The Progress Report.

Idiotic Blog Entry of the Day

2008-12-11T23:46:37-08:00

(And hopefully it's not mine.)

I'm not sure who Burt Prelutsky is, or why he has a column anywhere -- oh wait! It's Town Hall.com, which also posts the reactionary dribblings of Michael Medved, Ann Coulter, and other neo-con "heros." Anyway, I only ran across this because, seriously, I was searching for news about the LA Dodgers and this latest gem from Burt Prelutsky was mixed in with the rest of it. I couldn't resist. The column called "sheep and goats" starts off thusly:

"The other day, I read a letter to the editor in the L.A. Times written by an irate homosexual. Come to think of it, is there any other kind?..."

Stop drilling, you hit oil! Whoa, Burt, you have already welcomed us to your world. What is it like to be you, I wonder. To wake up every morning, tired and cranky, and yet rubbing your hands together with excitement -- What can I get my narrow mind to focus on today? There are so many groups I hate out there, I don't even know where to begin!

"Liberals are so intolerant they often can’t even bear to have people say “Merry Christmas” in their presence. In fact, they can’t even bring themselves to recognize it as a celebration of a specific event."

That's right, all of us scheming liberals are conspiring to get Christmas banned, or even any mention of it, because we're evil! {twirl mustache diabolically}

"Where liberals are concerned, one thing you can always count on is that they regard themselves as morally and intellectually superior to those who disagree with them. And, yet, surely there must be liberals somewhere who possess enough common sense to realize how absurd it is when the city council of Berkeley, California, instead of dealing with potholes and street vendors, came up with a resolution condemning the Iraq War, or when a grand jury in Willacy County, Texas, recently decided to indict Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalez. Aren’t there any liberals who find such things even faintly amusing?"

Of course! I find Berkeley amusing all the time. I'm as progressive as they come and I make fun of Berkeley all the time.But you know what I find even more amusing? Burt Prelutsky. You know those fake editorials in the Onion, and how they sometimes have one written by the old timey conservative "publisher" of the paper? (Or those hilarious fake editorial cartoons satirizing a smarmy conservative cartoonist who thinks liberals are all the same and all evil and that he is also quite funny? About as funny as a Mallard Fillmore cartoon.) That's Burt Prelutsky, except he's real.

But don't worry Burt, we conniving, diabolical liberal friends-of-homosexuals have no interest in banning your column or tearing anything you do down. It's just such great satire it practically writes itself.

But I couldn't resist posting a comment on that blog. Please forgive me, Lord.

GW Bush's final middle finger extension: last rush of mismanagement before leaving.

2008-11-21T17:09:57-08:00

Lame duck president George W Bush (remember him?) is pushing through a host of "midnight regulations" before leaving office, many of them screwing with the environment.

The Los Angeles Times says environmentalists are angry by a host of loosened safeguards:

In recent days, the Bush administration announced new rules to speed oil shale development across 2 million rocky acres in the West. It scheduled an auction for drilling rights alongside three national parks. It has also set in motion processes to finalize major changes in endangered species protection, allow more mining waste to flow into rivers and streams, and exempt factory farms from air pollution reporting.

The Chicago Tribune did a special report saying the administration undercut a clean-air rule aimed at curbing childhood lead poisoning:

...the EPA had planned to require lead monitors next to any factory emitting at least a half-ton of lead a year. But after the White House intervened, the agency raised the threshold to a ton of lead or more, according to e-mails and other documents exchanged between the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget.

Read more: Bush's last rule-making hurrah (Yahoo)

As if it wasn't already clear which pocket Bush's interests lie in, and it's not you or me and it's not the American environment, in case you were wondering.

The truth about San Francisco, not the Fox/Faux Truth.

