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Why I Won't Tone Down My Crazy Feminism

post from Everyday Citizen on 09 May 2008 05:17:10 PM. © Everyday Citizen

Not too long ago, I was describing part of my thesis project to a colleague after a conversation[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/05/why_i_wont_tone_down_my_crazy.html

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Why I Won't Tone Down My Crazy Feminism Stuff

post from Everyday Citizen on 09 May 2008 05:17:10 PM. © Everyday Citizen

Not too long ago, I was describing part of my thesis project to a colleague after a conversation[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/05/why_i_wont_tone_down_my_crazy.html

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Lunch Bucket Clinton Cocktail Hour

post from Taylor Marsh on 09 May 2008 05:14:06 PM. © Taylor Marsh

BY TAYLOR MARSH video by FlineoChampagne cocktails for me tonight, even if it’s the cheap stuff (it is). My first toast is in honor of Hillary Clinton. The most tenacious, intelligent, never say die, committed, best qualified candidate in the race[...]

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http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27642

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Rep. Fossella to resign within next 72 hours.

post from Think Progress on 09 May 2008 05:11:00 PM. © Think Progress

WNBC reports that Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY) is expected to announce his resignation “within the next 72 hours — if not late Friday then certainly by Monday.” On May 1, Fossella was arrested in Alexandria, VA, and charged with driving while intoxicated. Yesterday, he issued a statement admitting that he had an “extramarital affair with Laura Fay, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and that the two of them have a 3-year-old daughter together.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/09/rep-fossella-to-resign-within-next-72-hours/

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Don't Mess With Texas's Child Predators

post from Librocrats - Designed Intelligent on 09 May 2008 05:08:00 PM. © Librocrats - Designed Intelligent

Texas needs a PR department. The worst state in the continental US decides to opt out of not 1 but 2 different agreements with social network communities MySpace and Facebook about additional security safeguards against child predators. They will not[...]

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http://librocrat.blogspot.com/2008/05/dont-mess-with-texass-child-predators.html

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Mother's Day Video for Rusul

post from Out Of Iraq Bloggers Caucus on 09 May 2008 05:07:00 PM. © Out Of Iraq Bloggers Caucus

video details and more

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http://ooibc.blogspot.com/2008/05/mothers-day-video-for-rusul.html

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On Information-Based Empathy

post from TPMCafe on 09 May 2008 05:06:00 PM. © TPMCafe

We had an interesting discussion yesterday about the tendency we all have to choose information that validates our beliefs and reject the information that doesn't. The conversation focused mostly on the politics of the moment, both the conservative/liberal divide and the Obama/Clinton divide. Certainly, we can see in some of the discussions that devoted supporters of both sides have a tough time digesting bad info but love to trumpet good info. That's an important thing for us as a community to contemplate.

But it's also essential, I think, to broaden the focus from just our little world of debate to the whole world itself. In fact, I think Obama has pointed us in a direction that encourages us to break out of these mindsets even beyond our partisan politics.

I wrote last May about a speech Obama gave in which he argued that we as a country suffer from an empathy deficit. He said, at the time:

There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.

It's an important point, and one that is foundational to his form of communitarian liberalism.

The question, though, is how we get there. Some of it has to just be cultivating more selflessness as simply a mental habit. Make an effort to think more about others, try to be more patient and open-minded, etc. That much most liberals usually agree is important.

But we can also now do it with information consumption. In this era when we can choose whatever information we want, we can cultivate our empathetic imaginations by making an effort to learn about the lives of folks different from ourselves.

Ethan Zuckerman, the founder of an organization called Global Voices that aggregates reporting and opinion from the blogosphere all over the world, calls this tendency for birds of a feather to flock together (socially, imformationally, whatever) "homophily." Homophily, he argues, makes us stupid. His point is essentially the same one that Atrios made in my post from yesterday. We all have tendencies to be hacks.

The opportunity we have, though, to cultivate our empathy (a desire Zuckerman ascribes to "xenophiliacs", people who love to learn about things that are different) is amazing. Zuckerman's approach is to reach out across the globe and try to bring "global voices" into American conversation. So, instead of relying on what the New York Times says people in Iraq are saying, we can go over and read it on their blogs for ourselves.

The same is possible, I think, here in the US. Obama asks us to learn to put ourselves in the shoes of a steelworker, an immigrant cleaner, or a child. But, as new media and high-speed internet proliferates, maybe we'll be able to go out and read their blogs as well. Find out from them what they think, what their lives are like, what they believe.

The choice online, then, is fairly radical. We can choose to be homophiliac hacks who read only content and live in only communities that validates us and our beliefs. Or we can cultivate our social empathy and reach out across not just the partisan or ideological spectrum, but also racial, class, age or gender divides that exist within what is supposed to be a single national community.

It's increasingly a matter of what information we choose to consume.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/287107742/

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Helping a feminist cross the street

OK, I don't get it. Maybe my fellow Democrats can enlighten me.

Last Tuesday, instead of sweeping the Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, as she would have to do in order to make a run for the party nomination without being laughable, Hillary Clinton lost North Carolina by a substantial margin and only won Indiana by a couple of percentage points. As most news anchors put it, Clinton "squeaked by." The performance was so far from promising a realistic chance at lasting until the national convention, Tim Russert prematurely proclaimed Barack Obama the nominee.

Clinton has loaned millions of dollars to her own campaign, indicating she is out of support and out of fundraising ideas. Meanwhile, her husband is running out of charm. During the most recent leg of his penance tour of small town America, in Fayetteville, West Virginia the former president lost his rag and berated a woman who had the audacity to contradict him as he plowed through a bogus list of Hillary accomplishments in the area of health care. Like the woman who interrupted his highness with a smack of reality, I am old enough to remember what the Clintons did or did not do regarding health care. As the woman said: They gave us nothing.

Bill's memory might be more accurate if he were not so quick to chafe under criticism from a woman--any woman; remember how he got all sweaty and called Christiane Amanpour "madame" because she asked a question he didn't like? If his memory were better, he and Hillary might be wiser than they are.

The fact is, at the beginning of his first term, Bill Clinton tossed aside the advice of smart colleagues and announced to Congress that Hillary would be in charge of preparing the health care bill and presenting it. Hearts still racing with victory, the Clintons basically told anyone who didn't like them that they were staying, so get used to it. They alienated all the people they needed. Then Hillary made her Good Girl Presentation, and was promptly patted on the head, given a giant cookie, and told to go sit down.

With that, the Clintons sank our chances for national health care through sheer arrogance. Congress did not embrace Hillary's A-plus, five-gold-star report on the subject--because they hated her. You could hear it in every backhanded compliment about what a fine, fine job she had done. A fine job, very nice--and she can play the piano, gentlemen--oh, very nice. Good girl. Nice covers on that report, too.

Yet, here is Bill Clinton, verbally abusing a voter and revising history with his rose-colored Hillary glasses. And now that Hillary says she will stay in the race until sometime in June, I have to ask:

If we have come so far, and we're all feminist and grownup now, why are we tiptoeing around Hillary Clinton? Why are news anchors and pundits and party reps saying that we have to "give her time?" Some have gone so far as to say they understand how hard it is to quit a campaign when you believe in it so much.

What is this, a community theater production of Peter Pan? Why are we, collectively, making it OK for a 60-year-old political figure to go on engaging in magical thinking about her chance of becoming the first female president of the United States?

Some of my friends say, oh well, she just has to play this out. Nobody thinks for an instant that she can win. In fact, the only way she could win would be if the unthinkable occurred and an unforeseen, earth-shattering scandal rocked the Obama campaign. Then Clinton might get the nomination.

So, is that what she's hoping? She doesn't dare continue with past tactics, targeting Obama with a continual barrage of innuendoes and outright lies. Yet her only hope resides in a horrible upset. Is that what she's waiting for? And if so, isn't that just a wee bit unsportsmanlike, and unprofessional, and pathetic?

If Barack Obama did not have to watch his back all the time, and keep the Clintons in check, he could concentrate all his efforts on winning in November. The Clintons are doing nothing but causing a distraction from our purpose. Bill Clinton's yammering has not only cost his wife a lot of votes, it has (I think) guaranteed that she will not be offered the VP slot. Why in the world would Obama want Bill hanging around, giving press conferences and getting in trouble? His first term will be tough enough, without the Clintons grabbing the spotlight twice a week with their half-baked political ideas and their embarrassing personal life.

And here I have to come back to a point that people keep forgetting: Aside from some wealthy patrons and staunch girlfriends, nobody really likes Hillary Clinton. Yet we excuse her. We give her a hall pass. I keep hearing people say: Well, Hillary really believes in America, so she has to fight until it's over.

Nice thoughts. Nice words. But this is a political campaign we cannot lose. It is one that all the polls say she cannot win. And here she is, taking up air time, voter attention, the presumptive nominee's energy, and the kind of widespread goodwill we ordinarily offer the survivors of a natural disaster. Except the disaster Hillary is surviving is her own unwillingness to suck it up and leave while she has a shred of dignity. She won't do that. And we won't tell her to.

We don't demand honorable or reasonable behavior, and we won't tell her to step down. What kind of feminist accepts that much coddling without a single complaint?

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http://hickwithmasters.blogspot.com/2008/05/helping-feminist-cross-street.html

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Lieberman: I Personally Checked John McCains
Bearings

In an interview on CNN Thursday, Senator Obama said John McCain was “losing his bearings” after he repeatedly suggested that Hamas had endorsed his candidacy, even though their positions on the issue are nearly identical. Now, loyal Democrat (except on the small issue of “the war”) Joe Lieberman is coming to McCain’s defense [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/09/lieberman-i-personally-checked-john-mcca
ins-bearings/

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Thanks for the memories

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 09 May 2008 05:00:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

In a nostalgic mood, DailyKos looks back on some of the highlights of Hillary's now-defunct for the presidency:

Who could forget:

* Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Obama has an unfair advantage because he was black.

* Bob Kerrey's happiness that Barack Hussein Obama attended a madrassa and had all that experience with Muslims.

* Billy Shaheen's concern over Obama's use of drugs and possible questions on whether he was ever a drug dealer.

* Andrew Cuomo saying that "You can't shuck and jive," in reference to Obama.

* And of course the First Surrogate, Bill Clinton, comparing Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's wins in the 1980's, and then being shocked at the suggestion that he was trying to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

Sniff. We're gonna miss you guys! Now go away. Seriously.