Accidental Blogger

Endless War or Endgame? (Sujatha)

A palpable sense of dismay crept over me as I watched President Obama's speech on Tuesday in front of Westpoint cadets so tired many almost seemed to fall asleep before it got over ( See reason for tiredness here)

The facts were plain: A surge of 30,000 troops to be added post-haste, logistics/lives be damned, all in place by summer 2010. The recital of the 9/11 litany and history lesson on why we went into Afghanistan in the first place, under-resourced war because of the diversion into Iraq, etc. etc. I was ready to nod off, like many in the immediate audience.

Endless speeches.

Wait, there's a glimmer of hope. Everyone (or is it only the Surgers) will start coming home most definitely by July 2011. That's a given.

Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda...Why isn't he referring to the Taliban, the proximal enemy? What is this laser-eyed focus on a handful of fighters hiding in the mountains of Waziristan? Is it overkill to send in so many troops for so few, or is there something that they know which they aren't going to broadcast to the world?

A direct address to the people of Afghanistan "We have no interest in occupying your country....America is your partner, not patron."Then the focus turned to Pakistan, which as I have earlier speculated in this blog post in October, might very well be the next frontier in this war.

"The "war on terror' (pardon the usage of a now-obsolete term) is now expanding in fronts, moving like a not-so-stealthy cancer from the hills of Waziristan into the once-safer cities and urban areas of Pakistan. Who knows where it is headed next?" (My words, not the President's.)

Requisite call to the patriotic sense of duty of the military, much extravagant praise of their efforts to keep the country safe and free, etc. etc. God bless you and God bless America.

The next day, as I discussed the speech with a coworker, a  'Nam veteran, one thing he said struck me. "I'm not happy with this decision, but I trust him. At least, if things goes wrong, I'll know who to blame." That appears to echo the majority of the opinions heard from the common public while the media and the pundits endlessly analyze the pros and cons of the speech till the next shiny golf club swings their way.

As I mulled over the speech and its implications, trying to locate evidence for a 5-dimensional chess game, I tried on a 'war strategy' hat and squinted at the map of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and thought "What if the troops were trying to take the battle into the border region?"

Assuming that the Pakistani forces on the other side of the border were cooperative ( having reason enough, given the 'Carrots and Sticks' approach made clear by the Obama administration in this March 27 policy speech), it might just be possible to visualize a final 'flushing out' of the majority of the Al-Qaeda from the mountains.

Incidentally the March 27 speech is vastly interesting in its own right as a much clearer precursor to the Dec 2 speech. Many quotes from this speech seem to have made it into last Tuesday's address, notably:

"So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal:  to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.  That's the goal that must be achieved.  That is a cause that could not be more just.  And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same:  We will defeat you."

It's been rephrased minus the outright Pakistan reference.

As for the Taliban, there was a final reference to them in the  Dec 2 speech, along the lines of "Welcome to the fold, prodigals who choose to return. The others shall perish." We can hope that it will not be endless war, just a preamble to peace that this surge delivers.

Should we trust him? If we do,at least we'll know who to blame if things go wrong.

Links:

Medley of reactions ranging from cautious praise from hawks to Kucinich's outrage.

Interesting analysis of a possible endgame

Sunday Cyber-Sermon (Sujatha)

Here are the suggestions of Sujatha, the humble not-so-uber-geeky blogger, on C&Ping from webpages when composing blog posts:

1. Focus on Tested Websites, not obscurities. (Psalm 345:1-3)

Notice how Sujatha extols Google first. Then, in comparison to Google, she has no need of alternate search engines.

"The Google is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"

"The Google is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Undoubtedly one of the greatest hurdles to overcome in blogging is fear, the fear of PC Viruses, Trojans and Malware.

Sujatha did not let fear take the blog out of her life.
Blogger Ruchira shares the story of a person who had a very bad day.

"Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen."

It began when Mike was suspected based on his internet charges by his employers of excessive internet usage. An investigation turned up pornographic pictures on his computer, which cost him his job and thousands of dollars in money spent to clear himself of the charges, which were found to have been the result of PC viruses downloading porn on his computer when he wasn't even at work.

Have you ever felt like that? One minute you’re whistling through life, blogging away happily and the next you’re caught up in a whirlwind of stress, as unwanted ads pop up on your blog's webpage.  Life sucks you up into its vortex and just when you think you’ve recovered from one trouble another wind of adversity blows in your direction.

Don’t be like Mike. Don’t let the blog go out of your life.

But how is this possible? It becomes possible when we focus on who the Devil WebAdsman is. In the case of Ruchira and her blog, it was the material cut and pasted from the Smithsonian website, that had the horrendous hidden code, which showed up C&Ping to Notepad. It quoth "Read more:http://smithsonian.blah.blah.blah.com" and stealthily, like the verily serpent that is Satan, downloaded Ads for cars and other monuments to human greed to tempt us faithful bloggers from the path of righteousness.

He is our light. He is our salvation. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin. We will diligently check for hidden code when we cut and paste from internet sources. No enemy can take the Internet’s salvation from us! No enemy can impose Satanic Ads on our blog posts!

--With apologies to The original sermon creator and a tip of the hat to Margaret Atwood and her marvellous alternate theology of The God's Gardeners in her latest book "The Year of the Flood"

Health Care Reform -the Cliffs Notes Edition (Sujatha)

The bill passed yesterday that Pres.Obama was ecstatic enough to personally email me about it at 1:03 am. And here I thought that only Hillary Clinton got 3 am calls.
Here is the  section by section summary link  of the HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care For America Act

All's  well and good,even with a restrictive clause on abortion funding in order to get the conservative Blue Dog Democrats to not derail the bill. But little things niggle.
Such as errors in the statement of intent to ensure that insurance companies will be required to pay out at least 85% of the plan money towards treatment of the enrollee.

