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Grim humor from Matt Stoller over at EnjoyTheDraft.com. E.g. the FAQ wonders if the draft might come back with an Orwellian name:
Beware the "No 18-to-25-Year-Old Left Behind Act."
First there were Howards for Howard (Dean). Now there's Bushes against Bush. What next, JFKs for JFK? Rich Kids against Rich Kids? Draft Dodgers for Draft Dodgers?
From a Howard Dean mass mailing:
...Four of the five Republicans on the House Ethics Committee, which will review the charges against DeLay next month, have received over $35,000 from an arm of the DeLay operation. They are in no position to conduct an independent investigation.
Sign the petition here.
From the Daily Mislead, an acknowledged partisan source:
It has been a longstanding policy of the Justice Department not to comment on ongoing investigations. For example, when Deputy Attorney General James Comey, Jr. was asked to comment on the Justice Department investigation into the outing of Joe Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA operative, he said, "I can't tell you about the details of any ongoing criminal investigation because our goal is to make sure ... anyone who might not be charged with a crime isn't unfairly smeared."[1] Now, in an effort to undermine the credibility of former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, the Justice Department has abruptly changed its policy.
Initially, career prosecutors handling the Berger investigation advised employees at the National Archives of their policy: Don't discuss the details of an ongoing case. But according to a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), on July 27, Republican staff members of the House Government Oversight Committee "contacted the Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legislative Affairs and asked him to intervene to overrule the judgment of the career prosecutors."[2] Days later, the Justice Department reversed their policy and advised archive employees they were "in no way constrained" from discussing any details of the Berger case.
Larry Lessig blogs about county Republicans inviting their supporters to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" for free to improve the quality of debate. This is in Lewisburg, PA where I went to college and near to where Larry grew up.
Wouldn't you love to see the Democrats respond in kind, and then see the Battle of Reason escalate?
Talking Points has an interview with Joseph Biden that's like a conversation with an intelligent, thoughtful, informed, patriotic, fair-minded leader. AN excerpt:
...they're pretty smart guys. These are not a bunch of Christian Coalition guys. These are serious, serious people. These are patriotic Americans. These are guys who really truly aren't looking to get Halliburton contracts --- that's an ancillary benefit --- but these guys really think --- Paul Wolfowitz is an idealist --- he really thinks you can impose democracy.
We all agree democracy --- if all the Middle East was a democratic institution then in fact our interests are greatly enhanced because democracies tend not to go to war with other democracies. But that's a far cry from being able to impose it.
The Kerry administration will understand, in my view --- I know this from a long --- I know John well --- is that there is a need for you to work a long time for you to establish the soil under which the seeds of liberal democratic institutions can take root. That means public diplomacy; that means [being] engaged in economic initiatives; that means political interchange; that means everything from student exchange programs to saying if you step across that line I'm going to blow you to kingdom-come.
There's is a mix of these things. These guys don't think that. They think all this soft power is useless.
And
You know the president always brags with me. And what he said to me not long ago was, “Joe, I don't do nuance” --- as if that was a real cool thing, right? I mean literally, that's a quote. When I said to him, “It's a nuanced situation, Mr. President.” He said, “I don't do nuance, Mr. Chairman.” Well you know --- and Kerry's accused of being only nuance. Well let me tell you something, a lot of this is not so simple and it requires the use of more than one tool in the toolbox.
Brian Dear tries to track down the origins of the Republican Oath.
I hadn't seen the Oath before, but it's a pretty nice statement of principles. Change a few words and I'm ready to sign!
There's something scary and yet encouraging about citizens using the Net to spy on the terrorist bad guys. Fascinating article in the Seattle Times...
From Kirk Anderson, used without permission:
Ronald Reagan of course deserves the respect we give to anyone the American people choose as president. Those who were touched by him deserve their time to mourn him. And I have been moved by Nancy Reagan's dignified public comportment during the long years of his decline. I have loved people who suffered from Alzheimer's, and I have a small sense of what Nancy has been through.
So, rest in peace, President Reagan. You changed America.
