You know how some weeks feel like months? Well, this week had enough crammed into it to last a year. A short walk through only a few of the events of the last seven days reveals...
...A speech, a gizmo, a Q and A of potentially historic proportion, a movie (for me, at least), a Huey Long reference, a death, a jury verdict, an interview, another death, a budget, a Democratic primary in Illinois, and the story of a convention and a keynote speaker...it has been quite a week.
The State of the Union...
...is getting stronger. The speech was a doozy. The Democratic caucus looked like it was throwing a party in the chamber, the Republican one looked like it was trying to pass a kidney stone. I've seen the same expressions on children who are used to always getting what they want being told "no" and not liking it very much. I, on the other hand, liked it very much.
The State of the Apple...
...Steve Jobs may have his first worm in a long while. The iPad was introduced the same morning as the SOTU speech, and for some the anticipation was greater in the morning. But, that morning after was a real letdown. Atlanta's M. Luckovich highlights the danger of releasing a product more than 10 years in the making, after other, younger, products have superseded the need for it:
Question Time
In President Obama's tutorial in how to handle a hostile audience, offered for consumption on the nation's cable channels (well, except for that one), I found this question from Georgia's Tom Price the most interesting:
"What should we tell our constituents who know that Republicans have offered positive solutions" for health care "and yet continue to hear out of the administration that we’ve offered nothing?"
Did anyone else read that as a kind-of, "Can you get me out of this mess back home? I mean, what would you tell the people of Georgia to get them to vote for me again? If you were me, that is?" Chaffetz (R-UT) thanked House leadership for selecting him to ask a question after the session, but I have to wonder if House leadership felt it got it's money's worth out of Price.
Invictus
An interesting clip from the film Invictus, which I saw this week. Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, and Jason Bourne as a South African Springbok. It made me think about the Republicans BHO was appealing to on Friday, both those in the room with him, and those in the many living rooms watching the exchange on the teevee.
My casting is against type, but imagine the Springboks as Democrats, and the people who cheered against them as teabaggers:
Aide: You risk alienating your cabinet and your party.
Mandela: Your advice is duly noted.
Aide: The people hate the Springboks. They don't want to be represented by a team they cheered against all their lives.
Mandela: In this instance the people are wrong and as their elected leader it is my job to show them that.
Aide: You're risking your political capital. You're risking your future as our leader.
Mandela: The day I am afraid to do that is the day I am no longer fit to lead.
For KVoimakas
From a NYT article on the dynamics of the Tea Party movement and its implications for traditional Republican conservatives:
During the Great Depression, populist sentiments were captured by figures like Dr. Francis Everett Townsend, who mounted a national campaign for old-age pensions; the idea helped shape the Social Security Act.
The period’s most gifted populist politician, Huey P. Long, spoke movingly of the "criminal" farm foreclosures he had seen as a boy in rural Louisiana, and advocated that all Americans received a "homestead allowance" and guaranteed annual income. Contrast this with the televised eruption by Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter who is often said to have spawned the Tea Party movement early last year. In his widely replayed rant, Mr. Santelli vented his ire not at bailouts of Wall Street firms or the Detroit auto makers, but rather at Mr. Obama’s plan to assist homeowners unable to pay their mortgages.
For J. D. Salinger
From the local paper:
Until last year, Salinger was a regular at the Hartland Congregational Church's roast beef suppers, arriving more than two hours early for the first seating.
He would bring along back issues of the Times and sit with other, mostly older, early birds waiting for the doors to open so he could claim the same seat at the head of the table nearest the pie rack.
"No one ever bothered him at the suppers," said former pastor Bob Moyer of Hartland. "I think many, many people knew exactly who he was. Had he been bothered, I don't think he would have returned."
Salinger's health had declined after the new year, according to a statement yesterday from his New York City agent, Harold Ober Associates Inc.
Yet he was still able to enjoyed the Hartland church fare as his wife stopped by the last two Saturdays to purchase roast beef, mashed potatoes and cole slaw to bring home to Cornish, said Larry Frazer, one of the meal's organizers.
"I just said to my wife, 'We've lost a regular,'" Frazer said yesterday.
The 10th Cousin
Turns out Barack Obama and Scott Brown are related (pdf), 10th cousins. Still, that didn't surprise me nearly as much as his claim to Barbara Walters that his then-17yo daughter Ayla "had never even put on makeup until she walked into the American Idol studios."
