The Republic of T.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 27th through May 28th:

• When ‘colorblindness’ isn’t colorblind –
• George Lakoff: Obama's Missing Moral Narrative –
• US cuts will perpetuate child abuse | Seema Jilani –
• Case for a Moral Imperative –
• Welcome to Arizona: “It’s a Dry Hate …” –
• Was the Shocking Murder of a Brave Abortion Provider Really the Work of a ‘Lone Wolf’? –
• Defending Our Natural Resources From Presidents and Profits –
• The Michael Jordan of Bailouts –
• Remembering Dr. Tiller. –
• Rove finally admits Bush really blew it during Katrina –

The Jobs Deficit & The Breaking Point, Part II

The deficit fear mongers are right: America is facing a deficit that threatens to cripple our economy and foreclose on the futures of millions of Americans. They just have the wrong deficit. That’s the reality we’ll address at America’s Future Now!: America faces two deficits, and must decide which is most important to address now. Prioritizing one will enable us to address the other in the long term. Prioritizing the other will eliminate hope of addressing the first one at all.

In other words, we face a choice between a better future for all Americans, and oblivion. Right now, our political leaders are choosing  oblivion. Here’s how we’re going to pay for it.

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Like the college professor he is, Dr. Bernard Anderson, member of the National Urban League President’s Council of Economic Advisors, came to this weeks "Putting America Back To Work" forum with three points he wanted those gathered to take away with them.

1. The depth and breadth of the economic crisis has worsened, increasing racial disparities, and threatening to wipe out gains made towards reducing those disparities in the 1990s.
2. The unemployment crisis reflects a structural change in our economy. The link between job creation and economy growth has been weakened. Economic growth no longer results in job creation. Thus in recent recessions we have experienced the phenomenon of "jobless recovery."
3. Direct public job creation is imperative to economic recovery.

All three points could serve as a starting point for discussion, and the relationships between them aren’t hard to understand. But Dr. Anderson’s second point stuck with me, as I left the forum on Tuesday, as the first point seemed to be a symptom of the second, and the third point was necessitated by the second.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 25th through May 26th:

• Plug the Damn Hole –
• Blame Clinton, Not Paul –
• What if the oil spill just can’t be fixed? –
• EPA Should Ban BP –
• The arc of history bends just a little more –
• Christine Pelosi: Time for a BP Summit –
• Sorry, But the ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010′ Will Do No Such Thing –
• Why Ethnic Studies Are Good for America –

Crossposted from OurFuture.Org

“I have worked all my life.”

It’s something that’s true of many Americans, whether employed or unemployed. But it has a special resonance for Americans who have worked hard, and are wiling to work, but face a jobless recovery. These are Americans whose needs and concerns will get special attention during a jobs plenary at America’s Future Now! in Washington starting June 7.

“I have worked all my life.”

That was the phrase most often repeated by the seven citizens who testified at the “Putting America Back To Work: Direct Job Creation in Local Communities” forum, sponsored by Campaign for Community Change and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The forum was intended to rally support for the Local Jobs For America Act (HR 4812) — which would:

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• Splicd · Get Straight To The Point
  (tags: youtube video tools)

(If They Could Turn Back Time, Pt. 2)

When I heard Rand Paul’s statement about the civil rights act, I had a sense of deja vu. Not only that I’d heard them before, but that I run into the peculiar conservative phenomenon they represented: wanting have it both ways on an issue when conservative “values” are “repulsive to the mainstream,” and to most people’s sense of decency. It usually happens when they’re caught saying what they mean, and then claim to have been misunderstood, “taken out of context,” or merely speaking in a “hypothetical” sense.

Until Rand Paul though, I’d only ever heard it spoken aloud on the subject of marriage equality. At the time, it was Sen. John McCain’s response to a question about marriage equality, saying that he was fine with same-sex couples having “private ceremonies” but against marriage equality.

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Race & Reality, Pt. 2

When the jobs-focused plenary panel at America’s Future Now convenes— with Angela Glover-Blackwell, Rich Trumka, Jared Bernstein, and Bob Herbert — it’s likely they will continue a discussion America desperately needs, and that tea party conservatives  wants desperately not to hear. It’s time, past time, to address the black and brown “canaries” in our economic coal mine, by protecting the social safety net and taking direct action to create jobs.

Less than six months ago, leaders of six progressive groups came together to warn that the country’s jobs crisis could cause severe and lasting damage to generations of Americans — especially people of color — unless immediate action was taken. That warning came with a notice that the African American and Latino canaries in our economic coal mine were in poor shape.

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• Living Wage Calculator – Introduction to the Living Wage Calculator
  (tags: money statistics reference finance economics)

I wonder what Lena Horne would say to Miss USA Rima Fakih.

Much has been written and will be written about Fakih’s pageant win. Not being a big fan of beauty pageants, I didn’t watch this one. So, my thoughts about it are pretty simple: Obviously, she met all the qualifications to participate in the competition, and lacking an ability to read the minds of the judges I can only assume she met and likely exceeded their standards for beauty and poise, and thus beat out her opponents. Leave her alone and let her enjoy her year-long reign.