"Sec. 102. Ensuring value and lower premiums. Amends the Public Health Service Act to require health
insurance issuers in the small and large group market to meet a medical loss ratio of not less than 85%, effective for plan years beginning January 1, 2010. Directs the Secretary to require that plans in the individual market also meet a medical loss ratio of not less than 85% so long as it does not destabilize the existing individual market. If plans exceed that limit, rebates to enrollees are required. In determining the methodology for the medical loss ratio, the Secretary is to design it to ensure adequate participation by issuers, competition in the market, and value for consumers."

A better summary  would have said "If plans do not meet the minimum medical loss ratio, rebates to enrollees are required." This is a section summary, so one would have to read the actual bill for the specific language, which I haven't.

But there is a whole box of goodies, most of which take effect on Jan 1, 2010. No more pre-existing condition based denials, no more rescission, no lifetime caps, immediate provision for a large group of high-risk uninsured till the proposed Health Insurance Exchange (aka Public Option, if I'm not mistaken) comes into existence, etc., etc.

In the spirit of not lettling the perfect be the enemy of the good, we have a bill, warts and all, passed in the House of Representatives. The next milestone will be the Senate Health Care bill and debate- the next blockbuster thriller.
Stay tuned for the epic battle 'Duel in the Sun', starring  Harry Reid, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Evan Bayh et al.
(Teaser: Will Bayh block debate, even though he said he wouldn't? Will the GOP and Joe Liarman succeed in thwarting the efforts of Harry Reid  to get the bill out the door? Will it Snowe or won't it?)

Other Links:

Generate a side-by-side comparison of all the different flavors of Health Care Reform proposals.

Ezra Klein's summary of How the Big Bad Insurance Companies work.

Wendell Potter, ex-CIGNA executive's testimony to Congress regarding health insurance company practices.

Return; Reinstate; Refund

We have discussed this topic a couple of times here, the last time was not so long ago. What do modern nations owe each other regarding the return of or restitution for art and artifacts (some of them very ancient and invaluable) removed from their place of origin by way of sale, stealth or superior military  power?  In the current climate of globalization, international trade and treaties and resurgent nationalistic feelings, the debate can be long and heated. Usually the demands for restoration come from less wealthy nations whose ancient religious and cultural relics often adorn the glittering halls of museums in far away countries, some of them, past conquerors and colonizers. In recent days Egypt has demanded the return of the priceless (and gorgeous, I should add) bust of Queen Nefertiti which has been in German hands for more than a century.  It also wants some items housed in the Louvre to return home from France.  Ostensibly, as Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass has claimed, the wish to regain control of these objects of art arises from Egypt's pride in its national history.  But as it turns out, it may also have been influenced to a large extent by a recent political skirmish with the host nations.

BERLIN — As thousands lined up to catch a glimpse of Nefertiti at the newly reopened Neues Museum here, another skirmish erupted in the culture wars. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten’s wife wasn’t spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago....

Globalization, it turns out, has only intensified, not diminished, cultural differences among nations. The forces of nationalism love to exploit culture because it’s symbolic, economically potent and couches identity politics in a legal context that tends to pit David against Goliath.

Mr. Hawass also recently fired a shot at France, demanding the Louvrereturn five fresco fragments it purchased in 2000 and 2003 from a gallery and at auction. They belonged to a 3,200-year-old tomb near Luxor and had been in storage at the museum. Egypt had made the demand before, but this time suspended the Louvre’s long-term excavation at Saqqara, near Cairo, and said it would stop collaborating on Louvre exhibitions.

France got the message. It promised to send the fragments back tout de suite.

It didn’t go unnoticed in Paris, Berlin or Cairo that Mr. Hawass pressed his case about Nefertiti and suspended the excavations by the Louvre just after his country’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, bitterly lost a bid to become director general of the United Nations’ cultural agency, Unesco. The post went late last month to a Bulgarian diplomat instead. Mr. Hosny would have been the first Arab to land the job, and Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, had banked a not insignificant amount of his own prestige on the minister’s getting it.

Also, a feud has begun between India and Albania (Macedonia may enter the fray soon) about the rightful resting place for a more recent relic - the remains of Mother Teresa who was born in a town that was once  part of Albania but which now belongs to Macedonia. As everyone knows, from the age of eighteen onwards, Mother Teresa lived and worked in India, where she also died.

India has rejected a demand by the Albanian government for the return of the remains of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, buried in the city of Calcutta.

"Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and she is resting in her own country, her own land," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.

A spokeswoman for the nun's Missionaries of Charity described the Albanian request as "absurd".

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje, now part of Macedonia.

Correspondents say that the row over her resting place could develop into an ugly three-way squabble between India, where she worked most of her life, Albania where her parents came from and Macedonia where she lived the first 18 years of her life.

The row is expected to intensify by August next year - the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth - by which time many commentators expect her to have been canonised as a saint.

 

And then there is the report of a refund. It is taking place quietly without much fanfare. It seems that a highly touted "educational" merchandize did not quite do what it had promised eager consumers.   

Parent alert: the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those “Baby Einstein” videos that did not make children into geniuses.

They may have been a great electronic baby sitter, but the unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect.

“We see it as an acknowledgment by the leading baby video company that baby videos are not educational, and we hope other baby media companies will follow suit by offering refunds,” said Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has been pushing the issue for years.

  

"The US war" is now the other one (D)

More US troops have died this year in Afghanistan than in Iraq, the first year starting 2003 that's been true. Obviously that fact reflects both that the US Iraq toll has been coming down since 2007 (for reasons of surge or Anbar Awakening or whatever) and that Afghanistan seems to get more horrible each year. I suspect each of those things is going to give a certain Mr. McCain renewed clout in the coming weeks/months as these calls for increased troop deployment in Afghanistan play out. Even last year Obama and the Democrats basically conceded the rhetorical battle over the surge to the Republicans, to the point that I think McCain managed to hold Obama to a virtual tie at least on the Iraq war.

