September 5th, 2008 Daily Show

The first segment is insanely good.

The link goes to the whole show.

Palin, Family Values, Campaigning and Family Policy

Friend JC writes in regarding the intersection of Sarah Palin's family and the election....

If Sarah Palin wants to keep her family/children as an untouchable subject in the political world, then she shouldn't be parading the crew out at political events or using them as props in her speeches and in developing her political persona. You can't have it both ways. If you're running on "family values" than your own personal family values are absolutely fair game for fair criticism, especially due to the double standards she holds for her and her family. She's out there saying that you can be VP with 5 children under 18, including an infant, including a disabled child, including a pregnant teen, but fighting against supports for other working mothers, such as subsidized childcare and extended familial leave policies. I don't think that it's anti-feminist to admit that working mothers simply cannot to do it all on their own. They require extra help and adjusted circumstances. Working men need these things too, but women's needs are greater, due to the fact they're the ones gestating, giving labor, and breastfeeding the child, a process that takes up at least a year and ideally more like 3 years. She seems to shun assistance for her family, which demeans the way the vast majority of American families live their lives.

There are plenty of political issues that make Sarah Palin an easy target for democrats, but pointing these out only helps secure left-leaning voters. If we want to capture independents and fed-up Republicans, we need to show the hypocrisy and lies inherent in the Republican party and their candidates. The criticism doesn't have to be personal, it just needs to be pointed. Sarah Palin claims to be just like you, but she's not, for X, Y, and Z reasons (wealth and privilege among them). Sarah Palin claims to support famllies, but her decisions and policies, such as cutting funding for social programs don't support this fact. Sarah Palin's daughter has choices Sarah Palin doesn't think your daughters deserve. Sarah Palin is an extremist who doesn't believe in contraception and thinks rape victims of any age should be forced to carry to term their attacker's offspring. John McCain used to believe the opposite of most of those (and OMG there are so many things he's changed his position on in the last 4 years!) and now he agrees with Palin? How can you trust a man like this? Dems need to start getting personal, because the Republicans already have. And that doesn't mean they have to be nasty, but they need to fight hard. The media isn't doing their job, so the Dems have to be the ones to bring out the skeletons in their closets.

The only thing I'd add is to make it crystal clear that the only reason Sarah Palin could succeed as governor of Alaska, or as VP, with her family is that she has staff take care of damn near everything: Shopping, laundry, child care, etc. That's a luxury almost no one has, so the next time you hear someone saying "well, Sarah Palin can do it," just remember that it's actually Sarah Palin with substantial help - help that the rest of us don't get. It's not Supermom; it's Supermom and Friends.

The other alternative is that she really is refusing that help, and thus neglecting her job. There's just no way to do both.

Role reversal; or, in which a Republican reveals he knows something about McCain's health the rest of us don't

From a DH letter, about the McCain-Palin ticket:

Just look at her record as governor of Alaska. That is the kind of leadership we can expect from John McCain as our leader.

Hmm.... what's the phrase... oh yeah: WTF?!

Democracy Now producer Nicole Salazar films her own arrest

As noted where I found this, trigger warning.

Shameless - eager, even! - plug

Le Patisserie, a bakery in Corvallis, has a website.

If you are ever in Corvallis, stop by. It's amazing. The only place I've ever had better pastries is France itself.

Krugman

Sometimes he's just on:

Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?

Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yes, they can.

Read the rest.

McCain's speech

I didn't watch it, but here are some reactions:

A roundup of TV personalities, courtesy Washington Monthly.

Steve Benen:

And that, ultimately, is why the speech didn't work. McCain simply didn't have a vision or a policy agenda for the future. He has his character, and his biography, and he hopes that's enough. The message of the night, and practically the entire convention, seemed to be: "Vote for John McCain, not because he's right, but because he's John McCain."

To be fair, what else can he do? The Republican party is dictating the policies in the platform, even though those policies have never worked. McCain can't effectively sell himself (I hope) as any kind of significant change from the current administration as long as he's supporting the same policies.

All that's left for Republican candidates to do these days is spin furiously, turn out their base and attempt to discredit their opponents. Sadly, it's proven to be a somewhat effective strategy. (Note that it does not include providing any kind of actual leadership or vision.)

A caveat: This strategy, with this particular platform (being driven by the Christian Right and all), does put the Republican business community in a bind; while they see how Bush's policies are a long-term disaster (the Dow reportedly dropped something like 350 points after Palin's speech), the incredibly amounts of profits being made in the short term are proving to be enough of a bribe to get them, on the whole, to keep their mouths shut.

A second caveat: "spin furiously, turn out their base and attempt to discredit their opponents" and "does not include providing any kind of actual leadership or vision" sound like part of Mr. Alexander and Mr. Wineteer's efforts to avoid being recalled and their time on the school board. Heh.

