Daily Kos: Birth of Tragedy

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Monday January 12, 2009 · 10:43 PM PST

2009/01/12 · 22:43

We don't follow the civil war that has riven the small state of Sri Lanka.

For decades the Sinhalese government and the Tamil rebels have been waged in a death spiral.

The author of the English Patient, Michael Ondatje, wrote a heartfelt novel about the conflict. It features stockholm syndrome, love, and violence.

Now there is another heart-breaking story from Sri Lanka. This one features a journalist who gave his life in the service of conscience.

His name was Lasantha Wickrematunge and he was a liberal democrat. He must be celebrated for sacrificing his life for truth. He was the editor of the newspaper, The Daily Leader.

Before he passed away he wrote an final op-ed in the paper's Sunday issue.

It was written with posthumous intent.

Can We Blame the War Yet?

Birth of Tragedy

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Friday November 14, 2008 · 9:03 AM PST

2008/11/14 · 09:03

This morning we all read Krugman's suggestion to Obama that the economic stimular our country needs has to be big rather than small; better to aim high and overshoot than lowball and have to try, try again.

However: did you for a second stop to look at what number he proposed and how he got there, and more importantly,

what other number that number bears a striking similarity to?

Kindly flip below.

Sacrificing Sheep for Obama (Int'l Roundup)

Birth of Tragedy

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Sunday November 09, 2008 · 4:47 AM PST

2008/11/09 · 04:47

I read world news on Sundays and thought I might pull together a panopoly of reactions to Obama's win in the Muslim world. (Why the Muslim world...ok do you really need to ask that).

Here is the best story from Turkey:

Residents of a predominantly Kurdish village in eastern Turkey have sacrificed 44 sheep to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. Villagers in Çavuştepe, in the province of Van, which borders Iran, held Obama posters smeared with blood.

In overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, the practice is believed to protect people or property from bad luck. The posters read "You are one of us" and "We love you." Abdulkerim Kulaz of Çavuştepe village said Obama's election and his Muslim ancestry have excited the villagers. Kulaz said Obama's election was a "proof of an end to racism in the world

More reactions below:

We Don't Have to Prove Mandate

Birth of Tragedy

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Friday November 07, 2008 · 5:18 AM PST

2008/11/07 · 05:18

I have had enough of this talk about mandate.

It seems as if we the pundits are going to spend the aftermath of the election talking about "center-left" versus "center-right." About whether or not the left has the "mandate" or not.

More below.

I'm So Excited To Vote That...

Birth of Tragedy

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Monday November 03, 2008 · 3:47 PM PST

2008/11/03 · 15:47

I have lived in fear.

I am also one of those people who will vote in an East side swing state.

...

Overhearing Republicans in Tossup State

Birth of Tragedy

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Thursday October 23, 2008 · 5:37 PM PDT

2008/10/23 · 17:37

I am registered to vote in a traditional swing state on the East Side of the country.

Recently however I am visiting a very important swing state on the West Side; Nevada.

I am a minority and an immigrant. I grew up in a Spanish speaking country.

Recently I've been spending my evenings in a book store just reading about the candidates, reading The Economist (which Sarah Palin claims to read) and checking out the political scene in the area. I'm also working on a book because frankly that is the only way for me to get out of the working class cycle that my family is in.

The book store is in a VERY blue collar part of town. The area is commonly called a "ghetto." It used to be very nice but isn't any more and the big stores are all closing up. The book store is about the only one of the old stores that is left (aside from an immigrant market which has revitalized the neighborhood some).

There is a group of four older men who always meet up near me and talk politics.

I always wondered what political orientation they were.

Not Acknowledging People of Color

Birth of Tragedy

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Saturday September 27, 2008 · 2:15 PM PDT

2008/09/27 · 14:15

I am a person of color and this article is about Senator McCain's unwillingness to look at Senator Obama during the entirety of the first presidential debate, and then to look away while they shook hands. I am prepared to argue that due to the circumstantial evidence of McCain's behavior, he behaved in a racist manner (not that he is, inherently, a racist).

GOP Is Crying For Mercy

Birth of Tragedy

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Thursday September 18, 2008 · 7:40 AM PDT

2008/09/18 · 07:40

This post could be called: Going Negative Works.

So yesterday we saw that Obie Won was coming back strong in the polls. Re-establishing himself.

Then today I read that Obama has been more negative than McCain recently:

Seventy-seven percent of the Illinois Democrat's commercials were negative during the week after the Republican National Convention, compared with 56 percent of the spots run by McCain.

Ken Goldstein, who directed the study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, based at the University of Wisconsin, says the pattern was a reversal from earlier months, in which McCain's advertising was consistently more negative than Obama's.

And now you have the GOP crying for mercy. See below:

Consider: Decline of a Nation

Birth of Tragedy

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Sunday September 14, 2008 · 8:59 PM PDT

2008/09/14 · 20:59

I am an immigrant to this country. I came here to escape the proverbial hell that me and my children would have found themselves in had we remained in X nation.

Here are some of the things we sought to escape:

- Failing Banks - Corruption in the bureaucracy - Bad Drinking water - Support for torture - No healthcare/Bad healthcare - Bad education

Then I came to America.

...

Rising GOP Operative Gives Up on McCain

Birth of Tragedy

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 2:52 PM PDT

2008/09/12 · 14:52

Definitely see Update I below. People are really liking it.

I don't know if you guys read NYTimes columnist David Brooks but he's spent a greater part of the year trying to promote two people.

Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, authors of the book Grand New Party.

Here is what he wrote about them earlier in the year:

Ross Douthat and my former assistant, Reihan Salam, are two of the most promising. This pair has just come out with a book called “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”

There have been other outstanding books on how the G.O.P. can rediscover its soul (like “Comeback” by David Frum), but if I could put one book on the desk of every Republican officeholder, “Grand New Party” would be it. You can discount my praise because of my friendship with the authors, but this is the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head.

Well, I would like to inform the Kos community that Brooks' boy, Salam, has just given up on McCain, and he tries to blame it on, you guessed it.

Us.

See below.

Paper Airplane Into The Night

Birth of Tragedy

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Wednesday September 03, 2008 · 9:07 PM PDT

2008/09/03 · 21:07

Excerpt from this diary:

incidentally this year, the high price of bread and the high price of butter, ARE the issue.

yet we aren't talking about them. :(

i would like to know, for example, why i have to pay $3.39 for a pack of bread. i can't afford that. once upon a time when i had a good job i could. now i have nothing. i have to go to universities, churches and synagogues to see if there are any 'events' going on so i can get some free food. this allows me to save money to go see my daughter during the weekend.

First Diary: The World Hates Us

Birth of Tragedy

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Tuesday July 08, 2008 · 5:39 PM PDT

2008/07/08 · 17:39

im a patriotic (not to be confused with nationalist) american.

over my life i have been fortunate enough to travel all around the world. over the past year i spent a few months in the middle east. i also spent some time in europe.

through my travels i forged a number of friendships and working relationships with all sorts of people. i also had the opportunity to establish romantic relations with women of various ethnic and national backgrounds, social classes and political pedigrees.