Much Ado about A Speech (Sujatha)

From school districts all over the country, we have been seeing the likes of this statement from school boards and school administrations.

"We have been receiving many anxious phone calls from parents concerned about the content of the President's proposed speech to schoolchildren on September 8, so we will not be telecasting it live to the students for XYZ reasons. We will review the speech later to determine if it will fit in with our curriculum requirements and possibly incorporate later showings of the speech in the classroom. Rest assured that parents can opt out of their children having to view this speech at the time."

or similar.

Oh, the horror of having an actual live breathing African-American president actually address the schoolchildren of the US on the importance of staying in school, working hard, not dropping out and improving grades.

Whatever rationales these districts and schools come up with for a ban or semi-ban on the speech, they have just guaranteed a superhit on the internet and Youtube for a speech that might otherwise have been yawned through by groups of glassy-eyed sleep-deprived adolescents all over the country. Kids who wouldn't pay attention to all the boring utterances of a sitting president will now be combing and parsing the speech for any possible 'secret messages' that they suspect their parents of hiding from them under the pretext of preventing their being 'brainwashed'.

Who Acted Stupidly, Indeed (Joe)

Over at Faculty Lounge, Calvin Massey somehow manages to conclude (1) that Gates acted stupidly and (2) that the police officer did not act stupidly.  How?  By twisting the facts -- beyond even those stated in the official police report.

A pedestrian out for a walk notices two men wearing backpacks jimmying open the front door of a house.  She calls 911 to report what appears to be a burglary in progress.  A cop responds to the broadcast of an apparent burglary.  He finds two men inside the front door of the house.  The cop asks for their identification.  One of the men refuses and hurls abuse at the cop.  The cop persists in his request.  Finally the man produces ID from his university employer.  The man continues the abuse and, after delivering various threats to the officer, demands the officer's name and badge number.  The cop gives it to him.  The cop, apparently satisfied that the man does in fact live in the house, exits the house to the front porch.  The man pursues him to the front porch, heaping more abuse upon the cop and repeatedly demanding the cop's name and badge.  The cop tells him he has already provided that information.  A small crowd gathers.  The man remains in high dudgeon.  The cop then tells him to cool down and warns him that he is engaging in public disorderly conduct.  The man continues his tirade.  The cop arrests him.  The man has a friend, who happens to be President of the United States, who then says that while he "doesn't know all the facts," the cops "acted stupidly."  Oh, the man is black; the cop is white.  The man says this is a case of racial profiling.  Racial profiling?  The man was arrested for his abusive behavior towards a cop performing a service for the man in question.  After all, the man was jimmying his front door because, by his own admission, his house had been the subject of a recent burglary attempt.

Nice.  We don't know why, or at what point, Gates got pissed off at the cop.  But we do know that the officer asked Gates to step outside and join him on the porch; Gates did not "pursue[] him to the front porch."  Again, this is by the version of facts as presented in the police report.  Massey makes it sound like the officer just decided to leave ("thank you, have a nice day") when he saw identification proving that Gates was who he said he was and that it was in fact his own house -- but that's just not the case or he would have, you know, left.  It's pretty clear that the only possible basis for asking Gates to join him outside was to create the basis for an arrest for disorderly conduct. 

Incidentally, that's a great implicit potshot at Obama: why is he making a judgment about who acted stupidly, when he doesn't know all the facts?  Of course, Massey's understanding of the facts is apparently even worse, yet he's willing to defend the cop against this unfounded charge while at the same time leveling the same charge at the black professor who didn't enjoy being wrongly treated like a criminal.  Proving, once again, that law professors often comment stupidly on things they apparently don't know enough to comment on.  [UPDATE: I apparently misread the last part of the post -- there's nothing implicit about it, he actually says it was stupid of Obama to call the cop stupid while admitting he didn't know all of the facts.]

Speaking of Obama, shouldn't it also be mentioned that his "stupid" comment was his way of defusing the situation?  Read as: "I don't know what role race played in this situation, so I'm not going to call the cop a racist.  But drumming up a disorderly conduct charge in order to arrest a man who broke into his own house, because he annoys the police officer and isn't subservient during their interaction, is police behavior that should be discouraged."

(I really also want to comment on police character attributes, too.  It seems to me that people become cops -- also, soldiers -- because they want to be put in the societally accepted role of dominance as a part of their job, which gives them license to frequently beat the crap out of people.  But I don't have time for that post at the moment.)

The War on Plants (Joe)

More effective than the war on crime?  Absolutely.  More effective than the war on drugs?  Hard to say, and that question might even be a bit fallacious.  More effective than the war on people?  Doubtful.  But at least we're using the same techniques -- blow up the enemy, kill without remorse -- that have helped us end so many human lives.

What am I talking about?  Haven't a clue, although in my defense, the bar exam is one week away.  But per CNN.com, the U.S. military earlier today dropped a series of 1000 lb. bombs on a dusty, poppy-seed-filled field in Afghanistan today.  I assume that this means that those poppy seeds have been neutralized, which will in turn lead to an increase in the price of opium (windfall to the Taliban!) and a whole new crop of poppies grown to take the place of their fallen comrades.

Curious Parallels (Sujatha)

Every now and then, I see something going on in American politics, and then pause to think "Haven't I seen a similar scenario, before , only a continent away and 10 years ago?"

Then,regional politics in India:

Jayalalitha: brought in to 'sex up' campaign of an elderly MGR
Regional politician (was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu state in India) with national ambitions
land scandal in 2000 leading to her removal/resignation
Still a force in regional politics
Actress background

"THE charges in the first case are that Jaya Publications, in which Jayalalitha and Sasikala were partners, bought 3.07 acres of land and a building belonging to the government-owned TANSI Foundry at Guindy in Chennai at a price much lower than the guidel ine value and gained more than Rs.3.5 crores in the transaction. The sale took place when Jayalalitha was Chief Minister (1991-1996). Jayalalitha "abused her official position at every stage" in the property deal although no public interest was involved, the charge-sheet said. Since Jayalalitha was Chief Minister when she bought the property, she attracted the provisions of the PCA."

