Archive for January, 2010
Today is My Birthday: Living the Zeitgeist
- Yosemite National Park
Today is my birthday. I am 50 years old. Staggering, but in a whatever/eventual sort of way. Truly staggering is that I’m here in Yosemite with Lyn, and it is breathtakingly beautiful.
I think of lyrics from the Grateful Dead song “Truckin”:
Sometimes the lights all shinin on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip its been.
Air America Declares Bankruptcy, MSNBC’s Keith Olberman Declares
Today is the last day that leftwing radio station Air America will be broadcasting. The company is disappearing after filing their Chapter 7 bankruptcy papers. Last March I wrote a post (Why Air America fizzles while the Daily Koz sizzles) explaining why Air America faired so poorly and was headed to the dustbin of history. As one of Air America’s few listeners, I felt comfortable offering my insights.
Amongst Air America’s many problems (boring unentertaining hosts, rarely having other opinions disseminated on the shows, rabid partisanship rather than ideological consistency) was the continuous PERSONAL attacks against those with other viewpoints.
The Audacity….of Scott Brown Elected Massachusetts Senator
“How a government that keeps pushing left will sit with the American voter in 2010 or 2012 will be greatly determined by the effectiveness of Obama’s domestic policies. I’ll admit concern about some of the choices the administration has made in regard to fixing the economy. The government now owns 50% of General Motors and 35% of Citibank. Those are socialist-like realities that didn’t need to happen. They seem like deliberate choices, and that to me is very worrisome. I’m concerned that the economic/political philosophies that led California, Detroit and France to their current detrimental station will soon become an integrated part of our national fabric.” (RandyGoldring.com April 2009)
JANUARY 20 2009: A year ago today the presidential candidate who ran on the nebulous slogan of change and hope was sworn into office. Facing enormous challenges, his historic victory was applauded even by many people who didn’t vote for him. For a variety of complex reasons, I voted for Barack Obama. My decision, which never occurred to me until the moment it happened, was made while I drove to the polling booth. I was and am quite comfortable with my choice.
Now, with the Massachusetts election of Republican Scott Brown to the United States Senate, the saga of Mr. Obama’s first year in office has been written.
Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
January 18th is Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Every year I reread the speech I consider the greatest in American political history. (”I have a Dream”) I celebrate the man’s courage and eloquence….and the country’s tremendous progress towards his ideals. The year following the reverend’s speech, a large bipartisan majority in Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
August 1963
I HAVE A DREAM
“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
H1N1 Swine Flu Deaths and the Boy Who Cried Wolf
The Boy who cried World is a fable attributed to Aesop. The protagonist of the fable is a bored sheperd boy who entertained himself by calling out Wolf”. Nearby villagers who came to his rescue found that the alarms were false and that they had wasted their time. When the boy was actually confronted by a wolf, the villagers did not believe his cries for help and the wolf ate the boy.
Around April 2009 the public was told to fear the coming outbreak of H1N1 Swine Flu. First the Center for disease Control told there was an EPIDEMIC looming. Then the World Health Organization told of the coming PANDEMIC. Schools closed when a single kid got the swine flu. Citizens jammed emergency rooms fearing for their lives when they contracted flu-like symptoms.
AmerICAN versus European Perspectives
Painted by Isabelle Bryer
Over the holidays I went to some very nice dinner parties. At one, my French friend Isabelle was sitting across from me. She is an extremely talented painter and was telling me the story of a contest she had entered. After submitting a painting that she thought was a great match for the parameters of the contest….she told how disappointed she was that she didn’t win. She went on to say that she called her brother in France and told him about it. He replied “Jeez! You’re becoming so Americanized. Why would you think you’d win? Don’t you know, life is shit and that nobody ever wins at anything!”
Our great English friends were in town and also seated at the table. They had both been born working class and had made a very successful life for themselves. The woman was a longtime sales person for a large American multinational company and the guy ran a very profitable small business. We were talking about America’s current healthcare drama. I was articulating my worries that as America morphs into a more European welfare state, that the country’s competitive advantage of “I can do entrepreneurialism” will dissipate just as emerging economic powers like China/India become greater competitors. My English friend replied to my comment saying the “anything is possible” mantra of America was a myth.
When it comes to Terrorists, Can We Please STOP PRETENDING
Why is it that we keep pretending that the whole structure of civil liberties will come crashing to a halt and the Gestapo will rise to prominence if those mandated to protect the rest of us spend more time/energy focusing their efforts on the people who fit the profile of those committing terrorist actions?
Potential Terrorist?
Okay, so the person who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on route to Detroit Michigan on Christmas was a poor excuse for a terrorist. Oh sure, the wannabe terrorist had all the usual terrorist trappings. Well educated, came from a well-to-do home, had traveled to countries that are on the terror “watch list”. But more than that, the person….a male…a young male….a young Muslim male with dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes fit the profile of virtually ALL of the previous people who have succeeded or attempted to commit acts of murderous terrorism against citizens of the United States. (Or for that matter, citizens of any country around the world)
Mr. President: The People of Iran Need You to Forcefully Speak the Truth
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
The decisions that pushed the world towards two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century were made in Berlin. Today, as the second decade of the 21st Century begins, the focal point of issues of war and peace reside in Tehran.
Thirty years ago Iran’s revolution promised an end to a dictatorship and a better society for the people of Iran. Like the Russian Revolution of 1917, the ultimate claimants to the reins of power in Iran have shown themselves as ruthless and narrowly self-interested as the regime that proceeded them. Vast numbers of Iranians are now standing up for themselves and against their oppressors. It is finally time that the President of the United States more forcefully lends his voice and support to this historic effort.
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