug from out of Africa might come for you and me.
Destroying everything in its path from sea to shining sea,
like the great nations of Europe in the 16th century.
@James Singer, Listened to Stan Freberg's United States of America on my iPod yesterday during my workout; for maybe the hundredth time. Columbus is the first number in what is one of the all-time best comedy albums. For all who appreciate clever, stinging lyrics set to spiffy music, this album with music by Billy May and lyrics by Freberg, and a superb cast is a bargain at twice the $6 price for a download. In '63 we tried to get a license to produce it as a stage musical at the University of SW Louisiana but Freberg declined - can't understand why he never produced it as such himself.
apropos Freberg, his anti-(Vietnam) war ads were ahead of their time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt6iCTMp8xE
and an archive of his often political as well as commercial work: https://archive.org/details/StanFreberg-01-99
Includes some of the USA album.
And Ak thanks for the Randy Newman link. Marie is correct, he is an oracle, and treasure, indeed.
The Stan Freberg bit is great, as is Flip Wilson's take on Columbus' voyage. I love the part about Queen Isabella showing up on the dock half in the bag, excited because Columbus is going to discover Ray Charles when he gets to America.
Computer burped when I sent a longer version of the following this AM and it disappeared into the ether. Not great loss. A summary:
I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity between the mindsets and cynical techniques applied by Anjem Choudary and the American Right.
Both utilize intellectual jujitsu, employing the strengths of their opponents against them. The healthy skepticism of good science becomes the teach the controversy plaint of anti-evolutionists and climate change deniers. The tenets of free speech undergird the outrageous lies of those who would deny free speech to everyone.
And freedom of religion, of course, applies only to one's own.
Are ISIL recruiters and apologizers entirely identical with the American Right?
Maybe not, but oddly those who most fear the imposition of Sharia law and assert their freedom to control women and discriminate against gays are clearly kissin' cousins of some of those they most fear and detest.
These are the same people, of course, who don't recognize irony when it hits them in the face....and I've concluded those who don't get irony are the most dangerous, and ultimately frightening, of all.
And then there's Charles Mann's 2005 bestseller "1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus." For a number of reasons, I never got around to reading it in 2005; maybe now's a good time to catch up.
Amongst a whole lot of other things, I am not a grammarian and I have lost the only other person I know that cared about such things. I hope you will forgive my off topic question...
"Carrie Gibson of the Daily Beast: "Honoring Columbus is an idea whose time has past."
Shouldn't it be 'time has passed'?
Also, 6 years later Charles Mann wrote "1493: Uncovering the New
World Columbus Created." Both books were most interesting.
@Haley Simon. You're right. I copied & pasted the blurb & not the text of the article itself. Gibson probably didn't write the blurb.
I wasn't sure about the use of "whose," which refers back to "idea" either. But the Grammar Girl says there's no corresponding word for inanimate objects, & notes that going back at least to Milton, English writers have used "whose" to refer not just to people & animals, but also to things.
Marie
Haley Simon: Yep.
Personally I think for Citizens United a law full of loopholes will be eventually passed as more people wake up to the anti-democratic practices that will require donors of certain structures to be named, but the money will funnel to other tax exempt organization where the rich will still be able to hide.
Another despicable EZ argument made by the teevee talking heads is the issues revolving Central American immigrants. I've yet to hear a serious analysis and discussion around the socio-economic struggles faced by our neighboring countries to the South. Certainly no discussion of decades of our repressive foreign policies that have dominated the region.
The teevee format is not structured for serious conversation, so perfect your sound bites, get your make up right and don't make a complete ass out of yourself and voilà, you're a star.
Haley,
There are plenty of grammatically inclined readers out here. Me are one.
Marie's resource, Grammar Girl, is a good choice for useful and gregarious grammatical counsel devoid of cant and finger wagging.
Would that more writers consulted editorial resources more comprehensive than spellcheck, if they expend even that paltry effort necessary for staving off descenion into journalistic duncehood.
I has spoken.
...and New Hampshire state Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R) ain't exactly George Clooney!
' A Republican state lawmaker (Vaillancourt) wrote in a blog post last week that U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) will likely lose her re-election race in November because she is "ugly as sin" and "looks matter in politics."'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/steve-vaillancourt-ann-kuster_n_5977090.html
Propublica has a good investigation into the shadow funding of cop toys for major police depts. around the country. Between this and police 'civil slush funds' seized from normal citizens to pay for their expensive and questionable new tools, it sounds like the regulations behind our local security forces are long overdue for an overhaul.
http://www.propublica.org/article/private-donors-supply-spy-gear-to-cops
Marie points to an article that posits that an ebola vaccine could have been developed years ago except that white Americans at the VFW picnic in Louisiana weren't being affected and didn't give two loose bowel movements if darkies in Africa were dying.
Just the other day, in my blood red state, I heard a gentleman who is usually a very reasonable person decry the angst accorded to the ebola epidemic.
"Why" he asked "should Americans be asked to care about something happening in Africa when we there are poor people and hungry kids in this country?"
I don't have to relate that this gentleman is a 24 hour Fox viewer, do I?
This is the Fox standard. If it doesn't affect white, conservative, Republican voters, why the fuck should we care? Because Foxbots are all about helping the poor and homeless and hungry in this country, aren't they?
Except they aren't. This is a pure canard. Fox, and the vast majority of their viewers could not care less about the poor and the hungry in this country or any other.
But even if they did, the contention that something happening on the other side of the world is not our concern is bogus. Why, if it isn't happening on Right Wing Main Street, are so many wingnut pols hyperventilating about closing all access to this country from those places "on the other side of the world"?
The fact is that, had today's mindset been in place in the 50's, and had we not had a significant number of polio victims in this country, including a president, right-wingers would have been pelting Jonas Salk with socks full of dung for wasting money that could have been spent on another Disneyland or tax cuts for the wealthy.
Conservatives have a long history of isolationism, but isolationism that pretends nothing outside our borders can affect us is not isolationism.
It's idiocy. And Fox promotes that.
Did you think otherwise?
Haley, one more. Every writer needs an editor, but especially dyslexic dudes like me. At NJ we had a four-tier editing maze for every story. Aggravating as hell when you’re sitting on deadline, but one of the writing life’s necessary evils. Editors have two responsibilities: Make their writers sound literate, and keep their writers from wandering into the weeds of supposition. When I took the ME job at Corporate Governance Digest I insisted on a technical editor in the stream before me and an (anti-dyslexic) uber editor after me.