Now, Fourth of July Fireworks of a different sort:

Sarah Palin: brought in to 'sex up' campaign of  an elderly McCain
Regional politician with national ambitions
House scandal (RUMOR ALERT - this may or may not be the reason for her precipitated resignation):

"A list of subcontractors on the job, obtained by the Voice, includes many with Palin ties. One was Spenard Builders Supply, the state’s leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other “pre-engineered components.” In addition to being a sponsor of Todd Palin’s snow-machine team that has earned tens of thousands for the Palin family, Spenard hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004. When the Palins began building a new family home off Lake Lucille in 2002—at the same time that Palin was running for lieutenant governor and in her final months as mayor—Spenard supplied the materials, according to Antoine Bricks, who works in its Wasilla office. Spenard actually filed a notice “of its right to assert a lien” on the deed for the Palin property after contracting for labor and materials for the site. Spenard’s name has popped up in the trial of Senator Stevens—it worked on the house that is at the center of the VECO scandal as well.

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as “buddies.” As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the “buddies” were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that’s also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city."

Gov of AK
Still a force in politics (?)
Beauty pageant/TV background

Sarah Palin's beyond-bizarre resignation announcement:

"My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans."

There the similarity stops for now. It's anybody's guess as to whether Palin manages to stage a revival (Jayalalitha did manage it, after all). That's highly dependent on the quotient of true Palin-believers to those who will write her off after her shaky and scared TV performance.

The confounding factors are many. Jayalalitha had little to no family to worry about, while Palin has her large brood of children in dire need of attention. Jayalalitha was able to still cling to the aura of the 'generous mother' while it might be harder for Palin to do so.

As Palin famously states in her speech : "Only dead fish go with the flow." The question remains as to whether she is a dead fish or a live one.

Defeat and Victory (Joe)

1. Minnesota finally has its fair share of representation in the U.S. Senate, assuming we think a system that gives Montana and California the same number of senators is fair. But at least Minnesota's now caught up with important places like Montana, not to mention Idaho, Vermont, and of course, Alaska. But this does mean the Democrats now have 60 senators! Granted, you're only supposed to need 51 votes to pass legislation because the Constitution says so, but 60 is "filibuster-proof." That's a good thing, because it means our legislative agenda can now come to fruition. From what I've read, this evidently means that our legislative agenda is doing nothing about climate change and passing useless, in-name-only health-care reform. Oh, and to keep screwing over gay people despite the costs even to non-gay society.

2. The U.S. won another important battle in the war on people. Matt Yglesias thinks we should be leaving Iraq with our heads held high, presumably because good posture is important for spinal health, since there's obviously nothing to feel good about. Well, "nothing" is too strong of a word, because now we're more equipped to back up Israel in the upcoming battle in the war on people, to save Iran from all those damn Iranians.

I forgot where I was going with this. I think (1) was going to be defeat -- even with massive public support, a tremendously popular president, and a filibuster-proof majority, Democrats can't do anything useful -- and (2) was going to be victory -- we did cause the deaths of 1 million Iraqis, after all, which I believe was our military and humanitarian objective -- but I lost my train of thought while inserting all those hyperlinks and can't be sure I didn't mix that up. Still, there's always the bright side that since none of us are professional cyclists, we're not destroying our skeletal health as rapidly as we could be!

DIY Electric Car: If you can't buy it, make it (Sujatha)

From the Indychannel:

Patrick Roth uses a fully electric car to take his daughter to school and run errands, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported.The car may look like any ordinary Ford Escort, but a closer look reveals that it's anything but. Roth didn't buy the car that way. He built it himself

Here's a step by step link to how he did it, all at the cost of about $13,000, including the car.

Now again, why did GM kill the electric car?

Monday Mixer

Feeling too lazy to write at length on anything (an increasingly frequent occurrence of late). So here are a few links to stories that I heard, saw or read in passing over the last week.

No Smiley Faces On DMV Mugshots:

Few places in Virginia are as draining to the soul and as numbing to the buttocks as the branch offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles. And yet, until recently, smiling was still permitted there.

No more. As part of the DMV's effort to develop super-secure driver's licenses and foolproof identification cards, the agency has issued a smile ban, directing customers to adopt a "neutral expression" in their portraits, thereby extinguishing whatever happiness comes with finally hearing one's number called.

The driver's license photo, it seems, is destined to look like a mug shot.

DMV officials say the smile ban is for a good cause. The agency would like to develop a facial recognition system that could compare customers' photographs over time to prevent fraud and identity theft. "The technology works best when the images are similar," said DMV spokeswoman Pam Goheen. "To prepare for the possibility of future security enhancements, we're asking customers to maintain a neutral expression."

At a Manassas DMV branch yesterday, that translated to a simple directive: "Don't smile."

No Liberty For Democrats:

Liberty University has revoked its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club, saying “we are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by” the university.

“It kind of happened out of nowhere,” said Brian Diaz, president of LU’s student Democratic Party organization, which LU formally recognized in October.

Diaz said he was notified of the school’s decision May 15 in an e-mail from Mark Hine, vice president of student affairs.

According to the e-mail, the club must stop using the university’s name, holding meetings on campus, or advertising events. Violators could incur one or more reprimands under the school’s Liberty Way conduct code, and anyone who accumulates 30 reprimands is subject to expulsion.

Hine said late Thursday that the university could not sanction an official club that supported Democratic candidates.

“We are in no way attempting to stifle free speech."

Mixed Race Americans - Fastest Growing Demographic Group

WASHINGTON — Multiracial Americans have become the fastest growing demographic group.

