What should [...]]]> I agree with the arguments at Ways to End the World (here and here) that Tucker should have to turn in his pundit car keys for his interview at MSNBC.  Of course, his assholery mostly exists in the tone of his statements, without a “nappy-headed hos” smoking gun, so I think he’s safe.  Sadly.

What should be noted about this incident, however, is that it comes from “the least anti-gay right winger you’ll ever meet.”  Which mean the best that gay people can expect from the Republicans is to be hit on the head and then arrested.  What a deal.

I know that articles like the one I linked to must address the world as it is and not the way some feminazi goddess might like it to [...]]]> The post, “Children and Careers”, over at Echidne of the Snakes takes issue with this old Washington Post article that I also found problematic. Here’s the conclusion:

I know that articles like the one I linked to must address the world as it is and not the way some feminazi goddess might like it to be. I also know that many of the readers are struggling with the same issues and want to read about the costs and benefits to these women. But the issue is always framed as having to do with mothers alone. Not the society, not the fathers, not the way we structure work. Just mothers are to bear the total burden on their shoulders. Even if it means that there will be no women of child-bearing age in Congress.

Exactly.  The topic is legitimate, but it’s framed to reinforce the underlying patriarchy, not challenge it.  As far as women and their little, so called  “careers” go, my wife says the solution is for all women to have them.  Then no man would have a housewife at home to make his lunch and watch his kids.  That and men need to reclaim domesticity (or be forced to reclaim domesticity), because as long as women have to do everything, they’re screwed.

*Yeah, the title doesn’t quite work, but I just know there’s a pun in there somewhere.  Still working on it…

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa.

And I’ve been thinking about this off and on for the last few weeks. (Yes, this is where I brandish my true-nerd membership card and reveal my previous life as a [...]]]> So this year’s High School Policy Debate topic is:

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa.

And I’ve been thinking about this off and on for the last few weeks. (Yes, this is where I brandish my true-nerd membership card and reveal my previous life as a (mediocre to moderately successful) debater. Note, though, that I continue to follow the ‘bater scene because my father is a coach, not because I can’t let go of my youth. So there.)

Now, it bothers me that most kid’s (or adult’s for that matter) exposure to Africa is limited to the “Save-A-Child!” commercials and news reports of famine, pandemic, or genocide. And that my geographer wife was once asked “So…is Africa a country…or a continent?” And that a fellow engineer couldn’t imagine what work they could find over there.

[internal roar] It’s a continent of nearly one billion people. They are rich and poor, healthy and sick, urban and rural, and yes, they do have buildings big enough to require an engineer. You Morons.

I wish depictions of Africa in the media and in school curriculum reflected the whole place. It might even help us with racial stereotypes in this country.

But, putting that criticism aside, I feel this topic is problematic, because, unless there’s a trade-off, of course public health assistance should increase. How is that arguable? I realize I’ve become a bad debater as I’ve become more set in my beliefs, but you have to have drunk A Lot of the Ayn Rand koolaid to convincingly argue against helping people. Sure, you can argue that the money should be better spent elsewhere, but it’s hard to treat money as zero-sum in a debate round where it requires no political capital to say “We’ll get the money from ending Ag subsidies and auctioning off Yellowstone.”

Anyway, some links that caught my eye regarding African public health:

• Crooked Timber has a good summary of recent studies on using DDT to fight Malaria.
• Matt Zeitlin argues for aid that saves lives rather than builds big impressive things.
• How the Gag Rule also decresed condom availability, spreading HIV. (Thanks Bush!)
• Africans forced to eat GM foods.
• The trash of the west is dumped in Africa.
• Fresh off its success it Latin America, the drug war is opening a franchise in Africa

Forget increasing health assistance. If the US and it’s buddies just stopped shitting on Africa, and made the aid we do provide more meaningful, the situation would improve a lot.

Yesterday, Jake Tapper of ABC “News” (and an expert victimologist) informed us that, surprise, Democrats are embracing victimhood. Even [...]]]> Apparently politics is calvinball, and Democrats lose no matter what they do. Ignore trivial and baseless attacks: you’re weak/feminine/french/gay. Hit back against the attacks: you’re a whiner, and hence still weak/feminine/french/gay. It’s extremely…aggravating.

Yesterday, Jake Tapper of ABC “News” (and an expert victimologist) informed us that, surprise, Democrats are embracing victimhood. Even less surprising, the post was instantly Instapundit-endorsed. Lets see what these Democratic complaint-monkeys are saying:

Edwards thinks the media is obsessed with his hair because they want to shut him up. It’s almost as if he noticed the month of coverage about his hair and connected it with how the press doesn’t like him and wants to bury him. Hmmmm…

Clinton’s sin? “The short, 440-word fundraising appeal uses a form of the word “attack” six times. With Clinton as the victim, naturally.” Wow! What possible justification could she have for that? Oh, earlier in that same paragraph in Tapper’s article he says:

“Last week, one of the leading Republican candidates equated Hillary with Karl Marx. Yesterday, one of the leading Democratic candidates called her ‘Bush-Cheney lite’…

It’s almost like she was actually being attacked. Though using the word “attack” six times is clearly indefensible; someone needs to spring for a thesaurus.

Trapper provides a few more data points for his victimhood these, but they’re similarly ridiculous in that there was a clear, rational cause for the things Edwards and Clinton were saying. Which of course doesn’t matter because all actions are relative:

You can view this as Democrats learning from the lessons of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and refusing to be “Swift Boated”…or ones exploiting any opportunity to create a crusade and make money…or Democrats fed up with a system they see as stacked against them….depending on your point of view.

Which is to say, Trapper has nothing useful to say about the Democrats statements because ‘it all depends on your point of view.’ I think his editor got hoodwinked with that one, especially since Trapper was able to engage in enough uncritical thinking to title the post “Democrats as Victims?”. If he can do that, he could probably write a whole article around the right-wing talking points and leave out the “point of view” cop out. Republican shills just ain’t what they used to be…

Everyone cares about how their boss treats them, whether their water is safe to drink, and what [...]]]> This Ezra Klein post about how blogs have brought political issues rather than political competition to the forefront is very good. The latter has fans much like basketball or stamp-collecting, but the former is important to us all.

Everyone cares about how their boss treats them, whether their water is safe to drink, and what medicine they’re allowed to have. Then these fundamental concerns are transformed into labor, environment, and health policy, becoming less immediately understandable, but many people still get it. However, at the next level up, when politicians and media figures discuss policy abstractions only in relation to how they affect the power/popularity of politicians, the whole thing becomes ridiculously inaccessible and, more importantly, boring — I mean, who (outside of select aficionados) really cares whether Guiliani’s health plan affects Thompson’s poll ratings? Anyone?

Blogs allow people to get past the dominant political narrative of cool/uncool, and dive into real, honest to god, politics about the rules that affect their lives. Claims of voter apathy have been greatly overstated. People care. A lot. But they need an outlet, a venue, and blogs provide a way to discuss and affect change in a meaningful way.

It’s been only 6 years since political blogging began to take off, and already the political landscape has changed dramatically, with record interest in the Democratic primary being just one data point. No current trend excites me more as a progressive than the increase in engagement and power of ordinary folk as a result of the blogosphere.