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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Rachel Maddow did the best comment on all this bullshit the other night. She pointed out, citing chapter and verse, that most Nobel Prizes are awarded not for acheivement but for idealism. The prize to Obama was right in line with Nobel history.
Found the entire Rachel Maddow clip. Please watch. She's the only one I've heard make complete sense.
http://tinyurl.com/ylq5h9y |
Last edited by billyweeds on Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Well, that's one of the differnces between a democracy and a monarchy. People don't always cheer the ruler for his awards. Some support him, some don't. Those who ideologically disagree with him, or even disagree just because they want to be the ones in power, aren't happy when he's lauded; they are more upset than ever. It's rare to have a unity of opinion or congratulations in a democracy. I don't think it's ever happened, even with presidents now revered as great leaders. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:47 pm |
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whiskeypriest wrote: marantzo wrote: Quote: Was too tired to continue with JFK-Tricky, so switched over to Adam Clayton Powell doc. I didn't know that his 2nd wife was Hazel Scott, the jazz pianist/singer.
I didn't know that either. I met her at the Paris March on Washington solidarity gathering, It was held in a big room upstairs from a church, I think. She had a cast on her arm but played the piano and sang in spite of it. She was going around with Dick Haymes (sp?) at the time. She told my friend Buttercup Powell that she now knew why Haymes was so popular with the ladies. During our gathering James Baldwin breezed in with a BBC film crew in toll.The were making some kind of documentary. Baldwin made a few perfunctory greeting and split after about 5-10 minutes. The predominently Black attendees were more than pissed at his quick entrance and exit and his haughty attitude. James Jones was there. I had a nice little conversation with him in which Norman Mailer was talked about. Baldwin never even said as much as an hello, and Jones just shrugged it off with a disdainful look.
Is Hazel Scott still alive? .
I knew you'd like that story. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I found it interesting that the foreign political cartoons were so similar to the American ones. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 5:19 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Rachel Maddow did the best comment on all this bullshit the other night. She pointed out, citing chapter and verse, that most Nobel Prizes are awarded not for acheivement but for idealism. The prize to Obama was right in line with Nobel history.
Found the entire Rachel Maddow clip. Please watch. She's the only one I've heard make complete sense.
http://tinyurl.com/ylq5h9y
Thanks Billy. Brilliant! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:46 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Billy, hope you read the Juan Cole piece.
It's his Oct. 9th entry, so you have to scroll down a little.
Andrew Sullivan, probably the most prominent gay journalist, has a piece entitled Obama Abandons Gay Rights Promises.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/10/much-worse-than-i-expected.html
Unfortunately, it's blocked here in China (along with Facebook, YouTube, and most blogs).
So would appreciate it if someone could post it in full. Usually my proxies can get to Sullivan's Daily Dish, but not this time. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:40 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Most of it I agree with, but I find this questionable:Quote: He says he wants to end discrimination in employment even as he is firing more gay people solely for being gay than any other employer in the country - as commander-in-chief. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Andrew Sullivan is absolutely brilliant but also, as Joe says, a loose cannon. (Well, Joe actually says "a loose canon," but in any case, Sullivan is not always to be trusted on gay issues.) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:42 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Billy, hope you read the Juan Cole piece.
gromit--Thanks for the extra heads-up; I just read it and it's great. Don't know Cole but I like him. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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billyweeds wrote: (Well, Joe actually says "a loose canon.")
Come to think of it, "a faulty fugue" describes Andrew Sullivan as well as "an unpredictable gun." |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Love this response to the Juan Cole article from a reader. No, I mean it; I love it despite the fact I disagree with the first sentence.
"Judged purely on merit, I don't think that Obama should have been given this award.
"However, whether intended or not, I think that one of the effects of awarding Obama the peace prize is to constrain US policy vis-a-vis Iran. It becomes that much harder to launch a war against Iran when the one who has to make this decision was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
"I think the US right understands this, and its one of the reasons that they are so upset." |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:36 am |
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| I'm not sure if the Commander in Chief comment is questionable. I read an article a week or so ago about the number of Gay service men (and women?) who were canned in 2009 and it was a pretty big figure, though I can't remember the number. So if this is correct, the president being the CiC, and not striking down the Don't Ask, Don't Tell legislation or eliminating the discrimination against Gays in the service, that's where the buck stops. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:10 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote:
gromit--Thanks for the extra heads-up; I just read it and it's great. Don't know Cole but I like him.
Juan Cole is an expert on the Middle East and became something of an internet star after the invasion of Iraq. His site was one of the few serious sites with intelligent analysis, and regular reports from on the ground in Iraq and translated Arabic sources, during those dark days when the media abdicated its responsibility. Not only was he speaking truth to power, but he actually was an expert in the region and knew what he was talking about. Fancy that.
Really he was/continues to be an invaluable source on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Krugman and Juan Cole are my 2 must-read sources. Cole recently had a very good piece about the Vietnam analogy being applied to Afghanistan, in which he mostly ended up explaining point by point how Iraq and Afghanistan are different, and so the simple analogy and call for an Afghan Surge is misguided. I'll try to find a link to that.
Bookmark Juan Cole.
http://www.juancole.com/
Somehow he doesn't make it on to the Drudge Report listings, but he is certainly there at Drudge Retort. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:25 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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An interesting Health Reform compromise being floated: a public option plan that states can opt out of. An intriguing incremental step. Give the Blue States the choice of gov't health insurance. Let the Red State losers do without.
Details are important, especially whether the gov't plan can bargain for lower payments. Best if modeled on Medicare.
Quote:
Democratic senators were largely caught off-guard on Thursday as a compromise approach to health care reform -- emerging seemingly without warning -- began picking up praise from progressive and centrist lawmakers.
In the halls of Congress few had actually heard of or seen the proposal, which would establish a national public option for insurance coverage but grant a state government the right to exempt itself from the system.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/opt-out-public-option-gai_n_315086.html |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:30 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Agree that Sullivan is idiosyncratic, and I only read him now and then.
There was some issue he was great on a month or two back, but my brain cells aren't cooperating.
This is the kind of thing I keep hearing/reading about Obama's gay issues.
Quote: Some advocates said they already have heard Obama's promises and now they want a timeline. Cleve Jones, a pioneer activist and creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, said Obama delivered a brilliant speech, but added "it lacked the answer to our most pressing question, which is when."
"He repeated his promises that he's made to us before, but he did not indicate when he would accomplish these goals and we've been waiting for a while now," said Jones, national co-chair of a major gay-rights rally scheduled for Sunday on the National Mall. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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