2008-11-21T14:22:47-08:00

There were so many lies and so much misinformation coming from Jesse Watters, the documentarian sent on behalf of Fox News' Bill O'Really? into my city, San Francisco, that I didn't even know where to begin as far as debunking and deconstructing it. This is not to say that there are not a lot of homeless people in San Francisco, nor to deny that there are mentally ill people and drug addicts on the streets here, either. But to imply that this is commonplace all across San Francisco is a lie. To imply that this is not a NATIONAL problem is a lie. To make it sound like we're creating or breeding schizophrenic homeless drug addicts is a bit of a stretch too. And by the way, has Watters or O'Reilly been to downtown Kansas City? Talk about not feeling safe -- it's a danger zone. Or Detroit? Or Los Angeles. Or a number of other American cities suffering the same problem. And oh by the way, mentally ill people in the streets - you can thank in large part your hero Ronald Reagan and his Republican successors for helping to shut down a lot of mental hospitals and mental health care programs in California, and elsewhere.

And the implication that it's not safe to go to the Presidio or the park or many other places in SF is a sham, too. Sure, no place in an American urban area is 100% fool-proof safe, but there's so much hysteria in that piece and BOR's BS that followed it that it's hard to even think of a rational response.

Anyway, Phill Bronstein points out a lot of other stories and places the Fox Folks missed, just for starters.

Time to boycott the Wall Street Journal.

2008-11-12T22:12:50-08:00

There probably aren't too many true progressives out there who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, but it's at least likely that we all know someone who does. I've worked with a few people who got the WSJ and brought it into work for the "financial news." All fine and good, but now that it's right-leaning tendencies are going to become even less transparent, it's time to get on your friends and family who give this thing money to think twice about it.

Wall Street Journal Makes Rightward Veer With Hire

Via Michael Calderone at Politico comes the news that the Wall Street Journal has hired Gerard Baker, a self-styled "right-wing curmudgeon" from the Times Of London, as the paper's new deputy editor-in-chief, where he will have oversight of the Journal's news coverage. Calderone says that the move "surprised some staffers because of his strong, right-wing political views." No doubt the surprise wore off after those staffers remembered recent events and said to themselves, "Oh, that's right! The Wall Street Journal was recently acquired by Rupert Murdoch after a protracted battle with the hopeless Bancroft family!"

And, in case you were wondering precisely what sort of right-wing ideologue you were getting at the Journal, and whether it made it more or less likely that the paper's famed editorial tilt would bleed its way into the news coverage, E&P's Greg Mitchell is here to remind you that Baker famously penned a column titled "Obama: is America ready for this dangerous left winger?" back in February 2008, in which he fulminated on a worldview that he claimed Obama espoused, one that included a fundamental lack of love for his country:

There is a caste of left-wing Americans who wish essentially and in all honesty that their country was much more like France. They wish it had much higher levels of taxation and government intervention, that it had much higher levels of welfare, that it did not have such a "militaristic" approach to foreign policy. Above all, that its national goals were dictated, not by the dreadful halfwits who inhabit godforsaken places like Kansas and Mississippi, but by the counsels of the United Nations.

Protect Marriage, Protect Children, Prohibit Divorce

2008-11-12T20:24:48-08:00

Well done.

Oklahoma Newspaper refuses to announce Obama's win.

2008-11-11T11:11:22-08:00

Kind of astonishing, but then again, not entirely.

The Sapulpa Daily Herald (Oklahoma) is being protested for not reporting that Barack Obama won the presidency. The paper did report that John McCain had won the most votes in the county. Upset residents say that the paper's selective reporting of news is racism.

More here on Tulsa station KJRH's web site: Local paper fails to report Obama's victory.

Lamest Excuse of the Year Award:

"I'm sure they read about it (the election) and watched it on T.V.; or got on the Internet and followed it as many people did and knew complete coverage before we were gonna go to press."

Gee, what if all newspapers took that tack?

