Speaking of Pressing Partisan Agendas on Impressionable Young Minds...

Conservatives across the country, and especially here in Texas, are having a hissy fit over President Obama's speech to students scheduled for Tuesday. They say that the president is going to try to brainwash students by pressing a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds. Speaking of which...when Mike and Chris were still in high school and President Bush was still in office, I began getting voice messages on my unlisted land line from an adult male asking Chris to return his calls. Mike and Chris each had cell phones which friends and family used to reach them, so I wondered about this guy calling our house. Chris ignored the calls, but that didn’t stop them. They became more frequent, and the guy sounded like a creep to me: “Hey man, this is Bob, c’mon, call me back, we have things to talk about.”

“Who is this guy?” I asked.

“Just some guy,” Chris answered, with typical, teen-aged male succinctness.

Alarmed, I returned the call myself. “Why are you calling my son?” I asked

He said that he needed to talk with Chris.

“About WHAT?” I asked. When he realized I wasn’t about to give up or to let him talk with Chris, he identified himself as an army recruiter.

It turns out that President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act requires all public high schools to turn over private student contact information to local military recruiters or lose federal funding. This particular provision of the Act was added by Louisiana Republican, then Representative, now Senator, David Vitter, who identifies himself as a "staunch conservative". The first sentence in his biography on his website reads: "David Vitter is dedicated to making life better for his young family and all Louisiana families." Uh-huh. He's reportedly pro-life and pro-gun rights but against same-sex marriage, funding for abortion providers, increases in CHIP (the state Children's Health Insurance Program) and amnesty for undocumented aliens. I guess he's a family values sort of guy. Oh, but in June 2007 he was also identified as a client of D.C. madam Deborah Jean Palfrey's prostitution service. And that wasn't just some random accusation by some liberal out to get him, he admitted and apologized for it. Hey, a guy has needs, right?

If you want to read more about military recruitment on public high school campuses, check it out here (Mother Jones). If you want to find out about more protesting this practice or if you want to opt out of the database, check out the excellent website, Leave My Child Alone.

cross posted at Talking to Myself

There Oughtta Be a Law...

...against adding bullshit special interest perks to important bills working their way through Congress.

I'm told it's "politics." I'm told it's the only way our Congress ever gets anything done. In order to get enough votes on board for any given bill, you have to "sweeten the pot" for legislators on the other side of the aisle.

But there are special interest groups out there poised to take every advatage of this convoluted "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" way of doing business.

Special interest groups like the NRA.

Which managed to attach a clause to a credit card bill, allowing people to carry concealed weapons in National Parks. WTF??!?!?

At least there was some good news today. Though it was a narrow squeak, the Senate chose to reject attaching a rider to a defense bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

Sometimes I really despair over our system of government...

But if there's a better one around, we have yet to find it. Fact is, I don't think we're particularly interested...

Sigh!

Waterboarding...

Playboy journalist Mike Guy did something I've wondered about: he volunteered to undergo waterboarding to see how bad it could possibly be. I don't mean that I'd volunteer to do this, even as a controlled experiement. I've been convinced from the beginning that waterboarding IS torture, but I've wondered why some of the more outspoken defenders of this "interrogation technique" haven't volunteered to do what Mike Guy did, if it's just a matter of not being a pussy. Mike Guy says in the beginning of this video that he bet he could withstand 15 seconds of being waterboarded, reasoning that anyone can stand anything for 15 seconds. Watch the results. I'm in favor of appointing a special prosecutor.

remaking America...

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin, downloaded from The Washington Independent

NO MORE!

A little over 400 years ago, Shakespeare knew it. In The Merchant of Venice, Portia says: "I fear you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything."

Thursday, hitting the ground running, President Obama signed an executive order putting an end to "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding.

This is a very, very, very, very, very good thing.

And there are more good things to come. I'm sure of it.

Inauguration Eve...

Tomorrow's the day.

The day we've been waiting for for so long; the beginning of a new era. I wish I didn't have to go to work. I wish I could stay home and watch. This is historic. I have a bottle of champagne chilling in the 'fridge. It's almost time to celebrate. Like so many other Americans, I can hardly wait.

pushed over the edge...

Yesterday I did two things I've never done before. In the afternoon, I bit the bullet, dragged myself out of bed, went to our local library, and voted early. There was a good turnout. At 2:30 the line was long, over half an hour's wait. When I got to the booth, the voting was electronic, with nothing to show for it (no paper ballot), which didn't give me any warm fuzzy feeling about what I was doing and in fact made me a little nervous. I've watched that Homer Simpson video too many times to be happy about electronic voting.

Then last night, late, I made two political contributions online. I don't believe I've ever contributed to a political campaign before. I have no problem contributing to the arts, or to any number of good causes, e.g., Juvenile Diabetes, ALS, Susan G. Komen foundation, etc. But when it comes to politics, I’ve donated time but not cash, not even a dollar on my income tax return. I've never felt a reason to contribute financially, before now. And although I'm weary to the bone of this seemingly interminable campaign season, it was a politician who finally made me see the light, as we like to say in the south.

So who's responsible for my seeing that it makes sense, for me, to contribute some cold, hard earned cash to the cache, so to speak? The answer might surprise you. The person who prompted me to finally take action financially is Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman. Yep, her comments to Chris Matthews on Hardball re anti-Americanism and how she would like to see the news media "do a penetrating expose and take a great look at the views of the people in congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" smacked so loudly of McCarythyism that it pushed me over the edge (you can watch the video here). And so although I've lived in Texas for 25 years, last night I found myself looking on the internet to see who is opposing Ms. Bachman in Minnesota for her congressional seat this year. The answer is Elwyn Tinklenberg, and having found that out, I made a donation to him and of course to Obama.

I wasn't alone in having this reaction to Bachman, btw. It turns out that her comments brought in $810,000 to Tinklenberg's campaign in less than 72 hours, in contrast to the year it had taken him to raise $1 million prior to that. And I smile to think, I doubt that was the reaction Michelle anticipated when she spoke to Chris Matthews. And if things don't turn out as I hope they do in November, and if the time comes when people start drawing up lists of who did what, who contributed to whom...well, I'd be proud to show up as having made those donations.

Palin As President

Here's a terrific interactive site showing Sarah Palin in the Oval Office. My favorite is the red phone...