Accidental Blogger

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:

I Think I know... (Sujatha)

why Barack Obama decided to announce that his middle name was Steve in the Alfred E. Smith dinner.

Could this be a reason why? Maybe not, but it would be fun if it were.

"NCSE's "Project Steve" is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from Darwinism."

The catch is, that to become an NCSE Steve, you must be a Steve in name with any of its variations.

"Are you tired of being ignored by your colleagues at professional meetings?
Do your students yawn every time you begin a lecture?
Do neighbors not invite you to cocktail parties anymore because you always talk about dermestid beetles?
Well, my friend, you have the power to put a stop to that today simply by becoming an NCSE Steve. Why settle for being just another Jonathan, Michael, or William when you can be what you've always dreamed of being ... an NCSE Steve.
To see if you qualify, just answer these simple questions:

• Are you named Steve, Stephen, Steven, Esteban, Etienne, or Stephanie?
• Do you have a Ph.D. in biology, geology, paleontology, or a related scientific field?
• Do you want the kind of success in life you always thought was reserved for the "other Steves"?

If you answered yes to all three of these questions, then you have what it takes to become an NCSE Steve! "

Among the founders of Project Steve: Steven Chu, the next Secretary of Energy.

My Tailor is from Mumbai!

It is human nature to want to find a personal connection to triumph and tragedy. Cries of solidarity, "Today we are all Americans," (here, here and here) were heard from all over the world after 9/11/2001. John McCain declared, "Today we are all Georgians," during the recent Russian-Georgian conflict (although there is reason to believe that Georgia attacked first). Being an Indian by birth, the Mumbai tragedy is of course somewhat more personal to me than it is to the average American, Japanese or Argentinian. But I can hardly claim, "Today I am ... or we are all Mumbaikars."  [Mumbaikar= Bombayite] I cannot in all honesty, quite imagine what the death and injury of the victims mean to them and to their families. But we try to empathize by imagining ourselves facing the same terrifying ordeals that the victims must have encountered.  Several of my friends, all of whom know that I come from Delhi, have called in the last few days to inquire if everyone in my family was alright. The first thing that I myself asked my sister and my journalist brother-in-law was if every one they know in Mumbai was safe. Not everyone was. A former colleague of my BIL is presumed dead. She was in a room in the Taj Hotel that was adjacent to the one where the terrorists had initially gathered on the 6th floor. Text messages from her cell phone went out for nearly two hours following the first conflagration, after which there was no further communication. Does the death of this journalist whom I had never met and which made me quite sad, turn the Mumbai incident into a personal experience for me? I don't think so, unless you compute "personal" in a very loose six degrees of separation kind of way.

We are NOT all Mumbaikars today but it is a polite way to show solidarity by saying that we are. But of course, there are several genuine Mumbaikars within the Indian American community and anxiety was understandably widespread among them when the news of the carnage first broke. Houston Indians gathered at the city's India House to offer prayers and express support for India. Among them were many from Mumbai whose "personal" stories are reported in today's Houston Chronicle.   

Namit spoke of the purple prose of Indian writers in the aftermath of the attack in Mumbai. How about some pale yellow journalism? While reading the Chronicle's general human interest story, I came across a ridiculously irrelevant piece of trivia:

Despite a decade or more of bombings and suicide attacks in their native city, former Mumbai residents said the carnage that began Wednesday and ended Saturday with nearly 200 deaths outdid their worst imaginings. They joined with religious and civic leaders at Houston's India House cultural center on Sunday.

"This attack wasn't an attack on India. It wasn't an attack on Westerners. It was an attack on humanity," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who wore a gray suit tailored for him during a visit to Mumbai. [emphasis mine]

Now, Judge Emmett, a very active public official who was responsible for the evacuation plan during Hurricane Ike, is I am sure, sincerely outraged by the terrorist incident in Mumbai. But what in the whole wide world, does his gray suit tailored in Mumbai have to do with anything? I don't blame Judge Emmett for wearing his desi suit during the visit to India House and I don't even mind that he may have mentioned it to his Indian audience and to the reporter. However, why did the reporter choose to report it? How many degrees of separation are there between the judge, his tailor in Mumbai and a terrorist act?

