Palin the Incurious

You want to see another incident of how utterly incurious Sarah Palin is about the world, watch this:



Pay attention to two particular moments: (1) When asked what she has seen in India, the only thing Palin could muster up was a reference to the sights from her hotel room and out of the window of the car driving her around. Even a regular tourist would come up with at least some kind of historical building or monument to mention. The image that her comment conveys is of a person who never leaves the car or the hotel room and who never ventures out to really get to know the people and the place that she is visiting. (2) The second revealing moment is when Palin is asked whom she would have liked to meet in India, but didn't have the time nor the chance to meet. And, again, Palin could only think of the people she has met and didn't even address the question itself. This makes Palin look utterly uncurious about the country. Maybe she could have mentioned a famous Indian scientist, or novelist, or artist, or, hell, even a cook or TV entertainer. But she apparently knows so little about the country, and is so incurious about it that she couldn't even care to learn about it some.

Let me ask you all this: every time you plan a trip to a foreign country, what's the first thing that you do? Well, what I do is that I read up as much as I can about that country's history, culture, national monuments and treasures, and its people. I formulate a plan for how I want to see and learn about the country and its people. I think of the hotel room and the car as mere means to an end, and I certainly don't try to keep myself cooped up in such places, or subject myself to such a scripted and sheltered schedule that I can't enjoy the place. It shows to me that Palin simply doesn't really care all that much beyond the photo-op what visiting a place outside of the US can really teach her.

Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Patriotic FAIL

I don't expect most Americans to know all that much about all the mythology and symbolism surrounding the American Revolution; but when you wrap that mythology and symbolism all around yourself with the kind of bombast and pretension that many Tea Partiers do (even the name itself harkens to this mythology), and when you use this mythology to vilify others of your fellow countrymen for their apparent lack of patriotic credibility, then you damn better at least know this history beyond the knee-jerk sound bites -- especially if you are a political leader of the Tea Party movement like Minnesota's Michele Bachmann is.

Because when you, you know, not only get it wrong, but get it so epically wrong, like Michele Bachmann did, you make yourself and your movement look like the foolish patriotic poseurs and utterly craven, ignorant pretenders that you are.

Tea Partier patriots who take their patriotism seriously enough to know their early American history are (or should be) embarrassed by Bachmann's arrogance and ignorance.

Carnival in the Atlantic Magazine

OK. I get it that the festivities in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) for carnival are really impressive, but, come on, out of 52 photos of carnival festivities around the world, New Orleans only gets a total of ONE picture? And the New Orleans picture is that of a dog parading in "Barkus"???? Sheesh! I'm very disappointed in the Atlantic. New Orleans might not be as glitzy as the paraders in Rio's Sambadrome, but we are certainly much more celebratory and colorful in our Mardi Gras festivities than just about any other place in the world.

T.S. = Team Sullivan?

Or is it a case of Plagiarism? I hate to think the worst of Andrew Sullivan, but I can't help but wonder. The college professor in me, always on the lookout for plagiarism, caused me to raise my eyebrows and the red flag of concern at the following:

Check out this blog posting over at The Daily Dish.

In that blog posting, there is a source link to this posting over at the Israpundit blog.

But when you scroll through the comments at this Israpundit blog posting, you'll find this comment (comment number 12, if the link doesn't work properly), written by one "T.S." With the exception of a few words here and there, it's an exact copy of the blog posting up on The Daily Dish.

At the very least, if this comment is one that Sullivan left on the Israpundit blog, Sullivan might want to reference on his own blog posting that he's reprinting his own comment that he left on the Israpundit blog under the "T.S." moniker. Just a suggestion for Sullivan to not open himself up to questionable practice.

Pogo's Latest

Murmers of Middle Earth:



This Pogo dude is a genius.

Michele Benson Huck Pottery

At the Palmer Park Arts Market, this Saturday, from 10am-4pm. Drop by and say hello. Until then, you can get a glimpse of Michele (at the 0:35 point) in this nice video plug of the Arts Market:

Another Thought on Wisconsin

I think the GOP in Wisconsin has way overreached in this conflict. On the one hand, the manner in which the GOP has tried to railroad through this union busting legislation comes across as very unseemly and autocratic. Check this out for some context:



Second, when the legislation seems to only punish those public service employees unions who didn't support the GOP Governor's candidacy, and actually exempts public service employee unions who did support the GOP Governor's candidacy from the legislation, it plays out as if the measure is one motivated by partisan preference and not any kind of principle. And when one of these exempted public service employee unions withdraws its support for and endorsement of the Governor because of how grossly partisan, unfair, and unseemly their exemption seems, you know that the situation is playing out poorly for the GOP in the public arena.

