In honor of our fallen troops, CNN.com has created an amazing interactive “Home & Away map” which includes information about all of the men and women who have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars since 2001.

It is a stunning, interactive map where you can learn where our heroes lived and how and where they died on the battlefields, in the deserts, in the mountains and in the streets of towns and cities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, the distribution according to age (note how young most of them were), home states and when they died.

For example, point and click to Monroe, MI, and the names of the two service members from that town who died in Iraq will pop up. Click on one of the names, and you’ll see where and how he died. You can also leave a message or memory about them for their families.

Amazing and sad.

Please take a moment during the final hours on this Memorial Day to visit the site and honor our fallen soldiers here and here.

My Ed. in Chief and I are ‘freeing’ the posts and comments caught in the ‘pending’ files (for no apparent reason.) If this has affected you, you are not being singled out, rather it is a glitch. The thing is, when you repair one thing on a large site like this, sometimes something else slips out of place. So thank you for your patience.

And I repeat, it wasnt something you said…. although, if you are wearing red slippers and you live near a forest, and you have no animals as warning systems, you may be being scoped out for ‘first degree slipper larceny’ by the duendes. Beware.

Thanks,
Archangel/ Dr.e

Back in September 2009, when the Navy was seriously considering allowing women to serve aboard its nuclear submarines, I posted an article titled, “Should Women Serve on Submarines?” and, at the end, asked, “What do you think?”

With a couple of exceptions, most of the readers saw no problem with this change in policy or had some reasonable, practical reasons for opposing women serving on our submarines.

One woman gave several reasons for her opposition. In addition to bringing up the cost (in dollars and in space) to separate the men and women and the “sexual tension” factor, she suggested, perhaps playfully:

As a woman I know it is very hard for women to get along. Women are catty. Women get jealous. This would be ten times worse if they were on cramped close quarters unable to get away from each other. No work would get done.

One of the main reasons men go submarines is to get away from women. How are they going to do that if we let women on them? That is just a random point that may not make a lot of sense to the argument but it is valid for those who really make it a point is choosing where to go with their Navy Career.

There was one reader — no longer with us — who not only strongly opposed women serving on submarines (“Suck it up folks, war is serious. Who really gives a darn if 500 or so women get to tell their grand kids they rode around in a submarine in the Navy? So we do this just for the sake of equality?”), but who also took the opportunity to launch into one of his tirades against gays in the military: “We have no homosexuals in the military what-so-ever. If you know one, post his name here please. He has lied to the military upon joining and that is a crime and must be reported.”

Another reader declared: ‘Suck it up, folks. We have women – and homosexuals – who serve with honor in our military. The ignorance of holding people back from reflexive objections needs to stop.”

In a related event, in April 2010, the Navy announced that a smoking ban would go into effect on submarines no later than December 31, 2010.

The reason why I bring up “gays in the military” and smoking aboard submarines should become obvious shortly.

But back to the present.

Today, May 2012, Navy women are serving successfully on our fleet ballistic missile submarines.

Just as with gays serving openly in the military, the sky has not fallen because of this.

According to Vice Adm. John Richardson, commander of submarine forces, the integration process has been “very successful.” The Stars and Stripes adds:

Twenty-four women have already reported to guided missile and fleet ballistic missile submarines and about 20 more will report each year. Fast-attack submarines, which are smaller and would require more modifications to allow women aboard, are still men-only.

The Navy is moving very deliberately with the integration process and will gather information from the first gender-integrated submarines before determining whether to modify submarines to allow enlisted female sailors to serve aboard, or to allow women on fast-attack submarines.

“We want to open this opportunity as widely as we can, but we want to make sure it’s sustainable,” Richardson said.

As a matter of fact, one of the first women to serve on U.S. submarines — delicious irony — is Lt. Rebecca Dremann, who is an openly gay naval officer and a smoker.

The Stars and Stripes:

As an openly gay naval officer, a smoker and one of the first women to serve on a submarine, Lt. Rebecca Dremann joked she was “the triple trifecta coming onto the submarine.”

“I’m a total culture shock to the submarine force and they handled me just fine,” Dremann said Thursday after a roundtable hosted by the Navy to discuss the integration of women into the submarine force.

Other women — and men — who are completing their qualifications and have already spent time underway aboard submarines echoed Dremann’s sentiments, saying the biggest “problem” they’ve faced is sibling-like squabbles over the bathroom.

If this is one of the bigger problems we have in our “gender-integrated submarines,” I say that we are doing pretty good.

Now, let me ask again: What do you think?

—————-
Photo credit: Courtesy ssp.navy.mil

By the way, who are his campaign advisers? Does he have campaign advisers? Is he generally underinformed and living in a blur when it comes to education?