My Bleeding City

Author Suketu Mehta in the New York Times on the Mumbai terrorist mayhem.

MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

The rest of the article here.  (Mehta is a bit over the top with his sentimentality, just as many New Yorkers were after 9/11. But what he says about the religious tolerance of big, diverse Indian megapolises used to be true only a decade or so ago - that's the India in which I grew up.)

A Melamine Anniversary Post (Sujatha)

(In which we look again at the prevalence of melamine in various food chains, now confirmed to include human babies of practically all countries that use infant formulas from multinational companies like Nestle and Bristol-Meyers Squibb.)

Around the world with Barack Obama

I noted in my post yesterday that the whole world was watching to see if the United States of America, a country with a majority white population, could bring itself to elect a dark skinned president of mixed race. The US voters came through for Barack Obama, confronting and overcoming a cultural challenge as old as the nation's history. The world took note and for the most part, from Jerusalem to Jakarta, people rejoiced. (see photo montage)

We heard in the comments section from Jatinder from Hong Kong, congratulating Americans for "doing the right thing." On Tuesday night, before the final election results were in and around the time things were beginning to look promising for Obama, I received the following e-mail from Matthew, a friend from Australia.

Am watching events unfold at work by the minute - it all looks good. I am relieved that your countrymen, on the whole, have shown how much they care about a positive future. It might be a bit early, but congratulations from an Aussie - you've made a fantastic decision. I'm under no false illusions, every character is flawed and there is no such thing as a 'saviour' but this is such a step in the right direction for the world and believe me, we feel it strongly too.

In wading through numerous foreign news outlets reporting the outcome of yesterday's election, I came across mostly positive, even exuberant reactions to President Elect Obama, mixed in with regional hopes and concerns for the future. I found just one very curious headline. It too celebrated the impending victory of Obama but for a very wrong reason. The Greek newspaper Avriani declared on the front page: (translation via an Athens news agency)

AVRIANI: "The anticipated victory of Obama in US elections signals ...the end of the Jewish domination - Everything changes in USA and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane".

How weird!

Greece no longer has a significant Jewish population. The once large and thriving Jewish community of Salonika was butchered by the Nazis and most of the survivors left at the end of WWII. So why would Greece be concerned with domination by Jews, unless as an expression of its own vestigial anti-Semitism? Particularly ironic is the fact that the newspaper appears to be celebrating Obama's victory in anticipation of a more "democratic and humane" USA while exposing its own vicious prejudice. Brian Leiter's Texas Talibans are everywhere - even in Greece.

Yobama!

Yes, we did !!!

I was a young girl in India looking from afar in awe when the civil rights movement in the US was under way. Today as a middle aged woman and an American citizen, I am equally thrilled to be a participant in the logical grand finale to those distant events of forty years ago. There was a certain inevitability to Barack Obama's historic win. I am glad it has happened in my lifetime and my children's.

Obama is the winner in an American presidential election. But this was also a world election. No matter what happens internally in the US regarding the economy, jobs and the "war on terror," with the election of Obama to the highest national office, we have cleared a stubborn cultural hurdle that desperately needed to get out of our way. The whole world was watching. Beginning this morning, US prestige world wide will begin to be restored after being in the dumpster for eight long miserable years of ignorance, ineptitude, aggression, corruption and divisiveness.

I am a bit woozy after a late evening spent with like minded friends when some good red wine and champagne flowed freely. I will end with my congratulations to the disciplined Obama campaign staff, tireless volunteers, donors, bloggers and voters who did their bit to bring about this much needed change in the country's mood and aspirations. Also, best wishes and the best of luck to Senator Obama and Senator Biden for their upcoming tenure at the helm of the nation's tilting ship....  Peace!

Gobama!

Can we or can't we?

Whatever is on your schedule today, be sure to vote, if you have not done so already. It is an important election and an exciting one. Make certain that you are a player in the outcome.We at Accidental Blogger, hope that you will vote for Senator Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates on your ballot. As I have warned before, nothing is yet decided. We really do not know how things will turn out at the end of this evening. So, if you are an Obama supporter, please don't be complacent. Remember 2000 and that every vote counts.