Thomas Kostigen at CBS MarketWatch says:
In just 14 days the problems of the poorest countries in the world -- starvation, lack of education, scarcity of potable water, etc. -- could be solved if each nation donated its military spending budget for just that period of time -- 14 days.
Kostigen also says:
While the richest one percent of the U.S. population saw its financial wealth grow 109 percent from 1983 to 2001, the bottom two-fifths watched as its wealth fell 46 percent.
Alarming? You bet. And here's why: The number of Americans without health insurance climbed 33 percent during the 1990's, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The biggest indicator of a healthy society -- average life expectancy -- has dropped. People in the U.S. now don't live even as long as people in Costa Rica. Meanwhile the U.S. infant mortality rate has risen, so much so Cuba has a better success rate of bringing healthy children into the world.
Holy sh*t. (Thanks to Chip for forwarding Kostigen's article)
This is old news, but I just came across it and it is still startling to me: 51 of the world's largest economic entities are corporations, not countries.
If you haven't yet read Tuseday's WSJ story, by Michael Phillips, on Corporal Jason Dunham's bravery, you should.
The story speaks for itself. I find that no political consequences follow from it, and I mean that as a compliment.
IF you don't like W, you may like these two contemporary retellings of Homer's classics by Victor Littlebear.
I haven't had read all 48 chapters, but what I did read was remarkably good: Homeric in rhetoric and caustic in humor. But don't expect endless Bush-is-dumb jokes; Littlebear is more interested in recounting the story than scoring cheap shots.
Our 19-year-old daughter yesterday put up a vigorous defense of the idea that in some instances we ought to loosen the definition of "reasonable doubt." She's willing to send some innocent people to jail in order to prevent other innocent people from being harmed. She was thinking particularly of people who rape children. As a classic liberal, I of course argued against this idea. But I'm not sure I'm right.
Of course, all systems of justice are imperfect. So, they have to decide how they will distribute the injustice. A society escaping from a monarchy that did not sufficiently respect the rights of its subjects is likely to err on the side of protecting the accused, erecting high barriers to proving guilt: "Better to let 100 guilty men go free than convict one innocent person," etc. But we are no longer such a society. If we were simply to balance the pain of future victims against the suffering of the wrongfully convicted, we might come up with a different ratio...and might even say that sometimes it's better to convict one innocent person than let 100 more children be raped.
Ultimately, though, I disagree with my daughter. When a populace is frightened — and lord knows I am — the temptation is strong to apply the utilitarian calculus rather blithely, using criteria that suffer from the sins of racism: "Imprison all the young Moslem men because even if 99.9% are innocent, if we prevent that 0.1% from doing something horrific, it was worthwhile." That may (may!) make sense in terms of the calculus, but it throws justice out the window. Fear will accustom us to imprisoning the innocent as the price of our security. And then there is little left of our democracy.
Thomas Barnett is presenting a seductive re-envisioning of the "war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq. He does this in his book The Pentagon's New Map (which I have not yet read), an interview with Bryan Preston, an article in Esquire (March '03) and an open letter to the president in the current Esquire [costs $2.95]. He argues that Bush isn't explaining it right: We're forcing recalcitrant countries to join the global economy because the terrorists want to build enclaves of disconnected countries. This is like the New American Century project in its scope except that it substitutes "connecting to the world economy" for "adopting American values" - a substantial difference.
I'm finding Barnett's ideas and presentation to be fascinating and head-twisting.
When I get frustrated with politics, I tend to write a speech that says what I'd like to hear a candidate say. Oddly, I write 'em with the sort of rhetoric and American chest-thumping that seems to be required. With that in mind, here's last night's typing-fest...
Making America Ours Again
My fellow citizens...
I come before you tonight to tell you what I think so many of us already know and feel: This is a time unlike any other in our lives, in the life of our country, and even a time unprecedented in the history of our world.
We have an opportunity to break the habits of the past that have held us back. So much is happening, so much is changing. We know in our hearts that we can change the world, we can lift it up. But, I'm afraid so many of us look at what we have done with this opportunity, and we're angry and sad and bewildered that we're throwing this chance away.