… About school reform. Three big ideas: First, Romney is going to make the states provide “ample school choice.” Unless we’re talking, mushily, about vouchers, this one sounded exactly like the Bush law that allows parents whose children are in failing schools to move them elsewhere. It hasn’t really worked well. It turns out the parents wanted their local school to be better, not to ship their children out of the neighborhood. The magic of the marketplace works great for iPods, but not apparently for fourth graders.

Second, Romney wants the schools to have “report cards” on student performance so parents can make good decisions about choice. The only problems with this plan are: A) The parents don’t want that kind of choice; and B) the schools already have report cards.

Finally, he vowed to encourage teacher evaluation and accountability. This is something the Obama administration has been doing through its Race to the Top initiatives, much to the dismay of some teachers’ unions.

Romney then concluded with a long attack on Obama for being in the pocket of teachers’ unions. …Gael Collins, NYT

Romney admits that Obama inherited the schools mess from Bush. Romney is uneasy about Bush’s education failures, particularly “No Child Left Behind.” Nonetheless, Romney is hiring Bush advisers to be his campaign advisers on education. Like Rod Paige.

___

David Corn, in answer to a question from Martin Bashir on MSNBC, says, “Well, Rod Paige was the education second for George W. Bush.”

… When Bush ran, he talked about the Texas miracle. how great the education system was, particularly in Houston which has the second largest school system in the country. He took superintendent of that school system, Rod Paige , and made him the education second and they pushed it together. Promoted the No Child Left Behind Act. While Rod Paige was in Washington , the news broke that the Houston school system, when he was in charge of it, had dramatically underreported dropouts. That it wasn’t a miracle. [They] themselves just rigged the books. How bad the school system was. Rod Paige at that time refused to talk to report[ers about] his involvement or explain… Years later when “60 Minutes” was going into the [story, he] refused to talk to them about it and he still has not explained what happened on his watch. Yet Mitt Romney comes along and makes him a special adviser . Whoo! Big deal on education reform! I don’t know why he hasn’t looked at the clips. Rod Paige is tainted goods at this point in time. … [from a rough transcript]

___

Michael Petrilli, writing at HuffPo, thinks Romney’s education policy is a “good start.”

There’s a lot to be said for making federal dollars follow disadvantaged children to their schools of choice:

* It provides incentives for good schools to attract needy kids;
* It helps those kids exit dreadful schools;
* It promotes integration by allowing federal funds to flow to schools that are socio-economically-mixed; and
* It encourages states to make their own funding more portable (a la weighted student funding) — with all manner of benefits around equity, choice, and more.

But it’s not without its drawbacks:

*It could move federal funds away from high-poverty schools (which get most Title I dollars today) to low-poverty ones;
*The money (1,000-2,000 per pupil) isn’t enough to pay for actual private-school tuition, so that part isn’t apt to get much real traction;
*By giving parents “private accounts” to spend on digital learning, tutoring, and the like, it could weaken schools’ larger improvement efforts, which are mostly funded by these federal dollars.

The biggest concern, though, comes with having Uncle Sam try to use his 10 cents on the education dollar to force major changes on the states. We’ve seen how that works (or doesn’t) in the context of accountability; why do we think it will work better in the context of school choice?

Cross posted from Prairie Weather

The New York Times has an interesting and, I am sure, controversial opinion piece, which from the beginning (Title: “G.O.P. Nightmare Charts”) to its conclusion (see below) suggests that present trends “do not bode well for Republicans.”

All sarcasm aside and keeping in mind that the Times is called a “liberal newspaper” and worse, that it is written in “a place for opinionated political thinkers from all over the United States to make their arguments about everything connected to the 2012 election”, that polls and surveys are meaningless, unless they support one’s position; that it is still a long time before the elections and that the writer bringing this to your attention is a biased Democrat, here is a thumbnail.

The author, Charles Blow, has selected two questions “tucked away” in two polls that caught his eye but do not grab the headlines.

Questions that, according to Blow, “get us away from the presidential race, both of which highlight just how much trouble the Republican brand continues to find itself in despite the party’s many legislative and statehouse victories in 2010.” Blow adds: “Public sentiment is slowly drifting away from the Republicans in a way that must be giving the party’s long-range strategists sleepless nights.”

What are the two questions?

The first question comes from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey released on Tuesday (question number 27). It read:

“When it comes to (READ ITEM), which party do you feel is most attuned and sensitive to issues that affect this group.”

Among the “Items” are groups such as religious conservatives, men and women in the military, retirees, stay-at-home moms, Hispanics or Latinos, Gays and Lesbians.

You can analyze the responses and charts yourself. Blow summarizes:

The chart illustrates just how narrow Republican support is. Respondents viewed Republicans as more sensitive to religious conservatives, people in the military and small business owners. That’s not enough for a winning coalition. For everyone else — including the middle class, young adults and Hispanics — Democrats won out. Democrats even scored higher than Republicans among some groups that conventional wisdom associates with supporting Republicans, like retirees and stay-at-home moms. (I wish that the pollsters had also asked about men and racial groups, but unfortunately they did not.)

