March 2007


PoliticsDave White on 31 Mar 2007 09:02 pm

Newt Gingrich enlightens us on bilingual education:

“We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

I don’t quite see the logic in attacking a program designed to help Spanish speaking children learn English because you think Spanish speaking children should be learning English.

Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, responds in the same article:

[R]esearch has shown “that bilingual education is the best method of teaching English to non-English speakers.”

“There’s no resistance to learning English, really, among immigrants, among native-born citizens,” he said. “Everyone wants to learn English because it’s what you need to thrive in this country.”

The real issue here is that Newt Gingrich doesn’t truly understand education, and is therefore incapable of seeing why bilingual education is helpful in promoting proficiency in English.

And that’s ok. Newt Gingrich doesn’t need to know anything about bilingual education so long as education decisions are left to teachers and local schoolboards––the community leaders who know what is best for their children, and who recognize the merits of programs like bilingual ed.

Newt’s complete ignorance on this issue should demonstrate as much.

Pop CultureDave White on 31 Mar 2007 06:02 pm

My German friend insists Davd Hasllehoff’s celebrity in Germany is highly exaggerated. But what self-respecting German would be able to resist this?

Boneless Sea FaunaDave White on 30 Mar 2007 04:18 pm

From a column in the LA Times:

Before I said yes, I told him I needed to ask my wife, Cassandra. Afraid of a fight, I wimpily text-messaged her. Less than a minute later, she wrote back: “Are you going to get naked and simulate sex? I’d like to see that.” I read this five times. I couldn’t figure out if it was a joke, or if she was turned on, or just didn’t care. Was it, “I’d like to see that,” as in “I’d like to see it over and over again when you’re not home as a marital aid”? Or was it, “I’d like to see that,” as in “I’d like to see that so I could show everyone your pathetic attempts at foreplay”? Text messaging, I discovered, needs more emoticons.

PoliticsDave White on 30 Mar 2007 02:39 pm

Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central posts a rundown of the differences in Iraq war voting patterns of Sens. Clinton and Obama. Not surprisingly, he finds only one divergent vote: the confirmation of General Casey (Clinton NAY, Obama YEA).

This is helpful, but misses a lot. As Sargent himself points out:

But let us be clear: We are not posting this to suggest that their earlier difference at the start of the war — their most important difference — should in any way be overshadowed by these similarities.

Very true, though I think their are important differences between the two that go beyond Obama’s pre-senatorial stance.

It’s not surprising two prominent Democrats, both from safely Democratic states, would have an incredibly similar voting pattern on the biggest issue of our political generation. That’s not to say the two don’t disagree greatly on the issues, however. As Obama points out on page 14 of The Audacity of Hope:

Except for the few minutes it takes to vote, my colleagues and I don’t spend much time on the Senate floor. Most of the decisions–about what bills to call and when to call them, about how amendments will be handled and how uncooperative senators will be made to cooperate–have been worked out well in advance by the majority leader, the relevant committee chairman, their staffs, and…their Democratic counterparts.

Senate voting is only the tip of the mountainous iceberg of official Senate business. Obama and Clinton certainly have plenty of space to disagree and politically scuffle as part of some Democratic “off-the-senate-floor” wheeling and dealing.

Look at Chuck Hagel’s voting record, for example, and you’ll see a solid Republican Iraq war proponent, with only a handful of key (somewhat recent) divergent votes. Listen to Chuck Hagel on the Sunday talk shows, and watch him work behind the scenes within his own party’s senatorial machinations, and a very different Senator comes forward.

The differences are a lot larger and less subtle than the voting patterns may indicate.

PoliticsDave White on 30 Mar 2007 11:01 am

From a recent broadcast of Fox News Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld, in response to discussion of the Duke Lacrosse rape case:

“Don’t you think that being accused of rape is as bad as being raped? Those guys’ lives were ruined!”

This from an interesting article on Fox News rising star Rachel Mardsen, the so-called Ann Coulter 2.0.

Please help us.

PoliticsDave White on 29 Mar 2007 03:01 pm

A Washington Post Op-Ed this morning debunks the perennial charge of “voter fraud.”

My favorite line:

Or consider Washington state, where McKay closely watched the photo-finish gubernatorial election of 2004. A challenge to ostensibly noncitizen voters was lodged in April 2005 on the questionable basis of “foreign-sounding names.”

The White House has claimed at least a handful of the fired US attornies were terminated over their lack of zealousness in pursuing voter fraud claims (as TPM has obsessively documented).

But an investigation into voter fraud based on “foreign-sounding names”??

Perhaps it’s a limited anecdote in the middle of an otherwise very broad issue, but charges like this only manage to marry hyper-partisan smear jobs with blatant political racism.

And this is why these dudes was getting fired? Me oh my.

Pop CultureDave White on 28 Mar 2007 08:35 pm

From the AP:

In last week’s episode of the Web drama “Lonelygirl15,” teen pals Bree, Daniel and Jonas are on the road, running from the mysterious evil group “The Order” when Daniel spots Bree clutching a small, lime-green box.

“What’s that? Daniel says.

“Ice Breakers Sours Gum,” Bree replies as the camera zooms in for a close-up – on the box.

After offering it to her buddies, Bree playfully pops the last four pieces into her mouth with a giggle.

It’ll be interesting to see how new-media programming like this learns to make money. Though this type of product placement seems a little clumsy, almost like a wayward Mentos commercial.

UPDATE: The video is here on the lonelygirl15 website, yet doesn’t appear on YouTube. What’s up with that?

