Archive for October, 2010
The Best Campaign Ad of the Season
With less than a week to go before the midterm elections, I seriously doubt we will see another ad as effective as Jerry Brown’s latest knock out punch. As if Meg Whitman didn’t have enough problems throwing her former undocumented worker under the bus, she now has her own campaign ad used against her in the most delicious fashion imaginable.
Back when Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley, I said she deserved to lose. She was arrogant. She didn’t act like she needed folks to vote for her. She got her proper comeuppance. eBay CEO Whitman will get a similar wake up call next week. Her millions won’t buy her the Governorship. You need more than millions. You need a good campaign and Meg’s campaign has been an embarrassment, with this latest ad of her endorsing her opponent being the coup de grâce.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Except in the Case of Rape and Incest
As we approach the midterm election, my friends on the left are particularly disturbed by some in the current crop of nutjob GOP candidates who are pro-life and do not make the exception for rape and incest. Sharron Angle is one such candidate. Well, I hate to disappoint my liberal friends but this is about the only issue where Sharron Angle is right on the money.
No, I haven’t switched from pro-choice to pro-life but I know an inconsistent argument when I see one. Calling oneself pro-life and then tossing in the rape/incest caveat completely implodes the position. Let’s examine why the exception gets discussed and why supposedly pro-life people should be called on the carpet for it.
Fundamental Premise
The fundamental premise of a pro-life stance must be zygote/embryo/fetus centric. That is the “life” we are talking about when we say pro-life. So the rape/incest exception must be viewed from a zygote/embryo/fetus perspective.
Rape
Rape is an horrific trauma to the female victim. I know of no scientific study that says a developing fetus is negatively effected by having been conceived by rape. A pro-life stance places our priority on the new life, not the psychological situation of the mother. No child chooses a rapist for his father. Why should any child’s life be terminated because of it? Is that not the very essence of visiting the sins of the father upon the child? The argument that the presence of the child in the mother’s life will forever remind her of her rape is compelling but is answered by adoption. The cold hard fact is rape is no excuse for abortion.
Incest
First we need to define our terms very carefully. Intercourse between unwilling partners is rape. So incest between non-consenting partners is rape. See above argument. So now we get to the much stickier situation of consensual incest. This of course is the ultimate taboo in Western culture. I argue that few people are really concerned about the medical implications of “in-breeding” when they make incest an abortion exception. The truth is they are disgusted by the circumstances of the birth and are visiting that disgust upon the developing fetus. Once again, abortion is not the answer. No one asks for their uncle to be their daddy. So why should their life be snuffed out because of it?
If you are truly pro-life, then the only exception that I can fathom is distinct physical risk to the mother that might result in her death. Then you’ve got a real dilemma in balancing the welfare of the baby against that of the mother. From what I’ve heard, Sharron Angle has not advocated mother’s risking probable death to go full term.
So what this comes down to is that the rape/incest exception ipso facto makes you pro-choice. The only difference is that you have self righteously declared your set of choices more worthy than the choices other women might wrestle with.
I may be pro-choice and Sharron Angle may be as nutty as a holiday fruitcake but I applaud her and others like her for being truly pro-life. The rest of you so-called pro-lifers are pretenders to the throne.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
NPR President Vivian Schiller Should be Fired
Wow, sometimes proving political correctness gone awry doesn’t get any easier than this. Apparently on Fox, Juan Williams told Bill O’Reilly that although he gets nervous when he sees Muslims boarding his flight, he thinks we need to control our prejudices. The first half of that comment got Williams summarily fired from his gig at NPR.
Now apparently, the defense for the firing according to NPR President Vivian Schiller was that Williams violated NPR terms of employment. This from the Huffington Post:
Schiller appeared at the Atlanta Press Club, where she defended the decision, saying that Williams had violated NPR’s guidelines barring its analysts from making personal or controversial statements.
via Juan Williams On NPR Firing: No One Spoke To Me Before Firing Me
Well for starters, does NPR really want to be that much of a yawner network? No personal or controversial statements? Does NPR stand for Not Particularly Relevant? It also defies logic since Williams made the statement (taken out of context) on Fox, not NPR.