But it's not too late...
We all feel this, too. I see it in every American I meet. I can see it in you tonight. It's not too late. We can step back from the steep hill we've been on. And we can step into the new world that's ready to happen. We can lead the world into this better place. We just have to make our country our own again.
The America that we grew up in, the one that we still believe in, the America that has stood for the best of what we humans can make of ourselves...that America is the land that can lead the world into the future. But the America that we read about in our own headlines, much less in the headlines of the countries that used to admire us, that America doesn't sound like ours any more. And the future the politicians and the newspaper paint for us doesn't sound like ours any more.
If we're going to take back the future, we're going to have to first make America our own again.
We are uniquely situated to lead. Never before in human history has a single country been so powerful militarily, so powerful economically, so rich in ideas and values, and so dedicated to using its power not to dominate, but to liberate. No country has ever before been in that position. Ever.
What an opportunity. The greatest country in history. We can do so much. We will do so much. This country was, after all, founded to move into the future, not to hold onto the habits and ideas of the past. For most countries, if you ask them what they are, what's unique and defining about them, they'll point to their past. Not us. Americans have always pointed to the future. If you want to understand us, look at what we're going to do. Americans face forward.
But you wouldn't know that if you were to judge us by the headlines in our newspapers over the past few years.
We hold prisoners without charging them, without letting them see a lawyer, without any of the rights that make this country great. Is that our America? No.
We give our secret agencies the right to spy on us, to intimidate librarians, to operate in the nighttime of unsupervised secrecy. Is that our America? No.
We promise AIDS relief to Africa, but we take it away if the programs talk about using birth control. Is that our America? No.
We let the oil companies write our energy policy and then our vice president goes to the Supreme Court rather than simply say who he met with. Is that our America? No.
Our government knowingly distorts the evidence to swindle Americans into supporting a war. Is that our America? No.
We censor the scientific reports we asked for when they come up with results we don't like. Is that our America? No.
We increase the amount of arsenic and mercury we allow in our children's environment. Is that our America? No.
We pass the first legislation in a generation to roll back a woman's right to control her body. Is that our America? No.
Our Secretary of Defense hears that some of our soldiers and the mercenaries he's hired are torturing prisoners and months later he still hasn't done anything about it. Is that our America? No.
When we find ourselves slipping in the polls, we tinker with the Constitution hoping it will distract us from the real issues by dividing us among ourselves. Is that our America? No.
No, my friends, we know what our America is. We know better than $200 million dollars worth of ads can ever redefine for us. We know better than anyone dressed up like a cowboy or dressed up like a pilot can tell us. We know what our America is.
Our America isn't afraid, despite the constant effort of our government to tell us that we are. Our America is the home of the brave. Brave Americans, like our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. Brave Americans, like our fire fighters and our police. Brave Americans like everyone of us who gets up in the morning and does some good in the world against the odds...raising our kids without enough money, educating our children in underfunded schools, starting that small business and sticking with your employees even when you might make a little more money if you shipped their jobs overseas. We know what bravery is. We know what courage, real courage, is. We're not fooled by the flight suits on guys who, when it came their time to serve, ducked. Our America is brave.
Our America is free. We don't try to shut people up because we disagree with them, and we don't accuse them of being unpatriotic because they have a different opinion. We don't worry about people reading the wrong books. We don't set up our own internal secret jails. We do things out in the open in our America. We don't hole ourselves up in secret meetings with our cronies. Our America is open. Our America is free.
Our America is just. We don't grudgingly let people into the tent and make a big deal of it. We go outside, we meet them where they live, and we take them for who they are. And you know who they are? They're our neighbors. You know, our America hasn't always been good about this. But it is fundamental to our nation that we have learned. Immigrants from everywhere, people of color, women, gays and lesbians...The mistakes we made in the past don't define us. The way we have moved into the future of equality and justice and respect and dignity...that's what defines our America.