The stupid burns like toxic chemicals on my skin

Hering:

If you look for a good reason to ban field burning in three years, you will look in vain. There is none.

Given the news and editorial coverage of this issue in the past, it's clear that Hering simply doesn't believe that concerns involving the environment or people's health are "good reasons." There's really no other way to explain this, since both issues have been in the DH this summer.

It would have been nice had he noted and rebutted the two obvious reasons, however.

The real gem, though, is this:

Through its laws, Oregon insists that farmland be used for nothing else. That implies an obligation to let farmers do their work the best way they know how.

This is, to put it mildly, stupid. If that was the case, farmers would have long since polluted the air and ground with nasty chemicals and through burning. One specific industry is not going to miraculously self-regulate themselves when it comes to the environment, especially not grass seed farmers (sorry, former bosses!). Why does Hering think field burning was reduced? What about developing less toxic fertilizers and pesticides? I can pretty much guarantee the industry didn't just decide to stop for the good of others - they were forced to bear costs they had previously externalized (namely, pollution) by a public agency tasked with looking out for the good of everyone, most likely the state.

The other implication - that only farmers know what works best for farmers - is equally stupid. Like no former farmer has ever worked for the state, or gone through the same educational programs?

If Hering is really upset about the low level of discourse in this country, maybe he should look in the fucking mirror some time. He's certainly not setting the bar any higher.

Note to the DH

I get that the income from web ads isn't making up for circulation decreases.

However, any ad that expands to cover part of the page when you scroll over it?

Evil.

Please stop.

In which CARES drops off signatures, Alexander spins like a top, and I ramble a lot

From the Lebanon Express (it should be noted that the DH got there first):

Chief petitioners for recall attempts against Lebanon School Board members Josh Wineteer and Rick Alexander submitted about 2,100 signatures to the Linn County Clerk's office on Wednesday.

Given that they needed something like 1400 signatures, it seems likely there's going to be an election.

Then, in what's otherwise a pretty straightforward story, we get this bit:

"There's nothing to gain. They've voiced their position loudly. It's a single-minded agenda to attack and blame the administration," [CARES President Tre'] Kennedy said. "Because it is the only thing they care about, nothing is getting done; we're not talking about education."

Alexander said the recall will be a referendum on education in Lebanon.

You have to give some credit to Alexander: Like the Republican party these last few elections, Alexander is trying to make a recall effort directed squarely at him about something else, anything else. He'd much rather the recall being a referendum on Robinson instead of his own actions.

We can argue until the end of time about whether or not Superintendent Jim Robinson is doing a good job. However, the recall is not about Robinson. CARES has been very, very consistent in saying that; I've looked at their website, and it's pretty focused on Alexander and Wineteer's actions.

Furthermore, rumor has it that CARES doesn't necessarily support Robinson at all, or at least there are split opinions about him.

So, following Alexander's train of thought down the rabbit hole a bit: How does the community provide feedback to the Superintendent? (In other words, what if this is ultimately a referendum on Robinson via two board members?) At least three ways: Electing school board members, through the audience comment section at school board meetings and through direct communication with Robinson and other DO staff. The school board, in turn, can evaluate the superintendent and provide direction and feedback (up to and including contract non-renewal or firing for cause).

But wait!, you might say. We elected Alexander because he wants to go after Robinson. It's the will of the voters! It's working!

To an extent, that's true - but process matters. The problem is that Alexander especially doesn't seem to care about protecting the district from legal liability or doing things in a transparent, democratic, deliberative fashion. In fact, as others have argued, I would suggest that Alexander and Wineteer's actions have actually made it harder to remove Robinson as Superintendent of the LCSD. The two have poisoned the well: Anything they do at this point that's a move against Robinson is going to generate questions about their motives and methods. (See the end of this story for one example of this.)

In other words, the actions of Alexander and Wineteer have removed them as viable agents for legitimately removing Robinson. When that argument was first put forward, I didn't like it and didn't agree with it. However, I now think it's correct, and that it leads to a really counterintuitive conclusion:

Getting rid of Alexander and Wineteer is the first step in removing Superintendent Jim Robinson.*

How strange is that?




*I should note that in many ways, I'm agnostic on the question of whether or not Robinson should stay. He has certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but he's also the only person at the district level (because individual teachers are certainly trying) who I see as trying to implement a curriculum that will prepare students for life in the 21st century. I don't see anyone else even talking about it - certainly the board has shown themselves both unqualified and disinterested in such a conversation, instead spending a lot of time reacting. The district may be struggling in certain ways, but at least Robinson's trying to face the future** head-on.

**This reminds me that I need to do a post about how this whole thing with the Superintendent and school board is really intertwined with Lebanon losing its identity as as logging town and struggling (like so many other places) to adapt to globalization/the 21st century/etc. Someone should write a book on this, actually. Mom, are you reading this?