Some folks have been giving Barack Obama a hard time for his claim that the court’s should serve as a refuge and defender of the oppressed in America. This, they argue, is politics substituting itself for law. They gleefully point to John McCain’s statement on what he’s looking for in a judge — a position that is supposedly non-ideological and apolitical. Conservative judges go where the law takes them. Liberal judges go where they want to go, law be damned.
Tragically, this position is false — and it’s a conservative judge who is pointing it out….
The Millennial Generation are those who are born between 1982 and 2003. There’s about a million more millennials than there are baby boomers, and twice as many than the generation that preceded it, Generation X.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you characterize their — their political views? I mean, you point out that they are voting more Democratic than Republican. But is there a way of labeling them?
MICHAEL HAIS: Well, we refer to them as a civic generation. And that means that they are a generation that is not intent on — as other types of generations are — not intent on implementing their own personal moral values, but rather in rebuilding civic institutions, in acting together as a group to resolve political problems, which we expect the millennials to do, problems such as health care that have really bedeviled the U.S. political process for the last 40 years or so.
MORLEY WINOGRAD: So, their parents raised them share. And they had them watch “Barney” and make sure that everybody was treated equally. And we came to win-win situations.
So, they come to the political process with a collective point of view, and therefore tend to be Democratic. And, in fact, this is the first generation in about five decades where a greater number label themselves as liberal, rather than conservative.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why is it — what is it about Barack Obama that has turned so many of them out?
MORLEY WINOGRAD: Well, he has a unifying message, so it’s — that’s important, because these are not a generation interested in the confrontational culture wars of the boomers.
But he — and his background, which is very diverse in and of itself, so he sort of captures that nature of this generation. But I think maybe the most important thing is that he’s combined that message with the right medium. He’s really organized on social network — around social network platforms to build the kind of support he’s been able to demonstrate, at least in many of the states.
We in America can talk about the virtues and vices of presidential candidates we support.
We in America can argue about which political party is going to destroy or uplift the country.
We in America can pontificate about race baiting, race hustling, race pitching, race riding, race stirring, race healing, race blah blah in this political season.
We in America can scream about who’s elitist, has testicular fortitude, is Maverick like, old, black, a woman, has four legs, flies to the moon, lives on the moon, tough on terrorism, is Messiah-like, prone to “Pastorgates”, has toxic spouses, etc this silly season.
We in America can just shut up.
Because the game changing $4.00/gallon gas is upon us. When the average reaches that mark, we in America are going to feel it and feel it good. Our very lifestyle is at serious risk. The very American “going out for a ride” will lose its luster. The family road trip will be shelved or shrunk in distance. The weekend getaway becomes a weekend DVD fest at home. The grocery store becomes ominous because of prices. I can go on and on.
Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain aren’t ready to deal with the way this will change American life. Heck, Washington likes to play games with itself. But for millions of Americans who lives will be affected detrimentally by ever increasing fuel costs, the word bitter and the feeling of bitterness will just become part and parcel of American life. No matter how many despots we depose, that will play second fiddle to the new American way of life.
Are you ready to ride my fellow Americans? Are we as a country ready to deal with this issue head on without politics?
It turns out that one of the doctors in yesterday’s piece on families coping with gender identity issues, Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D., is on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group for the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Needless to say, gender-variant LGBT and straight youth, as well as transsexual adults, will likely have to deal with another decade plus of being considered seriously disordered — with its conversion therapy implication for children. Reform models for, or different takes on Gender Identity Disorder in DSM-V aren’t likely to be seriously considered with forceful advocates Zucker and Blanchard on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group, advocating to continue listing gender-variant youth and adult transsexuals as disordered.
It was the step that recognized that individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward people of the same sex weren’t afflicted with a psychiatric disorder.
I make that leap, too. And will share this personal story only to inform the reader of how my experience shapes my beliefs… Read the rest of this entry »
New York, NY, May 8, 2008—Thanks to its historical, 94 years of operation as a non-political entity and relief organization, JDC staff has been granted entry visas to carry out humanitarian aid efforts for victims of cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar last week. A senior JDC professional is on the ground in Myanmar, where he will assess the situation and carry out plans to aid the estimated several hundred thousand cyclone victims without shelter and safe drinking water. JDC is partnering with MASHAV, Magen David Adom (MDA), and F.I.R.S.T (Fast Israeli Rescue & Search Team) to provide emergency relief, including medical supplies and personnel and rescue workers.