The number of multiracial people rose 3.4 percent last year to about 5.2 million, according to the latest census estimates.

First given the option in 2000, Americans who check more than one box for race on census surveys have jumped by 33 percent and now make up 5 percent of the minority population — with millions more believed to be uncounted.

Demographers attributed the recent population growth to more social acceptance and slowing immigration. They cited in particular the high public profiles of Tiger Woods and President Obama, a self-described "mutt," who are having an effect on those who might self-identify as multiracial.

Measured by percentages, Hawai'i ranked first with nearly 1 in 5 residents who were multiracial, followed by Alaska and Oklahoma, both at roughly 4 percent.

Population figures as of July 2008 show that California, Texas, New York and Florida had the most multiracial people, due partly to higher numbers of second- and later-generation immigrants who are more likely to "marry out."

Rick "Secessionist" Perry: "no" to stimulus money; "yes" to home improvement.

AUSTIN, Texas – While Gov. Rick Perry is criticizing Washington bailouts, state lawmakers are planning to use $11 million in federal stimulus money to help rebuild the badly burned Texas Governor's Mansion.

Approximately $10 million in state tax money will also be spent on a renovation, which is expected to cost about $20 million, officials said Thursday. A House-Senate committee agreed on the expenditures late Wednesday night.

The mansion was burned in an arson fire last summer.

Perry has railed against federal bailouts and what he called the free-spending, power-hungry ways of Washington. In January, he said Texas was endangered by Uncle Sam's "audacity."

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle released a short, written statement late Thursday when asked about using stimulus money to renovate the mansion.

"We are continuing to work with lawmakers on the budget," she said.

The $11 million for renovations would come out of the $700 million rescue package for Texas, lawmakers said.

"If we're going to fix it up we're going to have to use stimulus money," said state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. "We've made a decision to use the stimulus money. This is a good use of it."

The governor has been living in a three-story, limestone home with a heated pool, an outdoor cabana and a guest house.

The state is paying some $9,900-a-month in rent while the Governor's Mansion undergoes renovations, records show.

Maria, I'll never stop saying Maria!

No, this is not a trip down the memory lane to West Side Story but an instance of another irate Republican putting his foot in the mouth regarding Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's pick for the US Supreme Court. Mike Huckabee, one of the GOP presidential contenders of 2008, railed that Maria Sotomayor, coming from the "far left" would turn the Supreme Court into a version of the "Extreme Court." Huckabee called the judge "Maria" - her name is Sonia. What was he thinking?  Was he merely inattentive to the news reports about Sotomayor or does he think that all Hispanic women are named Maria? (What happened to Lupe, Juanita, Teresa or even J. Lo?) 

Huckabee is not alone in making a fool of himself over Sotomayor's nomination. With future elections weighing on their minds most Republican senators are being cautiously cryptic about their opinion of Sotomayor lest they offend Hispanic voters with their rude and injudicious comments. But right wing commentators, erstwhile leaders of the Republican Party and some GOP House members are shooting their mouths off with abandon, calling Sotomayor a racist, ultra leftist activist and intellectual light weight. And all this from some who wanted Harriet Miers, a tsunami force of legal scholarship, on the Supreme Court and some others who broke US laws by writing illegal torture memos.

The story of the life of Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, reads much like his own. Judge Sotomayor grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx, her father passed away when she was nine, and her mother raised her while working as a nurse.

She was valedictorian of her high school class, and won a scholarship to Princeton where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. From there she went to Yale Law School and was editor of the Yale Law Review.

Since then she has been an Assistant District Attorney, a corporate litigator, a District Court judge, and in 1998 was nominated by President Clinton to her current position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Sounds like the American dream and a person eminently qualified to sit on the highest court in the land, right? Not so says the vocal Republican opposition.

GOP leader Rush Limbaughcalled Judge Sotomayor a “horrible pick,” the “antithesis of a judge,” a “hack,” a “racist,” an “extreme left-wing radical,” an “anti-Constitutionalist” and said that she would be “a disaster on the Court.”

Karl Rove said Judge Sotomayor lacked “intellectual power.”

Senator James Inhofesaid he is concerned that Judge Sotomayor might be unduly influenced by “her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.” I wonder if Sen. Inhofe had those same concerns about Samuel Alito and John Roberts? Probably not.

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said “Sotomayor comes from the far left and will likely leave us with something akin to the Extreme Court that could mark a major shift.” That was after he finally got her name right.

Pat Buchanan said, "She is not that intelligent."

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo agreed with Chairman Limbaugh, “I'm telling you, she appears to be a racist. She said things that are racist in any other context.”

But the piece de resistance comes from John Yoo, yes THAT John Yoo, who questioned Judge Sotomayor’s “excellence” and “intellect.” For that statement Mr. Yoo is the unanimous winner of the Brass ‘You Know What’ Award for 2009.

Meanwhile a friend forwarded me a list of Judge Sotomayor's more notable professional credentials:

Luxury Microwaves (Dean)

A survey last month by the Pew Research Center on Social & Demographic trends found that only 47% percent of the respondents considered a microwave a necessity rather than a luxury, down 21 points from 2006. This is just one curious finding from a much broader survey relating to how the population is weathering the bad economic climate. After commenting that people who have been hit the hardest over the last year or two are more inclined than others to take steps to brace themselves for the future, the authors of the report note that "this distinction doesn't apply to changing perceptions about what's a luxury and what's a necessity." That shift is widespread, they maintain. I'm encouraged by their analysis. There are few necessities, hordes of luxurious baubles. (I count high-end audio among the former, by the way, in which respect I am woefully undernourished.)