Our America is full of life. Not fear and doubt. We're a confident country. Confident enough that we know not everyone has to be like us, and not everyone is going to like us. That's ok. That's more than ok. That's life on this planet. We love it. We love to laugh. And we love to try things out. Come up with new ideas. Tinker. Invent. Innovate. Some of the ideas are just plain wrong. Doesn't matter. We'll invent some more. We're Americans. That's what we do in our America.
We're brave. We're free. We love justice. We love life. That's our America.
But is that the America you see peering back at us from our own headlines? Is that the America the world sees now?
No. They've tried to take our America from us. Big corporations have gotten into the halls of power. Laws are passed for the rich, and the middle class and the poor are supposed to say, "Thank you. May we have another?" We swagger our way through the world like a schoolhouse bully. And when the photos come out showing scenes that no American can stand to look at, our government is more interested in avoiding blame than in making it right.
But we can take back our America. And it's not just because we're going to vote in November. That's just the beginning. We can only take back our America because in our hearts we never lost it. We the people are still brave, free, just and full of life. Together, we will invent our new America, because that's what we do. The always new America. We will lift up the world by joining with it and leading it as exactly who we are as Americans - Brave, free, just, and in love with life.
That, my friends, is our America. And we will take it back, because it is ours.
[I posted it online here. And there's a discussion board here. Could you please use that discussion board instead of this blog's comments? Thanks.]
Who would have thought that this would be something we'd have to state explicitly?
John Robb suggests that the way to implement the Markle Foundation's suggestions for creating a national security network is to set up a network of blogs and wikis.
The infrastructure he's suggesting is clear enough, and lord knows I love blogs 'n' wikis, but I'm not yet clear enough about what would be going on at those sites...
May 17 is the first day same-sex marriages are allowed in Massachusetts. Anyone else feel like celebrating together?
How about this? We show up en masse at our local town halls. We each come with a bouquet of flowers or two. As the couples leave, we each give one flower to each couple.
Other ideas?
From the Center for American Progress:
Conservatives have spent the last 20 years distorting reality and getting away with it. That is about to change. The Center for American Progress has launched this new database project to chart the dishonesty and lies of conservatives – and compare them with the truth. In this database, each conservative quote will be matched against well-documented facts. And we need your help.
To use it, you pick from their menu of topics and of speakers. It then delivers the claim and a counter to it, along with a reference supporting the counter.
[Thanks to Salon for the pointer.]
David Stephenson in the Boston Globe today uses Paul Revere's social nettiness (as made famous in The Tipping Point) to make the point that we'd be more secure if we distributed homeland security rather than centralized it:
Instead of top-down, tightly controlled communication, when it comes to homeland security what we need is a network like the Internet, which empowers individuals and links everyone together. A system like the one that lets PalmPilot owners download breaking news to read on the go, for example, could allow citizen volunteers to download real-time information in case of emergencies. We could also learn from the US military to set up "mesh" networks -- in which wireless devices are programmed to seek each other out, bouncing phone calls and e-mails from point to point during crises. But even more important than Internet technology is Internet thinking.
Bruce Schneier responds to the Kristof column that recommmends national ID cards. Bruce replies that they would make us less secure.
Craig Unger asks, in the Sunday Globe's Ideas section, raises an important question:
...When they [Ashcroft and Mueller] testify -- especially Mueller -- we will see whether or not the commission has the stomach to address what may be the single most egregious security lapse related to the attacks: the evacuation of approximately 140 Saudis just two days after 9/11.
This episode raises particularly sensitive questions for the administration. Never before in history has a president of the United States had such a close relationship with another foreign power as President Bush and his father have had with the Saudi royal family, the House of Saud. I have traced more than $1.4 billion in investments and contracts that went from the House of Saud over the past 20 years to companies in which the Bushes and their allies have had prominent positions -- Harken Energy, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group among them. Is it possible that President Bush himself played a role in authorizing the evacuation of the Saudis after 9/11? What did he know and when did he know it?
I'd also like to know why Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial airlines 6 weeks before 9/11:
"In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term."
Check here for links to more articles to fuel your (justifiable?) paranoia.
