"NowAnthony..."

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Friday June 10, 2011 · 5:01 PM PDT

2011/06/10 · 17:01

Funny how a mere adverb, prefixed to a name, can become a whole statement [as to a junior family member].

NowAnthony, you're goofing up bigtime. It's not the end of the world, but you need to resolve this, and do it now. Period.
Don't make a scene. Don't insist. Just start over. Or you become a dead weight. Uuuuugh!
It's not about legality or fairness or deep morality. It's about being an effective public voice.
Grow up Anthony. You're not a political hack or a placeholder. You've been a talented voice against reaction and for progressive ideas and policies. The quicker you go back to square one, the better your chance of playing an important role in the future.
I'm with Ed Schultz on this. When he had his misstep, momentary and minor though it was, he stepped aside, gave up the spotlight temporarily to acknowledge the failing. And he got public credit for that. He's back, full force. When Anthony's disgrace came out, Ed was on point that in this case resignation is the only way out, that the longer he delays the more harm he'll do himself and others.

Memorial Mile for the Fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan

seriously70

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Monday May 30, 2011 · 2:04 AM PDT

2011/05/30 · 02:04

In Gainesville, Florida, the local chapter of Veterans for Peace organizes a Memorial Mile this time of year, in a park area along northwest 8th Avenue. Individual grave markers, like tombstones, more than six thousand of them, recall each of the American service members who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are four abreast, grouped by circumstances of their deaths: country, year and day. Each tombstone carries a name, a date of death, age, branch of service, rank and hometown.
The visual spectacle of the Mile is very moving (only partially captured by the available videos). The municipality already has in the mile a permanent Solar System Walk, marked by a series of pylons which start with our Sun at 34th street and proceed eastward at irregular intervals with a pylon for each of the planets (not excluding Pluto), at distances proportional to their astronomical ones. This already gives a hint of larger meanings to the Mile space, of important things represented but not stated. When the tombstones are added in, and you see them marching forward, year by year, toward a far-distant hill, there is an air of solemnity, but not of rest.

seriously70

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Sunday August 23, 2009 · 10:27 AM PDT

2009/08/23 · 10:27

Get away from it all, chill out?
Meditate, think things through, long and short term?
Reassess your strategy and current tactics?
Look at weaknesses and emerging strengths?
Consider your options to prevent stagnation, move the country forward?
Restructure priorities as needed?
Make any hard decisions regarding alliances and personnel?
Be sure your plan has the strength of coherence?
Work up key phrases to inspire Americans with your new project?

Go Lawrence O'Donnell!

seriously70

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Wednesday August 12, 2009 · 10:34 PM PDT

2009/08/12 · 22:34

Don't miss his interview tonight on Hardball with the woman who had harangued Arlen Specter Tuesday, health care reform and other government initiatives as dismantling our country, voicing her fear of Socialism in America, and demanding to know why Specter/the Democrats are doing stuff that the Founders didn't put in the Constitution... and Why can't we go back to the way things used to be?
O'Donnell took on the Socialism question head on, asking what she thinks of medicare, which, he agreed, is a socialist program (...) and asked if she would advise elderly people to reject it and refuse to participate? When Katy became clearly embarrassed, stammered, and found no answer, he went on to Social Security, noting that it too is a socialist program, and that such programs support many millions of working people in their old age, and that he supports both of them because they solve problems of our time that couldn't have been foreseen back in the 1700s.
Kudos to Lawrence O'Donnell (and Katy Abrams) for a civilized, no-bullshit interview.

Bipartisanship? Schmypartisanship.

seriously70

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Monday August 10, 2009 · 10:07 PM PDT

2009/08/10 · 22:07

There are disturbed folks out there who feel slipping away their America (traditional, secure, imperial, White). They took heart with the figure of Sarah Palin when the national crisis became apparent and the election was in doubt.

They've embraced and are manipulated by a Republican leadership that rejects positive change and whose only goal is to bring down the President and party that represent it.

Right now the GOP and other ptbs are orienting that fear of change against health care reform, the issue of the day. But that's not all there is to it. Not by a long shot.