Third, when the whole fiscal crisis is being perceived in some quarters in Wisconsin as one primarily manufactured by the Governor himself, and is then being used disingenuously to attack basic collective bargaining rights that touch on labor freedoms, the lack of good faith here on the part of the GOP seems even more pronounced.

My prediction is that Walker, the GOP Governor, and the GOP legislators in the Wisconsin legislature, who simply refuse to even acknowledge the autocratic nature of the process by which they are trying to impose this preferential legislation, have gone a long way to turning Wisconsin once again as a solidly blue state. I wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic party not only retakes control over Wisconsin's state government in the next few election cycles, but does so decisively and for a fairly long time. I'm already counting Wisconsin's electoral votes in the Obama column in 2012.

Collective Bargaining Rights for State Workers in Wisconsin

The struggle going on in Wisconsin is the big news these days. Here's what I can't understand about the Republican position in this fight:

Collective bargaining is simply the ability of workers to come together to try to negotiate benefits, wages, and other employment conditions with their employers. From my perspective, this is simply a matter of freedom, and it is something that should be promoted and protected by government, not squelched by government.

I also don't understand the argument that somehow people should forfeit their freedoms when their employer is the government (and by extension, "the people"). When people who work for the state have to forfeit their freedom precisely because they are working for state, then that strikes me as walking a bit on the totalitarian line.

Let me try to break this down a bit and understand it better. What is at issue here is the right to collective bargain, not necessarily an entitlement to a particular outcome of the collective bargaining process. Because the legislation seeks to prevent what I think is a right to free association and to use that free association to negotiate labor conditions, without any guarantee as to what the outcome of that negotiation will be, I don't understand at all why Republicans would be opposed to this. It seems as if it is nothing more than antipathy to the whole idea of unions and the rights of labor, in principle, to band together to bargain for benefits.

The argument that the restriction of such freedom is necessary in a difficult financial crisis also seems bogus to me. For one, the financial crisis is partly one of the current Republican governor's own making. He cut taxes and then used the consequences of the loss of revenues generated by his tax cuts to fabricate a budget crisis to bust the union. Secondly, and more importantly, I thought Republicans believed that restrictions of such freedoms are prima facie wrong.

If someone can explain to me why collective bargaining is, in and of itself, a behavior that requires state repression, I'm all ears.

A Republican Supports Federal Funds for Contraception

Albeit for horses as opposed to women!

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Blogging

I want to be blogging. I really do. And lord knows there's not a shortage of stuff to blog about. (And I still owe folks a review of Lonesome Dove!) But when push comes to shove and I open up the Blogger "new post" screen, all my initiative and enthusiasm for blogging just withers on the vine. And it's not even that it would take a lot of effort. The blogging mojo just isn't there. I'm not gonna give up on the medium, and I'll keep trying to motivate myself, but I just wanted to let folks know where I am and what's up.

Unmasked: The Disturbing Blending of Christian Fundamentalism and Politics

""Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother." -- Recently-elected Governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley

Of course, he instantly apologized for the remark; but I can't help but ponder the implications of what this means in a democracy rooted in equality. There is a mindset of inequality in this line of thinking. As I see it, it is just another manifestion of the belief that there is a "real" America, and a "lesser" America. I don't like it one bit. When I hear stuff like this emanating from the mouth of a Conservative Republican state governor, I would consider any argument that the Conservative movement and Republican Party doesn't have a basic and pervasive problem with an intolterant religious fundamentalism pushing through the thin veneer of the secular democracy upon which our government was formed and emerging as a governing philosophy itself to be a flimsy and half-baked argument indeed.