The second question comes from a Gallup morality poll that was also released on Tuesday. The question read:

“Next, I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong.”

Some of the issues in the list are divorce, gambling, sex between an unmarried man and a woman, birth control, medical research using embryonic stem cells, gay or lesbian relations, abortion, pornography, the death penalty and suicide.

Again you can do your own analysis. Among Blow’s comments:

Of the 18 moral issues, Democrats were more permissive than Republicans on 14. No surprise there. But what was a bit surprising was that on seven issues, independents eked out a small margin of permissiveness over Democrats. (This may be due in part to the fact that some devout Democrats like blacks are rather conservative, socially speaking.)

Republicans were only more permissive than Democrats and independents on three measures and they all had to do with the killing of people and animals — the death penalty, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur and medical testing on animals. Interpret that as you will.

Independents were closer to Democrats than to Republicans on 13 of the 18 issues outlined. The only exceptions were medical research using embryonic stem cells, the death penalty, suicide and human cloning. (On cloning animals, Democrats and Republicans were both less permissive than independents, and in equal measure).

When people are asked to identify themselves by political ideology, Americans may appear to be center-right, but independents look more like Democrats than Republicans on moral issues.

Ergo, Blow’s verdict that all this does not bode well for Republicans “as the composition and conscience of the country continues to change” and as “we are slowly becoming less religious, more diverse and increasingly open-minded.”

Analyze it all for yourself here.

Image: www.shutterstock.com

However, except for mentioning human rights and human dignity a couple of times, the President did not directly recognize or address another group of graduating cadets.

You see, eight months after the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the sky has not fallen — as some gloomily predicted — and the U.S. Air Force Academy graduated its first group of openly gay cadets yesterday, according to ABC News.

And everything went smoothly, both during the graduation ceremony and throughout the period after the repeal.

Mentioning that no rainbow flags could be seen on display and that the LGBT students couldn’t be picked out of the crowd of white and blue, the ABC report says this:

But gay and lesbian advocates, academy alums, school officials and current students said they were there.

“The whole thing is we don’t want to be identified as anything different,” said Trish Heller, who heads the Blue Alliance, an association of LGBT Air Force Academy alumni. “We want to serve, to be professional and to be symbols of what it means to be Air Force Academy graduates.”

“It’s just been really open, a lot of acceptance. I haven’t heard anyone say, ‘I hate this. I can’t serve in the military with this,’” said 3rd Class Cadet Kevin Wise, a second-year management major. “It’s a sense of ‘OK, this is their lifestyle, but they’re still the person I’ve spent 21 credit hours a semester next to or I’ve gone through this with,’” he said.

And,

Acacia Miller, a sophomore from Shreveport, La., praised the school’s leadership for setting the right tone before the repeal. “They did a good job preparing us. There were lots of briefings about it. They stated how the military was going to go forward with it, how we should act. It was pretty much just like any other repeal, segregation, all that stuff. We just got told this is what’s going to happen and we all need to be adults about it,” she said.

Finally,

“Basically, it was just another day when DADT was repealed,” said Air Force Academy spokesman John Van Winkle. “No big changes, no real growing pains. Most of American society has become much more accepting of the LGBT community over the years since President Clinton made the forward-thinking choice in the early ’90s to go from a strict no-gay policy to DADT.”

Read more here

Let us pray for all those of our world who are walking this path today. There are millions. And meanwhile let us not let the petty pass for the far more deadly monumental and egregious human rights violations of our worlds.

Today would be a good day to contribute to the human rights protective organizations of our choice. Every day would be so.

CODA
This little one is being reunited with his father, held in separate camp corrals. The father wanted to hold his child one more time, not knowing what was to come next.

I almost said “my alma mater,” but I was not so fortunate as to attend that magnificent institution.

Nevertheless, I consider the Academy part of my “greater alma mater,” the U.S. Air Force.

While one can read the entire address here, I will excerpt the parts that I think best represent the spirit of the Academy, its graduates and future leaders and — hopefully — our nation.

Also the part about Edward Camacho, a graduating cadet who — like me — grew up in South America, “got on a plane with a one-way ticket to America,” who, like me, is convinced that America is “the land of opportunity,” and who “today is closer to his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot,” something that eluded me. ¡Buena suerte, Edward!

This is my second visit to the Academy. I was here in the summer of 2008, and you were getting ready to head out to Jacks Valley. So I was proud to be here when you began this journey, and I thought I’d come back and help you celebrate at the end.

It’s great to be back at a school that has produced so many of the airmen I’ve known as President. Every day, I rely on outstanding Academy graduates who serve at the White House. Some of you know that photo from the Situation Room on the day we delivered justice to bin Laden — you can see right next to me a great leader of our Special Operations forces, General Brad Webb.

