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Showing posts from March, 2006

welcome to the 00's

Let's face it, this has been a miserable, execrable decade. Or, as a hip colleague of mine responded when I made the above comment, "Well, at least the music's been good." (If you know where to find it.) The Zeroes...branded with the mark of Bush/Cheney and a U.S. populace that doesn't have the will to tell them and their GOP brethren to just shove it...despite the low poll numbers and, well, this administration's utter failure, ineptitude and corruption at everything they do. Bush is like a reverse Midas...everything he touches turns to shit. I lived through the Reagan/Bush years. By my measure they don't come close to the blight we see now. For one, a huge wave of corporatism swept American life in the 90's...in the 00's those waters have settled and ripened into a fetid, acrid cultural swamp where the single most marked trend is an alarming rise in childhood and teen obesity. I heard another co-worked talking about this...she said, as she

the Cleveland Two-Step

Robert Sheer has a fine web-only piece up in the Nation, documenting how Bush's response to an elderly gentleman's question about the three disproven rationales for the US going to war in Iraq: WMD, al Qaeda ties, and a burgeoning quest to procure nuclear materials in Africa....have all pretty much bit the dust while we continue this war. To put it simply, Bush's "answer" just dances around the question and his own lies. If the "funky-chicken" wasn't already taken I'd say we call Bush's Q&A dance just that....I'll guess we'll have to settle for the "Cleveland Two Step". Read the piece, you'll see. Of course, add to that how we've learned that Bush believes withdrawal from Iraq is a question that will be settled by "future presidents" and Bush looks funkier by the second. Hmm. The president just telescoped the whole concept of a second term: get reelected, fail at every single thing you do in your

a thought

There's been a theme that's been preoccupying me during this break from blogging. I keep thinking about how there's this gap between realities that are obvious to those of us on the left, and the way most of our society completely ignores these challenges, in particular, how U.S. voters seem to vote to ignore them. (To name a few of the challenges I'm thinking about: global warming, the increasing level to which the American diet is poisoning us and our kids, the disaster that is the American health care system, and the way in which this nation seems to have absorbed the dual failures of the war in Iraq and our abadonment of the citizens of New Orleans without much of second thought.) Why is this? Why does it seem that it's almost a "liberal" thing to talk about the environment, corporate food, our health care system, and the multifarious failures in Iraq and on the Gulf Coast? I think some of it comes out of a reality that we are just beginning to get

funny that way

A funny thing happened when I took a break from blogging...when I stepped back for a moment. I realized it was time to change some things...not with this blog...but with me. Inopportune time? Sure. But when is it a good time to shake things up? I guess that's why...like so many people, I just kept on keeping on regardless of whether my daily routines were getting me where I wanted to go. That's what we do. That's life. One foot follows the next. So, in way of explanation, I'm busy reinventing and making some changes that work for me. A break from blogging helps. I know this isn't much of a post, but I figured I owe you an explanation of my lack of posts. As always, I'm grateful for your readership and your patience. peace kid o.

Bush's California

NPR had two stories this morning on how the Bush Administration, the GOP and their business partners want to cut the idea of California's ability to make it's own state policy off at the knees. First, Congress wants to pass a nationwide regulation of Food Warnings that will prevent California, or any other cutting edge state, from passing our own strong consumer protection laws on food safety. The legislation directly targets Propostiion 65 ...you know, the one that tells pregnant women foods to avoid and keeps out lead-poisoned candy. (The legislation is written so broadly, however, that it might even overstep traditionally state run Agriculture and Food Inspection agencies.) The upshot, in a nutshell, is that in the name of a "federal" law promoting "standards", big business will have far fewer restrictions and us consumers will get less information about what's in our food. Anyone who thinks that Bush's "standards" would be anything