Prometheus 6

Brad DeLong didn't like it either.

I am annoyed by the shoddy sloppy neo-functionalist false-consciousness sociology. Perverse functionalist consequences that are asserted without supporting evidence are the "real" "purpose" of affirmative action programs. That's simply wrong in fact, and illegitimate in argument. It's taking 1970s-style cultural Marxism and eliminating the rational kernel while retaining only the mystical shell. Get rid of affirmative action in America tomorrow, and I guarantee that there will not be a great movement to tackle and repair the educational and other inequities and barriers that are driven by our Second Gilded Age distribution of income and wealth.

The presence of homosexuals, particularly gay men, in crucial staff positions has been an enduring if largely hidden staple of Republican life for decades, and particularly in recent years. They have played decisive roles in passing legislation, running campaigns and advancing careers.

Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance by Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans
By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — Every month or so, 10 top staff members from Capitol Hill meet over dinner to commiserate about their uneasy experience as gay Republicans. In a wry reference to the “K Street Project,” the party’s campaign to build influence along the city’s lobbying corridor, they privately call themselves the “P Street Project,” a reference to a street cutting through a local gay enclave.

Don't 'Brown' the Hispanics
By Amitai Etzioni

Consider the following headline: "Reading scores of blacks and Hispanics improve: Scores of whites show little change." Like many such news reports, this one is not only misleading, but also it's wrong because it does not account for the fact that roughly half of Hispanics in the United States are white.

Bush Judges Confirm Opponents' Fears
Report Documents Impact of Bush-Nominated Appeals Court Judges

Federal appeals court judges nominated by President Bush are threatening and undermining Americans’ rights and liberties, and working to reduce congressional authority to protect those rights and liberties, according to a legal analysis published today by People For the American Way Foundation.

“President Bush has fallen far short in keeping his promise to appoint judges who will interpret the law, not make it,” said People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas. “Judges nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate are undermining Americans’ rights, liberties, and legal protections.”

The report, Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears , covers cases decided between September 1, 2004 and May 31, 2006. It provides a significant update to preliminary analyses of Bush-nominated judges that PFAWF published in 2004. The new report documents that troubling trends identified in earlier reviews have continued as more Bush appointees gain more experience and tenure on the appellate courts – more and more opinions seek, sometimes successfully, to cut back broadly on Americans’ rights under our Constitution and laws.

Mark Foley was chairman of a House caucus on missing and exploited children. This was a party that literally put a pedophile in charge of pedophilia.

Does that have a vaguely familiar ring? It should. It’s the same party that put the oil companies in charge of energy policy, and invited the drug and insurance industries to write the Medicare prescription bill for their own maximum profit. As investigations have revealed, it put lobbyists for polluting industries in charge of environmental protection. 

Same song, different scandal
By Robert Kuttner  |  October 7, 2006

...remember this.

"It's one thing to authorize. It's another thing to actually appropriate the money and do it," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

It is also assumed you need a law empowering you to enforce the law you passed.

In Border Fence's Path, Congressional Roadblocks
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 6, 2006; A01

No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised, according to Republican lawmakers and immigration experts.

Bush Balks at Criteria for FEMA Director
Signing Statement Asserts Right to Ignore Parts of New Homeland Security Law
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006; A02

President Bush reserved the right to ignore key changes in Congress's overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- including a requirement to appoint someone with experience handling disasters as the agency's head -- in setting aside dozens of provisions contained in a major homeland security spending bill this week.

Besides objecting to Congress's list of qualifications for FEMA's director, the White House also claimed the right to edit or withhold reports to Congress by a watchdog agency within the Department of Homeland Security that is responsible for protecting Americans' personal privacy.

How much you want to bet Foley never names his 'abuser"? 

Victim Advocates, Fla. Diocese Urge Foley to Name Alleged Abuser
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006; A06

The Roman Catholic diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., and national advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse called yesterday for former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to give police the name of the clergyman who allegedly abused him as a teenager.

"He should absolutely report the perpetrator, living or dead," said David Clohessy, national director of the 7,000-member Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "He should do it now, not when his civil lawyer says it is convenient. Every day that a molester walks free is a day when he can hurt other kids."

'Puppets' Emerge as Internet's Effective, and Deceptive, Salesmen
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006; D01

Herndon-based Ruckus is a legal network for college students to download and share music and movies via a limited, peer-to-peer network. The fledgling service wanted to attract the attention of potential customers -- college-age students, 18 to 24 -- so it created a phony college student named "Brody Ruckus" and set up a Facebook profile page for him, joining the 10 million profiles of real people on the service.