[::]

This Academy is one of the most demanding academic institutions in America. And you have excelled. I’m told you have set at least three Academy records: The largest number of graduates ever to go directly on to graduate school; the largest number of female graduates in Academy history — (applause.) You will follow in the footsteps of General Janet Wolfenbarger, who I was proud to nominate as the first female four-star general in Air Force history.

[::]

Cadets, this is the day you finally become officers in the finest Air Force in the world. Like generations before you, you’ll be charged with the responsibility of leading those under your command. Like classes over the past 10 years, you graduate in a time of war and you may find yourselves in harm’s way. But you will also face a new test, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today.

Four years ago, you arrived here at a time of extraordinary challenge for our nation. Our forces were engaged in two wars. Al Qaeda, which had attacked us on 9/11, was entrenched in their safe havens. Many of our alliances were strained and our standing in the world had suffered. Our economy was in the worst recession since the Great Depression. Around the world and here at home, there were those that questioned whether the United States still had the capacity for global leadership.

Today, you step forward into a different world. You are the first class in nine years that will graduate into a world where there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in your lives — and thanks to Air Force personnel who did their part — Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to our country. We’ve put al Qaeda on the path to defeat. And you are the first graduates since 9/11 who can clearly see how we’ll end the war in Afghanistan.

So what does all this mean? When you came here four years ago, there were some 180,000 American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve now cut that number by more than half. And as more Afghans step up, more of our troops will come home -— while achieving the objective that led us to war in the first place and that is defeating al Qaeda and denying them safe haven. So we aren’t just ending these wars, we are doing so in a way that makes us safer and stronger.

Today we pay tribute to all our extraordinary men and women in uniform for their bravery, for their dedication. Those who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to make this progress possible -— including 16 graduates of this Academy — we honor them. We will always honor them.

Around the world, the United States is leading once more. From Europe to Asia, our alliances are stronger than ever. Our ties with the Americas are deeper. We’re setting the agenda in the region that will shape our long-term security and prosperity like no other — the Asia Pacific.

We’re leading on global security — reducing our nuclear arsenal with Russia, even as we maintain a strong nuclear deterrent; mobilizing dozens of nations to secure nuclear materials so they never fall into the hands of terrorists; rallying the world to put the strongest sanctions ever on Iran and North Korea, which cannot be allowed to threaten the world with nuclear weapons.

[::]

We’re leading on behalf of human dignity and on behalf of freedom — standing with the people of the Middle East and North Africa as they seek their rights; preventing a massacre in Libya with an international mission in which the United States — and our Air Force — led from the front. We’re leading global efforts against hunger and disease. And we’ve shown our compassion, as so many airmen did in delivering relief to our neighbors in Haiti when they were in need and to our Japanese allies after the earthquake and tsunami.

[::]

Today, we can say with confidence and pride the United States is stronger and safer and more respected in the world, because even as we’ve done the work of ending these wars, we’ve laid the foundation for a new era of American leadership. And now, cadets, we have to build it. We have to build on it. You have to build on it.

[::]

After Pearl Harbor some said, the United States has been reduced to a third-rate power. Well, we rallied. We flew over The Hump and took island after island. We stormed the beaches and liberated nations. And we emerged from that war as the strongest power on the face of the Earth.

After Vietnam and the energy crisis of the 1970s, some said America had passed its high point. But the very next decade, because of our fidelity to the values we stand for, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and liberty prevailed over the tyranny of the Cold War. As recently as the 1980s with the rise of Japan and the Asian tigers, there were those who said we had lost our economic edge. But we retooled. We invested in new technologies. We launched.

I see an American Century because you are part of the finest, most capable military the world has ever known. No other nation even comes close. Yes, as today’s wars end, our military — and our Air Force — will be leaner. But as Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow us to make the mistakes of the past. We still face very serious threats. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, with al Qaeda in Yemen, there are still terrorists who seek to kill our citizens. So we need you to be ready for the full range of threats. From the conventional to the unconventional, from nations seeking weapons of mass destruction to the cell of terrorists planning the next attack, from the old danger of piracy to the new threat of cyber, we must be vigilant.

[::]

And as our newest veterans rejoin civilian life, we will never stop working to give them the benefits and opportunities that they have earned — because our veterans have the skills to help us rebuild America, and we have to serve them as well as they have served us.

[::]

I see an American Century because more and more people are reaching toward the freedoms and values that we share. No other nation has sacrificed more — in treasure, in the lives of our sons and daughters — so that these freedoms could take root and flourish around the world. And no other nation has made the advancement of human rights and dignity so central to its foreign policy. And that’s because it’s central to who we are, as Americans. It’s also in our self-interest, because democracies become our closest allies and partners.