Those disturbed folks are becoming more hysterical. Secure in their party's support, they become much more intolerant of contrary opinions, less fearful of their own irrationality, of the lack of substance in their arguments, less apprehensive about making fools of themselves publicly, less concerned about negative outcomes,
more willing to assay intimidation,
potentially more willing to take the law into their own hands.

seriously70

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Saturday August 23, 2008 · 12:20 PM PDT

2008/08/23 · 12:20

I've always liked Biden, but with reservations. As a Democrat, I was unenthusiastic about the idea of him as President, and the same applies in part to his elevation to VP. But that could change if things work out as I hope.
How so?
I expect a lot from Barack Obama in the way of opening paths to change. This is an unusual time, with unprecedented challenges. If a turnaround isn't achieved in the coming years, then there will be a right-wing onslaught to "do something", at a terrible cost. I've pinned my hopes on Obama to meet this historic challenge, with his skills, imagination and political personality.
What about Biden in this context of government?

seriously70

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Monday May 26, 2008 · 10:11 AM PDT

2008/05/26 · 10:11

Driving East on 8th Avenue in Gainesville, Florida, betrween 34th and 23rd streets, you come to the Memorial Mile organized by Local chapter 14/78 of Veterans for Peace, an impressive extended tribute to the American troops (Soldiers, Marines, Naval Personal and Airman) killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Its composed of 4577 individual grave markers, 4077 from Iraq and 500 from Afghanistan, four abrest, 8"x12" tombstomes, bearing the name, age, date of death, hometown and rank of each of the dead.
Just driving by takes a while, long enough for the message to sink in. [If you hit the link, don't miss the traffic sign as the road narrows toward the end].

seriously70

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Saturday April 19, 2008 · 12:27 PM PDT

2008/04/19 · 12:27

A political debate is a back-and-forth argument or discussion about matters up for decision, about policy. The ABC-TV event was not a discussion and mostly not about America's problems, policies and leadership. The show was not a debate.
It was framed as a job audition, to help choose a fighter.
The "job" (the party nomination), in this frame, is to be the Dems' champion in upcoming fight, against the GOP rival already chosen.
The criterion: find out which of them was least vulnerable to the next opponent.
It took the form of public interrogation, a trial, an ordeal, to judge which candidate could best stand the gaff s/he would face if selected.
Rather than having Hillary and Obama fight it out, the trial format tests and compares how well each individual candidate can stand up to the blows expected from the definitive opponent, McCain.
More on this peculiar contest format below the fold:

seriously70

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Wednesday December 12, 2007 · 1:53 PM PST

2007/12/12 · 13:53

What meanings are embedded in this great slogan from Al Gore’s Nobel speech?
I'd rather not hog the discussion, but gotta do 300 characters at least, so this is some of what I see:
-Multiple senses, woven together.
-Peace with the planet = with the natural world as a whole (necessarily with all humankind, all nations working together). (It's not true that war and domination are the eternal mode of international relations, of relations among people, and with Nature.)
Make peace with the planet: find a way, it's time.

Why Iraq Partition is no policy for America.

seriously70

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Thursday August 23, 2007 · 2:54 PM PDT

2007/08/23 · 14:54

A partition solution is being proposed for the Iraq conflict, based on the Bosnian experience. It won't work.
Thom Shanker in Sunday’s NYT presents a helpful summary, comparing Iraqi conditions for partition with those existing in Bosnia prior to Dayton. He lays out three fundamental differences that tend to invalidate the idea of repeating the experience in Iraq. I will first summarize his piece, then add a couple of comments and a very important fourth condition supporting the argument.
Shanker’s piece in summary, with my asides [in]:
First condition. Bosnia had already been carved up by war before diplomats inked it into a map.

Such a map is far from drawn in Iraq. Although two million Iraqis have fled the country and another two million are displaced within Iraq’s borders, up to five million more — 20 percent of the prewar population — would have to be moved to create an ethnically coherent place....

Stay with me...

seriously70

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Sunday July 08, 2007 · 3:01 PM PDT

2007/07/08 · 15:01

Bush IS a coward, and it needs to be said a thousand times. Acknowledging it needs to become common sense, just as his incompetence has.
However, Frank Rich is wrong when he says:

Mr. Bush's cowardice is arguably more responsible for the calamities of his leadership than anything else.

That's not true, and it's important to realize the implications of Rich's misstatement, in a piece that is otherwise laser-sharp (A Profile in Cowardice , NYT, today).

See why he's wrong below the fold

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"NowAnthony..."

Memorial Mile for the Fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan

What would you do on this vacation, if you were BHO?

Go Lawrence O'Donnell!

Bipartisanship? Schmypartisanship.

Thoughts on Joe Biden as VP, in an Obama administration.

Mile-long VFP Memorial to the Fallen in Iraq and Aghanistan

That was no debate. What was it?

Make peace with the planet

Why Iraq Partition is no policy for America.

Frank Rich is wrong. It's not Bush's cowardice.