Monthly Archives: April 2009

The Times They Are A Changin’

I expect to see gay marriage and marijuana legalized in my lifetime.  (I really liked typing that sentence.)

I’ve been feeling this way for quite some time, and, luckily for me, Nate Silver does the math.

Nate on gay marriage:

Unsurprisingly, there is a very strong correspondence between the religiosity of a state and its propensity to ban gay marriage, with a particular “bonus” effect depending on the number of white evangelicals in the state.

Marriage bans, however, are losing ground at a rate of slightly less than 2 points per year. So, for example, we’d project that a state in which a marriage ban passed with 60 percent of the vote last year would only have 58 percent of its voters approve the ban this year.

By Nate’s calculations almost half of the states would vote against a marriage ban by 2012.  (Delaware would be ready in the year 2011)  I’m not surprised.  And while events can happen to change 538’s model, it won’t alter the outcome, only the time line.  Gay marriage will come to pass, and the main reason for this will be familiarity.  What I mean by familiarity is that in today’s America most people know a gay person.  They are part of our families, friends, and co-workers, and once you know someone stereotyping becomes nearly impossible.  Those people suddenly have names.  Whether you’re gay or straight, it becomes personal.  And personal equals important.  No wonder the far right is yelling louder.  They’re trying to drown out the names of friends and family members being put forth by the opposition.  For their only chance of stopping gay marriage lies in removing the individual from their equation.

Even their battle cry rings hollow.  Sanctity of marriage?  Nobody’s buying it, which leaves the far right preaching to an ever shrinking choir rather than adding converts.  Familiarity has cost this group big time.  No longer can they demonize the gay community through stereotypes, which explains the mantra “love the sinner, hate the sin.”  I remember when this phrase came into the main stream, and hadn’t given it much thought at the time, but now, looking back, I believe this acknowledgment of the individual was the first crack in the anti-gay league’s armor.

Marijuana falls under the familiarity blanket as well, and while, on the surface, it seems a strange to link the two issues there is a correlation.  Nate’s chart on this issue is telling.

More important to the policy debate, however, may be the fraction of adults who have used marijuana at any point in their lifetimes. This is a dual-peaked distribution, with one peak occurring among adults who are roughly age 50 now, and would have come of age in the 1970s, and another among adults in their early 20s.

Used marijuana at any point in their lifetime = familiarity.  Familiarity = Reefer Madness was a joke.  Actually, it was more than a joke – it was a lie.  And it was exposed, which never bodes well when trying to influence behavior.  Once you lie people tend to stop listening.

The interesting thing about both these issues is they cut across generational lines.  Another way of saying that is to realize that younger people are more familiar with gay people and marijuana.  They don’t believe the lies.

So, the times they are a changin’, and I couldn’t be happier.

Breaking: Markell to Conduct Two Town Hall Meetings W/State Employees on Monday

From the Office of the Governor comes word that Gov. Jack Markell will conduct two town hall meetings tomorrow to discuss the proposed state budget with state employees and other interested parties. The meetings are scheduled as follows:

Monday, April 6, 10 a.m.: Governor Markell will hold a town hall meeting with state employees and other citizens to discuss his budget proposal for fiscal 2010, Carvel Office Building Auditorium, 820 N. French St., Wilmington. 

Monday, April 6, 5:30 p.m.: Governor Markell will hold a town hall meeting with state employees and other citizens to discuss his budget proposal for fiscal 2010, Kent County Levy Court Chambers, 555 Bay Road, Dover.

From Despair to Hope. From Hate to Peace.

From hearing about three fathers with children, who also were police officers risking their lives for the public good, being gunned down due to the political hate engulfing a young man; to hearing about five children being killed in Washington State by a cowardly father who then took his own life; to hearing about 14 people hoping for a better future being gunned down by yet another crazed criminal…. well, you begin to despair for the future.

And then you read this.