[::]

And finally, I see an American Century because of the character of our country — the spirit that has always made us exceptional. That simple yet revolutionary idea — there at our founding and in our hearts ever since — that we have it in our power to make the world anew, to make the future what we will. It is that fundamental faith — that American optimism — which says no challenge is too great, no mission is too hard. It’s the spirit that guides your class: “Never falter, never fail.”

That is the essence of America, and there’s nothing else like it anywhere in the world. It’s what’s inspired the oppressed in every corner of the world to demand the same freedoms for themselves. It’s what’s inspired generations to come to our shores, renewing us with their energy and their hopes. And that includes a fellow cadet, a cadet graduating today, who grew up in Venezuela, got on a plane with a one-way ticket to America, and today is closer to his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot — Edward Camacho. Edward said what we all know to be true: “I’m convinced that America is the land of opportunity.”

You’re right, Edward. That is who we are. That’s the America we love. Always young, always looking ahead to that light of a new day on the horizon. And, cadets, as I look into your eyes — as you join that Long Blue Line — I know you will carry us even farther, and even higher. And with your proud service, I’m absolutely confident that the United States of America will meet the tests of our time. We will remain the land of opportunity. And we will stay strong as the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.

May God bless you. May God bless the Class of 2012. And may God bless the United States of America.

One in three women like her “have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape,” says the New York Times.

According to a survey, the rate of sexual violence in rural villages like the one where the above-mentioned rape took place is as much as 12 times the national rate in the U.S.

If one wonders in what rural village, in which foreign country this could happen, the reader is in for a very unpleasant surprise, as I was, albeit the title of the Times article I was reading already gave it away.

Yes, the young woman whose ordeal the New York Times describes is an American Indian woman — a Native American woman — in Emmonak, Alaska, the United States of America.

While the rate of sexual assault for American Indian women is more than twice the national average, “no place, women’s advocates say, is more dangerous than Alaska’s isolated villages, where there are no roads in or out, and where people are further cut off by undependable telephone, electrical and Internet service,” according to the Times.

Some more unpleasant reports and statistics by the Times:

…[I]nterviews with Native American women here and across the nation’s tribal reservations suggest an even grimmer reality: They say few, if any, female relatives or close friends have escaped sexual violence.

[::]

The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.

Women say the tribal police often discourage them from reporting sexual assaults, and Indian Health Service hospitals complain they lack cameras to document injuries.

[::]

In the Navajo Nation, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 329 rape cases were reported in 2007 among a population of about 180,000. Five years later, there have been only 17 arrests. Women’s advocates on the reservation say only about 10 percent of sexual assaults are reported.

[::]

Nationwide, an arrest is made in just 13 percent of the sexual assaults reported by American Indian women, according to the Justice Department, compared with 35 percent for black women and 32 percent for whites.

In South Dakota, Indians make up 10 percent of the population, but account for 40 percent of the victims of sexual assault. Alaska Natives are 15 percent of that state’s population, but constitute 61 percent of its victims of sexual assault.

The Justice Department did not prosecute 65 percent of the rape cases on Indian reservations in 2011.

For many more grim statistics, please read here.

The question, of course, is what is being done about it.

Sadly, an issue that should unite our lawmakers in serious attempts to bring justice and security to Native American women “has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.”

The Times:

A Senate version, passed with broad bipartisan support, would grant new powers to tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians suspected of sexually assaulting their Indian spouses or domestic partners. But House Republicans, and some Senate Republicans, oppose the provision as a dangerous expansion of the tribal courts’ authority, and it was excluded from the version that the House passed last Wednesday. The House and Senate are seeking to negotiate a compromise.

In the meantime, back in Emmonak, Alaska, “the overmatched police have failed to keep statistics related to rape” and the young woman who was raped there — she is now 22 — has asked, “that her name not be used because she fears retaliation from her attacker, whom she still sees in the village.” The Times adds, “She said she knew of five other women he had raped, though she is the only one who reported the crime.”

He believes that we only encourage illegal immigration by discussing amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal immigrants living in the United States today and adamantly opposes such.

He believes in tightening and strengthening our border control efforts, including using his own design of a concrete border wall and cites his 35 years of experience in the earth-moving, drainage and concrete construction business. His concrete wall would function as both a human and vehicle barrier, inspired by the success of the concrete wall in Israel.

King also believes in shutting off the job magnets that encourage illegal immigrants to come to the United States and, in support of this, he has authored “New IDEA,” the Illegal Deduction Elimination Act, which would protect American jobs for American workers by making wages and benefits paid to illegal immigrants nondeductible for federal tax purposes.

He also introduced H.R. 140, the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011, to limit birthright citizenship to a child born in the United States to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or national, a legal permanent resident living in the United States, or an individual who is serving on active duty status in the U.S. Armed Forces.