On one hand it seems silly — given the unresolved fate of financial reform, the BP oil disaster, and any number of issues — that so much attention is being given to the outcome of the outcome of a beauty pageant. On the other hand, after while it made perfect sense to me. Because I thought of Lena Horne.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 20th from 10:52 to 15:56:

• Robert Greenwald: Arizona Police Officer Speaks Out: Anti-Latino Law Makes Him "Feel Like a Nazi" –
• Jake Berliner: The Practical and Economic Bankruptcy of Rand Paul's Lunch Counter Libertarianism –
• Republicans pressed on reactions to Rand Paul –
• More on 'Just Libertarianism?' –
• Ellen Bravo | Women’s Stake in Fighting Arizona’s New Law –
• Rand Who? –
• The Sacrifices We Makes –
• Rand Paul And “The Hard Part About Freedom.” –
• Rand Paul On Civil Rights Controversy: I Shouldn't Have Talked To Rachel Maddow –
• Will Anyone Be Held Responsible for the Economic Crisis? –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 18th through May 20th:

• The Unbearable Lightness of Rand Paul. –
• Freedom as White Supremacy –
• Michael Tomasky: Rand Paul is going to be fun –
• The Proud Ignorance of Rand Paul –
• The Very Bad Luck of The Irish –
• Op-Ed Columnist: Poverty in Africa and the Pill –
• GOP Blocks Three Key Anti-Wall Street Amendments –
• We Must Force Obama to Stick to His Deadline to Withdraw From Iraq –
• One Thousand Dead Americans in Afghanistan –
• Perhaps 'class' is the wrong word –

• RT @OurFuturedotorg Mamas, Don't Let Your Baby's Grow Up To Be Banksters | OurFuture.org http://bit.ly/cHoBmV #

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 17th through May 18th:

• Constructive Populism –
• The Sex Life Of Antonin Scalia –
• Turning Into a Banner Day –
• Rage Against the Machine –
• Why Job Creation Agencies Stay Off the Table –
• Susie Hoeller: Break Up the Harvard/Yale Monopoly on the Supreme Court –
• To Halt Emotional Abuse, French Law Teaches Bullies a Lesson –
• Time to Save the Middle Class –
• Where’s the will to get Americans back to work? –
• Where’s the Recovery? –

So much for telling kids to "always tell the truth." It turns out, toddlers who tell lies do better as adults. Whether this is surprising news about child development, or a sad statement about the kind of society we live in depends on how you define "better."

On one hand, the study of 1,200 children, conducted by the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University, found that it means the kiddies have reached an developmental milestone — because lying, and lying well, is a sign of high cognitive development.

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It’s official. I’m getting older. It started, actually, a year ago. I went to my annual eye exam, and the doctor told me that I was just starting to show a touch of presbyopia.

Presbyopia usually occurs beginning at around age 40, when people experience blurred near vision when reading, sewing or working at the computer.

You can’t escape presbyopia, even if you’ve never had a vision problem before. Even people who are nearsighted will notice that their near vision blurs when they wear their usual eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct distance vision.

Presbyopia is widespread in the United States. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, over 135 million Americans were age 40 and older in 2008, and the country is growing older: The median age reached 36.8 in 2008, up 1.5 years since 2000. This growing number of older citizens generates a huge demand for eyewear, contact lenses and surgery that can help presbyopes deal with their failing near vision.

Apparently, the knees are not the first to go. Not always.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 12th from 16:15 to 21:26:

• Chris Weigant: Republicans Boycott Arizona? –
• “Limbaugh can play with himself” –
• Majority Of Americans Oppose Open Carrying Of Loaded Firearms (POLL) –
• Republicans Take a Pass on Arizona –
• Steve King: Gays Wouldn't Face Discrimination If They Didn't 'Wear Their Sexuality On Their Sleeve' –
• The most dangerous amendment to Wall Street reform has four Democratic co-sponsors –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 11th through May 12th:

• Equality Leads to Marriage Boom in DC –
• A Truly Touching Moment (Must Read) –
• A Little Hypocrisy Goes a Long Way –
• Op-Ed Columnist: The Evil of Lesser Evilism –
• GOP reconsiders the importance of empathy –
• What If BP Were A Human Being? –
• Verify, Baby, Verify! –
• Is Obama Serious About Ending the War on Drugs? –
• How to turn Congress Inc. back to just Congress –
• Arizona and the alien-nation of America –

My initial reaction to Ross Douthat’s (whose name I habitually mispronounce as “Ross Doubt-that”) recent New York Times column was to roll my eyes.

Fifty years ago, American family structures were remarkably uniform. The rich married at roughly the same rate as the poor and middle class. Divorce rates were low for the college educated and high school graduates alike. Out-of-wedlock births, while more common among African-Americans, were rare in almost every region and community.

That was a long time ago. The intact two-parent family has been in eclipse for decades now: last week, the Pew Research Center reported that in 2008, 41 percent of American births occurred outside of marriage, the highest figure yet recorded. And from divorce rates to teen births, nearly every indicator of family life now varies dramatically by education, race, geography and income.

It wasn’t until I reread the beginning paragraphs that I realized why.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for May 10th through May 11th:

• Work History –
• Without more job creation, more incumbent politicians will lose theirs –
• Editorial: The Anthem Saga –
• He’s your president not your boyfriend –
• The White House Should Stop Pandering to the Street and Support Three Critical Banking Reforms –
• Elena Kagan: From trailblazer to less of a big deal –
• When You Meet the Boogeyman, Offer Him Your Finest Whiskey –
• Regulators Let Industry Drill Deeper, Despite Safety Concerns and Unproven Fixes –
• Be the Math –
• BP: From Oil Spilling to Financial Reform Killing –