tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38161582024-03-13T20:28:44.680-05:00Musings & Migraines<b>"The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable,-- of a bad one, to make it less valuable."</b>-- <i>Henry David Thoreau</i>Lenorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057280296153171740noreply@blogger.comBlogger1089125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-56148848181539939502010-07-06T12:23:00.001-05:002010-07-06T12:26:04.763-05:00Blogroll please...Our newest blogbrother...Tantrums of a Restless Mind...welcome!red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-77891936139048827672010-04-07T13:13:00.011-05:002010-04-09T10:58:43.729-05:00Setting the Record StraightTo those of you who have been directed to this blog by way of the Newsweek piece I'd like to clarify a few details: I spoke with David Remnick last summer during a 30-minute phone call about a gathering at the Ayers/Dohrn home in 1995. It appears that Mr. Remnick conflated two different events, one of which I did not attend. The get-together I attended occurred long after the one where Alice red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-39299287925328953652010-04-07T10:26:00.003-05:002010-04-07T11:49:54.567-05:00Labor Board AppointeeFrom the letter's section of yesterday's NYTimes To the Editor:Business groups fear that the appointment of Craig Becker, a lawyer for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., to the National Labor Relations Board will promote unionism (“Deadlock Is Ending on Labor Board,” Business Day, April 1). But that is the precise purpose of the Wagner Act of 1935. Section 1 declares that it is “the policy of the United red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-66326972473255643982010-01-31T12:45:00.008-06:002010-02-01T16:06:28.347-06:00Hoping for a HurricaneIn the hoopla surrounding last week’s State of the Union, we should not overlook the double dose of Duncan—Arne that is—served up in the New Yorker and The Washington Post. Carlo Rotella’s profile of Obama’s Secretary of Education in the New Yorker (the full online article is available only to subscribers, alas), describes Duncan as “firmly on the market-forces side” of the debate on how to Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-85881736434624067532010-01-29T12:27:00.002-06:002010-01-29T12:32:48.429-06:00In answer to your question, Mr. PresidentFrom the letters section in today's NYTimes:To the Editor:President Obama’s State of the Union address had a high point when he pledged that anyone with a “better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.” Thank you, Mr. President. The answer is the reform supported by 65 red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-83584987960223224422010-01-28T22:49:00.001-06:002010-01-28T22:52:19.034-06:00What A Speech!A State of the Union with so many highlights: What about that moment when Obama announced he was issuing an executive order suspending healthcare benefits for all members of Congress until they brought him a bill that provided full healthcare for all US residents, and then we all looked at each other and said,” Can he do that? Woo Hoo BHO!”And then, the way he followed that by announcing he wasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-25812931788356421212010-01-23T14:19:00.007-06:002010-01-23T15:02:40.574-06:00Haiti and the US MilitaryAny criticism of relief efforts in face of a disaster as unfathomable as the earthquake in Haiti requires caution. Indeed, some aid groups have said the challenges in Haiti are greater than those that followed in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami. Nonetheless a couple of observations might be in order: We know that immediately following the earthquake the US military assumed the lead role in Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-28914318461977754972010-01-18T13:56:00.004-06:002010-01-18T14:13:58.460-06:00How Low Can He Go?: David Brooks on HaitiDavid Brooks's Friday column on the Haiti earthquake counts as his most reprehensible in recent memory, if not ever. On the strength of apparently having read one book and an essay on Haiti he feels licensed to charge millions of Haitian parents with systematically neglecting and then abusing their children. As bad is this is, the particulars are less important than what drives this sort of Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-75012889670648843562009-12-20T23:24:00.006-06:002009-12-21T11:51:02.907-06:00Thoughts for the SeasonSo I woke up this morning thinking about "The Homeless," which is only natural in weather like this, I suppose.The emergence of "homelessness" as an identity category reveals the repugnance of the neoliberal version of social activism at its bluntest. "Homelessness" was invented as a social status—the equivalent of an estate--over the 1980s with the collusion of government agencies, academics, red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-45574366130451395142009-11-11T14:00:00.004-06:002009-11-11T14:11:31.658-06:00"Massive Defense Spending Leads to Job Loss"Dean Baker explains:There is a major national ad campaign, funded by the oil industry and other usual suspects, to convince the public that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and slow global warming will result in massive job loss. This ad campaign warns of slower growth and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, possibly even millions of jobs, if some variation of the current red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-33723700366842922002009-10-13T17:48:00.001-05:002009-10-13T17:51:39.261-05:00red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-85998267953885205032009-10-12T05:47:00.000-05:002009-10-13T17:48:19.196-05:00Reconsider Columbus Dayred rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-9296334727782361472009-08-26T17:41:00.009-05:002009-08-29T23:19:07.062-05:00Sad NewsThe words aren't flowing today so I'll paraphrase someone who