King concludes his immigration thoughts on his web site with words about “assimilating immigrants” whereby immigrants “will benefit from our shared American culture of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and patriotism.”

All good and well, but comparing immigrants to dogs?

Salon.com reports that this is exactly what King did at a town hall meeting in Pocahontas, Iowa, yesterday, “telling constituents that the U.S. should pick only the best immigrants the way one chooses the ‘pick of the litter.’”

Salon.com:

King told the crowd in Pocahontas, Iowa, that he’s owned lots of bird dogs over the years and advised, “You want a good bird dog? You want one that’s going to be aggressive? Pick the one that’s the friskiest … not the one that’s over there sleeping in the corner.”

King suggested lazy immigrants should be avoided as well. “You get the pick of the litter and you got yourself a pretty good bird dog. Well, we’ve got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet,” King said. “We’ve got the vigor from the planet to come to America.”

Salon.com adds:

King has long been one of Congress’ most vociferous and toxic opponents of illegal immigration and “amnesty,” often partnering with notorious immigration hawks like former congressman Tom Tancredo and Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In 2010, he took to the House floor to declare that he could detect “illegals” by their footwear and his “sixth sense.”

Mr. King is entitled to have his positions on the subject of immigration (legal and illegal), as he does on his web site.

However, such outbursts as in Pocahontas only hurt his credibility and his movement.

As his Democratic challenger, Christie Vilsack, says:

If we’re going to have a real discussion on immigration, we should start by acknowledging that immigrants are human beings. Iowans are taught in their community, in their church, and at the dinner table to respect each other, not to compare people to dogs. People expect a serious discussion between candidates and that’s what we’re committed to.

Read more here

Measured by the Flesch-Kincaid test, congressional oratory has dropped from an 11.5 grade level on average to a 10.6 grade level. This compares to the U. S. Constitution’s ranking of 17.8 and the Declaration of Independence’s ranking of 15.1.

Is there a partisan take on all this? Well, yes and no. All 10 of the lowest ranking orators are Republicans. But, 8 of the top 10 highest ranking orators are also Republicans.

Where does President Obama rank? Go read another article if you’re an Obama fan. The President, regaled by so many for his intelligence, gives State of the Union addresses that barely rise to an 8th grade level, among the lowest rankings in the 70 years of orally delivered State of the Union addresses.

Here are the results found by the Sunlight Foundation in its study.

Buffett said he might buy more newspapers. “Any time we can add properties we like, to management we like, at a price we like, we’re ready to go.”

The newspapers are in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida.

“In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper,” said Buffett. “The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold, and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway.”

The purchase includes the newspapers’ web sites, printing operations and related businesses. Berkshire would make a debt-refinancing loan to Media General, which would keep its TV stations and sell separately the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, its largest newspaper.

The sale will close June 25, subject to Federal Trade Commission and anti-trust reviews.

The largest newspapers in the acquired group are the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which sells about 115,000 copies on weekdays and 165,000 on Sundays, and the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, which sells about 58,000 copies daily and 76,000 on Sundays.

Altogether, the 17 daily newspapers sell about 400,000 copies on weekdays. World-Herald Co. dailies’ weekday circulation is about 200,000.

We might wonder, how with all the papers that have gone down, the long standing Chicago Sun Times for instance, the Rocky Mountain News, another venerable paper… leaving most towns with only one newspaper touting only one point of view instead of the old two-newspaper town model that gave a better idea of both polarities. …and it seems that Buffet is intent on ‘community’ being the thing that will make the papers thrive.

At the time he acquired the World-Herald, Buffett said he would not interfere with its editorial or news policies and he expected the newspaper company to continue doing its best work. He has a history of acquiring companies with good managers in place and letting them run their businesses with minimal control from his office.

Berkshire owns about 80 businesses with more than 300,000 employees, and Buffett has said he and his 20-person office rely on each company’s managers to conduct their businesses as if they were the owners.

Buffett has often said that newspapers were an excellent business when the owner of a newspaper had “the only megaphone in town.” In 1992, before digital media arose, he said newspapers are “enormously valuable.”

But in 2009 he said, “For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price. They have the possibility of going to just unending losses.”

Then, when Berkshire bought The World-Herald for $200 million in December, he said, “I saw good financial performance,” plus the benefits of a good local economy in Omaha and a desire to continue local control of the community’s newspaper.

“I think newspapers . . . have a decent future,” he said at the time. “It won’t be like the past. But there are still a lot of things newspapers can do better than any other media. They not only can be sustained, but are important.”

Buffett has said that while newspapers are no longer the only source for some types of news, such as stock prices and major league sports scores, they still deliver news and advertising information that people can’t find elsewhere. He said he wanted to buy more newspapers in cities where people are interested in their communities.

Smart words for niche business for Buffet, or fatuous nostalgia. We shall see.