JDC has opened a mailbox and is now accepting donations to provide immediate assistance and relief:
Donate to Myanmar Cyclone Relief:
Online: https://www.jdc.org/donation/jdc_form.cfm
By Phone: 212.687.6200
By Mail: Check payable to: JDC-Myanmar Cyclone Relief, P.O. Box 530, 132 East 43rd St., New York, NY, 10017
A federal judge has ruled that the Georgia Institute of Technology had materials in its office to support gay students that amounted to unconstitutional support for some religious groups over others. […]
The ruling came in a case involving a range of issues over speech codes and support for religious groups at Georgia Tech — issues that mirror those being raised at other public colleges and many of which were resolved in earlier rulings or agreements between the parties in the case. The new part of the ruling, however, focused on a set of materials used in the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students.
The case was filed on behalf of two Georgia Tech students, assisted by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that has sued many public colleges accusing them of violating the rights of religious students. The portion of the suit about Safe Space argued that materials at the public university were effectively religious in that they endorsed some faiths over others — and that these materials were as a result unconstitutional. Judge J. Owen Forrester agreed.
The materials in question dealt with issues that may be faced by religious gay students, or by gay students challenged about the sexuality by people from different faiths. One passage cited in the ruling says that “historically, Biblical passages taken out of context have been used to justify such things as slavery, the inferior status of women, and the persecution of religious minorities.” Such attitudes have led some religious groups to declare “that homosexuality is immoral,” the group’s materials state, while others “have begun to look at sexual relationships in terms of the love, mutual support, commitments and the responsibility of the partners rather than the sex of the individuals involved.”
May 9th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
According to my contact in Yangon, what pitiful supplies are on the ground, have no distribution whatsoever to any of the thousands of villages and tributaries in Burma hit into utter devastation by the tsunami/ cyclone. The Burmese, most poorer than poor before the tsunami, are going on their 6th sunrise without clean water, food, or shelter or medicines.
Meanwhile, it is certain, while the military government gets down their fiddles, the infants and newborns and toddlers grow dehydrated. Without adequate water and food, their mothers’ breasts will have run out of milk, and the children will die from dehydration, an entire generation of young will be gone within a week.
Than Schwe: You cannot keep others from knowing about the mayhem of your country. Burma is on satellite. The floods and the people and the animals can be seen dead and floating and bloated. The living can be seen by satellite also, picking through ruins, entire villages wiped out with no survivors.
Than Schwe, delaying allowing aid workers in, makes you only look more and more unleaderly.
Than Schwe, animals survive by adapting. Animals who can learn new behavior, survive the unforeseen.
Than Schwe, animals who do as they have always done, die.
Than Schwe, open your heart, if not your mind. Be known as a ruler who took care of his people in every way possible, rather than going down in history as the leader who stood by paralyzed and allowed holy people and helpless people, his own kith and kin, to die in misery.
CODA
I hear from my contact in Yangon, that the people on the ground in Burma are begging that international aeroplanes please fly over and drop supplies.
Than Schwe, if they fly, let them fly unmolested. Add no more horror to horror. It’s within your power. Choose honorific over horrific.
Than Schwe, the new respect you would receive then, would be remarkable.
This is our deepest prayer for you Than Schwe, and for the people of Burma… the Central Buddhist Precept:
Look at these faces. While the rest of the world wrings its hands and waits helplessly on the sidelines, Burma’s government says it will accept aid, but that it doesn’t want the help of foreigners in getting it to the people. (BBC News) The UN is pretty sure the government’s own unaided efforts won’t be enough.
The UN says that up to 1.5 million people may have been affected by Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region on Saturday. Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed, but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000.
Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water or shelter. Officials say people could die because no help is getting to them.
In a statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the junta to prioritise the aid effort over tomorrow’s nation-wide referendum on a widely-criticised new constitution.
It would be "prudent to focus instead on mobilising all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts", he said. (BBC News)
As the Bush era draws to a close, Europeans are anxious to know what about American policy will change when he’s gone - particularly if a Democratic victory occurs as planned.
“In view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? … All three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force.”
“Clearly, a Democratic victory in November would undoubtedly open the door to a more left-wing America. But it would be a kind of American left, certainly not modeled on Europe. Both candidates have rejected a “single payer” system for health insurance, like the Canadian and European models. The change ahead will not mean the end of the American exception, but the end of American triumphalism.”