That is, I'm encouraged until I read the New York Times story reporting on the Pew survey and others' views of the trend not to spend. Beginning with the lede there is squishy talk of a "culture of thrift" and financial virtue, and then a bit later, "the forces that enabled and even egged on consumers to save less and spend more—easy credit and skyrocketing asset values..." Of what does this culture and its virtue consist? Whence these forces? One sentence coyly avoids making the connection: "American businesses have become so dependent on consumer spending that any pullback sends ripples through the economy." There's no mention here of business' dependency on other businesses, or of savage competition among businesses for consumers' dollars. That might intimate a more systemic problem, worthy of systemic repair.

If I had read it only in the NYT, I would not have accepted that people are saving more. For one thing, it doesn't make any sense. Perhaps we're trying to save more, or planning to do so, but I know the more I think about bolstering savings, the clearer it becomes I won't be able to do so. (For me this means no upgrade to my turntable's suspension, power supply, or onboard phono stage, not to mention no new amplifiers, no new CD player... Oh, yeah, and then I have a wife and kid and self to feed and stuff.) Since Pew says it's so, though, I'm more inclined to accept the trend. Still, the Times and its tapped experts ought to cool the analysis a bit. It's obvious that saving for contingencies is a good thing, Keynes be damned.

Today being Mother's Day, I dedicate this post to my mom, who knows how to save. Yes, she owns a luxurious microwave, but it surely must by now be an antique, and she's too thrifty to buy a new one.

Bankers' pay rebounds (Joe)

Krugman is disturbed by this trend.  Something about how Wall Street fat cats don't add value to society, and financial firms are public utilities now so this is inappropriate.  Now, I'm not saying that he's wrong, but his focus on the economy right now is a bit peculiar -- obviously he hasn't heard about the global pig flu pandemic.

Voices and Faces (Sujatha)

After all the world-wide interest in Susan Boyle, there are still some things about the phenomenon which are rather puzzling to me. On seeing the Youtube video for the first time, I was struck by how exaggerated the judges' and audience's eye-rolling and snickering seemed to be. Why should they react thus at the sight of Susan Boyle, who looked like a perfectly ordinary lady you might run into on the street, quite literally, if you were paying more attention to your cellphone than who was in front of you. Her speaking voice and dialect were a little hard to follow, but once she started to sing, barely two lines into the song, the amazing roar of approval, clapping, widened eyes and judge reactions seemed a tad bit too pat. Cue the artifice, the unseen signs prompting the audience to 'Stand up and clap'.
Her voice is amazing and true, and like other feel-good stories, says to the average underdog "Yes, we can...win over the world with the secret talents we unleash upon it." It's the stuff of childhood dreams, when soot-covered Cinderella is removed from her ash-filled corner, ensconced in a beautiful gown, parading in triumph in her glittering carriage. Only, in this case, the focus is on the fact that even a pretty dress and getup will not change the fact that Susan Boyle's face was pegged as ordinary, even ugly, by today's societal (or media-driven?) standards of 'beauty'.
From the Wikipedia link:

Tanya Gold wrote in The Guardian that the difference between Boyle's hostile reception and the more neutral response to Paul Potts in his first audition reflected society's expectation that women be both good-looking and talented, with no such expectation existing for men. In a similar vein, a columnist on Salon.com wrote that Boyle's performance reminded people that "not all fortysomething women are sleek, Botoxed beauties", going on to say that Boyle's sudden fame came from her ability to remind her audience that, like them, she is a normal, flawed and vulnerable person, familiar with disappointment and mockery, but who nevertheless has the determination to fight for her dream.

Several media sources have commented that Boyle's success seemed to have particular resonance in the United States. Writing in The Scottsman Craig Brown quoted a U.S. entertainment correspondent who compared Boyle's story to the American Dream, in that it represented talent overcoming adversity and poverty. The Associated Press described this as Boyle's "hardscrabble story", dwelling on her modest lifestyle and what they saw as urban deprivation in her home town., The Independent New York correspondent David Usborne wrote that America is a country that will always respond to "the fairy tale where the apparently unprepossessing suddenly becomes pretty, from Shrek to My Fair Lady". Piers Morgan, one of the show's judges, also commented on the unusual power this story seemed to have in the U.S., stating that "Americans can be very moved by this sort of thing." He likened Boyle's rise to fame from poverty and obscurity to that of the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa, who was the subject of a series of Hollywood films.

----------------

A meteoric rise to fame, fuelled by the technology of Youtube/Facebook/Twitter, as well as major exploding coverage on the network and cable channels. It's hard to believe that this was a reflection of something that happened in January 2009, followed by months of careful editing and virality being unleashed around April 11, 2009.

Talent notwithstanding, the media is unleashing reams of commentary along the lines of "Looks aren't everything, talent is." and "Isn't it amazing how wonderful her voice is, despite her looks and those terrible beetling eyebrows?", "Will she or won't she have a makeover?"

I will confess that I'm amazed by all this silly pontification (Kindly ignore the fact that I'm indulging in it here, as well). Doesn't day-to-day life teach all these millions of people that talent can be wrapped in unlikely packages? Don't they know of mailcarriers or janitors or unprepossessing matrons who share their secret talents with the small circle of friends, untrammeled by the spotlight and glare of airbrushed magazine covers and HDTV?

I seriously doubt it. This is just a temporary phenomenon, even with the huge numbers involved. Tomorrow everyone will be chasing after the next viral thing to hit the internet. But for now, Susan Boyle has achieved her dream, and given fuel to a few million other dreams as well.

(Cross posted from Fluff-n-Stuff)

Who are the real pirates?

Why become a pirate? Perhaps because other "honest" means of livelihood have been destroyed? Lawlessness is a menace whether perpetrated by pirates or "civilized" governments. So reveals Johann Hari in the Independent. (via 3 QD) Hari also reflects on the rebellious and brutal history of pirates, some of whom were mercenaries for legitimate European regimes.