But here’s the kicker. Schiller went on to say:
… he should keep his feelings about Muslims between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.”
Now is it just me or does that comment sound the least bit personal or controversial? Seems to me old Viv ought to be fired if we’re gonna stick by NPR guidelines. Fortunately for Viv, she’s the President so she could give herself a day to make a public apology for the comment. Apparently Williams got no opportunity at all to defend himself.
Look, I’m not a huge fan of Juan Williams. I don’t think he’s the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. But political correctness has gone too far when someone warns against prejudice by using himself as an example and then gets fired for his self-effacing candor.
When Barack Obama said that his white grandmother would sometimes make him cringe with racially insensitive comments, conservatives shouted that he threw his grandma under the bus (and some went as far as to say it proved he hates white people). We liberals came to his defense, reminding everyone of the full context of the comment, which included how much he loved the grandmother who partly raised him. If we’re going to be intellectually honest and consistent, we must now come to the defense of semi-conservative Juan Williams who made an honest and ultimately instructive comment about his views toward Muslims, when taken in full context.
Comedian Jackie Mason used to tell a joke about how he never got nervous if a bunch of Hasidim gathered behind him at an ATM machine (vs if a bunch of blacks did). The joke illustrates that we have a reason for our prejudices. It is incumbent upon us to reach deep into our better selves and overcome those prejudices. That was all Juan Williams was saying.
It’s an honest shame that Schiller and her cronies are so afraid of a fatwa being declared against them that they would not only trample on the First Amendment but do so to the detriment of a valuable discussion that we need to have in this country right now.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Something Silly and Something Serious
Today I bring you two videos. One is silly, silly as the candidate that it mocks. The other is serious.
First the silly one. Christine O’Donnell never sounded better.
Now the serious one. Sesame Street has a grand tradition of taking on subject matter that is tough for kids and maybe even tough for adults to discuss with kids. I remember years ago when actor Will Lee died, the producers of Sesame Street killed off his character Mr. Hooper. It was left to everyone in the neighborhood to explain this death to Big Bird and in the process introduce the concept to pre-schoolers who were watching.
One of the things that many little black girls do once they meet little white girls is wonder why their hair isn’t straight like that of their friends. Some get the idea very early that they have the “wrong” hair. In fact, comedian Chris Rock devoted an entire documentary, Good Hair, to what grown women go through to deal with their hair. My own daughter had her hair mocked by a classmate and was then told it was bad to be black. So I got a major kick when the Sesame Workshop decided to tackle this subject with a black girl Muppet who sings about how happy she is with her hair.
I’m pleased to say that my daughter has survived the mocking and takes great interest in her own hair-do’s, fully accepting that it is not straight (or “flat” as my kid would say). Still it’s nice to see videos like this help kids with their self-esteem.
You know it’s silly season when more social commentary can be gleaned from a Muppet video than the current crop of political ads (and the spoofs they inspire).
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Notes from the Fringe
What is it about 2010 that each political headline seems wackier than the previous one? Here are some random thoughts on some random wackiness.
Gay is Disgusting but it Pays the Rent
Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for New York State Governor, has a major problem with gays. In fact, he thinks taking your kid to a Gay Pride Parade is one of the worst things you can do — letting your kids see those queers bumping and grinding. After Carl expressed his disgust in public, he then issued an apology to the gay community. Could it have anything to do with his owning properties that house gay bars? Well I have to be honest here. I find Carl and his antics a breath of fresh air. If we overlook this minor hypocrisy, Carl has so far called ‘em like he sees them, politics be damned. Pundits have remarked that this is a by-product of people new to politics not knowing what to say or when to keep their mouth shut. But seriously, how can you resist a guy who in this PC age, says he finds the gay lifestyle revolting, tells a reporter “I will take you out”, and then asks for your vote in the next breath? Plus, if you close your eyes and just listen to him, it sounds like Andy Sipowicz from “NYPD Blue” is running for office.
Speaking of Gays, We Can Give Thanks for the End of DADT to … The GOP?