Only Ruckus didn't tell anyone that Brody was fake.

A special comment about lying
Keith Olbermann on the difference between terrorists and critics
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 8:19 a.m. PT Oct 6, 2006

While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool ...

While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ...

The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.’”

The hell they did.

Oh, hell naw...we know how this money thing works with Republicans...

Republicans on panel have ties to Hastert
Posted 10/5/2006 10:57 PM ET
By David Jackson and Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Both Republicans on the House ethics subcommittee investigating the Mark Foley scandal have financial ties to Speaker Dennis Hastert, whose handling of the former congressman's lurid Internet messages to House pages is under scrutiny.

Ethics Chairman Doc Hastings received $2,500 during the 2000 campaign from Hastert's political action committee, Keep Our Majority, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks money in politics. The six-term Washington Republican, who became ethics chairman last year, will lead the Foley investigation.

I'm not done reading ol' boy's stuff. But I got this done, so...

I stumbled into Walter Benn Michaels’ writings via blog referrals. This is both a good and bad sign. Bad, because he was holding forth in the political equivalent of the pews of an evangelical church where I would be unlikely to see his argument evolve; good, because I did eventually encounter him, as well as a collection of his work that let me compress his evolution into a couple of evenings.

My reaction is visceral on two levels. First, he applies a literary criticism approach to analyzing social and cultural activity. This entirely too cerebral approach allows one to raise arguments representing possibilities that physical reality would constrain. Second, He speculates on human nature based on the actions of the species, homo fictus…fictional man.

Homo fictus tends toward unnecessary drama. Who do you really know that acts like a character in a book (discounting attendees of Star Trek conventions)? Even an autobiographer, if honest, admits to the vagaries of memory.

Marijuana is looking a lot like asperin nowadays...they keep finding more utility in its chemistry. 

Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer's
Fri Oct 6, 2006 8:34 AM ET
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Good news for aging hippies: smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer's disease.

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana's active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs.

Capital Crimes was the first "episode" of Moyers on America . If you missed it on PBS, you can still catch the streaming video online...and it is well worth watching.

"Capitol Crimes"

"It's a dizzying scope of perfidy and politics that boggles the imagination, and although Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay have been brought down, the system remains as vulnerable as ever," says Bill Moyers. "The scale of corruption still coming to light dwarfs anything since Watergate. In one sense it's the age-old tale of greed, but greed encouraged now by the way our system works. Deep in the plea agreements of Jack Abramoff and his cronies is the admission that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe politicians; campaign finance is at the core of the corruption. They took great pains to cover their tracks, and they might have pulled it off except for a handful of honest people, and the work of some enterprising print reporters, Senate investigators, and the ethics team at the department of justice. Following the money in this story leads through a bizarre maze of cocktail parties, golf courses, private jets, four-star restaurants, sweatshops - and the aura of chandeliered rooms frequented by the high and mighty of Washington."

Humans have had the religious impulse since the species arose, however you explain that rise. Don't think atheists are exceptions...many atheists proselytize for their position as strongly as any evangelical. Long term, banning it from public spaces is beyond absurd...it's impossible.

Fortunately no one has ever tried to do it. What has happened is an attempt to shape society to eliminate the ability NOT to be religious moment to moment. That, long term, is as absurd as trying to ban religion.

Short term, however, you can push the pendulum way over to one side.

Just watch the return swing.

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Despite their packed megachurches, their political clout and their increasing visibility on the national stage, evangelical Christian leaders are warning one another that their teenagers are abandoning the faith in droves.

I really hope some Democratic operative was resposible for this. Republicans seem to repond only to fear and power. As James said in the comments

Among friends I shall admit I am very well and personally acquainted with the fundamentalist religious right, and know from long experience that sexual sanctimony and pecksniffian hypocrisy is like electric current and magnetic fields: inseparable and mutally sustaining. Hypocrisy is, amongst such folk, a positive social good: it enables standards that makes us all guilty, and susceptible to control.

The threat of some 12 years of dirt being exposed may be the only thing that can keep them honest.

A PERFECT STORM
By JOHN PODHORETZ

October 6, 2006 -- THIS column is directed entirely to the sleazy, skuzzy, unprincipled and entirely Machiavellian Democratic political operative who helped design the careful plan resulting in the fingerprint-free leak of Mark Foley e-mails:

Bravo!

This whole Foley business is one of the most dazzling political plays in my or any other lifetime - like watching an unassisted triple play or a running back tossing a 90-yard touchdown pass on a double-reverse.

Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, said this week that he repeatedly alerted Hastert's staff in 2003 to complaints that the Florida lawmaker was showing inappropriate interest in male pages, who are high-schoolers spending a semester or two working for Congress. The FBI spent more than three hours yesterday interviewing Fordham.

Inquiry To Look At House, Not Foley
Ethics Panel to Focus on Handling Of Early Warnings
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 6, 2006; A01

The House ethics committee launched a wide-ranging investigation into Congress's handling of information about a Florida lawmaker and teenage pages yesterday, as Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) vowed to keep his job, saying, "I haven't done anything wrong."

I saw the title of the editorial, Blowing the Easy Ones, and said to myself, "Oh, another Foley story."

I was wrong...

This should be the easy part of fighting terrorism. It is simply a question of devoting adequate resources to making happen something that everyone agrees needs to happen.

Blowing the Easy Ones
Please read the terrorists' mail first.
Friday, October 6, 2006; Page A22

The federal Bureau of Prisons, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote, "does not read all the mail for terrorist and other high-risk inmates on its mail monitoring lists." It is also "unable to effectively monitor high-risk inmates' verbal communications," including phone calls. So while the administration won't reveal the circumstances under which it spies on innocent Americans, the communications of imprisoned terrorists, at least, appear sadly secure.

Not sure what to think...

They say to read the letter to the teacher. You probably should.

Introduction to the Simulation

1865 marked the end of America’s most terrible war and a year in which decisions involving government and race still echo today. The simulation our class will play focuses on the early choices that began Reconstruction. In this totally fictitious convention held in Washington D.C. on New Year’s Eve 1865, you and your classmates will try to reach agreement on a set of issues that the United States faced at that time.

No matter what is written, the Black Power movement had a visceral impact on Black Americans...self-determination, though under attack to this day, became our default assumption.

Hence Dr. Peniel E. Joseph, another person I want to follow up with.

Black Power's Powerful Legacy
by Peniel E. Joseph, Ph.D.
The Chronicle Review (7/21/06)

Black power represents one of the most enduring and controversial stories of racial tumult, social protest, and political upheaval of our time, complete with a cast of tragic and heroic historical characters: Black Muslims, FBI agents, Martin Luther King Jr., Black Panthers, Carmichael, Lyndon B. Johnson, the New Left, and Fidel Castro all play major and minor parts in the era this movement helped define. Black power's reach was global, spanning continents and crossing oceans, yet its iconic personalities and organizations (some of whom were key civil-rights activists) remain shadowy, almost forgotten figures in spite of their vital role in shaping still-raging debates about race, war, and democracy.

Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America author: Peniel E. Joseph asin: 0805075399

You know, privatizing hospitals hasn't been a big boon to the public. Privatizing jails has been great for investors and the towns in which the prisons are built benefit both economically and politically. We can overlook that we have the highest prisoner per capita rate in the world, right? Wisconsin's welfare reform "miracle" was seriously marred by the private companies they hired to manage the process.

Privatizing public good NEVER turns out well.

If you think this is a good idea, please read Rationing Education in the Washington Post.

Anyway...

City Considers Plan to Let Outsiders Run Schools
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

In what would be the biggest change yet to the way New York City’s school system is administered, officials are considering plans to hire private groups at taxpayer expense to manage scores of public schools.

You know about this case, I think.

Josh Wolf: video blogger at the center of controversy over journalists' rights
For refusing to hand over unaired video of a G8 Summit protest, Wolf has been imprisoned for contempt; members of the media have rallied to his aid.
By Kim Pearson
Posted: 2006-10-03

In some ways, Joshua Wolf cuts an unlikely figure as a crusader for the rights of journalists. The 24-year-old California videoblogger’s journalistic portfolio is "thin,", according to Anthony Lappe, executive editor of Guerilla News Network. Some traditional journalists are discomfited by the Wolf’s sympathy for the anarchists whose activities he often covers.

"Almost exactly to the date of the change in sales practices, we saw virtually no more of these junk guns being recovered from criminals," says Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who led the new research, published in the Journal of Urban Health (DOI: 10.1007/s11524-006-9073-2).

Fewer cheap guns = fewer criminals with guns
07 October 2006
NewScientist.com news service

IT SEEMS obvious, but selling fewer guns stems the supply of weapons to criminals.

Seven years ago Badger Outdoors, a gun shop in West Milwaukee, Wisconsin, stopped selling $70 handguns, known as "Saturday night specials", after a government study revealed it was the nation's leading supplier of guns that were later recovered from criminals. Now, follow-up research shows that the move singlehandedly reduced the supply of new guns to criminals in the city by 44 per cent.