LEADING ARTICLE
Translated By Kate Davis
May 8, 2008
France - Challenges - Original Article (French)
All countries are exceptional. But the United States gladly considers itself exceptionally exceptional, different from all other developed countries in its social organization and its fundamental values. The State is less extensive and the distribution of wealth more unequal. The United States is also more strongly committed to what Margaret Thatcher called the “Victorian values:” individualism, voluntarism, patriotism.
Thus the Bush government, which supports conservative values domestically and demonstrates an unlimited self confidence externally, is the most “exceptional” known in recent years. But at the end of Bush’s mandate, isn’t the United States entering a new cycle, characterized by the rejection of conservatism and a convergence with Europe’s standards?
In reality, three quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and for example, vigorously support a system of universal health care. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have promised to address that. They also want to improve their image in the world. The next government will certainly initiate significant reforms, such as closing Guantanamo or adopting a more rigorous environmental policy in order to address some of the country’s more aberrant characteristics.
Yet in view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? John McCain won the nomination of his party despite strong internal opposition. Barack Obama is the leader of an uprising against the Democratic old guard.
All three preach a patriotism specific to the United States. John McCain boasts of his service in Vietnam. Barack Obama claims that there is no red or blue, but only one America united by common values. The three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force. John McCain sings, “Bomb, bomb [bomb, bomb bomb] Iran.”
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.
Whatever happened to the Melting Pot? Now we learn that “Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats’ preferences for the Democratic nomination.”
This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don’t blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, “Uninteresting, if true.”
As pollsters and political “experts” turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.
Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove and his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.
Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.
I began this piece the other day and should have posted it then. I’m late tothe party. I was responding to a commenter who wrote:
It’s really sad how much the talk circles around race.
It’s a constant reminder how far we haven’t come.
Even though I knew that to be true, this campaign is just a daily reminder.
The comment was in response to me quoting Thomas Schaller. The irony is that much as I liked what Schaller had to say the other day I’m highly ambivalent about him. I’ve been railing against his Whistling Past Dixie plea for Democrats to abandon the South and turn Southern racism into a (p.18) “burdensome stone to hang around the Republicans’ neck” for a very long time.
Democrats are too quick to hang that racist label on Republicans, and tactical ideas like Schaller’s miss the point don’t they? Back when Schaller wrote his book I was advocating that we should instead address our own racist past as highlighted by Republican Bruce Bartlett in, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, and redouble our efforts to fight racism whenever and wherever we find it.
You’ve got to wonder if Hillary’s not getting away with her nonsense now — party bigwigs, where are you? — because of our own record of putting strategy before substance! (Speaking of which, I can only hope Ms. Genardo is wrong about John Edwards not endorsing because he’s holding out for a Cabinet position.)
Now I’m no expert on demographic shifts and voting patterns but these days events seem to be taking on a life of their own. And I’m left wondering if, hoping even, that with Blacks having moved back to the South, this religious, rural, evangelized, conservative Southern region that flipped from Democrat to Republican might surprise everybody and just as quickly flip right back.
— Democrats cast nearly 53 percent of the 2,007,544 ballots counted on Feb. 5.
— Within the Democratic primary, African-Americans cast 55 percent of the vote. This is the first time that’s happened. White voters made up just a tad less than 40 percent of the Democratic vote.
— White voters made up 96 percent of the Republican presidential primary vote.
— African-Americans cast 30 percent of all votes on Feb. 5. In November 2006, with gubernatorial candidate Mark Taylor at the top of the Democratic ticket, black voters cast only 24 percent of all ballots. This is the number causing Republicans to lose sleep.
— In addition to juicing turnout among black voters, the Feb. 5 primary showed signs of a shift in party preference among the state’s youngest voters. You read above that Democratic voters accounted for 53 percent of all ballots.
But 61 percent of voters 24 and under picked up a Democratic ballot.
— Young voters are notoriously unreliable, but young African-American voters — 24 and under — had a voter turnout rate of 26 percent. That’s remarkably strong. Turnout among young white voters was 22 percent — again, not too shabby.
May 8th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Various news reports say there are over 200,000 dead in the cyclone and tsunami that hit Burma… now five days ago.
Other reports say over 500,000 will be dead if the thousands of bodies floating in water and lying in mud are not burnt or buried, and the injured given help, and the vulnerable given clean water.
This is after the government originally said there might be a total of 10,000 dead. Maybe not even that many, they said.
