Wednesday Open Thread [1.9.13]

When can you say an idea is gaining momentum? The WSJ had an essay on Saturday calling the War on Drugs a Failure. To be sure, this essay did not appear on the famously wingnutty WSJ Opinion page, but still. I'm intrigued by these articles that point out the high cost of some of our worst social decisions -- it is looking like we are trying to give ourselves permission to get smarter and stop throwing so much money down the drain:

Jake Tapper Signing Books in Wilmington on 14 January

On Monday, (next Monday!) January 14th, Jake Tapper (from ABC News, now at CNN)) will be in Wilmington signing books and participating in an event to discuss the topic of this book with 4 of the participants. Tapper has a recent book, called The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. This book tells the story of an attack on an American outpost in Afghanistan -- Compound Outpost Keating -- where 53 American soldiers were attacked by 400 Taliban fighters.

Monday Open Thread [1.7.13]

The Sunday Yack Shows yesterday were full of discussions of Government Shutdown if the GOP doesn't get what it wants to raise the debt ceiling. From here, it looks like they want the Democrats to propose a bunch of budget cuts that the GOP can run against in 2014. Have I got that wrong? As you think about the stupidity of this demand, you might want to read this piece from The Atlantic, which asks, Are People Being Unfair to the House Republicans? Steve LaTourette is interviewed and asked to defend the 112th GOP caucus.

Sunday Open Thread [1.6.13]

Who knew there would be snow and ice this AM? The traffic reports were full of issues, so I stayed home instead of going to Philly today. This is what I've been reading:

Saturday Open Thread [1.5.13]

If you are still recovering from all of the revelry and working on getting back to it on Monday, maybe you'll have some time to sit down with a cup of hot something and read some of these longish pieces from recent publications.

Bipartisan Reading

Ross Douthat's column in the NYT last Saturday recommends that we spend some time in 2013 challenging our political selves by regularly reading from at least one source that is not in your partisan political comfort zone. He reasons that since this is not a national election year, we'll be abit safer reading "across the aisle" (apparently the hyper partisanship dies down in off election years) and end up challenging what we think we know or at least understanding better our political opposites.

Sunday Open Thread [12.30.12]

Looks like we need one of these! We're still in light blogging mode as we all still busy celebrating holidays and friends and family. Personally, this is my favorite time of the year. How are your holidays going?

Sunday Open Thread [12.23.12]

Anyone in the mood for an Open Thread? Most of us are deep into Christmas preparations and celebrations, but if you are touching base with us here, let us know what interests you this weekend. Since it is the Holiday Season here, you can expect posting to be light by the Editors here who are scattered to the four corners of the earth this week. Here are a couple of things that caught my eye while I'm waiting for the cocktail hour:

Mayor Bloomberg Wants the Violence to Stop

NYC's Mayor Bloomberg is mad as hell and he wants Congress and the President to work to stop the gun carnage. He's been at this for awhile, even creating a SuperPAC this past election that (I think) had a more winning track record than the NRA's SuperPAC did. He took to the airwaves today with a room full of victims of gun violence to call for very specific actions from Congress and the President. It is worth every minute to watch this (approx. 6 minutes):

Mental Illness Is A Problem, But It Isn’t The Same As Our Gun Problem

I've been reading a great deal about the Sandy Hook shooting and shooter and have been intrigued by the effort by so very many to try to make this incident be about the astonishing inadequacy of our mental health system. If you read carefully, there aren't any credible diagnoses of Adam Lanza's mental condition (certainly by no one who could make that diagnosis). All there is are reports that he may have been on the ASD spectrum, reports that seem rooted in a comment by the shooter's brother and some comments from classmates of Lanza's. The other thing that is out there is the rationalization -- that somehow it is a given that this person was mentally ill because sane people don't perpetrate this kind of violence. Both of these narratives -- without good support -- help to shift the conversation away from the the plain fact that it is amazingly easy to acquire the means to quickly disrupt a community with massive acts of violence.