| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Barack Obama Is Luke Skywalker | ||||
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Welcome to Katalusis for progressive views on politics, religion, environmental issues, and popular culture. (Photo of the Mississippi River from the University Club in St. Paul, MN.)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Barack Obama as Luke Skywalker (video)
Jon Stewart's review of 2010 for the Obama Administration in which he portrays Obama as Luke Skywalker - watch:
Anonymity: a shame-free zone where Internet bloggers can inflict shame on others?
Stanley Fish, a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University in Miami, writes for the NY Times on education, law and society. I’ve been reading Fish’s column for several years.
Fish has long been a standard bearer for civility, even on the Internet, and he was one of the few members of the media to consistently protest the vulgar sexism and misogyny so prevalent in the 2008 Democratic primary that targeted Hillary Clinton. He also defended Sarah Palin against similar attacks in the general election.
In today’s column, Fish discusses the abuse of free speech by too many anonymous Internet bloggers. He writes:
The practice of withholding the identity of the speaker is strategic, and one purpose of the strategy (this is the second problem with anonymity) is to avoid responsibility and accountability for what one is saying. Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Minnesota inaugurates Mark Dayton, the first Democratic governor in 20 years
Mark Dayton was inaugurated today as Minnesota’s first Democratic governor in 20 years. In the interest of full disclosure, my ties with the Dayton family go back to the 1980s when I was a Dayton Merit Scholar at United Theological Seminary in the Twin Cities. The scholarship paid for my tuition and books.
Today Mark and I are Facebook friends, and you can bet I voted for him last November.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune covered Dayton’s inauguration:
Moments after Mark Dayton was sworn in as governor, he began bracing Minnesotans and political rivals for difficult times ahead.
The state's first Democratic governor in more than 20 years signaled his willingness to work with Republicans who will control the Legislature, but said he was prepared to spend his new political capital to make tough but unpopular decisions.
Dayton steps into office after years of a depressed economy and a series of accounting gimmicks that leave the state facing a staggering $6.2 billion deficit. Dayton and Republican legislative leaders must balance the books without hobbling the state's sputtering economy, but also without angering recession-wracked taxpayers stinging from higher property taxes, soaring college tuition and cuts to cherished government services.
Chavez notices Hillary’s smile
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Hillary Clinton this weekend at the inauguration of Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, he was struck by the secretary of state's smile, which was, apparently "spontaneous."
Your Facebook friend could be a prison inmate
I read it in the NY Times this morning:
ATLANTA — A counterfeiter at a Georgia state prison ticks off the remaining days of his three-year sentence on his Facebook page. He has 91 digital “friends.” Like many of his fellow inmates, he plays the online games FarmVille and Street Wars.
He does it all on a Samsung smartphone, which he says he bought from a guard. And he used the same phone to help organize a short strike among inmates at several Georgia prisons last month.
Read more:
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Minnesotans Klobuchar and Mondale: fix the filibuster
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| Sen. Amy Klobuchar (press kit photo). |
We Minnesotans value civility and as a result, we’ve produced a few remarkable politicians. Listening first to Sen. Amy Klobuchar this morning on WCCO speak out against the misuse of the filibuster in the US Senate and then reading former Vice President Walter Mondale’s op-ed in today’s NY Times on the same topic would hearten anyone who prefers problem solving to obstruction in our government.
Mondale writes:
WE all have hopes for the New Year. Here’s one of mine: filibuster reform. It was around this time 36 years ago — during a different recession — that I was part of a bipartisan effort to reform Senate Rule 22, the cloture rule. At the time, 67 votes were needed to cut off debate and thus end a filibuster, and nothing was getting done. After long negotiations, a compromise lowered to 60 the cloture vote requirement on legislation and nominations. We hoped this moderate change would preserve debate and deliberation while avoiding paralysis, and for a while it did.
Mondale at United Theological Seminary in the Twin Cities in '06.
But it’s now clear that our reform was insufficient for today’s more partisan, increasingly gridlocked Senate. In 2011, senators should pull back the curtain on Senate obstruction and once again amend the filibuster rules.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
David Corn: political hate machines are wrong depending on their targets
David Corn at Politics Daily is up in arms as 2010 fades into memory. He wants to know if POTUS can beat back the Obama hate machine in 2011.
I seem to recall that Corn was a vocal part of the Clinton hate machine in 2008 that went all out to destroy Bill and Hillary in order to assure Obama’s nomination. Guess David Corn thinks hate machines are wrong depending on their targets.
It’s the hate machine mentality that No Labels hopes to replace in the American political process with the radical notion of civility and cooperation in moving the nation forward.
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| The Founding Fathers had no labels. There were no political parties when they wrote the U.S. Constitution. |
Dear No Labeler--From all of us at No Labels, we hope you’re getting to spend time this week with your loved ones and close friends. While the political world is mostly quiet, we’ve been hard at work planning for an exciting January and an incredible 2011. There’s a lot of hard work ahead for all of us, but we can’t wait to get going. We're sending you this message because you've taken the first step by signing up to join us online or at a No Labels event, and we're counting on you to continue forward with us in the weeks and months ahead!
Join us on Monday, January 3rd for our weekly Citizen Leaders’ call to get the New Year going. We’ll be telling you all about our plans for the first meetups and sharing some exciting news about what we have planned for January. Please click here by Sunday at 12:00 EST to RSVP for the call and receive the dial-in.
In the meantime, while you’re wishing your friends a healthy 2011, make sure they’ve signed the No Labels Declaration so our democracy can be healthier too!
Sincerely,
Nancy Jacobson & Mark McKinnon
Co-Founders of No Labels
P.S. To remind you of how far we’ve come, we’re including three of the many pieces written about No Labels in the past few weeks. We have momentum!
A No Labels solution to Washington gridlock?
Can a centrist movement succeed?
Editorial: A welcome addition to the civility trenches
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