Scott Brown is not the only politician in the family, either. The same groupfound blood relations between BHO and both Bushes, Jimmy Carter, LBJ, Truman, James Madison...and...Brad Pitt.
No Moon For You
John Cornyn (R-TX) is upset the Obama budget released yesterday does not include funding for the GWB initiative to return Americans to the moon by 2020. Looks like it will be at least 50 years between visits to the moon, at least for NASA.
Jailtime for You
It took the jury only 37 minutes to return a verdict of "guilty" on Scott Roeder, accused of murdering Dr. George Tiller last year. So much for Roeder's "justified" homicide defense.
Illinois Senate Primary
The race to replace Barack Obama in Illinois by popular vote begins today with the Democratic primary election in Illinois. The winner is expected to face Mark Kirk for the midterm title.
"Kirk is not the kind of candidate to get the Tea Partiers' blood running," Mezey said, referring to a nascent movement of fiscal conservatives. "He's a moderate, middle-of-the-road candidate. He's been pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-gun."
Roosevelt University political analyst Paul Green said: "These Tea Party guys are riding high right now. But Illinois is a coffee state; there aren't going to be a lot of tea drinkers here."
Howard Zinn
Just last week I detailed a project by peoples' historian, Howard Zinn.
This week, rest in peace, Howard Zinn.
A few quotes from an interview with Amy Goodman, especially relevant given NCB's call to local action in this past week's Morning Features:
I think the answer is: we should be honest with young people; we should not deceive them. We should be honest about the history of our country. And we should be not only taking down the traditional heroes like Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt, but we should be giving young people an alternate set of heroes.
Instead of Theodore Roosevelt, tell them about Mark Twain. Mark Twain—well, Mark Twain, everybody learns about as the author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but when we go to school, we don’t learn about Mark Twain as the vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League. We aren’t told that Mark Twain denounced Theodore Roosevelt for approving this massacre in the Philippines. No.
There are a lot of people who are obscure, who are not known. We have in this Young People’s History, we have a young hero who was sitting on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to leave the front of the bus. And that was before Rosa Parks. I mean, Rosa Parks is justifiably famous for refusing to leave her seat, and she got arrested, and that was the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and really the beginning of a great movement in the South. But this fifteen-year-old girl did it first. And so, we have a lot of—we are trying to bring a lot of these obscure people back into the forefront of our attention and inspire young people to say, "This is the way to live."
And, from Naomi Klein:
...the thing about Howard is that the history that he taught was not just about losing the official illusions about nationalism, about the heroic figures. It was about telling people to believe in themselves and their power to change the world. So, like any wonderful teacher, he left all of these lessons behind. And I think we should all just resolve to be a little bit more like Howard today.
So Many Others...
Events that didn't make the diary but were considered by your humble diarist include:
- The Tea Party convention controversy (Palin's take is now up to $115,000, if they can sell enough $349 lecture tickets, that is).
- The relocationof the Khalid Shaikh Muhammed trial to...somewhere other than New York City (Mayor Bloomberg argued it would cost $200 million in police and other city expenditures above the city budget to hold it here).
- The NYT presents a new online way to read the daily paper.
- Not only can political candidates' party affiliations be determined by people unfamiliar with them glancing at their photographs, but children can accurately predict the winner of general elections when answering the question, "Who would you rather have as captain of your boat?" Worthy of a full diary, but here, just a blurb. Maybe in the future...
- No money in Obama's 2011 budget for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage, either. There is no statement at this time about closing Yucca Mountain, or diverting waste to another location, but with no money to manage it or transport material to it, this could be death by neglect. So, who gets the waste that would have gone there to die?
- Avatar was #1 at the American box office for its 7th week in a row, and will pass Titanic to become the #1 box office draw in American history sometime tomorrow or Thursday.
What events/issues/embarrassing photographs surfaced this week that we should be discussing? This was a very busy week, and there are many I didn't include. Which were most important to you?
TWLTW:
- 250 years ago, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on the brewery at St. James' Gate, thus insuring the production of the world's best known alcohol-based blood restorative (it is given to the Irish after donating blood, much like we eat a cookie after doing so in NYC). More Guinness Stout is sold in Nigeria than is sold in Ireland.
- The Rubik's Cube, which has never really gone out of style, has 43 quintillion different possible positions.
- Never underestimate the ability of a play-kitchen to captivate the imagination of a 3 year-old girl, especially if she is my daughter and it is her birthday.
What Did You Learn This Week?