I have no idea when -- or if -- humans will ever abolish war.
As a rather unfortunately lucky son of the tribe who gave the full meaning to the word Slavery I know well that it took centuries of seemingly hopeless effort to end slavery. But this much I do know: Voices that preach peace and democracy must never fall silent. They need to speak so loudly that they drown out those who clamor for war. Even if our species is not yet ready to end war, we must always be prepared to create a climate for peace.
Mother of Wishes & Quizes
My simple wish for 2003 only requires two things: A grain of imagination and a lot of courage. Let us find the courage to see each other face-to-face before we push the buttons. According to Slavic saying we'd better have at least a few political laughs before the year ends, so czech out a political quiz we had to have and then probe The Origin of Religions, From a Distinctly Darwinian View.
· A pair of partially nude Actors & Jokesters [San Francisco Chronicle]
· Social Science [NY Times]
Politics & Media Compilation of the most overhyped and underreported stories of the year.
Ah, the good old days. Now, that same trivia is mixed in with active disinformation being cynically fed by politicians from the White House down, self-interested corporations, and media that could know better if it only dared rock a boat now and then.
· Trivia [Eat the State]
· Stories [Sun Times]
The rich get off easy
The greatest burden of state tax falls upon those with the lowest incomes, while the rich get off easy. The solution? A major tax shift, replacing all or some of our extremely high, regressive sales tax with an income tax (which all but three other states have in some form). Neither a degree in economics nor a direct line to Miss Cleo was necessary to predict this conclusion.
· Miss Cleo [Eat The State]
· X at [Poor & Stupid]
What does it take to kill democracy? Would we know it when we saw it? Jackboots and swastikas aren't the only symbols of democracys fall. As Huey Long, a Louisiana politician, so presciently stated 70 years ago, ‘when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.’
Had a time traveler arrived 30 years ago to foretell that a U.S. president would be appointed, not elected; that secret courts would review evidence against undesirables; that privacy rights would be gutted; and that collective bargaining rights for labor unions would be seriously challenged -- most Americans would have fought against this deterioration of their democracy.
· Democracy [Miami Herald]
For 100 years after the Constitution was ratified, various governmental entities led corporations around on leashes, like obedient puppies, canceling their charters promptly if they compromised the public good in any way. The leashes broke in 1886, the puppies got away, and the public good was increasingly compromised—until it was finally displaced altogether.
Today, the First Amendment protects the right of corporations-as-persons to finance political campaigns and to employ lobbyists, who then specify and redeem the incurred obligations. Democracy has been transformed into a crypto-plutocracy, and public policy is no longer crafted to serve the American people at large. It is shaped instead to maintain, protect, enhance or create opportunities for corporate profit.
· Corporate Personhood Is Doomed [Common Dreams]
Time to bond as vital to women as paid leave
In a striking development, a distinctive maternal feminism has emerged in the United States. An important seminar last October pulled together an unusual group - feminists, child advocates, mothers at home and work/family experts. Calling for an end to the "mummy wars" between women at home and women at work, the new maternal feminist movement is trying to achieve better conditions and recognition for mothers in both domains.
· A Time to Value [SMH]
Internet The descent of Trent Lott brings the rise of 'bloggers'
Walter Shapiro uses blogs - including ABC's The Note and Mickey Kaus's Kausfiles, to catch a whiff of the Washington zeitgeist. But he isn't quite ready to declare that the Lott story has ushered in a new media heirarchy. Like every revolution, blogging 'is overhyped on the way up, overscorned on the way down, and settles into the middle realm of reality.
· Lott of Bloggers [Boston]
· Lott More [Twin Cities]
iLiterature Where the trail goes cold like Morava River
In the post-cold war world, new political and cultural definitions are still struggling to emerge. The lone traveller, essentially an investigator of the strange other, seems a poor authority on the strangeness of what is happening on his own home turf. An uncertain global picture is best mirrored in different kinds of literature. In both British and American fiction, there has been a return to social realism: Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and Jeffrey Eugenides are architects of cultural complexity. Popular history is part of this trend, too: an attempt to rediscover national and cultural identities through our own past. Better that than follow a wandering narrator around regions which may well have changed beyond recognition by the time his book comes out.
· Wandering Narrator & Exile [Prospect Magazine]
My Smashed Wrist put under the knife on 27 November 2002
Everyone who comes under the knife wants his surgeon to be as highly trained and as experienced as Dr Chris Blenkin: but how is the surgeon ever to come by that training and experience unless he practises on people while he is untrained and inexperienced?
Someone has to be operated on by tyros, even if they are under the supervision of more experienced surgeons.
· In the absence of certainty: tragedy, or triumph [Telegraph UK]
Light Side Fruit Cake
Everyone knows the holidays have their dark side. The underbelly of holiday cheer is the conflict and strife that arises during the pressure cooker that is Christmas, and one of the central points of conflict each December is the age-old debate over which controversial comestible best signifies the holiday spirit: eggnog or fruitcake?
Once again, it's time to choose up sides. Pick your poison.
· Dark Side [LA Times]