The Right Wing's Anti-Elite Elitism Exposed

Charles Krauthammer, no Obamaphile by any stretch of the imagination, exposes Rush Limbaugh for the Anti-Elite Elitist that he is:



I've said it before in different contexts and in different ways, but I'll say it again now: certain anti-elite demagogues of the Rightwing, of which Limbaugh is one, point to intelligence, statesmanship, competence, and gravitas in a liberal President as if it were somehow a bad thing. It is quite telling of the partisan hack and fraud that he is that Limbaugh demeans what are essentially admirable qualities by calling it a kind of hallmark of "elitism" -- which in Palinite code is a bad word akin to a profanity. When this branch of conservatives claims that it prefers that its President NOT demonstrate such "elitist" characteristics, it is essentially embracing the idea that it prefers the opposite for its leader: ignorance, un-statesmanship, incompetence, and unseriousness. And it links this kind of unflattering and ordinary mediocrity in its leaders to what it considers to be the solid, average, "real" American. They would like their President to be, for lack of a better way to describe it, nothing better than the average Joe. I am always baffled by this. Why would any American not want his President, the leader of the free world, to be an extraordinary person? I don't know about you, but I'd rather my President not be just "average." I don't want my President to be like my mother. God bless her sweet soul, but my mother, as magnificent and wonderful as she is in so many ways, has no business being President. Why is having a President who is exceptional in intelligence, leadership, creativity, oratory, persuasiveness, etc., always suspect to such people? Maybe conservatives don't think Obama rises to this level, but Limbaugh's comment exposes the reality that it's not really Obama that is the issue, but rather the whole idea of what they think defines an "elite." George W. Bush had to "dumb himself down" to win the accolades of the "average Joe" wing of the conservative movement. In their effort to counteract a notion of "elitism" as arrogance coupled with an unwarranted claim of privilege, they also abandon the notion of elite as special, unrivalled excellence. When we speak of the Green Berets as an "elite" unit within the armed forces, isn't that something we admire and take pride in? When we speak of Peyton Manning as being among the "elite" of NFL quarterbacks, aren't we talking about something positive? So, for Obama to act Presidential as we would want any President to act, for him to deliver a truly elite performance in terms of quality and excellence, that demonstration of excellence becomes for folks like Limbaugh nothing more than an expression of "elitism" worthy of scorn and derision. Krauthammer just nails Limbaugh on this point and exposes him for the partisan hack and fraud that he is. In fact, I'd say Krauthammer's point is a veiled dig at Limbaugh, a dig which hints subtly at a kind of small-minded, unpatriotic, anti-American attitude festering in the soul of Talk Radio's most notorious grinch. Interesting also that this is all coming from within the ranks of the conservative movement itself.

New Year's Resolutions

A Preface: I just can't seem to get motivated to work myself up enough to put posts on this blog more regularly. Maybe I need to go back to my blogging self-nudge; but right now I think my heart is just not in it like it has been and could be. Maybe that will change. We shall see. In any case, I'll blog when I can rouse myself to do so. Right now, I'm moved enough to post a couple of my New Year's Resolutions. And they are ...

1. Write two books (one fiction and one non-fiction) by the end of the year.
2. Submit a couple of articles for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals.
3. Save my heated political commentary for my blog and reserve the use of Facebook for non-political stuff. (Although I had basically decided on this weeks ago, the recent tragedy in Tuscon has strengthened my resolve in this direction even more.)
4. Read the following books: (A) The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck); (B) The Federalist Papers (in their entirety); (C) I, The Supreme (Roa Bastos); (D) Absalom, Absalom (Faulkner); and (E) The Adolescent (Dostoevsky)
5. Finish what I'm calling the "Display Room" (for my B-2/3's pottery) in the "Basement."

I had a wonderful discussion today with a good friend about McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and I promise I will be writing up at least a brief review of the book sometime soon on the blog.

That's it for now.

A Second American Revolution??

There's a bumper sticker that is popular with many Beckian conservatives. It reads:

"2010: The Second American Revolution"

Let's remember that the First American Revolution was a bloody and violent armed struggle in the cause of freedom from oppression. In my mind, in comparing the First American Revolution with the current political situation, the subtext of hinting at a justifiable violence in the cause of freedom from oppression today (i.e. 2010) is crystal clear.

Frankly, I think Gabby Giffords is a casualty of this "Second American Revolution."

This narrative of political violence justified under the banner of patriotism has got to stop.

Assassination Attempt in Arizona

We've all by now heard much about the assassination attempt of a Democratic Congresswoman in Arizona earlier today. It's worth noting that this Congresswoman was one of 20 Congress people put in the gun sights of a Sarah Palin posting on one of her new media sites. Conservatives are now on the defensive trying to show how this assassination attempt was the work of a deranged, disturbed individual -- and that ideology has nothing to do with it. Well, perhaps.

