One thing that was painfully obvious when I was still teaching was that as each year passed there was less and less overlap between the cultural frame of reference of the students and my frame of reference. I don't mean that I ceased to be hip to whatever music they were listening to, but the increasing degree to which basic current events for me were ancient history for them.
Members of this year's incoming college freshman class were born in 1992. They were six when Bill Clinton's penis almost destroyed the world. As a historian friend occasionally says, she doesn't yet have to explain who Monica Lewinsky is, but she will soon...
The internets tell me jury hung on 23 counts, guilty verdict on 1 count of lying to FBI...
...adding that I didn't follow the case or trial very closely, but from what I did see I'm not very surprised. Blago seemed to be more guilty of being clumsy than doing anything that politicians don't do every day, just a bit more intelligently. That isn't to say it's right, but just that politics involves deals and it's difficult to criminalize anything short of a clear bribe along the lines of "transfer $50,000 to my personal Swiss bank account and I will do this for you."
Basically, I think it's fair to say that HCR as passed is a potential path to a path to a better health insurance system, but absent a public option or similar there's no guarantee that we're actually on even the path to the path yet. A public option would have been the simple fix to a lot of potential problems, and also would have been quite difficult to take away.
I think the fact that George Bush made it much harder for people to travel to Cuba was one of those stories that got a bit lost. One had to jump through hoops a bit to do so prior to his administration, but it was doable.
As I wrote awhile back, look for economists chalking up the shitty economy to "structural unemployment" as a justification for just... doing... nothing.
We are ruled by incompetent fools. At least they have jobs.
The degree to which the mood and tenor of reporting on the economy is driven by stock market fluctuations is frustrating. If it goes down there's a "maybe we're all doomed" message being conveyed, if it goes up it's "phew everything's ok after all!"
9.5% unemployment is not ok. And it'll be higher next month...
Not so long ago Evan Thomas was on some NPR show and he stated that he thought US journalists were generally in favor of the Iraq war (duh) because, I think his reasoning was, they "like conflict" or something like that. Now if he'd claimed that US journalists were in favor of the war because they believed Iraq was a legitimate national security threat I would've thought they were stupid, but the whole country was pretty stupid. Instead, apparently, they were for the war because they get excited by the thought of lots of innocent children getting their limbs blown off. No of course they don't think of it that way, but that's what war is and if they aren't capable of understanding that...
There was some discussion on the twitter about who coined the phrase "hippie punching" for its current lefty blog usage. Not sure, though it actually seems to be a pretty recent blog term. In any case, it occurred to me that the whole Iraq war stuff was mostly about punching hippies, as if until 9/11 US foreign policy was governed by People With Giant Puppets and then suddenly an opportunity arose to show those people (hippies) once and for all.
Remember when only crazy hippies thought this endeavor was a really bad idea?
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber struck early on Tuesday at an army recruiting office here, killing dozens in the first major bombing of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan — a period made more fraught than in previous years by the looming deadline for American forces to replace their combat mission here with a training role.
Almost a dim memory now, but it's radicalizing when people think you're crazy for thinking that Colin Powell's vial of white powder was not, in fact, dangerous.
Disclaimer:
This is a personal web site. It is not a production of Media Matters for America (MMFA). Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of MMFA. Preferences for electoral candidates posted on this site have not been expressed using any MMFA resources.
.jpg)