Elwin Hope Wilson sits in his Tillman Street home, a sad, sickly man haunted by time.
…
Wilson doesn’t have answers for much of how he has lived his life — not for all the black people he beat up, not for all the venom he spewed, not for all the time wasted in hate. Now 72 and ailing, his body swollen by diabetes, Wilson is spending as many hours pondering his past as he is his mortality.

The former Ku Klux Klan supporter says he wants to apologize for hanging a black doll in a noose at the end of his drive, for flinging cantaloupes at black men walking down Main Street, for once hurling a jack handle at a black kid, for brutally beating a 21-year-old seminary student at the bus station in 1961.

In the final chapter of his life, Wilson is seeking forgiveness. The burly clock collector wants to be saved before he hears his last chime. And so Wilson has spent recent months apologizing to “the people I had trouble with.” He has embraced black men his own age, at the same lunch counter where once they were denied service and hauled off to jail. Wilson has carried his apology into black churches where he has unburdened it in prayer. And he has taken it to Washington, to the office of U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta, the civil rights leader whose face Wilson smashed at the Greyhound bus station during the famed Freedom Rides 48 years ago.

The article is long and is worth the read. We all joke that “Hope” is President Obama’s middle name. Well Hope is Mr. Wilson’s middle name, and he just gave me tons of it. For the evil and hate in this world, there is also forgiveness, love, and hope. It is one of my firm beliefs, as both a liberal and a Catholic, that anyone can be redeemed. Yes, even Mr. Wilson, who in the article doubts where he should or will be forgiven. I hope Mr. Wilson has found peace in the final chapter of his life. I hope others can find it at the beginning of theirs.

Words Have Impact

For people like Dave Burris, politics is just a big game.   When he pushed the GOP’s secessionist uprising talk on his blog, Delaware politics, he probably thought nobody would take that silly bit of GOP agitprop very seriously.  He probably thought that  a little tough talking gamesmanship was called for given the sad shape of GOP.

Who knows. What Dave honestly thinks about the secessionist uprising talk that he promoted on his blog is between Dave and God.

We can know this, however. We can know that some people who hear the rightwing secessionist uprising talk take it very seriously. I’ve always known that, but when I read the following quote I felt like I was punched in the gut.  

“We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty,” said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. “One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public.”

I’m certain that reading that quote today has no impact on Dave.   Being able to imagine that your game playing has no impact in the real world is a essential skill for Republicans.

Meanwhile, three fathers have been taken away from their children and three families have been introduced to Republican game playing.

The Fringe Goes Mainstream

A picture speaks a thousand words.

Gosh, he looks like a normal young man. Like any twenty-two year old out there.

From the Pittsburgh Post Gazzette:

Richard Andrew Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry.
…
“He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples’ right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill,” said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski’s lifelong best friend.

Mr. Poplawski’s view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.

“We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty,” said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. “One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public.”

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

Around the same time, he joined Florida-based Stormfront, which has long been a clearinghouse Web site for far-right groups. He posted photographs of his tattoo, an eagle spread across his chest.

“I was considering gettin’ life runes on the outside of my calfs,” he wrote. Life runes are a common symbol among white supremacists, notably followers of The National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group linked to an array of violent organizations.

I am desperate to believe Mr. Poplawski is just a violent, disturbed young man. But if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Alex Jones, you begin to realize that the fringe has a very large population. I am very curious to hear Rush et al tomorrow. If this was truly the fringe, there will be a very concerted attempt tomorrow to distance themselves and the conservative movement from the murderous Mr. Poplawski. There would be unqualified condemnation. And if we hear that tomorrow, I will take this all back and admit I am wrong.

But, given the calls to armed revolution and of rights being suppressed somehow due to stimulus spending (and I will never understand the logical connection there) from such mainstream Republicans and conservatives like Representative Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck, I am doubtful. Instead, while we will not hear a defense of his actions, I bet we will hear attacks on liberals and the Obama administration for their alleged plans to take Mr. Poplawski’s guns or curtail his rights. I will bet we will hear attacks on the media for covering this story, “all in the guise of ginning up pressure to take guns.” For that is what has happened before. After Columbine. After other of the many shootings and massacres performed by those on the fringe.

