Howard Kurz in media watch has a nice compendium of responses to pundit-gate, which has dredged up some needed humor:
first this from Maureen Dowd:
washingtonpost.com: Media Notes Extra: "I still have many Christmas bills to pay. So I'd like to send a message to the administration: THIS SPACE AVAILABLE. I could write about the strong dollar and the shrinking deficit. Or defend Torture Boy, I mean, the esteemed and sage Alberto Gonzales. Or remind readers of the terrific job Condi Rice did coordinating national security before 9/11 -- who could have interpreted a memo titled 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States' as a credible threat? -- not to mention her indefatigable energy obscuring information undercutting the vice president's dementia on Iraq.'"

on-line exhibit
Dreaming of Freedom: An Online Exhibit Home

here is John Hope Franklin's speech on video:
Video Archive >> Wednesdays @ the Center >> Why Do Universities Have Musuems?

What DID he mean? Out of a compendium of analyses I thought this about summed it up: this is Peter Baker in the Washingtonpost, washingtonpost.com � White House Briefing � News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration: "While administration officials have since tried to tamp down expectations of a radical shift in policy, the inaugural speech reflected a worldview dramatically at odds with that in many parts of Europe and the Middle East, where it has only confirmed the image of Bush as an American unilateralist pursuing his own agenda with messianic fervor.'"

GDD News 09-Jan-05: Molly Ivins: "Let's get this straight. The Republicans do not want to fix Social Security, they want to kill it. Period. They don't want to 'partially privatize' Social Security, they want to end it. What they want is a private pension system like the one their pointy-headed heroes at the University of Chicago dreamed up for Chile, the poster child of why we should not do this.
This same rigid, inflexible, impractical the-market-is-always-best ideology is like a form of mania with these folks. As Paul Krugman patiently points out, 'Claims that stocks will always yield high, low-risk returns are just bad economics.'
In fact, it's more than passingly reminiscent of another rigid, inflexible, politico-economic orthodoxy: communism. And just as capable of robustly ignoring reality. "

here is a site with all of the major commentaries on the issue of social security reform. Of course, who wants to read thema ll? I'm now convinced that it has nothing at all to do with reality, there is no crisis. its all about ideology. the conservatives hate social security because its a welfare state vestige of the hated FDR's New Deal. Thats it.
GDD News 09-Jan-05

this is from sourcewatch wikipedia on neo-con's very interesting. as my frineds know, con-men are one of my main interests these days.
Neo-conservative - SourceWatch: "This points out another critical distinction between neo-conservatives and conservatives in the conventional sense: the level of concern with corruption. While conventional conservatives have been very concerned with conflict of interest, ethical codes, appearances and reputation in their own community, many leftist critics have argued that the American and Israeli breed of neo-conservatives are all utterly unconcerned by these.
There have been many major scandals and conflicts in these parties in the recent past, notably involving Ariel Sharon and Richard Cheney, leading some to suggest that in effect the neo-cons are simply seeking a kleptocracy. The con in neo-con is thus interpreted as referring to confidence as in 'con-man'. "

NathanNewman.org: "Bush Attacks States Rights/Promotes Corruption
Following up on this previous post, the federal government is still fighting to yank $250 million in federal transportion funds because New Jersey wants to ban political contributors from receiving state-controlld highway contracts. In court filings, the Bush administration argues there is no possible connection between political contributions and political corruption in public contracts:

'Nothing about a bidder's history in contributing, or not contributing, to political causes or elective contests impacts in any way the ability of that contractor to provide quality work at an efficient price.'
It's hardly surprising that the Bush administration can't imagine that taking large corporate bucks might corrupt the bidding process -- this is the administration of Halliburton -- but topping that position off with an assault on states rights to control how they spend public money just keeps the administration in the hypocrites winner circle. "

My daughter Molly asked me what the social security thing was all about. This is the best description I have seen. Go Paul.
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Free Lunch Bunch: "President Bush is like a financial adviser who tells you that at the rate you're going, you won't be able to afford retirement - but that you shouldn't do anything mundane like trying to save more. Instead, you should take out a huge loan, put the money in a mutual fund run by his friends (with management fees to be determined later) and place your faith in capital gains.
That, once you cut through all the fine phrases about an 'ownership society,' is how the Bush privatization plan works. Payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts, forcing the government to borrow to replace the lost revenue. The government would make up for this borrowing by reducing future benefits; yet workers would supposedly end up better off, in spite of reduced benefits, through the returns on their accounts. "

O.C.'s Mystery of the Deep: Invasion of the Jumbo Squid: "Unlike their smaller cousin � known to most people as calamari � the beached and mostly juvenile pink and black creatures are about 3 feet long and 5 to 15 pounds. The Dosidicus gigas, also known as the Humboldt squid, are not recommended eating. Adults can grow to 6 feet long and weigh as much as 100 pounds. "