That’s right folks, the plaintiffs in the court case that may have ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, were the Log Cabin Republicans. How lame can our Democratic run government with our Democratic President be that it took a group of Republicans (albeit gay ones) to put an end to DADT? Well this really should not surprise us too much. President Obama has never done a particularly good job of hiding his disdain for the gay community. Whether it is his refusal to recognize gay marriage or his refusal to use the power of his office to end the practice of DADT, it is abundantly clear that gays offend Obama’s Christian sensibilities. It doesn’t win him any points with the moral majority conservatives because being born in Kenya trumps being a fellow homophobe in their book.
Christine O’Donnell Should be Running Against Alvin Greene
It is plain as day that neither Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell nor Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene are in a fair fight. O’Donnell, with witchcraft in her past is being slaughtered in the polls by her challenger Chris Coons. No one has yet figured out how Greene won the Democratic primary in South Carolina much less how he could possibly beat Jim DeMint. However, the two are such priceless candidates that it would be much more fun to see them square off against each other.
On Lawrence “Crazy Larry” O’Donnell’s new MSNBC show, The Last Word, Alvin Greene got his opportunity to speak to the issues. No slick subterfuge from this man. To almost every question Lawrence asked him (like where he got the nickname Turtle), Greene replied “Jim DeMint caused the recession.” Never have I seen any politician so doggedly stay on his talking points. DeMint could learn a thing or two from his opponent. Maybe if Jim stayed on a narrow script, he wouldn’t say dumb-ass crap like gays and single women shouldn’t be school teachers.
Then there is my new sweetheart, Christine O’Donnell. For the past two years I have been criticizing Rich Lowry of The National Review for his entirely penis-based support of Sarah Palin. It took some time but when Christine O’Donnell gave me that sideways look while the pretty music played in the background and she said “I’m not a witch. I’m nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.”, well my readers, my heart went all aflutter. In the space of a few weeks, O’Donnell has made Palin yesterday’s news. She’s pretty without the snark. She’s chirpy without the nagging Palin voice. And most of all, she is truly media savvy. After more than a decade of appearing on TV (mostly on Bill Maher’s old show Politically Incorrect), O’Donnell knows how to make love to a camera. I watched a few minutes of her debate with Chris Coons this evening and I have to admit I liked her. Unlike Palin who is dumb and sounds dumb, O’Donnell might not know jack-sh*t but she sells it. When she couldn’t name a recent Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed, it came off as honest, not idiotic. And when Wolf Blitzer volunteered Roe v. Wade, she reminded him that it wasn’t a recent case. I almost want her to win just so I can continue lusting after her for six years. Then again, several insiders say she’s not in this to win it in the first place. She just wants that contract at Fox News. So, heck, I may get to watch her anyway. (Please keep this between just you and me … I don’t want my wife to find out!)
If Only He Had Been a Confederate Soldier
Rich Iott, running for the House from Ohio made a splash with photos documenting his participation in a WWII reenactment “club” that he and his son bonded over. How could a little father-son bonding be a political football? Well it gets a bit tricky when Daddy plays a Nazi soldier in the reenactment and expresses admiration for WWII Germany as the little country that could. The other night, Chris Matthews used his MSNBC show Hardball to call out Iott and dismiss any comparison of WWII reenactors to Civil War reenactors. Sadly, that is where Chris missed the ball altogether. Civil War rebel soldiers are our Nazi’s, civil war era plantations are our concentration camps and blacks of the day are our Jews. You’d never know this by visiting the South. The last time I was in Atlanta the hotel TV advertised tours of plantations to give us a slice of Southern culture, with no mention of the degradation that went on there. I don’t know which is the greater American sin, the peculiar institution itself or our lack of true shame over our past. Perhaps we need to take a lesson from modern-day Germany which shows its remorse and, in fact, makes dressing up like a Nazi illegal. That’s serious regret. They don’t offer nostalgic tours of Buchenwald.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
The Black-White Obama Enthusiasm Gap
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported the September Gallup Poll results on Barack Obama’s job approval rating. The breakdown revealed something to me that it probably didn’t reveal to most folks.
