From the monthly archives: March 2011
What did people expect would happen when they voted for Reagan, Bush and other conservatives, or supported their policies? In the Holland (Michigan) Sentinel community columnist Ray Buursma writes, American workers got what they deserved. Some of the things he says might resonate with many of us,
Remember the Reagan standard? Are you [...]
After the unveiling of Life Always’ ad at 58th and State St. on Chicago’s south side Rev. Stephen Broden, a board member of the organization, and other speakers responded to questions.
The total cost of the thirty ads was not revealed but the spokesperson of the organization is supposed to be gathering [...]
Yesterday, news broke that President Obama had signed a secret order – called a ‘finding‘ – which authorised the covert support of the United States government for the Libyan rebel forces.
Basically, a finding is one of the principal forms by which the president authorises secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency.
As an Iraq [...]
Education is not listed among the enumerated powers of Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Yet the national governments of the United States have maintained an interest in education going back to the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, which in the Land Ordinance of 1785 established that the 16th of the 36 square [...]
This past Friday, my article “Meet the New Soviets: Gingrich, Walker, Breitbart”, was yanked from the Huffington Post after being up for 8 hours. My article is still not up, but you can read it here.) The reasons it was pulled are troubling to me and should be a concern to anyone who wonders about the future editorial directions of Huffington Post.
I don’t know if this is internal chaos, new editorial overlords at AOL or a quid pro quo to appease Breitbart. What ever the reason, I hope that my experience will be seen as an opportunity to clarify editorial standards at the Huffington Post and make a clear distinction between evidence based opinions about the direction of our own society and the human wrecking-ball tactics of Andrew Breitbart.
The Financial Times reports on an existential crisis in the modern economy:
[B]logger Dan Mirvish spotted an odd pattern: if [Anne] Hathaway is in the news, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stock jumps too.
“On the Friday before the Oscars,” he wrote, “Berkshire shares rose a whopping 2.02 per cent.” And the Monday [...]
The assault on the working class packaged as “fiscal responsibility” by the likes of Scott Walker has gone viral. Since Wisconsin, this tactic – force hard working Americans to accept the notion of “austerity”, while giving corporations and millionaires tax breaks – has reared its ugly head in Ohio, Indiana, and Florida. This week, the [...]
Who is “Wisconsin’s most dangerous professor”? He’s William Cronon. Who he? He’s this incredibly threatening man [....]
[...] In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago ‘s relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1991, it was awarded the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction published during the preceding year; in 1992, it won the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history published during the previous year, and was also one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History; and in 1993, it received the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history published during the preceding two years.
Cross-posted at Amygdala: http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2011/03/gops-radical-breakage-continues.html
Cross-posted at Obsidian Wings: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2011/03/gops-radical-breakage-continues.html.html
I was glad to read recently that popular moderate evangelical Tony Campolo recognizes what many others do not: That for better or worse, the Religious Right is here to stay for a very long time. (And as Bill Berkowitz has pointed out, he should know.) Then I read a subsequent Campolo [...]
Sometimes one encounters something that needs no commentary from me – it is complete in itself. I want to share something like that about teaching and education.
People who follow the blog Valerie Strauss runs at the Washington Post, the Answer Sheet, experienced that. Valerie often cross-posts things written elsewhere. Occasionally she posts [...]
As the Japanese nuclear crisis sheds light on nuclear safety, one issue, in particular, has been nudged into the spotlight. Since Nevada has balked at storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, spent fuel rods are piling up in U.S. nuclear plants.
In 2009, Don Young (R-AK) signed a seditious letter drafted by a rightwing terrorist recently arrested for plotting to kill state troopers and at least one judge. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has launched a petition calling on Young to re-affirm his oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. Cross-posted from Merge Left.
I stand with my unionized sisters and brothers, especially in Wisconsin, but everywhere where teachers and unions are under attack.
I am the lead union representative for more than 100 teachers in my school.
Today, all across the country, teachers are blogging their support for our unionized [...]
The Fukushima reactors’ survival of both an earthquake and tsunami with minimal radiation release can be a powerful selling point for nuclear power plants.
Conceptually, humanitarian intervention is a rather beautiful thing. State sovereignty had been seen as absolute for 350 years, but then the universal human rights regime emerged and the idea took hold that a state’s responsibility to defend its people trumped its right to territorial sovereignty. When a state massacres its people rather than protecting them, the human [...]
Teachers can never declare “Missions Accomplished,” because they are a bridge, not an endpoint, for all the boys and girls (and men and women) who come into their lives . . . . the teacher’s job is to help students build a self, to create the entity that will be constant company for life. That’s [...]
A “report” from Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee says that the path to job creation is cutting … the very things that create jobs. This is like saying that cutting taxes increases revenue. We know how that worked out, and the job-consequences of budget cuts are going to be just as [...]
Having mixed feelings about the no-fly zone established over Libya by the UN Security Council seems wholly appropriate. One can’t ignore the massacre perpetrated by Gaddhafi’s air-force, yet at the same time, events of the past decade have given the concept of “humanitarian intervention” a black eye. We can thank the neocons for that.
The [...]
Ugly story out of Pennsylvania:
Authorities in suburban Philadelphia say a 70-year-old man was stoned to death with a rock stuffed in a sock by a younger friend who alleged the victim made unwanted sexual advances.
According to the criminal complaint, 28-year-old John Thomas of Lansdowne has told police he killed 70-year-old Murray Seidman [...]
Earlier this year, a new initiative called the Satellite Sentinel Project launched a new era in peace activism and the prevention of genocide. I wrote at the time:
A new human rights initiative may be the stuff of which peace is made.
The Satellite Sentinel Project is an [...]
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On winning and values
So, right-wingers, you want a society where families are stable, where everybody looks like you and shares your Christian faith, and where the government pretty much stays out of your business? It’s not in some Randian fantasy, it’s right here in the USA.
Empowerment and education: Why young people don't vote
“Greater education of our civic processes must be the fulcrum of any program to increase voter participation amongst young people. … When people stop participating in democracy then that is an institutional failure, not a failure of the citizens. Assuming otherwise leads us down a slippery slope to elitism and nothing could be more anathema to the American Republic.”
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