Those pesky founding fathers. You’d think guys who so long ago shuffled off that old mortal coil would find it harder to surprise us. With them safely dead for so long, you’d think we could easily appropriate and their past and politics in support of our own, without fear of contradiction.
You’d be wrong. It turns out the founding fathers supported socialized medicine.
(Or, An Ounce of Treatment, Pt.2)
I don’ think this is what anyone meant by “Calgon, take me away.” (Ed. Note: I know the bath salts in question are in no way associated with Calgone bath beads or other products. It just seemed like a good line.)
When Neil Brown got high on bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven’t been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Snow, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts, with their complex chemical names, are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale. Some say their effects can be as powerful as those of methamphetamine.
From the Deep South to California, emergency calls are being reported over exposure to the stimulants the powders often contain: mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV.
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, a rapid heart rate and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. In addition to bath salts, the chemicals can be found in plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren’t necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.
Still, I’m not sure that banning bath salts is the answer.
You’ve probably seen the news reports about what happened to the metro-DC area this week. But here’s a reminder.
Yes. we were out in the middle of that.
After getting some concerns off my rest re: the shooting in Tucson, I’ve been reading what everyone else is saying, and I’m kind of amazed at the conservatives attempt at the “Both sides do it,” argument. To be sure, people on both sides do go to extremes, but beyond that it’s a false equivalency. Of course, I’m not the first to point this out.
The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.
And it’s the saturation of our political discourse – and especially our airwaves – with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
So, rather than repeat what everyone else has said, I thought I’d do a video timeline.
To hear some progressive bloggers tell it, Paul Ryan’s response to President Obama’s State of the Union address was an utter failure, and the GOP blundered in picking him to carry its message. But the true measure of a speech’s success is how well the speaker reaches the intended audience, with the intended effect. Given the job of reaching two audiences — reassuring one of the purity of his politics, while allaying the fears of the other about the likely results of his politics — Ryan may well have succeeded by appearing to fail.
Two years into his first term, President Obama can claim credit for two passing historic reforms — health care reform and financial reform. However, both were merely a beginning — a first step toward real reform — and fell far short of addressing effectively the crises devastating our families and communities. In his State of the Union address, Obama must defend those first steps to reform, and make the case for extending them particularly financial reform. It is imperative to defend and extend financial reform, to prevent and protect us from the next financial crisis.
For the second time today, I find myself going back to Matt Yglesias’ blog. This time for some surprising news about AOL.
In his big New Yorker profile on AOL this week, Ken Auletta explained that 80% of the company’s profits STILL come from AOL’s subscription business.
What’s troubling about AOL’s subscription business is who the subscribers are and why they may be sticking around – in Auletta’s words, "older people who have cable or DSL service but don’t realize that they need not pay an additional $25 a month to get online and check their email."
A former AOL exec explains that this is AOL’s "dirty little secret" – "that 75% of the people who subscribe to AOL’s dial-up service don’t need it."
AOL’s subscriber revenues during Q3 2010 were $244 million on 4 million customers.
Wait a minute. AOL still has subscribers?
Via Matt Yglesias comes this interesting bit from Ann Friedman on straight men and support networks.
From an early age, most women are socialized to be more nurturing and relationship-oriented than men, so perhaps this isn’t surprising. My guess is that homophobia also plays a huge role. Men are taught to perceive intimacy with other men as gay. You can see it in trend stories about "man-dates" and movies about male friendship, which often veer pretty quickly from depictions of platonic affection to defensive homophobia. There’s even a social stigma attached to cross-gender friendships. Just ask Slate‘s Juliet Lapidos and her best friend, Jeff. Or me and my bestie Josh. (No, he’s not gay. No, I’m not gay. No, we’ve never dated. Yes, we are super tight.) If all of these relationships are socially off-limits, who’s a man to befriend?
I thought about this gender gap in support networks when I read the Times article about Jared Loughner. For all of the explanations that have been offered for his actions — a culture that glorifies violence, easy access to guns, poor access to mental health care — Loughner’s lack of a strong emotional and social support network has not been a prominent part of the post-tragedy narrative. It’s been taken as a given that this young man was a loner. We’ve come to expect that perpetrators of headline-dominating acts of violence will be young, single, heterosexual men like Loughner.