Fox and The Wall Street Journal Don't Get It: Americans Want Action on Global Warming and Clean Energy

2008-11-07T12:22:05-08:00

(I'm reposting this from Josh Nelson's spot-on piece up at The Seminal:

Fox and The Wall Street Journal Don't Get It: Americans Want Action on Global Warming and Clean Energy

Despite what the Wall Street Journal would have you believe, the election on Tuesday did not indicate opposition to action on global warming and clean energy. In fact, we are now seeing more and more evidence that the opposite is true.

A poll was just released with some extremely encouraging data on voters’ opinions on global warming and clean energy. It was commissioned by The National Wildlife Federation and conducted by Zogby.

Here are some of the findings, which show that support for combating global warming and investing in the green economy have gained tremendous support, especially among a few key demographics:

78 percent of voters agree that investing in clean energy is important to revitalizing America’s economy. Let that sink in for a second. If we can get 60% of the United States Senate to agree on this we’ll be in good shape.

57 percent of voters said it was important to back candidates who support reducing global warming pollution.

60 percent agreed that elected officials should make combating global warming a high priority.

The results also showed increasing demand for climate action among some key demographic groups:

Independents: 57 percent felt it was important to vote for candidates who support reducing global warming pollution, up from 49 percent in 2006.

Minorities: An incredible 85 percent of African-Americans called it important to vote for climate candidates, a huge increase from 59 percent in 2006.

Among Hispanic voters, 70 percent agreed a candidate’s climate stance was important, up from 62 percent in 2006.

Young voters: 53 percent strongly agreed that elected officials should make combating global warming a high priority, a major jump from 38 percent in 2006.

NWF’s President and CEO Larry Schweiger offered the following summary of the findings:

“This election was powered by a voting public that wants dramatic and meaningful change, especially when it comes to action to advance a clean energy economy,” continued Schweiger. “President-elect Obama and the new Congress have the public support they need to move an ambitious clean energy agenda that measures up to the science of global warming and the full economic potential of our economy.”

So how did The Wall Street Journal and Fox get it so wrong? Short answer: intentionally.

Not So Green: Voters Nix Most Environmental State Ballot Measures

Not Easy Being Green

Several of the initiatives the WSJ examined were opposed by environmentalists. I fail to see how this qualifies as voters nixing environmental measures. They also conveniently forgot to mention all of the environmentally friendly initiatives approved by voters on Tuesday. For the record, here are eight:

CA Proposition 1A: Would partially fund a high-speed train linking Southern California with the Bay Area and the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley.

CA Proposition 2: Would prohibit the confinement of livestock in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, stand up, lie down, or extend their wings and limbs.

FL Amendment 4: Would institute a property-tax exemption for property placed under permanent conservation protection.

Minnesota Clean Water, Wildlife, Cultural Heritage, and Natural Areas Amendment: Would raise the state sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent in order to increase state funding for natural resource protection and cultural heritage programs.

MO Proposition 3: Would require 15 percent of the state’s electricity come from clean energy sources by 2021, and would require that utilities raise consumer rates no more than 1 percent per year to pay for the renewable energy.

Ohio Issue 2: Would authorize the state to borrow $400 million for environmental conservation.

Ohio Issue 3: Would create a constitutional amendment to protect property rights and rights to the reasonable use of water.

Washington Prop. 1: Would provide $18 billion to support mass-transit services and expand light rail into several communities south of Seattle.

It also wouldn’t be hard to make the case that the defeat of California Propositions 7 and 10 were victories for environmentalists as well.

Read the rest of Josh's piece here.

He's certainly right about the CA props -- those were thinly veiled measures meant to aid the energy corporations and T Boone Pickens in particular. Kudos to Californians for not falling for them.

The Onion's take.

2008-11-05T12:04:12-08:00

I haven't written much about Obama's historic win because I've mostly been speechless about it and so much has already been said that says it for me. But I was moved to tears by the history and meaning of it all, and am proud to be an American.