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

Ruining the Pirate Myth

I didn't know grown men play make-believe pirate games. Apparently, it is a popular pastime for some who are beguiled by the tales of high jinks on high seas popularized in books, theme parks and movies. Those daredevil outlaws of the past occupy a romanticized place in the hearts of some modern day men with sedate lives. In their spare time, they like to put on eye patches, dress up in tight pants, fancy hats, assume flamboyant names and play at being swashbuckling buccaneers.  But the recent real life crack down on scruffy Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean who prey on merchant ships that has shone the light on the unglamorous aspects of piracy may have put a damper on the  playful spirits of the fantasy pirates on land.

America’s pirate subculture is a peculiar world where grown men strap on eye patches, sing pirate chanteys and take on names like, in Clayton Jackson’s case, Morick Towain.

Once a month, Jackson dresses up in pirate garb — such as a head wrap, pair of pointy boots and special piratey pants. Then he hits the bars for some drinks with a few similarly dressed friends.

“Being a pirate is about freedom, it’s the lifestyle of that old-time period that catches my attention,” said Jackson of Dallas, who runs a social group for Texas pirates. Spurred by popular movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, interest in pirates of centuries past has skyrocketed in recent years.

But the recent worldwide furor over real-life Somali pirates raises a pressing question: Should people really be romanticizing murderous pirates — even old ones?

In the tightknit pirate subculture, the issue is a touchy subject and rarely discussed. Leaders of the movement say they’ve recently begun fielding more pointed, occasionally uncomfortable questions.

“If we had been thinking ahead we would have called it `Talk Like a Buccaneer Day,' ” said John Baur, speaking of the now famous Talk Like a Pirate Day he co-founded with friend Mark Summers in 1995.

Summers became so concerned with the issue of modern-day piracy, he recently wrote an open letter to the Somali pirates in a trade magazine.

National Be Kind to Lawyers Day - Today! (Joe)

It might not be a "real" holiday, but still.  "This is the first legitimately nice thing to happen to [the] legal profession in 2009."

Indeed.  Especially when firms are leading the pack in innovation by finding new and improved (read: more efficient, more brutal) ways to take flamethrowers to associates.

Where in the world is Dubya?

Just over a month ago George W. Bush, our most incompetent president in recent memory became a private citizen.  Mr. and Mrs. Bush have moved to their new home in an upscale neighborhood of Dallas. The transition from being the most powerful man on earth to a Texas suburbanite must take some work. I was wondering what George Bush must be up to now that the boxes have been unpacked and he has had time to get familiarized with the new digs (Bush had not seen his new home before moving in). Laura Bush told ABC News that she and her husband are settling in and gradually finding the rhythm of their new life. I believe Mrs Bush when she says that the newspaper is not being delivered on time and that she has had to do little cooking, with friends bringing over food. But I do not believe that she simply forgot to watch President Obama's address to the nation and the joint session of Congress last Tuesday.

After years of having everything they wanted right at their finger tips, the Bushes are finding that sometimes the little things are the most difficult to get.

"The only thing we don't have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered," she said. "People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It's just not being delivered yet."

Despite the lack of newspaper delivery at their new home, the former first lady said they are keeping up with the news back in the nation's capital but they certainly are not operating on Washington's clock.  In fact, Mrs. Bush said she did not watch President Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night because she "totally forgot about it."

"The next day I thought it was so ironic that for eight years I would be a nervous wreck before the State of the Union, and for days before, as George would be preparing his speech, worried about it and thinking about what was going to be in the speech. And this time it came and went and I didn't even think about it."

Forgot?  More likely she deliberately avoided it knowing what a painful contrast it would be to listen to a coherent presidential speech after the eight years of drivel that her clueless husband had dished out. And what has George Bush been doing in retirement? Well, it is reported that he is looking for a "play group" in his new neighborhood of Preston Hollow. [link: Sujatha]

Open house at Pershing Elementary on Wednesday drew a dozen Preston Hollow-area parents to check out the prospects for their children. But the Dallas school's most prominent visitors didn't have any kids in tow. Only Secret Service agents.

George and Laura Bush have been little more than rumors the last few months, fleeting glimpses behind tinted windows of big, black Suburbans. But the kids got a first-hand look Wednesday when their new neighbors took a tour. 

The Bushes were scheduled to visit three classes but popped in on any room with an audience.

Ducking in one room, Bush asked, "Hey, kids, do you know who I am?"

Gasps all around, then someone blurted, "George Washington!"

"That's right!" the visitor said. "George Washington Bush!"

Well, the middle initial was the same, anyway.

In a dual-language class, Bush tried to introduce himself in Spanish. But it came off a little too twangy. He tried again. Blank looks. Even held up three fingers. You know, a "W." Still nothing.

Finally, Pershing's energetic principal, Margie Hernandez, stepped in with a proper Spanish introduction.

Ohhhhhhh.

The kids laughed. The former president laughed. The principal laughed, out of relief, mostly.

So much for the ex-president and his wife. At least they can look forward to an idyllic retirement. The disgruntled cadre of right wing followers they have left behind on the other hand, are in the mood for an armed revolution!

  

Something called "volcano monitoring" (Joe)

What on earth was Bobby Jindal thinking?  Even for Republicans, this is off the deep end.  We shouldn't spend money monitoring volcano activity because if they explode with no warning hey man it's cool, potentially thousands of dead people and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property is no biggie.  I know that advanced warning of Hurricane Katrina didn't do as much good as it could have when it hit Jindal's state because of government incompetence, but seriously?  That's not a winner.  No one wants to see people becoming one with a flood of molten rock.

Will Obama's Stimulus Package Be Big Enough? (Andrew)

I sure hope so -- but the book I reviewed in this week's Observer suggests that the big problem in the Depression was that aggressive deficit spending didn't go far enough to overcome the fear and pessimism of bankers, workers, and employers. 

The book reminds me of one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's notes: "My estimate of America, which sometimes runs very low, and sometimes to ideal, prophetic proportions.  My estimate of my own mental means and resources is all or nothing: in happy hours, life looking infinitely rich; and sterile at others."

