Some Modest Proposals
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| Categories: News, environment, issues, network television, Obama Administration, Education Funding, Scientific research, science education, media policy, healthcare policy, George Lakoff, government regulation The California cognitive scientist George Lakoff http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/25_lakoff.shtml has urged Democrats to resist Republican attempts to influence policy by “framing” it in language that obscures its true nature—death tax rather than inheritance tax, entitlement programs rather than veterans’ benefits and social security, and, of course, “pro-life” to cover a whole lot of issues that are less than life-enhancing to many sentient beings.
Democrats attempted this with some success, but most of the time, the Democratic problem has been a lack of imagination and courage. As Team Obama gears up for a new beginning, here are some of my ideas for them:
Awe and Relief
| Categories: Barack Obama, John McCain, CBS, Abuse of Power, Sarah Palin, George McGovern, fascism, Pennsylvania, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Unitary Executive Tuesday’s election still fills me with awe, and not just for Barack Obama. The American electorate is wiser than I dared hope. Even John McCain, who ran a shoddy campaign, delivered a concession speech that was generous and inspiring. Sarah Palin has flown back to Alaska with new respect, I would hope, for the power of community organizing.
I spent the week prior to the election in a place I’d never known existed—Northeast Philadelphia—with a marvelous group of people, most of whom were volunteers.
A Good and Decent Man
| Categories: News, Barack Obama, Religion, Spirituality, liberals, cabletelevison, Politics So today’s blog comes from a friend, Carter Smith, whose father, also Carter Smith, of Sharon, CT, died suddenly while waiting for a presidential debate to begin. [I think of the elder Carter as Episcopal Carter and the son as Unitarian Universalist (UU) Carter, but they are cut from the same cloth.] I’ve known both of them through the independent publishing firm they ran, Media Projects.
I hope you will be inspired by the Smiths as I am.
Strong Medicine
One day soon, Jim Jackson will close the doors on a drug store in the small northwest Georgia town of Summerville that has been in the family for 114 years. Shuttering Jackson Drug Co. wasn’t an easy decision, because Jim was the third in a line of family pharmacists who had weathered panics and depressions. But the state had announced yet another cut in Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement, and since most of his customers are uninsured, cash was going to drain from the business like, well, that once in the coffers of Bear Sterns, only in smaller amounts.
Taking Vice Seriously
| Categories: John McCain, liberals, public television, President Ford, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Caroline Kennedy, Vice Presidency, Joe Biden, George McGovern This time tomorrow we’ll know how Sarah Palin and Joe Biden fared under the debate lite rules the parties agreed to for tonight’s engagement. (You might check out what Slate says at http://www.slate.com/id/2201334/pagenum/all/)
Can Palin hide her woefully inadequate knowledge of Civics 101 in 90 second answers? Is even 90 seconds too long to keep Biden from falling off the message wagon? We’ll see.
Especially since John McCain picked Palin (after being denied his first pick Joe Lieberman and refusing the Republican party’s choice of Mitt Romney) I’ve been thinking there must be a better way to select the second person on any presidential ticket.
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