On the other hand, why does he want this job, is one question -- with G W Bush having left him, as one of the Daily Show pundits put it last night, a "giant shitburger supreme" on his doorstep. Or, as the Onion put it today (just for laughs):

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

NOVEMBER 5, 2008 | ISSUE 44*45

WASHINGTON-African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

Quick thoughts on Prop 8

2008-11-05T09:25:27-08:00

(UPDATED BELOW)

I heard a friend this morning ask aloud, "How can we have voted in Barack Obama by such a wide margin here in California and yet also vote to ban gay marriage?" It's a valid question. Here we voted to give chickens more rights in their cages but not to keep what I think is a fundamental right for human beings.

I haven't looked at all the numbers yet, and it will be awhile before we see the most accurate, specific demographic breakdown we can get, but here's one stab at it. And this is NOT meant to blame/scapegoat in any way, simply trying to better understand how this can happen. There was a large turnout of African American voters and Latino voters here, as well as nationwide, which is fantastic. While those voters turned out huge for Obama, many of them (again this is just speaking broadly) are also fairly religious and even traditional churchgoers, and in many respects vote in the traditional values set on social issues even when voting progressive for individual people and on other issues (economic, environmental). Again, this is just a guess, but it's possible that may have been one difference in the vote on Proposition 8 here in California. (That and the incredible amount of funding that the Yes on 8 campaign had in their coffers, almost all of it from out of state people -- I can't tell you how much I resent that.) Clearly, a ton of white folks voted for this proposition, too. A lot of misinformation about it was spread, fear-mongering about teaching school kids to be gay/accept gay marriage, when that had nothing to do with it at all. So there is plenty of blame to go around on this one. I live in a bubble here in San Francisco where it of course was voted down overwhelmingly, and am just trying to understand.

It does make me a bit sad if true that while we took a huge step forward in civil rights for people of color yesterday with this monumental Presidential election, we here in California have a divide when it comes to civil rights for gay people. Until those ideals become all-encompassing, it's clear we still have a ways to go.

One giant leap for man yesterday, one step backwards for man (and woman)kind, too.

UPDATE:
Michael Musto in the Village Voice seems to agree with my guess, though in more emotional terms.

Also: Here's a picture of some of the people, in Orange County, who were avid supporters of Prop 8. In case you, you know, want to photoshop that photo to put them all in lavender or something cathartic like that.

Lastly, here's a list -- it's public record -- of people who donated large to Yes on Prop. 8. Know any of them? Feel free to give them a piece of your mind.

2nd UPDATE (11/7):

More optimistic note from Todd Palmer and Rob Pringle, on how the demographic reflects that 61% of voters under 30 voted against 8 and an even higher percentage of voters under age of 24. Most of the "Yes"s came from older voters, so the hope would be that homophobia dies with them. And they note that it's unfair to blame the African American vote for turning the tide when that's only 6% of the electorate.)

AND: A really thoughtful email from the No on 8 coalition which also cautions against scapegoating and blaming. Please read.

Dear Craig,

This has been an incredibly difficult week for Californians who are disappointed in the passage of Proposition 8, which takes away the right to marry for same-sex couples in our state. We feel a profound sense of disappointment in this defeat, but know that in order to move forward we must continue to stand together as one community in order to secure full equality in California.

In working to defeat Prop 8, a profound coalition banded together to fight for equality. Faith leaders, labor, teachers, civil rights leaders and communities of color, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, public officials, local school boards and city councils, parents, corporate law firms and bar associations, businesses, and people from all walks of life joined together to stand up against discrimination. We must build on this coalition in order to achieve equal rights for all Californians.

We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight. We only further divide our state if we attempt to blame people of faith, African American voters, rural communities and others for this loss. We know people of all faiths, races and backgrounds stand with us in our fight to end discrimination, and will continue to do so. Now more than ever it is critical that we work together and respect our differences that make us a diverse and unique society. Only with that understanding will we achieve justice and equality for all.

Dr. Delores A. Jacobs
CEO
Center Advocacy Project

Lorri L. Jean
CEO
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center

Kate Kendell
Executive Director
National Center for Lesbian Rights

Geoff Kors
Executive Director
Equality California

A year later: My grandfather and the election.

