Back to Politics and Current Events

I just like this photo.

Of course I am blogging too much, so no more for the day. I promise.

I am listening to Cold Shot as I type this; I was struck by the segment on gangs in the military.

Human Interest/Sports: I found this story (about a racewalker who came back from a brain injury to walk the Olympic Trials 20K) to be very inspiring.

Humans and Politics: partisanship can blind people to the facts; this works across the ideological spectrum.

Iraq: we’ve heard that the “surge has worked and violence has dropped.” Is this true? Sort of; violence has come down from its recent peak, but it is at 2004 levels.

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Obama: The flip-flop charge is exaggerated.

Senator Obama has faced a wave of complaints from his followers in recent weeks that he is tacking hard toward the political center, and moving away from his liberal base. His critics note that he recently applauded a Supreme Court ruling knocking down a Washington, D.C. ban on handguns, supported a proposed wiretap law that he once promised to oppose and spoke in favor of the death penalty for child rapists. He also has endorsed a role for religious organizations in government that critics, not least many who support him, fear would blur the line between church and state.

So when a Republican who said he planned to vote for Mr. Obama asked about the candidate about his views on Iraq, he took the occasion to expound more broadly on his political philosophy.

“I believe in a whole lot of things that make me progressive and put me squarely in the Democratic camp,” he said. But, he noted, he does not believe that the active hand of government is a replacement, say, for parental responsibility in education.

“I believe in personal responsibility, I also believe in faith,” he said. “That’s not something new; I’ve been talking about that for years. So the notion that this is me trying to look” – he waves his hands around his head – “centrist is not true.”

Mr. Obama, in fact, has written and spoken in favor of a role for religious institutions in the provision of social services, and in his book “The Audacity of Hope” he appeared to endorse the death penalty for child rapists.

As for gun control, Obama said he long has believed that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to bear arms. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t think we need decent controls” on guns, he said. “Those two positions are not contradictory.”

Hat tip to the Jed Report.

Social: those who lose their jobs are usually NOT eligible for unemployment benefits!

The great American jobs machine is grinding to a halt. In response, Congress has just extended unemployment benefits 13 additional weeks, over and above the 26 weeks normally provided. That’s good as far as it goes.

But most people who lose their job these days don’t qualify for any unemployment benefits at all.

How can this be? Simple. In order to be eligible, most states require you to have been working in the job you lost full time, and for a certain number of years.

These requirements made sense decades ago when labor markets were far more stable – when most working people stayed in the same full-time job for years, and only lost it temporarily during the downdraft of a recession, picking it up again when the economy rebounded. And back then, one full-time breadwinner could keep a family whole. In those days, unemployment insurance counter-balanced recessions by keeping money in the pockets of working families.

But nothing is stable about today’s labor market. Every time the economy sinks, employers fire workers permanently. Even when the economy is doing fine, pink slips proliferate — although under these circumstances it’s easier to find a new job. All of which means a growing fraction of the labor force is in a job only a few years.

Meanwhile, full-time jobs are vanishing. More companies are contracting out their work. As a result, more people are doing several part-time jobs, or are self employed. They’re also more likely to be part of a couple whose family depends on two sets of paychecks.

So when times get tough, as they are now — and people lose a job after having it for only a few years or lose their part-time job or lose their client, or one member of a couple loses earnings — a family can be in real trouble. And there are no unemployment benefits, not even partial benefits based on the proportional loss of income from a part-time job, to help them. Or to help counter-balance the economy as a whole.

I can see this; frankly some bills are making things slightly uncomfortable for me (yes, credit cards have zero balance, but it is tougher to do at times), but I can’t imagine what it is like for someone who doesn’t have a spouse with a good job and who doesn’t have steady employment themselves.

Property taxes have doubled over the past 10 years (not the rate; when the county wants more money they merely jack up your assesment). A routine doctor’s physical set me back 600 dollars, AFTER INSURANCE. Again, I have a job and places where I can cut back. But not every one has that luxury; in fact, many don’t.

Science and Religion

One of the problems with the public’s understanding of evolution? We need better science education. That was true for me; when evolution was introduced, the teacher just said that “life evolved”; no mechanism was given for it. When I heard about “natural selection” and “mutation”, it was if the scales had fallen from my eyes.

Science Humor: Sandwalk makes fun of some idiotic creationist criticism.

Religion: You’ve heard that western religions (e. g., Christianity) don’t have people that make vile threats over stupid stuff. Think again:

Here’s a story that will destroy your hopes for a reasonable humanity.

Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

This isn’t the stupid part yet. He walked off with a cracker that was put in his mouth, and people in the church fought with him to get it back. It is just a cracker!

Catholics worldwide became furious.

Would you believe this isn’t hyperbole? People around the world are actually extremely angry about this — Webster Cook has been sent death threats over his cracker. Those are just kooks, you might say, but here is the considered, measured response of the local diocese:

“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. “However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”

We just expect the University to take this seriously,” she added “To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.”

Wait, what? Holding a cracker hostage is now a hate crime? The murder of Matthew Shephard was a hate crime. The murder of James Byrd Jr. was a hate crime. This is a goddamned cracker. Can you possibly diminish the abuse of real human beings any further?

Well, you could have a priest compare this event to a kidnapping.

“It is hurtful,” said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. “Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family.”

Gonzalez said the Diocese is willing to meet with Cook and help him understand the importance of the Eucharist in hopes of him returning it. The Diocese is dispatching a nun to UCF’s campus to oversee the next mass, protect the Eucharist and in hopes Cook will return it.

And of course, Bill Donohue is outraged (I know, Donohue is going to die of apoplexy someday when a gnat violates his oatmeal, so this isn’t saying much).

For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage–regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance–is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.

Oh, beyond hate speech. Where does this fit on the Shoah scale, Bill? It shouldn’t even register, but here is Wild-Eyed Bill the Offended calling for the expulsion of a student…for not swallowing a cracker.

Would you believe that the mealy-mouthed president of the university, John Hitt, is avoiding defending his student is instead playing up the importance of the Catholic church to the university? Of course you would. That’s what university presidents do. Bugger the students, keep the donors and the state reps happy.

Unfortunately, Webster Cook has now returned the cracker. Why?

Webster just wants all of this to go away. Especially now that he feels his life is in danger.

That’s right. Crazy Christian fanatics right here in our own country have been threatening to kill a young man over a cracker. This is insane. These people are demented fuckwits. And Cook is not out of the fire yet — that Fox News story ends with an open incitement to cause him further misery.

The story came from Fox News. The student is at the University of Central Florida. Yes, when I lived in Orlando, I was still a Catholic and I sometimes went to church in the University area.

Have times changed for me.