When Obama made the decision one year ago to go after Osama bin Laden, he took tremendous risks. If anything had gone wrong, if the daring mission had failed, he could pretty much kiss his re-election chances goodbye. It took courage, and he did the right thing.

When Obama declared on Wednesday that he supports same-sex marriage, he once again made a decision that comes with tremendous political risk. It could very well cost him his re-election. But once again, it took courage and he did the right thing.

Explaining his decision to ABC’s Robin Roberts, the President said:

At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

Mr. President, while I applaud you for your courageous and right decision, I have to point out that millions of Americans came to that “certain point” a very long time ago, and — if the polls are right — that a good majority of Americans have now come to that “certain point,” too.

I personally haven’t “just concluded” that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally.

I concluded this a very long time ago when the most loved person in the world to my wife and me, our young son, told us that he was gay.

As our son grew up, I concluded that he deserves all the rights that you and I enjoy, Mr. President.

As our son met another young man and began a relationship, I concluded that he ought to be able to marry his partner when and if he wished to do so.

At a certain point in our history, Americans concluded that slavery was abominable and abolished it.

Similarly, at other points in our history Americans concluded that discrimination based on gender and race were wrong and unconstitutional and ended it.

I know it has taken you a long time to come to this conclusion, Mr. President, partially based of your dealings with friends and members of your staff who are in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships; partially from talking with your beautiful daughters and discovering that “it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently;” partially from discussions with the First Lady about values and about treating people equally. But you also mention the Golden Rule and how in being true to those precepts the better you’ll be as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better you’ll be as president.

You will be better, Mr. President.

Take it from the father of a gay man — a beautiful, loving, caring human being — whose heart breaks to see his son being “treated differently.”

Take it from the millions of gays and lesbians in America, from their parents, their brothers and sisters, their friends, who have come to this point, to this conclusion, a long time ago.

Mr. President, by speaking out in support of marriage equality you will certainly face a tsunami of vicious attacks from many quarters, you might even lose the election in November.

However, just as history has vindicated, honored, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and other presidents and leaders who faced similar excruciating, sometimes very unpopular decisions but did the right thing, history will look very kindly on the first sitting U.S. President with the courage and the principles to take the right stand on one of the last vestiges of institutionalized hate, prejudice, discrimination and injustice in America.

Charles Blow puts it so well in his “Liberty and Justice for All,” in today’s New York Times:

History will remember this president in this moment. He stood up for personal liberty and publicly affirmed what should have needed no affirmation: that in a just society the rights of some must be the rights of all, that we do not condemn those who love differently, that we are all made greater when we are all treated equally.

Thank you, Mr. President.

For an example of the coarsening of our political discourse read this “eloquent” clarion call by the Greene County, Virginia, Republican Committee to change “coarse” in November to “armed revolution” should things not turn out to one’s liking at the ballot box.

Of course, “coarse” should be “course,” but when one calls for such a coarse course change, who really cares.

Image: www.shutterstock.com

After so many depressing stories about sports figures who’ve done drugs, got into legal trouble, become physically decimated due to their past athletic battles, it’s refreshing to find an uplifting story about a famous athlete who is truly a great role model. And here it is: Shaquille O’Neal has earned his doctorate degree.

But don’t call him Dr. Shaq:

The four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal donned a cap and bright red XXXL-sized gown to receive his doctorate degree from Barry University Saturday in Miami, Florida.

On stage, he showed his enthusiasm in a way only someone over seven feet tall can do, by lifting his professor into the air.

After leaving Louisiana State University early for the NBA, Shaq went back to school and earned his bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree and now, a doctorate in education.

O’Neal told ABC News there are three reasons he hasn’t just kicked his feet up and lounged on an island since his retirement.

“One, I promised my parents I would[follow my passion for education]. Two, I wanted to continue my education and three, I wanted to challenge myself,” he said.

“The hardest part was getting back into high school mode. You ever have that high school teacher that says, you’ve got to read six chapters over the weekend?” he said.

He wrote his thesis on the value of humor in leadership, because he says he’s a natural leader who loves to laugh.

The graduate wants to become a motivational speaker and plans to go to law school.

Dr. O’Neal. A lot of Americans don’t wear hats anymore. And many don’t have a graduate’s cap with them.

So let’s take a moment to salute you because adults can take kids and — more than ever — proudly point to you.

Mayskyphoto / Shutterstock.com

Isn’t that just wonderful. Not only are Governor Corbett and the Republicans in the
Pennsylvania House making it harder to get food stamps, they’ve starved
the Philadelphia school system so drastically that many children there won’t be
able to get meals they’ve depended during summer school. Other agencies funded by
the Federal government are planning on setting up what they are calling
“feeding sites” to help.

Feeding sites! Like the children are animals or something. Nice.