2008-11-03T21:33:01-08:00

Almost a year to the day that my grandfather passed away, just after reaching 100 (which I wrote or rambled about here and here), comes this year's Presidential Election. Between the fact that this year it falls on my grandfather's birthday and then hearing the sad news that Barack Obama's beloved grandmother had passed away, it is impossible not to think now of him again.

And to wonder about how he would have reacted to this election, and how he would have voted.

For you see, my grandpa Lou was a lifelong, well, what I'd call an FDR Democrat (and he could certainly remember FDR -- in fact, he could vividly remember Coolidge and Harding!) He couldn't stand nor trust most Republican leaders, and up until the last few months of his life maintained a keen sense of interest and active engagement in political affairs. I sometimes felt his abject hatred of George Bush was one of things that kept him going in his final years. (In fact, I swear I think one of his final active physical movements from his deathbed was to shake his fist at the TV screen as CNN showed the president from the Rose Garden.)

But for a long time he also seemed to have a bit of a paternal racist side, not, alas, uncommon among older Jewish retirees in Florida. Feelings about African-Americans in particular, while not at all spiteful, were definitely of the patronizing variety. My dad loves to tell the story of us driving around Golden Gate Park during one of my grandparents visits to San Francisco, and my grandfather from the passenger seat noticing one of the street names in the park, Martin Luther King Blvd. "I see they made a concession to the coloreds, eh?" And the rest of us sinking down as low as we could into our seats, my poor grandmother digging her nails into my knees -- though she often did that to represent her terror at whoever was, and how they were, driving. On the other hand, my grandfather also spoke respectfully at other times about MLK and what a great man he was. It was like that -- the occasional disrespect at African Americans followed by a surprising statement to show he appreciated their contributions.

And so here we have this year's model, an African-American presidential candidate, of mixed race to be precise, versus a "maverick" Republican whom I'm pretty sure my grandfather couldn't stand. We joked that if he was still alive this year, this election would've killed my grandfather anyway.

I'll never know how he would've voted in this one, had he been both still alive and capable of voting, but I like to use an anecdote I heard today from Miles Gerety (volunteering down in Florida), as reported on Huffington Post:

Sometime after 2:30 a man with a Jamaican accent called me and asked me to help an elderly man who was "fading." The elderly man, George McLain (85), father of a police officer and of a speech therapist and grandfather of twelve, looked very tired. It was obvious he needed to sit down. So I walked Mr. McClain across the grass (avoiding the longer sidewalk path) and into the library and found him a seat. The system was that someone in the line would have to act as Mr. McClain's placeholder. Mr. McClain had laughed when I'd softly said I thought Obama would be our next president and he responded "a black man can't be president." He looked frail, I didn't want him to be kept waiting too long inside, so rather than having the Jamaican man act as his place holder, I asked a group of women closer to the front of the line to claim Mr. McClain as their own.

Sometime later, I saw Mr. McClain leaving the polling place. He had voted. I said."Mr. McClain can you tell me who you voted for?" He looked up (I noticed he had a cataract growing in his right eye), tilted his head close to mine, and whispered "Barack Obama, who did you think I'd vote for."

In the last months of my grandfather's life, as his health faded, he was cared for by a lovely Jamaican man whom I had the pleasure of meeting when I had to go say my goodbyes. I saw pictures of the man's family, and heard stories of how he patiently fed my grandafther, gave him liquids when he couldn't eat, even held his hand when he was in pain. As his life slipped away, I heard and then I saw how my grandfather grew to appreciate, even, I think, love the man who helped care for him and could care less about the color of his skin. Some people, as they get older, get even more stubborn with their racist tendencies, clinging to them as if a tattered security blanket. But I think even more people let go of such pettiness.

I will never know how my grandfather would have voted this year if he had the chance, but that anecdote from Florida and my own experience at the end of his long, long life make me think he would've whispered "Barack Obama" and quietly voted for him, too.