PoliticsDave White on 27 Mar 2007 12:19 pm

I can usually dig on Brendan Nyhan; he’s a pretty consistent voice on the political scene, and tends to be able to see through a lot of BS. Today, though, he can’t seem to avoid it, as he gets caught up in the traditional media narrative on Barack Obama:

But substantively and politically, the problem is that Obama’s appeal is still rooted in a goo-goo approach to politics. Most people who are supporting Obama, going to his rallies, etc. have no idea what he stands for besides opposition to the war in Iraq.

This has become the “Al Gore says he invented the internet” media talking point on Barack Obama; he’s heavy on rising rhetoric yet non-existent on substantive policy. As this post off Obsidian Wings pointed out last Fall, that’s a bunch of phooey.

Maybe people don’t really know what Obama stands for because careless journalists and bloggers alike write long articles about his candidacy without once mentioning any of his policy positions. It’s not like these positions aren’t out there, or Obama has been hiding them. What’s to say folks won’t support Obama because of his legislative success on earmark reform and government transparency? Or his even-handed approach to nonproliferation, avian flu, and medical malpractice? The public likely won’t get a chance to learn more about any of those positions, cause no one will find the time to write about them.

Nyhan also brings up an interesting column from Ron Brownstein from the LA Times last week, commenting:

What Obama needs is to get out of the Tsongas/Hart box and engage in a serious debate over policy with Hillary and John Edwards. Soon. It will change his profile and engage downscale voters who don’t care so much about process.

I guess I can recognize the argument that many of Obama’s supporters are more drawn to his even-handed, non-cynical approach to politics than they are to his specific policy objectives (although this will likely change as the campaign moves on). But in the wake of a midterm election where “corruption” topped the list of electoral concerns, I don’t buy the notion that “downscale” voters don’t care about process, just policy.

UPDATE: For more on the laziness of Obama press coverage read here.

Even more here from Glenn Greenwald.

Pop CultureDave White on 26 Mar 2007 11:21 pm

In response to my better half’s reaction to this previous post:

The distinction I was going for here was really one between highly involved obsessive music types and casual fans. The obsessives, which I generally referred to as “music fans” (maybe too general a term) are the type of folks whose every waking moment is consumed with popular music; they spend over 20% of their income on CDs, they blog about their favorite bands, they own a guitar they can’t really play, they frame vinyl and hang it on their walls as art. That sort of thing.

The “non-fans”, on the other hand, may like a few bands or artists here and there, and they’ll buy the occasional popular CD, but they do so not because of some deep and abiding love for the art and craft of music, but rather out of a semi-routine participation in American consumer culture––an essential (and positive) aspect of modern American existence. We wouldn’t be Americans were it not for our occasional purchase of super synthetic, kind of terrible American pop-music. It’s just what we do.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, and no need to place a value judgement on anybody relative to their placement on the spectrum between “non-fan” and “music fan”. That’s not what I was going for, and I apologize to all the Nickleback fans among us.

And really, if you have to judge, you gotta give the edge to the “non-fan,” as they certainly have the upper hand in terms of “normalcy” and “humanism” and “non-assholiocity.”

Pop CultureDave White on 26 Mar 2007 04:27 pm

Some insight on the concept of “critc-proof” music and movies from CNN:

“There are some bands that, let’s face it, are critic-proof,” said Nathan Brackett, a senior editor at Rolling Stone. “Just like there are some movies that are critic-proof. Nobody is really reading the reviews for ‘Norbit,’ you know? And nobody’s reading Nickelback reviews either.”

I find it interesting that news analysis of the entertainment industry always seems to boil down to these misguided populist arguments that critic “taste makers” are simply out of touch with mainstream American music fans.

But it’s not just music critics who think Britney Spears sucks. It’s tons and tons of regular people. Trash talking Nickleback isn’t just a hobby of Pitchfork Media, it’s a natural response to their terrible terrible music.

Of course there are folks out there who genuinely like these bands (although, in my experience, such fans tend to know these bands suck, they just don’t really care). But the majority of these mind-boggling record sales aren’t being made to “music fans”, so to speak, but to regular folks who don’t care too much about music, yet buy the occasional album and listen to a handful of the songs every once in a while, as part of their role as members of Jane-schmo consumer-America.

There’s really nothing wrong with this, pop-music is business, but there isn’t some deep and interesting secret relative to the divide between people whose lives revolve around music (ie music critics) and people who like to buy things (ie all Americans, the majority of whom aren’t really that into music).

PoliticsDave White on 26 Mar 2007 02:06 pm

As you may have heard, some top Justice Department officials recently testified to congress that they were not aware of controversial plans to fire eight federal attorneys even though we now have email evidence that they had been informed. Their defense? They simply “did not scroll down far enough on their blackberries.”

“Either Elston did not scroll down on his BlackBerry to read the last section [of the e-mail] or it made no impression on him, because he knew that it did not reflect the department’s plan for replacing the U.S. attorneys who would be asked to resign,” says spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

Now that sounds like some awesome bullshit, but as someone who was tied to a blackberry for a full year and a half, I’m almost sympathetic.

PoliticsDave White on 25 Mar 2007 02:41 pm

More from Edwards on his wife’s condition, this from a forum on health care in Nevada:

“We take our responsibility to serve our country very seriously,” Edwards, whose wife attended the forum with him, replied. “We want to serve. Both of us. Which is why we made the decision to go forward.”

“I think we are getting far too much credit when you look at all the millions of women struggling with what Elizabeth has without her great health care coverage. A lot of women with exactly the same diagnosis as Elizabeth had to get up the next morning and go to work.”

I’ve been skeptical of this very public disclosure the past couple days and I was wrong. If Edwards is capable of turning this tragic and personal situation into an effective and needed discussion on public health policy then there’s really no need to question his motives. His comments at the health forum were eloquent, humble, and all the more relevant and sincere due to Elizabeth’s current health situation. I admire their courage.

UPDATE: More thoughts on Elizabeth Edwards here.

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