Among Democrats the September average approval rating is 79%
Among Liberals, the number is 75%
Among non-Hispanic whites, the number is 36%
When Tavis Smiley was asked about these numbers on Meet the Press this morning, he suggested it shows that we still have some work to do on race relations. I say nonsense.
On the contrary, I think the 91% job approval rating among blacks is an utter embarrassment. Blacks should be consistent with the Democratic number or the Liberal number. Even if we allow for some race-bias, the number then should perhaps jump to 82 or 83%. But 91%? That is preposterous. We have almost 10% unemployment, much worse than that in the black community. We have a liberal agenda that has been only partially achieved at best. For any sub-group to support Obama to the tune of 91% in the context of these difficult times shows a complete lack of critical analysis.
I completely understood the overwhelming support Obama got in the 2008 election from black folk. This was something most of us never dreamed would happen in our lifetime. Going to the polls and breaking that glass ceiling was imperative. But an election is not the same as a job approval rating and 21 months into his first term, Obama has certainly not earned a 91% approval rating by any measure. Do I support President Obama? Absolutely. Am I thrilled with the job he is doing? Not entirely. The notion that I should ignore his deficiencies as President because I am black and so is he, is insulting.
Tavis Smiley needs to worry less about the black/white divide and focus more on why blacks seem to have their head in the sand when it comes to how our country is doing.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
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The Age of the Nutjob Candidate
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What do the three folks pictured above all have in common? Bingo … they are all batsh*t crazy! Now imagine our Congress and Governor’s mansions occupied by carbon copies of these lunatics. Could never happen in America you say. Well, if the November elections go the way conservatives want them to, you would be wrong. Ignore for the moment the policy related insanity of Rand Paul who questions civil rights legislation, or Sharron Angle who thinks “2nd Amendment” solutions to our problems might be on the way. In 2010, they are the sane ones.
Last night Rachel Maddow featured a segment that if it were not so side-splittingly funny would have been truly horrific. These four candidates are either just plain silly or suffer from dangerous delusions of grandeur. Either way you slice it, they’re unfit for office.
- Christine O’Donnell, GOP candidate for Senator from Delaware claims that her participation in various social advocacy groups gave her access to classified information that warns of China’s secret plan to take over the US. We shouldn’t be fooled by any friendly gestures. They all have ulterior motives!
- Carl “I’ll take you out” Paladino claims he was used as a hostage negotiator at Kent State in the 70′s. Carl is running for New York State Governor.
- Dan Maes, the GOP candidate for Governor of Colorado, says he was a mole for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Guess what? He wasn’t.
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West claims his army security access was higher than that of the President of the United States. If they’re telling stuff to Allen that they’re not sharing with the Commander-in-Chief, we should be afraid …. very afraid!
It is not liberal snobbery to say we have a dumbed down electorate. We are not talking about primaries here folks. We are talking about people who are one election away from running their respective states or running our country. Can conservatives be so disgusted with the current state of affairs that they would turn to just anyone as an alternative?
In another month, we shall see who prevails. In the meantime, I give you the GOP candidate for US Senator from the great state of Connecticut, a woman seen on video kicking a man in the crotch in front of a screaming audience: the one and only Linda McMahon.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Education in America and the Modern Day Lottery
When I hear the word “lottery”, one of the first things that comes to mind is Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story, The Lottery (transcribed here). In that story, a town full of people gather in the public square and by lottery, choose who will suffer a terrible fate. This week, a documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’” tells of a different kind of lottery in which the precious few whose numbers are called get a shot at a good future while the remainder are left behind. This is school admission by lottery. It sounds disgusting and the documentary would have you believe the consequences are as dire as Jackson’s story of 62 years ago.
I have not yet seen the film but the film’s web site gave me more than enough to think about. Besides a trailer, there is a video of a panel discussion in Washington D.C. among some of the key players in the documentary. Three of these panelists stand out.
First there is the superintendent of schools for Washington, D.C. Michelle Rhee. Rhee is a no-nonsense, kick-ass leader who closed a bunch of under-performing schools and fired a bunch of incompetent teachers. Academic results in D.C. have improved as a result.