Phil Cubta, a remarkable writer, has launched GiftHub, which he describes as a website "to connect funders, charitable advocates, and advisors." Phil says, "Ideally, the site will help good people find each other to do good things not only for themselves but for the causes we support."
Whitehouse.org, which had been a site satirizing the Bush administration, now gets redirected to CyberCrime.gov, a boneheaded Ashcroft propaganda site.
We can only assume that on April 2 it will return to normalcy.
I just learned from David Silver that in 2002 the White House declared Sept. 11 as "Patriot Day." Why do I find this distasteful?
Talk about eerie. Elena rides her motorcycle through Chernobyl, equipped with a camera and dosemeter. (Thanks to Joi, with whom I got to hang out with last night, for the link)
Ladies and gentleman, let's give a rousing welcome Noam Chomsky who has just entered the blogosphere. A sample:
The current policies are an extreme version of what has been going on since the late Carter years. According to Congressional Budget office economists, real income of the bottom 90% of taxpayers fell by 7% from the mid-1970s through the Clinton boomlet (largely a bubble), while the income of the top .01% rose 600%. And mobility sharply declined as well.
From the Daily Mislead. I cannot warrantee its accuracy.
BUSH ALLOWS GAYS TO BE FIRED FOR BEING GAY
Despite President Bush's pledge that homosexuals "ought to have the same rights" (1) as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation.
According to the Federal Times, the president's appointee at the Office of Special Counsel ruled that federal employees will now "have no recourse if they are fired or demoted simply for being gay." (2) While the Bush Administration says it is legally prohibited from firing a person for their conduct, they have the legal right to fire or demote someone based on their sexual orientation. To carry out the directive, the White House has begun removing information from government websites about sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. (3)
Not only does the new directive contradict the president's own promise to treat homosexuals as equals under the law, but it also contradicts what the Administration told Congress. As noted in a bipartisan letter from four Senators to the Administration, "During the confirmation process [of the president's appointee], you assured us that you were committed to protecting federal employees against unlawful discrimination related to their sexual orientation." (4)
Sources:
1. Debates, 10/11/2000.
2. "OSC to study whether bias law covers gays", Federal Times, 03/15/2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1291955&l=23794.
3. "Gay Rights Information Taken Off Site", Washington Post, 02/18/2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1291955&l=23795.
4. "Special Counsel Under Scrutiny", Washington Post, 02/23/2004, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1291955&l=23796.
The Governer of Wisconsin is writing a blog. It looks, feels and smells like a real blog written by an actual person. Very cool. [Thanks to Frank for the link.]
While we're all enjoying the Rumsfeld stutter video, here's a link to Billmon's list of quotations out of which the Administration wants to weasel.
Here's an article from Planetwire, forwarded from a friend who prefaces it by saying: "In case you were on the fence about who to vote for..."
New York City: This week the Bush Administration sought to reverse historic agreements that have significantly contributed to advancing the rights, economic status and health of the world’s women. The United States was the only country to reverse long-standing support of the historic agreements reached in Cairo in 1994 and Beijing in 1995.
“This is a devastating blow to women around the world. The actions of the Bush Administration means more women will continue to die because of inadequate reproductive rights and health programs,” noted June Zeitlin, Executive Director of WEDO, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization...
Here's a collection of quotations from the right that we can only hope the utterers already regret...
If I could quiz one of the tens of millions of reasonable, good-hearted Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, here are the questions I'd ask.
Set #1
Do you believe that same-sex couples can fall in love?
Is their love lesser than that of contra-sex couples?
Can same-sex couples form commitments as strong, lasting and valuable as those of contra-sex couples?
Are same-sex couples as likely as contra-sex couples to raise children well?
If yes to all of the above, what is the relevant difference between same-sex and contra-sex couples that justifies treating them differently with regard to marriage? [Note: a relevant difference is one that is relevant to the distinction in treatment. E.g., the Supreme Court decided in 1967 that race was not a relevant difference when it comes to marriage, although weight may be a relevant difference when it comes to choosing jockeys.]
Set #2
Do you believe that if same-sex couples are allowed to marry, it will affect contra-sex marriages? If so, how? Is there evidence to support this prediction?