And isn’t that an excuse? And if you are excusing, you are not condemning. And if you making excuses, then the fringe goes mainstream.

Read All About It in the Sunday Papers-April 5, 2009

LEAD STORY-BOSTON GLOBE: Bush Steered Investors Involuntarily into Risky Funds With Predictably Disastrous Results

There comes a point where you have you ask yourself, as Keith Olbermann has, whether the Bush Administration deliberately set out to destroy the country. There’s almost no other explanation for stories like this.

Shortly before the first signs of the stock market collapse, the Bush administration made a crucial decision that has propelled an estimated one to two million workers into stock-heavy retirement funds.

Many of the funds in which workers were automatically enrolled dropped more than 25 percent last year, while a more conservative investment strategy rejected by the Bush administration would have resulted in a gain of 4.7 percent.

The administration’s decisions came in response to a congressional mandate to encourage more workers to participate in company-sponsored retirement savings plans. The Bush administration came up with a rule that enabled businesses to automatically enroll their workers in tax-free 401(k) retirement plans.

If the workers failed to specify how they wanted their money invested, the company would be required by law to place their retirement money in investment funds that, for the most part, relied heavily on stocks. The administration specifically rejected calls for a more conservative investment option.

Read the entire excellent article by Michael Kranish, especially the response by the Bush Administration Undersecretary of Labor who concocted this monstrosity, and try not to let your blood boil.

BTW, a big El Somnambulo Tip of the Sombrero to the Boston Globe editors for not using the hed: NYTimes to Globe: Drop Dead. The Times, which owns the Globe, is using strongarm tactics to wring even more concessions from already tapped-out workers. 

Washington Post: Afghan Law Pits Tradition vs. Progress?

A nuanced article about the new law that appears to codify female subjugation to the husband. The law still sucks, but you’ll learn a lot about the societal/cultural pulls and tugs that led to it.

Miami Herald: The Pill Mills of Broward County

An incredible story by Scott Hiassen about so-called pain clinics dispensing millions of pills to people who drive to south Florida from all over the country. DEA officers can only watch in disbelief:

”Out of State Patients Welcome,” blares a recent ad for A1 Pain in Fort Lauderdale. ”No Wait for Walk-Ins,” another clinic’s ad says. One doctor offers a $25 gasoline coupon to the weary, pain-afflicted traveler.

And the travelers come — by the thousands, narcotics investigators say, from Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Massachusetts and other states. Prospective pill buyers sometimes camp outside clinics overnight, waiting for the doors to open, said Hollywood police Capt. Allen Siegel, director of a South Broward narcotics task force.

”Broward County has become the Colombia for pharmaceutically diverted drugs,” Siegel said. “We’re supplying everywhere.”

The number of pain clinics in South Florida has ballooned from 60 to 150 in just the past year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates. Broward alone has 89 clinics, Siegel said.

Pain management with narcotics is recognized as a legitimate medical practice to quell chronic pain for those with injuries or conditions like arthritis. But investigators and health advocates say many of these clinics are merely pill mills where doctors feed narcotics to 65 patients a day or more.

”This medicine is about profit-making,” said Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Miami office. “I hate to call them doctors. These people are just out to make money.”

A single physician can dispense hundreds of thousands of pills. In the last six months of 2008, Trouville said, just 45 South Florida doctors dispensed nearly nine million pills of oxycodone — a favorite among drug addicts and traffickers.

Experts blame these clinics for a startling rise in prescription-drug overdose deaths in Florida, including a 107 percent jump in oxycodone deaths in two years.

”The rate [of overdoses] is just incredible,” said George Hime, assistant director of toxicology for the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office. “It is the new epidemic of drug abuse.”