This from The Sun, U.K., by Nick Parker, Chief Foreign Correspondent at Mae Sot on the Burmese border
and James Clench
The UK has so far pledged more aid than anyone, announcing a £5million package to be channelled through the UN.
Charities Save the Children, Oxfam and the British Red Cross have also swung into action.
But most of the aid is yet to be distributed because of the secretive Burmese junta, led by ruthless General Than Shwe.
His isolationist regime is paranoid an influx of foreigners might have a political impact on a national referendum due tomorrow, set to strengthen the army’s grip still further.
Three days ago, the dictatorship’s Health Minister went on TV, in what was called a rare appearance, and he said aid was on its way to the Burmese people. Right away.
It’s not. Aid is not on its way. Five days later, world aid is not present in Burma.
General Than Schwe, dictator of Burma, has 400,000 soldiers at his behest.
And as I wrote at TMV earlier, hopefully Than Schwe would stand out of the way and allow the experienced international teams of aid workers to bring equipment and supplies, and the means to both unload it and distribute it.
It didn’t happen.
Ships from many nations are still fully loaded all over the world waiting orders to turn the wheel and steam toward Burma. Cargo planes are loaded and waiting. They are filled with medical supplies At various airports outside Burma, aid workers are sitting on their packed duffels and backpacks ready to go: parameds, post trauma specialists, doctors, engineers, health care workers, and heavy equipment, such as back hoes, trailers. All waiting.
And waiting
And waiting
Than Schwe, hugely well fed dictator of the ancient Burmese people, he who has suffered no personal loss from this disaster for he is ensconced more than 200 miles away from where the tsunami/ cyclone hit… and it is Than Schwe, who wanted to be king of everything and who wanted to control everything, it is he who has publicly failed the world soul, failed the world heart that cries out for a humane response…
Than Schwe has failed publicly and utterly by keeping aid workers out of Burma, by putting no real teeth behind his health minister’s claim that help was coming, big help was coming, right away, huge help was coming.
Than Schwe is merely keeping all aid workers on strings… without cutting the red tape.
The dictatorship’s excuse? Than Schwe and his merelings continues to parrot that they “cannot let aid workers into the country out of concern for the workers own safety.”
Than Schwe,NEWS ALERT: to aid workers, a disaster site wouldn’t be a disaster site if it weren’t unsafe.
Than Scwe’s huge lie will not hold water, not even a drop left behind by the tsunami.
The world’s second most populous nation is up-in-arms over remarks recently made by President Bush, as he attempted to explain rising food and energy prices to an audience in Maryland.
The president said the following:
“There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population,” said Bush. “And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”
Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh: “George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics. And he has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is.”
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: “It is preposterous for anyone to say that global food crisis, including the crisis in America, is because Indians are eating more. It is needless to say what the Indians get to eat or what they (Americans) eat. This only shows how he has lost his senses” … he added that Bush’s remark was nothing more than a “cruel joke.”
But striking a conciliatory note, Surojit Chatterjee writes for the Business Times: “Being well-informed or choosing words carefully are not his specialty. … Let’s be forgiving to the U.S. President. … Let us stop pointing fingers at one another and receive Bush’s remark with a pinch of salt and a hearty laugh.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ehud Ya’ari, one of the most clear-eyed and reputable of Israeli journalists, offers a sobering analysis of Israel’s situation on the eve of its 60th anniversary of statehood.
Writing in The Jerusalem Report (“The Two-Front Threat Remains,” May 12), he asserts that while Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza and the re-arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon are largely perceived in Israel as “an irritating nuisance,” they actually represent an emerging existential threat. If left alone, Hamas will take over the West Bank and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will do the same in Lebanon, solidifying their roles as front men for Iran. But Israel’s leadership is too weak or short-sighted to act forcefully, argues Ya’ari, who calls for defeating Hamas in Gaza now, before matters grow worse.
hat such a disturbing analysis comes as Israelis and their supporters around the world prepare to celebrate the creation, growth and flourishing of the Jewish state — one that has not known a single day of peace — is a reminder that for all the richly deserved tributes we will hear this week about the miracle of Israel, the fact remains that its survival is not guaranteed….
In his book, Schecter makes the case for why, although he supported McCain in his run in 2000, McCain no longer deserves support and in fact, his candidacy should be fought actively, without hesitation and on all fronts. Schecter outlines his reasons for these sentiments and fills in those reasons with more details than you may be able to absorb. Schecter draws a portrait of both McCain’s political trajectory and the parallel trajectory of how his political choices since 2001 are a thumbing of his nose at the very people who got him to the presidential precipice in the first place.