Do you believe that which gender one finds sexually attractive is a matter of choice? Is there an element of choice in it?
If it's a least partially an element of choice, are there reasons — other than the discriminatory culture in which we live — to make one choice over the other? That is, in a culture that didn't discriminate, is heterosexuality a better choice than homosexuality? If so, for what type of reasons? Moral? Psychological?
If so, are the reasons to prefer heterosexuality sufficiently strong, and the overall consequences of same-sex marriage sufficiently negative, to ban same-sex marriage?
Set #3
Let's say your daughter is 28 and has been in a loving relationship for six years with Pat, a person you've come to like and respect. She comes home one night and announces that Pat has popped the question and she's accepted. She's obviously delighted. In case #1, Pat is a man and you share your daughter's joy. In case #2, Pat is a woman. Do you react differently? How? Is the difference in reaction justifiable? Why?
I don't mean to state these questions as if the answers were obvious, although I'm sure my partisanship is evident. I don't have fixed opinions about some of these questions, and I'd like to know where my thinking diverges from those who have come to a different conclusion on this issue.
the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry is blogging the Constitutional Convention in Massachusetts where state representatives are trying to compromise the rights of lovers in a manner that will cause the grandchildren of those representatives to shake their heads and wonder just what they were thinking.
Massachusetts' old-style (= corrupt) House Speaker, Thomas Finneran, no longer backs a compromise amendment to the state constitution that would permit civil unions but ban same-sex marriages. Instead, he wants two amendments. The first would say: "It being the public policy of this Commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts." According to the report in the Boston Globe, the second amendment "would include language saying that the Legislature 'shall establish civil unions,' but would call for the Legislature to define at a later date exactly what rights and benefits those unions would include."
Ah, excellent. Let's limit rights first and then maybe get around to supporting some, maybe, oh look, the cat's coughing, what were we talking about?
But those of us who support the right of loving adults to marry can learn from this strategy: We should break our push into two parts. First, we should make it legal for same-sex couples to marry, but only if they're hot lesbians. That's something this great nation has obviously shown it can get behind. And then we can expand the right to include all those whose love dares not speak "I do."
Salon's Scott Rosenberg cogently reports the issues around the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) currently up for review by the Supremes. The law is vague and incapable of being applied consistently, even if applying it were such a good idea. As Scott says: "After all, can't we count on John Ashcroft's Justice Department to do the right thing?"
Bob Herbert's column today in the NY Times — "Bliss and Bigotry" — made me cry. It's a good column, but it did not provoke my sadness and anger so much as allow it. I keep surprising myself with how much the issue of gay marriage means to me. Every day I find it means more.
When I was a young a-hole in the '70s, my line of grad school patter said that homosexuality is an inferior form of love because the sex carries no risk. (Yeah, those were the days.) Homosexuals sex acts lack the existential possibility of creating new life, I'd maintain, affecting my best Norman Mailer-esque pose. This gave me sufficient cover for my homophobia even with my gay friends. But, as I became an older a-hole and saw those friends form relationships as loving as the best of my straight friends, I stopped spouting that particular form of stupidity. I shut up, and was a better person for it. Funny how often that works.
I thought my patter was cocktail-party interesting, but it was just a spin on the mainstream bigotry that pinned itself on the "promiscuity" of "the gay life style." No commitment. No love. Just sex sex sex.
So, now we have gay couples standing in line to foreswear promiscuity, to embrace commitment and love. But it turns out that it's not just their way of having sex that's unacceptable to us. Even their love isn't good enough.
Well, God damn a country that turns away love, that would diminish love, that would deny love. What purer gift could we be offered?
Aren't we commiting the very sin that brought God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? It sure wasn't because their citizens were just too deeply in love with one another.
History may give Bush a pass for his doctrine of preemptive war, because the country was traumatized by 9/11. It may chuckle ruefully at the brazenness of his oligarchical partisanship. But I do not think history will forgive George W. Bush's attempt to turn our Constitution against the love our children have for one another.