The gyrations between perhaps irrational exuberance and deep self-loathing that Emerson saw in himself and in his country seem very widely shared among Americans in our time.  For one tiny example, check out the "black panther" in the Observer comments section who concluded from the review that the fall of capitalism and World War III are upon us.

The Inaugural Flub

The only glaring hiccup in Barack Obama's silky smooth campaign and transition to the presidency  occurred on Inauguration Day when Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled during the administration of the presidential oath. The incongruity of the moment was noted by citizen observers and the media. Conspiracy theorists, as well as critics of President Obama raised questions about the legitimacy of his office, absent the "constitutionally correct" oath of office. But as many experts and our own Dean have explained, a mangled oath doesn't de-legitimize the presidency. However just to be on the safe side, President Obama took a second oath  yesterday evening. Justice Roberts apparently got it right on the re-take.

     

Everyone, including the Chief Justice agreed after the event that it wasn't Obama but Roberts, who created the syntactic faux pas. President Obama, a man known for his grace and composure under pressure and amidst unexpected turn of events smiled sympathetically at his oath giver when it became clear that the ceremony had gone awry and the scripted words were becoming scrambled. Theories abound as to why Roberts, also a man known for his minimalistic and cool demeanor, failed to go through a routine for which both men should have been well prepared (what's wrong with a 3 X 5 index card on these occasions?). Bloggers and commentators have speculated that:

• Roberts is so pissed off at Obama for not voting for him during the senate confirmation hearings that he deliberately and vindictively messed up Obama's solemn moment before the whole world.
• Roberts is so pissed off at Obama for not voting for him during the senate confirmation hearings that he lost his customary cool and his sputtering was caused by passionate anger.
• Roberts, a man of "reactionary" judicial leanings (Brian Leiter) who has sided with George Bush on increasing war time executive powers and against individual freedoms, choked up because he fears that Obama will correct the human rights and rule of law violations of the Bush-Cheney regime.
• Roberts became distracted because his hair became unstuck by a strong wind and blew into his eyes.

I had met with some friends on Tuesday to watch the presidential inauguration over lunch and Tequila Sunrise.  We were all taken aback by the faltering swearing-in-ceremony.  Afterwards many of us wondered why Roberts had fumbled. Our consensus was that Roberts, dreaming of the precedence set in 2000, had fully expected himself and his esteemed colleagues on the Supreme Court to once more "select" a president by the imperious judicial fiat and was therefore miffed to have to swear in a candidate actually "elected" democratically by voters.

  (cartoon: Tom Toles) 

PETA is insane. Or a physician. It's unclear. (Joe)

PETA has decided that Michael Vick (whom we have discussed previously on this blog here and here) is a psychopath and should not be allowed to play in the NFL after he gets out of jail.  PETA was going to shoot an anti-dogfighting PSA with Vick and support his return to the NFL, but now believes that Vick is not "mentally capable of remorse."  PETA is insisting on seeing that the "results of a brain scan and a full psychiatric evaluation" show that Vick is capable of remorse--i.e., is non-psychopathic--before supporting his return to the NFL.

Um, I don't think you can see psychopathy on a brain scan.  Someone may want to alert the folks at PETA.

It also seems odd to me that they care whether Michael Vick is a psychopath playing professional football.  If he does have antisocial personality disorder, it's hard to see how it's better--either for society generally or for animals that PETA might be worried about--for Vick to be broke and unable to earn a living doing the one thing he's qualified to do.  It might be a wash, or it might be better if he has something to gain--and something to lose--in life by not getting caught behaving badly in the future.  Maybe PETA just wants a better bargain: one PSA is no longer enough, or there's free publicity to be gained from the current stance, etc. 

Even putting aside my consequentialist concerns, it's not clear why we should care if the NFL is full of psychopaths (at least, psychopaths who cannot be incarcerated or civilly committed).  They need to earn livings, too, and the NFL offers the spectacle of football players playing football, not remorseful people showing remorse.  We could start caring about whether people are good people much more broadly, but caring narrowly about whether football players are good people is bizarre.  It's even more bizarre coming from an animal rights group, which is supposed to care about animal welfare, not the psychological or moral status of professional athletes.  (Note that PETA is perfectly willing to see Vick return to the NFL, not based on any of his future actions, but on the condition that he not be a sociopath.)

On a particularly tangential tangent, can anyone tell me if there's a real difference in meaning between psychopath and sociopath?  As far as I can tell, they're interchangeable.

And finally, I don't think it's that clear that Vick is a sociopath.  If he had done the things he did to human beings, it would be obvious.  I may be overgeneralizing here, but I think we basically measure psychopathy based on adherence to social norms and the ability to feel remorse (or empathy, or a conscience, etc.).  It follows that whether one is a monster depends deeply on those social norms.  If Andrew throws out his shoe, it's not be evidence of an antisocial personality disorder.  If Dean throws out his child, however, it likely is (unless it's evidence of psychosis--not relevant in the Vick saga).  Certain groups view animals as nearly human (PETA).  Probably the majority of Americans view dogs as companion-type animals, which are entitled to a fair amount of respect and kindness--more than other animals.  I think it quite plausible, though, that Vick's subculture does not--and the question is then whether he erred far enough from those norms by seriously mistreating dogs (i.e., whatever he should have understood dogs to be defined as [or where they are situated on the sliding scale between Andrew's shoe and Dean's child]).

The Dreamer ... And Now, The Doer?

The juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Jr's birthday today and Barack Obama's presidential inauguration tomorrow has not escaped the notice of Americans. Many see the two events as book ends of America's troubled and often violent racial history. Obama's election to the most powerful position in world politics is widely perceived as the successful culmination of King's dream -that America has indeed taken the first significant step towards becoming a nation where its citizens will be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.

The editorial in today's Houston Chronicle takes note of the historic significance of the two dates: