"In a Univision interview on Monday, the president, who campaigned in 2008 by referring not to a 'Red America' or a 'Blue America' but a United States of America, urged Hispanic listeners to vote in this spirit: 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.' "Patrick Caddell and Douglas SchoenWashington PostThey keep promising it to you.They just won't give it to you.Why? Because it's such an effective mobilization tool.If they actually gave it to you after you gave them...
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
At first, I couldn't believe my eyes.But there it was, in black and white."First woman House speaker may be toppled," said the headline at the Reuters website.And my first thought was that — in this midterm election year that is looking as bleak for many Democrats as the search for jobs has been for many unemployed Americans — Nancy Pelosi is in electoral trouble.But then I realized that, if Pelosi really is in trouble, that might be the biggest...
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Please, someone, tell me that Barack Obama did not say, on The Daily Show last night, that Larry Summers did a "heckuva job" as Obama's economic adviser.I mean, unemployment was around 6.5% when Obama became president in January 2009. Today, virtually on the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, unemployment stands at around 9.5%.Doesn't sound like a heckuva job to me. For formerly hard–working Americans who have found themselves tossed on the economic scrap heap, the last couple of years have been as devastating as any hurricane.And, of course, that...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
"Isn't it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail, but the penalty for a congressman lying to you is another two years in office[?]"Peter SchmuckBaltimore SunIn 1981, after Republicans had taken control of the White House and the Senate and Democrats retained only a modest control of the House, Democrats were feeling somewhat put upon.Many folks who were sympathetic to Democrat positions on the issues of the day — and resisted the growing political influence of the religious right, the...
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The math in this year's Senate races is really pretty easy to understand.Democrats actually hold 57 seats in the Senate. There are two third–party/independent senators who caucus with them and usually vote with them.But, from late June of last year, when Al Franken was declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate race, until January of this year, when Republican Scott Brown won the special election to pick the person who would complete the unexpired...
Friday, October 22, 2010
I was never a mathematician.I mean, when I was a child, I did all right on my multiplication tables. And I managed to keep up with my classmates — sort of — when we moved on to more advanced types of math, like algebra and geometry.But I must confess that, when we got into numerical constructions that involved figures that went into five or six digits or more, that was about the point where I got off the bus.I do understand enough about math to know...
Saturday, October 16, 2010
I'm sure you've heard the saying, "There's a sucker born every minute."Most folks will tell you that P.T. Barnum said that. Actually, according to HistoryBuff.com, one of Barnum's competitors said it — and it is connected to a hoax that was perpetrated 141 years ago today.And, oddly, Barnum was linked to the hoax — but he didn't try to pull it off. He just wanted a piece of the action.The hoax involved the so–called "Cardiff Giant," a 10–foot tall...
Today would have been my friend Phyllis' birthday.Regular readers of this blog might remember when Phyllis died back in August, and I sought to use my blog as a way of coming to terms with the sense of loss I was feeling.Well, actually, I used all three of my blogs that way. In addition to this blog, I write a blog about movies and music and books, and I write another blog about sports. My memories of Phyllis transcend topics so, at one time or another...
Sunday, October 10, 2010
"There are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."There is an ongoing debate among scholars concerning who first said or wrote this.I have often heard it attributed to George Bernard Shaw, and, indeed, it did appear (in a slightly different form) in his play "Man and Superman," which was written in 1903.But the line, as I have entered it above, appeared in an Oscar Wilde play that was written more than a decade before. Based on that, I would have to give Wilde a pat on the back for it.It's such a...
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
In the late 1970s, movies about the experience of the Vietnam War and its aftermath were abundant — on both TV ("Friendly Fire") and the big screen ("Heroes," "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now").And there was a movie called "Coming Home" — which was nominated for eight Oscars and won three — that examined the trauma of the war on the home front.To a degree, I suppose, you could say that about the others, too — although much of the trauma that was examined in the others (and the even more introspective films that followed in the 1980s) was the...
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