And if history will, I won't.
It's a shame that John Kerry is once again taking a position that's politically convenient. We could use a leader right now.
It looks like Google's added another billion pages to its index of the Internet echo chamber. It's now up to 4,285,199,774 web pages.
I've been enjoying Right Hook, Salon's weekly round-up of conservative thought.
By the way, this week it includes a reference to a report that we've found Osama and are monitoring his position by satellite. Although this isn't a rightwing issue - if there's one thing Americans can agree on, it's that we want Osama out of circulation - I thought you'd want to know :)
If I were getting married today, I think I'd opt for a civil union instead. Limiting marriage to heterosexuals feels so arbitrary that it's, yes, weakening the institution for me.
I could argue in favor of my position, and you would hear nothing that you hadn't heard from others. But I don't think we change our minds about moral issues through argument. We change our minds by trying on moral positions the way we try on clothes. How does it feel? What type of person do I want to be? Even, how does it make me look? More reflection with more serious outcomes, but like trying clothing, it's about who we are, not what we believe.
I feel pretty hopeful that America is going to try on this position and like the way it feels. Eventually. But maybe not before we've passed a Constitutional amendment outlawing it. And certainly not before the Republicans have possibly ridden to victory on it.
For this is, of course, a potent wedge issue precisely because it's not about policy but about what type of people we see ourselves as.
The Democratic response is not going to be a resounding "Yes!" in favor of love as transcendent of gender, and marriage as a force that makes a deep relationship deeper. It's going to be: Let's not talk about love and marriage and the type of people we Americans are. Let's talk about state's rights instead.
Damn clever Republicans.
The Happy Tutor, listening to two drums, suggests banging them together. Micah Sifry has has banged out a similar beat. It's a good beat. We can dance to it.
Denounce.com updates the discovery that if you tilt Pepsi bottles just right, you can see if they're winners in the iTunes contest.
MillennialLiving blogs about the candidates' sites through the usability lens. It's an interesting reminder that usability isn't enough. (For example, See Josh Marshall's note on the difference between Kerry's and Edward's blogs.)
The signals are in the air (the public air - I only know what I read) that Dean will be turning his campaign into an advocacy group. Simultaneously, Nader is making the ominously stupid sounds of someone about to declare his candidacy - see Micah Sifry's blog, which contains the following:
And then there's this: I also think he's living in the past. Today, he's quoted in the New York Times as saying that he wasn't bothered by the fact that as of Saturday, he only had 375 people registered at Meetup.com, against 188,000 for Dean, 45,000 for Kerry, 23,000 for Kucinich and 9,000 for Edwards.
In response, he says, "I really don't deal with the Web. There isn't enough time in the day to go into virtual reality."
That quote should lead Nader's political obituary.
A Dean advocacy group backing Kerry in a tight election could become a useful political influence: Kerry would know that he won only because he had the support of a group of people committed to meaningful health care reform, for example.
I do not see a single good outcome of a Nader candidacy, and I say this as someone who shares most of Nader's ideals.
Micah Sifry reminds us that technology is not enough to "take back our country." We also need to organize the old fashioned way.
We, the technodazzled, need to hear this. (People like Zephyr already know it.) But I also want to put in a predictable marker. A thousand times, yes, technology is not enough. But we don't yet know exactly how technology that enables self-organization will affect politics. That means that even while we acknowledge that we must must must learn the lessons of political organizing, and that we haven't been open enough to those lessons, we don't yet know exactly which lessons to learn.
I'm sitting next to Micah Sifry, writer for The Nation and David Technorati's "smarter older brother" (as David introduces him). Micah says: "Some social software ought to be renamed 'civic software.'"
Yup.
Robin Grant sends along some interesting and/or useful links:
Your Party: Make your own party
MySociety, sponsor of Internet projects with real-world benefits
Vox Politics: political blog
The Guardian's political weblog awards
And then there's Robin's own blog site, of course.
For your mild amusement: Search for "unelectable" on Google.
Joe Trippi has agreed to keynote the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In in San Diego next week. Should be interesting!
See you there?
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