A couple of disclosures before I offer you my phone interview with Cliff: I’ve never been a McCain supporter. And I haven’t known of Schecter that long either - here’s the first post I ever wrote about Schecter. However, it was fascinating talking to someone with a seemingly vast knowledge base about someone whom I’ve never really studied.
JMZ: You argue on behalf of former McCain supporters who should be able to realize that McCain isn’t what he once was. Who, then, is the alternative and why?
CS: Well. There’s always, “What we have versus what we’d like to have.” I’m an Obama supporter and he has a lot of appeal to Independents. But he hasn’t done it the way McCain did it – by attacking his own party in big speeches. Obama has done it by standing up, not by splitting. Obama talks about rising above partisanship and reaching out to all people on all sides and getting past the muck where politics has gotten so nasty. Obama says, I’m going to talk to you like an adult. And that’s what McCain had called “straight talk” – but he hasn’t given us much of that [this election cycle.] Read the rest of this entry »
BOB GARFIELD: The FLDS community has been described as something like a tribe in Papua, New Guinea, that is untouched by the modern world. Are they really living in the middle of the 18th century?
BROOKE ADAMS: I think that’s a false perception of this group. They have a number of people who have been to college. They are quite Internet-savvy, as the world now knows with the websites that they have put up to spread their view of what’s happened to them in Texas. So I think the idea that they’re totally isolated is false.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to ask you about the websites that have popped up amid all of the uproar. Are they coming from within the Yearning for Zion compound itself?
BROOKE ADAMS: Yes and no. The FLDS that are there at the ranch have put up, as far as I know, two websites on which they have posted a number of the pictures they took during the initial days of the raid there at the ranch. But there are a number of other websites that have been put up related to the actions in Texas. […]
BOB GARFIELD: There is another issue, apart from the welfare of the children, that has emerged in all of this, and that is the women in the community, who have been occasionally portrayed as essentially being slaves, having to be utterly submissive to the men in the household. Read the rest of this entry »
NPR has a terrific and nuanced story on a difficult and challenging topic. One issue to dispose of right away, the story is headlined Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences, which may suggest to some that those boys make a choice about their gender identity.
As their story makes clear, little choice is involved. To people of my sexual identity (I self-identify as gay) using the words gender identity in the titlewould be more precise. Please forgive the quibble and let’s move on… Why on earth would any child ever choose to go through this:
Bradley had always had a preference for girls’ things. From his earliest days he had chosen girls’ dolls, identified with female characters and gravitated toward female children. But Carol had never thought to care. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t a loaded gun; it wasn’t a lit cigarette. She says it had really never crossed her mind to say, “I’d really rather you played with a truck.” […]
It was a single event that transformed her vague sense of worry into something more serious. One day, Bradley came home from an outing at the local playground with his baby sitter. He was covered in blood. A gash on his forehead ran deep into his hairline. Read the rest of this entry »
Is it possible that in the midst of the most grueling political ordeal of his life, Barack Obama took time out last week to negotiate with Nigerian Militants?
“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem.”
Many school administrators reportedly feel they now have a monster problem with students drinking highly-caffeinated energy drinks — and that’s no (red) bull.
Previous generations got their caffeine fix via coffee, tea or cola — but energy drinks are now big business with 20 somethings, teens and even students in middle schools. The Oregonian reports:
The rising popularity of so-called energy drinks is drawing concern among school administrators around the nation, with principals in other states also urging parents not to send their students to school with energy drinks. In mid-March, four eighth-graders in Broward County, Fla., were hospitalized after sipping energy drinks and then complaining of sweating and racing hearts. Read the rest of this entry »
“As if the protagonists weren’t human beings who has separated themselves from their families to try and build a better future, the news that cash remittances from Latin American immigrants to their impoverished families back home are declining has been cause for celebration in xenophobic circles in the United States. … that doesn’t imply, as anti-immigrant groups say, good news for those seeking to restrict the flow of migration, since if the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate, the effects will be felt throughout the region. And when the economies of Latin America enter into a major crisis, the only escape valve will once again be immigration.” Read the rest of this entry »
![[Excelsior, Mexico]](http://worldmeets.us/images/wantedimmigrants_excelsior.gif)
