I was somewhat surprised by my personal reaction to the story about Michele Bachmann's son joining Americorp.Normally I would be amused at the irony. Instead, I felt ... sympathy?

My father is 75 years old and over the past fifteen years or so, he has devolved from a fairly enlightened and thoughtful person into an angry, lobotomized right-wing parrot. He watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh all the times and when a political discussion breaks out at family gatherings, he invariably mutters something he heard Limbaugh or Beck or O'Reilly say. I used to argue with him, but I don't bother anymore. What's left of his mind is made up.

When I was a kid back in the 1960's, we lived in the western suburbs of Chicago and my father was the local director of an ecumenical church program called Friendly Town. The idea was to bring underprivileged, mostly afro-american children out of Chicago to stay in more affluent, suburrban homes for a couple of weeks. The white suburban kids (we were all white in my town) got exposure to afro-americans and the afro-american kids got a taste of the "good life." The two week stinit ended in a big picnic with all the families who particpated in the program attending along with the families of the children who were visiting. Some of the connections made with this program were lasting ones. This program was wildly progressive at that place and time and my father took a lot of heat for it in the local community.

I mention this because my father was my liberal role model. I'm a liberal today because of things like this that he did back then. One of the the great disappointments in my life is that my father is so different now. His political transformation has changed our relationship across the board and I'm very sorry it happened that way. For this reason, I guess I feel a bit of sympathy for what's going on in the Bachmann family. I hope they do better at dealing with it than my father and I do.

If the cops can arrest Henry Louis Gates for "loud and tumultuous" behavior in his own home, they ought to be able to restore order in and outside of raucous town hall meetings.Those who are disrupting these meetings are more than just "loud and tumultuous." They are threatening bodily harm and death. The law enforcement community needs to get its priorities straight.

I've got to quit watching the Sunday morning talking head shows. Time and time again, the host welcomes a high level administration official and time and time again they pull the same tired trick out of their toolbox, which usually takes the form of, "Does the president <promise/commit> to <always/never> do <something>?"

This morning it was Larry Summers and Tim Giethner, both of whom were asked whether or not Obama was going to raise taxes on the middle class. Both of them refused to rule it out. Mind you, neither of them said Obama would raise taxes. In fact, Obama promised in the campaign that he would not. But that fact that two of his top officials wouldn't say that he wouldn't gets translated into "he might," and wingnuts will certainly interpret as "he will."

That's the news, folks. I'm sure the talking heads will now amplify this to an intolerable volume to the exclusion of all other topics and then pat themselves on the back for it when somebody from the administration or maybe even the president himself has to come out and "clarify" the remarks made by Geithner and Summers.

If that's journalism, I'd rather be uninformed.

Blognark's graphic says it all - his rant's pretty good too:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.plognark.com/Art/Sketches/Blogsketches/2008/thestupiditburns.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.plognark.com/%3Fq%3Dnode/1129&h=682&w=600&sz=129&tbnid=TtG3aR9udxqQzM:&tbnh=139&tbnw=122&pre

I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I read about Henry Louis Gates being arrested and jailed for "disorderly conduct" (how does that happen when your alone and in your own house?).  I don't have any firsthand knowledge about what happened, but from what was reported it would seem that Sgt. James Crowley exercised extremely bad judgment in making that particular arrest, bad enough where he should probably go on vacation for a while, preferably without pay.

 While most commentators, including Professor Gates,  are focusing on the clear racial dimension of this incident, I have to wonder if part of it wasn't Sgt. Crowley becoming angry at being challenged and deciding he was going to show this SOB who's in charge.

 

In the past few months, I've seen on TV a 72 year old woman being tased during a traffic stop. I saw video of police in South Carolina apprehending suspects who were on foot by knocking them down with their squad cars. I read about police breaking into the wrong house and shooting household pets in Maryland. There was the recent gay bar bust in Fort Worth and the Democratic fundraiser in San Diego. These are just a few recent cases where police officers have been way out of line.

 

The fact that that unskilled police officers abuse the public is nothing new. Perhaps incidents come to light more these days because of dashboard video cameras and cable TV. If that's the case, maybe my perspective is skewed by the fact that there has been an increase in reporting rather than an increase in actual incidents.  It sure looks bad to me though.

 

I don't know how to fix this. Better training maybe? Better psychological screening of police candidates? Better operating procedures for police departments?  I do believe, however, that if the incident regarding Professor Gates ends up being defined only in terms of race, a larger point and a more general problem is being missed.  

I hear all the time from Republican politicians that a government-run healthcare system is a bad idea simply because it is government run. The smug rhetorical question is "Do you want the same people that run the Post Office and the DMV running your healthcare?"

I don't understand why there isn't more pushback on that. I do a lot of mailing for my business and I have no problem with how the Post Office operates. As for the DMV, they are slightly more of hassle, but not very frequent. DMV is a state deal anyway.

My parent's and my wife's parents are on Medicare and they are perfectly happy with it. On the other hand, my health insurance company has been far more hassle than the Post Office and the DMV combined.  My push back on the Republicans is "Why would someone prefer a private health insurer over a government run healthcare program? Why would someone want to trust decisions concerning life, death and health to an outfit with a profit motive?"

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/25/limbaugh-women/

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Call me crazy, but why is the government bailing out financial institutions that turn around and lobby against financial system reform legislation? One notion that has been creeping up on me for the past several months is that financial institutions  that are "too big to fail" should be allowed to fail and legislation passed to prevent them from getting so big again. I freely admit that this might be an emotional reaction that should be dismissed upon more serious and informed reflection, but it's starting to feel right to me.

As a life-long Illinois resident, I'm getting a bit tired of Harry Reid. First he says he won't seat Roland Burris because any Blagojevich appointment couldn't possibly represent the people of Illinois, as if he has any standing on that issue. Now, as it turns out, Reid apparently called Blagojevich to oppine that he didn't think Jessee Jackson Jr., Emil Jones or Danny Davis were suitable selections. Harry Reid can kiss my ass. I hope he has a primary opponent in 2010. If he does I'm writing him a check.

I don't know what's really going to happen, but what I want is the New Deal and the Great Society all rolled into one; Oh yea, and a way to pay for it; with a cherry on top please.

What the hell was that? Palin winked at the camera like she was inviting America to the champaign room. I think the snap polls demonstrated that serious voters concluded that they would have rather heard about Palin's positions on the issues than be hit on.

Are we trading a chance for universal health care, infrastructure improvements, tax cuts for the middle class, etc. for socializing the U.S. financial system? In other words, do Senator Obama's plans now go down the tubes because we will be spending most of a trillion dollars to bailout Wall Street? Do the Republicans now win no matter who wins the presidential election because there will be no money for progressive initiatives?

I have a real bad feeling about all this.