Then there is Geoffrey Canada, the President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a support system in Harlem that seeks to monitor and assist poor inner city children from birth through college. Part of this program are three charter schools managed by Mr. Canada, all of which have waiting lists and are entered via lottery.
Finally, there is Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, an AFL-CIO affiliated labor union.
As I listened to the three panel members present their case, I found Ms. Weingarten the most irritating. I am pro-union. I do believe that workers need protection from some overzealous employers who put profit ahead of basic decency. However, when it comes to public education we are not dealing with the corporate profit model. We should be dealing with what is best for children and I found Ms. Weingarten repeatedly asking for assistance for teachers not children. Her mantra was “teachers need support”. I am very sympathetic to the fact that teachers have to deal with the consequences of dysfunctional families who send psychologically (and sometimes physically) oppressed kids to school. I know how important it is for families to be supportive. However with that said, there is no excuse for teachers not to do their best to achieve optimal outcomes. I felt that Ms. Weingarten put support of teachers ahead of support of children.
Michelle Rhee does not view the teacher’s union as particularly helpful in education reform. She claims she gets sued when she tries to remove bad teachers (a claim refuted by The Washington Post) and seems particularly impatient with teacher-sympathetic factions. Rhee herself was a teacher so I doubt she totally lacks empathy for them. On the contrary, I get the sense that she is just tired of excuse making and wants to see results as evidenced by higher graduation rates and better test scores.
Geoffrey Canada seems to me the most articulate and is at neither Rhee’s nor Weingarten’s extremes. He makes the very interesting point of how can we expect to attract quality candidates to the teaching profession, when the profession itself resembles factory work? He says the current incentive is “low wages but you get lots of time off”. What kind of way is that to encourage ambitious young men and women to enter the teaching profession? He says that instead, the teaching profession should be like any other profession — doctor, lawyer, businessman — you work at it as long as it takes to get results and you get paid accordingly. Canada has a private enterprise attitude toward public education which focuses on measured results. If your students are ending up in jail instead of the work force, you’ve failed. Plain and simple. Teachers who achieve outstanding results should have outstanding careers. Those that don’t should no longer be teachers.
While I support unions for the most part, I believe there are certain “walks of life” in which unions can be counter-productive and I would almost go so far as to say they should be forbidden in these areas. These areas include: police, firefighters, doctors and nurses, air traffic controllers (yay Ronald Reagan) and yes, teaching. When collective bargaining puts lives at risk or puts our children at risk, there should be no collective bargaining. We should not be bargaining with our children’s future. I don’t know how we protect teachers from abusive employment practices but children should be the priority. In the academic structure advocated by Mr. Canada, teachers live or die based on objective results. What purpose do unions serve in this structure other than for excuse making?
It is important to add one final thought however. I get the impression from the trailers that I’ve watched that the outcome of “the lottery” is slightly overstated and melodramatic. One is left to believe that a child’s only hope is to attend Mr. Canada’s Promise Academy Charter School or all hope is lost. I think that is nonsense. Kids with supportive parents and a particular disposition can make the best of the worst environments and succeed in the end. While I understand that the state of education in this country is dire, I don’t believe that everyone who loses the lottery will suffer the fate of Mrs. Hutchinson in Shirley Jackson’s story.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Be Careful What You Ask For
Contrary to what my conservative readers might believe, I don’t often read Daily Kos. Today however a great article caught my eye. It’s a “response to a teabagger” and it spells out the nightmare scenario that would result from the “minimal government intervention” approach of the Tea Party Movement.
Normally I write my own stuff on the blog but this response from Daily Kos diarist Jeff Seemann is just so on target that I’m lifting his verbiage wholesale (with his permission). The best part comes at the very beginning. When taxes get abolished, what do you think will be the first thing that will happen? Your employer will reduce your salary to what it used to be NET. That had never occurred to me and when I read it, I laughed out loud.
Think about this scenario before you vote for your Tea Party candidates on Tuesday!
Respectfully,
Rutherford
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October 30, 2010 at 10:50 am Rutherford 375 comments