Yet, regulators and police can’t control the problem — handcuffed, they say, by tepid Florida laws that allow these clinics to open in-house pharmacies and sell drugs directly to clients walking in off the street, even from far-away states.

”We are source-supplying many other states. This is literally embarrassing,” Sgt. Lisa McElhaney of the Broward Sheriff’s Office told a recent meeting of a county drug task force. “The system has enabled this.”

This is about as much of an excerpt that ‘bulo can provide, considering fair use. The article is lengthy but will draw you in right away. Highly-recommended.

New York Times: Trying to Teach Empathy to Spoiled Rich Junior High Kids

The Beast Who Slumbers’ opinion? Without 6 years at a Quaker school already under their belts, it ain’t happenin’. Still the educators on this board might have a different opinion. Read the article, and share your opinions. ‘Bulo promises to be ‘nothing if not empathetic’. Warning: ‘Bulo did not attend Quaker school.

San Francisco Chronicle: Electric Car Industry Thrives in…India. Seriously.

While the bodacious Tata Nano (be honest, you wouldn’t have passed up such a cheap joke either) is  both the world’s cheapest car and a gas-guzzler :

…India’s other automotive innovation – the Reva-i – has quietly become the world’s best-selling electric car, with support from two Northern California firms.

The Maini Group, the Bangalore company that manufactures the car, used $20 million in seed money from three venture capital firms, including Menlo Park’s Draper Fisher Jurveston, and motor-control devices from Livermore’s Curtis Instruments to produce the nearly silent, plug-in vehicle.

“It was a collaborate effort,” said Chetan Maini, the company’s chief technology officer.

The Reva-i is not yet available in the United States. Like many European models, strict safety and testing regulations make the price of entering the U.S. market prohibitively expensive. But once it meets U.S. standards, it would cost much less than GM’s Volt, the highly anticipated electric-gas vehicle scheduled to hit showrooms next year at between $30,000 and $40,000, and the $57,400 Tesla Model S all electric four-door sedan expected to be ready by 2012.

The Banglalore company hopes its newest model, due in May, the L-ion, will pass U.S. regulations. “Our next-generation products might be able to fit that bill,” said Maini.

In the meantime, the Reva-i is being marketed mainly in Europe to affluent, environmentally conscious, urban drivers who commute to work and own a home. The car must be plugged in at the end of each day, making it a logistical hurdle for those without a house and garage.

 

Dallas Morning News: National Memory Champion Teaches You How To Find Your Car Keys Every Time!

He hails from Eulus, TX (or is that Euless? Or Useless? ‘Bulo’s already forgotten). He may be kind-of a jerk, but he has some real cool suggestions on improving your memory skills. And the article’s worth it just for the visual of the ‘nose on the stove’.   The Beast Who Slumbers may have a lousy memory, but he knows how to entice people to click on an article…unless Tom Waits’ name is involved.


What We Need Around Here Are Better Restaurants and a Decent Tax Base

I don’t know if gay people find this patronizing (so let me know my gay peeps and I’ll stop) but Smyrna Delaware is in desperate need of a thriving gay population.   According to this kos diary – it seems Iowa is thinking the same thing.  

Iowa Democrats have long argued that making the state more tolerant will help the local economy.  Today the Des Moines Register has two articles on the possible new economic benefits coming to the only gay marriage state without a residency requirement.

Unlike Connecticut and Massachusetts – the other states that permit gay marriage – Iowa has no nearby competitors for same-sex couples who want to marry.

Businesses could see $160 million in new wedding and tourism spending over the next three years, according to a study from researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles.

…The study predicts that 2,917 same-sex Iowa couples will wed in the three years after the marriages are allowed to proceed. In addition, nearly 55,000 out-of-state couples could come to Iowa to get married, the study found.

Iowa: Housing is cheap, schools are great, and Democrats run the show.

Does the News Journal enable hate?