There are consequences to the fact that many men don’t have the social support they need and deserve. I think this is changing as our societal understanding of gender evolves. But it’s changing slowly. I, for one, can’t wait until bromance is not just a punchline but a part of every dude’s life.
As a gay man, I find myself on both sides of this one.
Michael Tomasky points to this…
The chief investigator for the sheriff’s department here has for the first time publicly described the brief and gory video clip from a store security camera that shows a gunman not only shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords just above the eyebrow at a range of three feet, but then using his 9-millimeter pistol to gun down others near her at a similarly close range.
…The crucial video showing the shooting of Ms. Giffords, Judge Roll and Mr. Barber lasts only about five seconds before the gunman steps out of the frame.
At the start of the clip, it shows the “suspect coming from just outside of the frame of the video toward the parking lot,” Mr. Kastigar said. “He goes around a table set up for part of that gathering and walks up to Gabby and shoots her directly in the forehead.” It was not clear from this video, he said, if Ms. Giffords realized what was happening.
The gunman “then turns to his left and indiscriminately shoots at people sitting in chairs along the wall,” he said. The video does not show those people being shot, he said. But quickly the gunman is back in the video, which shows him turning to his right and shooting Mr. Barber, who had been with Judge Roll “standing side by side with the table to their backs.”
…And asks, “Should we see the video?”
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for January 18th from 08:00 to 18:08:
During the presidential campaign, Republicans enjoyed poking fun at Obama’s “Yes, We Can,” campaign slogan. Most often they simply restated it as “No, You Can’t.” However, the GOP majority in the House is setting out to exemplify its own slogan: “No, We Can’t.”
The “We” in this case is the same “We” Obama spoke of with his slogan — the collective “We,” encompassing all Americans. “No, We Can’t,” however reflects the GOP’s emphatic belief that when it comes to the challenges we face — from health care to climate change and then some — there’s just nothing we can, or should, do.
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for January 17th through January 18th:
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for January 16th through January 17th:
I’ve confessed before my penchant for “true crime” shows. I still love Law & Order, and all its spawn, and my viewing habits also include shows like Criminal Minds, The First 48, 48 Hours on ID, Dateline, Deadly Women, Disappeared, I Almost Got Away With It, Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?, etc. I must also confess, though, that I’ve seen so many of these shows, that now it often takes me just minutes to spot a crime story I’ve seen on one show being “recycled” on another. When I do, I watch anyway.
I think my interest in crime shows stems from my interest in human psychology, and a curiosity about criminal psychology and how the “criminal mind” works. But I’m also interested in how the human mind works, and the spectacular ways in which it can go awry. This leads to a whole other genre of television.
I call it “Psych TV.”
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for January 10th through January 14th:
Everyone either wondered what the President would say, or knew what he should say. Now we know what he did say.
It may be the finest speech he’s given as president, thus far.
In the aftermath of the tragic Tucson, AZ, shooting that left six dead, and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D, AZ-8) hospitalized, much has been said and written about the degree to which incendiary rhetoric motivated the shooter. However, caustic rhetoric isn’t the real danger.
Like Molotov cocktails, fiery rhetoric is intended to spark fires. But a spark that falls on bare ground quickly burns out. To start a fire, a spark needs fuel. It needs kindling — material that burns quickly and easily — to start and spread a fire. The conditions created by the economic crisis have surrounded us with kindling, awaiting a spark to ignite a conflagration.
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OK. I have at least a couple of posts about the Tucson shooting that left at least two dead and Rep. Gabriel Gifford’s in critical condition. I might even finish writing one of them before the story is no longer news. (But not before everything has been said.)
But I can’t let this wait.
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
I was never one of those who claim “there’s no such thing as bisexuality.” I’ve known too many bisexuals to buy that the “don’t exist.” So, I’m not surprised that a study now indicates there is too such a thing as bisexuality. In men, that is.
Apparently, it’s hard to build a successful television show around someone who’s (a) unlikeable and (b) had no discernible talent beyond reproducing.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
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