UPDATE:

Related in more ways than one to the “brain drain,” especially as it affects our young people, is a “brain waste.”

Paul Krugman addresses how some of our policies are contributing to “wasting the minds of a whole generation.”

Please read it here

==

Original Post:

The unemployment in Spain “just hit a depression-level 24.4 percent.”

Portugal, and Greece are not faring much better.

Meanwhile in the Heilbronn-Franken region alone — in a Germany presently boasting Europe’s most thriving economy — 7,500 jobs, everything from health care to hospitality, but especially engineers, go begging.

The rest of Germany is not much different : “While much of southern Europe is struggling with soaring unemployment rates, a robust Germany is desperate for educated workers, and it has begun to look south for the solution,” says the New York Times in an interesting article this weekend.

It is thus not surprising to hear that thousands of workers from southern Europe are coming to Germany in search of jobs and a better future in what can be described as another “brain drain.”

It seems like these difficult and uncertain economic times and the changing fortunes of nations are causing the movements of people, and their talents, in unexpected ways and directions.

Recently, the United States — always a magnet for people from all over the world — is experiencing what some call a “reverse brain drain” as we are seeing an increasing number of highly educated and skilled sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, of Indian, Chinese, Russian, Brazilian immigrants returning to their ancestral countries where new and plenty of opportunities beckon.

Similarly, a few days ago there were reports that for the first time since the Depression more Mexicans are returning to Mexico than coming to the United States.

As to the reasons for this most recent reversal, the Mexican reverse migration, sources attribute it to, among others, a weak U.S. job and housing construction market, stricter border enforcement, improving social conditions in Mexico, a decline in Mexican birthrates.

The movement of labor, skills and “brains” across borders and continents is nothing new.

While the British Royal Society first coined the expression “brain drain” to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada in the 1950s and early 1960s from post-war Europe, such a migration of skills and talents can probably be traced to the earliest of times.

Wikipedia cites the seeking of protection by members of the closed (Neoplatonic) “Academy” in AD 529 under the rule of Sassanid king Khosrau I, “carrying with them precious scrolls of literature and philosophy, and to a lesser degree of science” as a historical example of brain drain.

As socio-economic fortunes change, and with the relative ease of travel and free movement of people — especially in the European Union and the “free world” — some scholars and business leaders claim that all these back-and-forth “brain movements” ( they refer to them as “brain circulation”) are not necessarily bad for the country “losing the brains.” Why? Because, for example, these young American entrepreneurial émigrés sow American knowledge and skills abroad and in return acquire experience overseas and build networks that they can carry back to the United States or elsewhere .

But back in Germany and especially in the southern European countries presently watching their young, talented people leave, there are some concerns. The Times:

“This generation of young people who are leaving are our best qualified ever,” said César Castel, the director of operations for the Spanish branch of Adecco, a Swiss headhunting firm. “It is a huge loss of investment for Spain. On average it cost us 60,000 euros to train each engineer, and they are leaving.” That is about $80,000.

Mr. Castel says that if Spain’s economy turns around in two years, he expects 90 percent of the Spanish professionals to return home. However, “[I]f the recession holds on longer, the figures could drop precipitously as the workers marry and have children abroad. He fears a situation where the northern economies retain industry and the southern ones are left with agriculture and tourism,” according to the Times.

Peter Fenkl, the president of the executive board of the German company Ziehl-Abegg, looks at this issue from an opposite perspective: “If they leave in a year or two, that is not good.” Fenkl estimates that it costs as much as $50,000 more to train and integrate a foreign worker than it does a German. “But the company has little choice — having enough highly trained workers to fill orders is a necessity,” says the Times.

But so far the brain drain seems to be going as well as can be expected for both sides — under the circumstances.

To the unemployed masses in the south, Germany’s needs are a relief. In Baden-Württemberg, the unemployment rate is just 4 percent. The country seems like “El Dorado,” the legendary lost city of gold, said one Spanish engineer still searching for a job in Schwäbisch Hall. For the most part, engineers are being offered twice the salaries they could make in Spain, he said, though taxes are higher in Germany.

Of course there are some cultural, language and other issues, but — mindful of past experiences with integrating foreign workers– “[t]oday, many government officials and business leaders are examining Germany’s culture, eager to do what it takes to be hospitable and acknowledging that they have not always been so.”

“We need to become a welcoming culture,” said Guido Rebstock, head of the jobs agency in Schwäbisch Hall, repeating a phrase that has become part of the vocabulary here. “The firms have to help the workers with more than their jobs.”

Schwäbisch Hall is the “postcard-perfect” town in the Heilbronn-Franken region that in the last 18 months has “recruited thousands of the Continent’s best and brightest.”

Hopefully, when the economies in Europe recover and most of the émigrés return home, the previously mentioned benefits of the new “brain circulation” will be realized.

Read more here.

Image: www.shutterstock.com