But here's the thing conservatives need to know: when one of the 20 Congress people put in the gun sights of a Sarah Palin online media posting, or whatever it was, ends up the victim of a brutal assassination attempt, you have to expect that such connections between actual assassination attempts and the figurative calls for them are going to be drawn. The lesson is pure and simple: don't put people, figuratively or otherwise, in the gun sights. It just encourages the nuts. And that's why this narrative of Second Amendment remedies, spilling blood in the cause of freedom, "shooting down" your electoral opponents, etc., -- narratives that have come almost exclusively from the right wing in this country -- is just completely irresponsible. And it has nothing to do whether this guy was a loony or a Tea Partier or an anarchist or whatever. Hinting at armed violence as a means to resolve political disputes is just wrong. Period.

If there were nothing at all untoward in advancing such notions, even figuratively, why then are all such references being hastily taken down? Couldn't be some residual sense of guilt, could it? Couldn't be some nagging awareness that such inflammatory imagery and rhetoric of politically-motivated violence just might have encouraged this nut, could it?

I think people, deep down, understand this; and I think it took something like today for people who defended this use of inflammatory narratives and imagery of armed political violence as harmless expressions of free speech are only just now looking in the mirror and saying: "Oh, sh*t! We really have crossed the line!"

I've said it many times, both on this blog and in comment threads, criticizing the tolerance of such rhetoric on the right wing, that words and imagery of violence do have consequences and do encourage the behavior of others, especially those disturbed individuals prone to act out such narratives.

Well, Ain't This Grand

Just got wind of this.

At the very least, the University seems to be doing everything it can to handle the situation.

But what I want to know is what the hell was this information doing on a portable laptop in the first place; and, moreover, what the hell was this employee thinking to leave a laptop with so much critically sensitive information unmonitored in a car, on an out-of-town trip? I don't think this information should ever be placed on a laptop to begin with; but if it had to be, then the person responsible for it should have handcuffed the damn thing to his or her being.

I'd hate to be that person right now.

Home

I just love this one by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros:

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home" from Edward Sharpe on Vimeo.

That's the "official" video; but I think even better, more energetic, and more magnetic is this live performance on Letterman:



But, being a daddy of two lovely young daughters, this rendition, God bless, just absolutely takes the cake:



Her arm resting on his while he plays. There is nothing more uplifting than this.

Back to Blogging

OK. Holidays over. Time to get back to the blog. I needed a bit of a break, I think. Some quick updates:

1. I finished McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove." I'll be writing a more detailed review; but the short of it is that I liked it very much. On the whole, a thumbs up, though I do have some criticisms. I've also watched the movie version and thought it was very good, too.

2. New Year's Resolutions coming soon in a separate follow-up posting.

3. Still proud of Barack Obama. If he gets serious about the debt situation, which I think he will (especially if he finds common ground on this issue with someone like Tom Coburn), he'll be in great shape for 2012.

4. The only disappointment I have with the 2008-2010 Congress is failure to pass the DREAM Act. My greatest joy about the 2008-2010 Congress is passage of the Health Care legislation and repeal of DADT.

5. The Saints are in the Playoffs and have a good, realistic chance of making it to the Superbowl again. Looking forward to the post-season run. I predict that the NFC Championship game will be in New Orleans, with the Saints hosting the Packers.

6. Finally, let's start the New Year with this bit of "Wow!" ...

Why I'm An Exodus Catholic, ctd.

Yet another reason. Certain things repulse me about the callous behavior of the Catholic Church and how it privileges the lives of the unborn over the lives of the already living. There is something fundamentally un-Christ-like, something unforgiving, something unwelcoming, about the attitude that leads to such decisions like the one emanating from Bishop Olmstead.

Palin Speaks On Haiti

Credit where credit is due. As a fierce and regular critic of Sarah Palin on this blog, I think it is especially incumbent upon me not to gloss over where Palin does something that I think is laudable.

Sarah Palin has visited Haiti and urged that we not forget this suffering and troubled country.

I agree with that message. And, as far as I'm concerned, you can't have too many people delivering this message. Sarah Palin's voice in this respect is more than welcome.