was intimately acquainted with loss:Edward Kennedy "need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him...pray that what he was to us andred rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-2203350257574151792009-08-18T11:55:00.000-05:002009-08-18T11:56:05.277-05:00Robert NovakLest we forget...The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cHeadlines - Richard Clarkwww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorSpinal Tap PerformanceLenorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057280296153171740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-26028595008523228242009-08-12T09:23:00.003-05:002009-08-12T12:37:03.321-05:00Illegitimate ConcernsFrom Campbell Brown to Jon Stewart to Barack Obama himself, the recent recipe for dealing with the crazies and operatives who’ve dominated the coverage of the health care debate appears to be as follows: Separate the fear mongering about death panels and such nonsense from the “legitimate” concerns about cost, being able to keep one’s current insurance, etc. Then, having sorted one from the Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-26735969043970903002009-08-10T09:22:00.008-05:002009-08-10T12:25:28.467-05:00BO's Health Care Reform: Settling for LessWhen the makers of the animated film The Incredibles wanted a visceral symbol for our society’s moral turpitude they knew exactly what to do: depict an insurance company executive--single-minded in the pursuit of profit and lacking even the slightest glimmer of sympathy for his fellow humans. The message was so clear that a four-year-old could get it: the only way that insurers make money is by Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-46670976607963673652009-07-31T12:41:00.002-05:002009-07-31T12:45:04.517-05:00Friday Malamute BloggingFinally warm enough to take him to the lake and let him play in the water. I can't believe I just wrote that on the last day of July in Chicago. What happened to summer?red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-19078790841336527182009-07-11T12:50:00.014-05:002009-07-15T13:05:14.014-05:00Them That's Got Shall Get...If you were wondering how wealth, income, and power have been, and still are, distributed in the USA than have a look-see at an article by Professor G. William Domhoff, available at the Sociology Dept. at UC Santa Cruz. I've excerpted some of the more upsetting paragraphs, tables, and figures below.In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2004, the top red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-77787150976090148802009-07-04T08:37:00.001-05:002009-07-07T12:10:16.607-05:00AtonementWatching The Fog of War for the second time around, I couldn't help but wonder: is this watery-eyed man in Rumsfield's future? Twenty, or so years, down the road will he subject himself to hours of interviews on his many errors in the Iraq war?As of today confirmed deaths in the Iraq War stand at just over 4,300, a far cry from the over 25,000 who died during McNamara's seven-year term as Lenorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057280296153171740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-36612515577522670742009-07-03T17:32:00.003-05:002009-07-03T22:56:32.754-05:00Friday Malamute Bloggingred rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-35380523651558320802009-06-19T13:12:00.002-05:002009-06-19T13:14:32.906-05:00Happy Father's Day Weekend!Ian Frazier says it best. O my children, you are disobedient. For when I tell you what you must do, you argue and dispute hotly even to the littlest detail; and when I do not accede, you cry out, and hit and kick. Yes, and even sometimes do you spit, and shout "stupid-head" and other blasphemies, and hit and kick the wall and the molding thereof when you are sent to the corner. And though theLenorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057280296153171740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-70379447196398126802009-06-05T14:34:00.004-05:002009-06-06T12:08:07.340-05:00Obama's Panderer's Box......is always open.When David Horowitz is complimenting you, it's way past time to trash the preferences and uninstall the software.Michael Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again describes Obama's Cairo speech as an "...emetic concoction of falsehood, sanctimony, and hypocrisy..." The whole sick-making performance is like this -- Parson Obama, master of the drone aircraft and the cluster bomb for red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-23188136237720178222009-05-22T17:32:00.002-05:002009-05-22T17:41:49.620-05:00Dear Mr. PresidentIt's always heartening to find that there are many who are not hoodwinked by the rhetoric:Mr. Obama, You are a fine speechmaker and have helped the government and people of the U.S.A. generally feel a more sincere and positive connection to the civilized world than they have had a right to feel in recent years. However, to name a few of what I honestly feel are dangerously misguided positions of red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-13614202582429016902009-05-22T17:23:00.003-05:002009-05-22T17:27:00.236-05:00Friday Malamute BloggingFinally warm enough to drink water with two feet. He kept batting at the reflection of himself, or something, in the water. I couldn't get a pic of that. Maybe next time.red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3816158.post-63081156950211835992009-05-18T09:56:00.003-05:002009-05-18T10:02:30.773-05:00Stupid and Contagious(click on image for a larger version)From the Center for Economic and Policy ResearchThis report finds that the U.S. is the only country among 22 countries ranked highly in terms of economic and human development that does not guarantee that workers receive paid sick days or paid sick leave. Under current U.S. labor law, employers are not required to provide short-term paid sick days or red rabbithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03196549064327898424noreply@blogger.com3