I read the Letters to the Editor now like any typical fan of the National Enquirer does.  With disgust, shock and disbelief.  What I think surprises me the most is the letters that the News Journal posts.  I have seen letters that mock the President with flat out lies. I have seen letters that suggest taxing makeup like cigarette’s are taxed. I really don’t understand what the benefit to the paper is to publish some of the hateful, uneducated and uniformed letters.  Here is the latest letter they published:


Bleeding-heart paper should publish all salaries

April 5, 2009
If The News Journal is going to print salaries of all state employees’ positions, when will they post how much people are getting for state assistance? They have posted salaries in the past of teachers and other state employees who work overtime.

How about printing the names of everyone on welfare, food stamps and Medicaid? That way, all the paying citizens of Delaware know who is getting our tax money to help support them. Better yet, the bleeding-heart liberal newspaper might as well just print everyone’s salary who lives in Delaware.

Robert Kunicki, Newark

QOM

Do you have a Sunday morning ritual?  Something you find yourself doing every Sunday Morning without fail?

White Trash and Proud.

Exhibit A: Former potential son-in-law and grandbaby daddy Levi Johnston went on Tyra Banks’ show to proclaim that he and Bristol had safe sex “most of the time,” and baby Trip must have been the result of a “wardrobe malfunction.” LOL. Sarah Palin whipped out a response:

“Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship. Bristol’s focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence. It is unfortunate that Levi finds it more appealing to exploit his previous relationship with Bristol than to contribute to the well being of the child. Bristol realizes now that she made a mistake in her relationship and is the one taking responsibility for their actions.”

Hahahaha. First, the Governor, as a smart politician, should learn that sometimes it is best just not to comment. Does it befit the Republican frontrunner for the Presidency to respond personally to every stupid comment Levi makes? If you ignore it, the comments fade into ether. Indeed, the public already knows Bristol had sex with Levi. That cat is out of the bag. Second, your daughter, as a mother in her own right now, can really speak for herself. If she wants to advocate for abstinence, then she can do so with her own voice, and not have her mother speak for her. In fact, it is really her that should respond to Levi’s comments, not her Governor mother. Third, in responding with such venom towards Levi and his family, by calling Levi an irresponsible father, you have just escalated a battle that should have just faded into ether.

This whole back and forth has gives Sarah Palin the image of a middle aged white trash mother with her hair in curlers and in a housecoat running from the trailer after the boyfriend.

Exhibit B: Sarah Palin’s sister in law was just arrested and charged with two counts of felony burglary and misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and theft, for allegedly breaking into the same home twice to steal approximately $400.

I continue to pray every night that the Republican Party nominates Sarah Palin in 2012. Manna from heaven.

Right-Wing Gun Nut Kills 3 Pittsburgh Police

Some info on the 22-year-old gunman who killed 3 Pittsburgh police, Richard “Pop” Poplawski, who wore a bulletproof vest while mowing down the officers:

Mr. Perkovic and other former classmates said they were surprised by this morning’s events. Mr. Perkovic said Mr. Poplawski was opposed to “Zionist propaganda” (sound familiar?) and was fearful that his right to own weapons would be taken away but he wasn’t a member of an organized group or militia.

“He always said that if someone tried to take his weapons away he would do what his forefathers told him to do and defend himself.”

Another friend, Aaron Vire, 23, said he’d helped Mr. Poplawski and Mr. Perkovic with a radio show they’d broadcast on the Internet, discussing “politics, girls and life.”

Mr. Poplawski had supported Republican candidate John McCain in the presidential election and had “very spirited debates” about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Mr. Vire said. Mr. Poplawski was opposed to Mr. Obama’s election, which he thought would result in the loss of his rights, Mr. Vire said.

Mr. Poplawski told him he bought his guns “because he felt the quality of life was being diminished,” Mr. Vire said.

All ‘bulo can say is, 2nd Amendment, his bleeping butt!