The tracking polls, the mood and most other indicators point to a possible Obama victory. So why am I not counting my chickens? Why the nail biting? Well, like most other "twice bitten, thrice shy" Democrats, I am not at all sure that things will really go our way this time. Even some pro-Obama columnists are joking nervously. One of them (Ellen Goodman) writes:

BOSTON — Have you noticed that the spookiest colors of the season are not orange and black but red and blue? As Halloween slips into Election Day, the race for the White House has scared more grown-ups than any trip to the haunted house.

I’m not talking about John McCain’s farewell fright tour, although it is sad to see the senator trade in his superhero costume for that of fearmonger. After trying on assorted masks, he’s settled on profiling his opponent as “Barack the Redistributor” who will take money away from hardworking Americans, “coddle criminals” and, no doubt, ask Bill Ayers to be secretary of state.

With all the infighting in the coven around the maverick and the fair maiden, it’s tempting to call the McCain campaign the Gang That Couldn’t Fly a Broomstick Straight.

But the striking thing is not how the Republicans are trying to scare undecided voters. It’s how spooked the most committed Democrats are.

The closer Obama comes to victory, the more terror strikes deep in the (blue) heartland. The better things look, the more they worry that it’s “trick or trick” time. The election, like that dollar bill on the sidewalk, will be whipped out of their hands....

Every optimistic scenario for Obama is countered darkly by pre-emptive conspiracy theories explaining how it could turn into bad news....

Do you remember when the Obama rallying cry was “Yes, we can”? Now we are in the scary season and here’s the new mantra: The only thing we have to fear is hope itself.

Also some bloggers are having a bit of post-Halloween fun at the expense of the white- knuckle Dems.

I guess we have a right to be nervous. Not much has gone our way for a long time although the 2006 congressional races turned things around a bit. Perhaps 2008 will break the jinx more decisively and put the White House too on our side of the ledger. I am not crunching favorable numbers and statistics. I am worried about a somewhat more iffy factor.

Go Obama ... and Bob Barr!

B Movie (Sujatha)

This morning, the local channels and newspapers were abuzz with the news report that a young McCain campaign worker had been robbed and assaulted near an ATM in Pittsburgh.

[Ashley]Todd is a 20-year old Texas woman, a volunteer for the McCain-Palin campaign, who told police she was robbed and attacked by a man in Bloomfield.
A police report states that Todd said the incident occurred around 9 p.m. Wednesday night near an ATM.
Todd said she made her ATM withdrawal and was approached from behind by a man who put a knife to her neck and demanded money.
She said she gave him $60 and managed to step away from the robber.
But, then Todd claimed the mugger spotted a McCain sticker on her car, and became angry.
She said she was punched in the back of the head, knocked to the ground and the man etched the letter "B on the right side of her face.
Among other things, police are checking security cameras in the neighborhood to see what, if anything, they may have recorded.

 

A Drudge report photo of the young woman showed a reversed letter B on her cheek, but could not be authenticated by the KDKA news channel reporters.

The Pittsburgh police were skeptical about certain inconsistencies in Todd's report and administered a polygraph test to her, for which they have declined to release the results. They have however released this statement regarding the changing stories Ms.Todd keeps coming up with.
The moot point in the statement :
  "We have received photos from the ATM machine at the Citizens Bank and the photographs was verified as NOT being the victim making the transaction." (sic)

Is the whole thing real or just a hoax perpetrated on credulous media? Is this just another blatant attempt to play on the 'hidden racism' in Western Pennsylvania that Congressman Murtha was castigated for talking about in regards to Obama's chances at electoral victory here?

The whole thing seems like the plot of a bad B movie to me.

Update from KDKA news:

A Pittsburgh police commander says a volunteer for the McCain campaign who reported being robbed and attacked near a bank ATM in Bloomfield has confessed to making up the story. Police say charges will be filed. More details to follow.

Hmmmpf,  it's not even a full moon, and the loonies are creeping out of the woodwork!