More on the Summers Flap: a response from technology leaders
Breaking News

for more on the Abu Graib toture scandal, and Gonzales' part of it, this diary on Dailykos is the best I have found:
Daily Kos

Fool's Gold (washingtonpost.com): "Iraq aside, are there other areas in which the administration has done so well that you can say it explains Bush's smile? The economy? Hardly. It's okay; not really terrific and not bad either. It is, though, the recipient of huge and reckless tax cuts, which have spread cash as Tinkerbell does fairy dust. The result has been a burgeoning national debt that can be paid off only if space exploration discovers a planet of suckers willing to buy U.S. bonds.
Could it be education? Hardly. No Child Left Behind is a nifty slogan and maybe a good idea, but it is not the sort of thing that gets presidents on Mount Rushmore. Conservation? Are you mad? Agriculture? You jest. Maybe it's the way we've been able to stop nuclear proliferation or the way America is now respected around the world. Sorry. Just kidding. "

U Arizona, though geographically far from the center of the storm, is erupting, along with the entire feminist universe:
Professor Karen Anderson has this to add:
Dear Fellow Travelers,Lawrence Summers is the same one who wrote a memo advocating exporting pollutionto underdeveloped countries because lives there were not worth as much as firstworld lives. This was leaked. He never disavowed it and never apologized. ABrazilian official who publicly condemned it, however, lost his job.You can read this at http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news990613a.htmSo, of course, he goes on to be Secretary of the Treasury and then president ofHarvard. This is what "business" leadership in the academy could portend.

And another comment:
If this president does not get fired over this, it will be a blow to all of us who have been pushing a feminist agenda for so long. I believe that individual and collective protests to the Harvard regent's (trustees?) is very warranted.

And the latest:
The New York Times > Education > Harvard President Apologizes Again for Remarks on Gender

"Intellectual Tsunami,"
Members of a Harvard faculty committee that has examined the recruiting of professors who are women sent a protest letter yesterday to Lawrence H. Summers, the university's president, saying his recent statements about innate differences between the sexes would only make it harder to attract top candidates.
The committee told Mr. Summers that his remarks did not "serve our institution well."
"Indeed," the letter said, "they serve to reinforce an institutional culture at Harvard that erects numerous barriers to improving the representation of women on the faculty, and to impede our current efforts to recruit top women scholars. They also send at best mixed signals to our high-achieving women students in Harvard College and in the graduate and professional schools."

At Friday's conference, Mr. Summers discussed possible reasons so few women were on the science and engineering faculties at research universities, and he said he would be provocative.
Among his hypotheses were that faculty positions at elite universities required more time and energy than married women with children were willing to accept, that innate sex differences might leave women less capable of succeeding at the most advanced mathematics and that discrimination may also play a role, participants said. There was no transcript of his remarks.
The New York Times > Education > No Break in the Storm Over Harvard President's Words

"House Republican Says Bush Plan Is Doomed, Seeks Review of System"
If this is true its certainly good news. I still can't understand exactly why Bush is so adamant about his plan. Is is conservative ideology, as someone form the Hoover Insistute said on NPR yesterday?
Or is it the profits which will accrue to Wall St.?

New Doubts On Plan For Social Security (washingtonpost.com): "

Center Works to Preserve Yiddish a Book at a Time (washingtonpost.com): "Lansky has hopped secret flights to Cuba to rescue books from a synagogue and sifted through volumes left in a San Francisco carriage by a socialist, Yiddish chicken-farming commune in Petaluma. He's taken receipt of Yiddish books from Nome, Alaska. And with the help of movie producer and director Steven Spielberg, his center is turning the collection digital. "

Looking for something for MArtin Luther King Day, I found this: atle dose of Cornel West is always appropriate
Prisoners of Hope

The Silent Disaster of World Poverty: "Yet there are grounds for hope as well.

The tsunami coincides with an attempt to put world poverty at the center of the global policy agenda for 2005. In July, Tony Blair will host a summit of the G-8 industrialized nations on reducing poverty, particularly in Africa. In September, the United Nations will hold a special summit to review progress on meeting its somewhat optimistic 'Millennium Development' goals, which include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and introducing universal primary education by 2015.

More important, there are signs that the summiteers have learned something from their past mistakes.

After blowing billions on big infrastructure projects, the World Bank has a better sense of what reduces poverty: investing in primary education (particularly for girls), providing better access to water, eliminating malaria and so on. Technology is also helping: The number of people afflicted by polio, for example, has shrunk from 350,000 individuals 15 years ago to just 800 people today, thanks to better vaccines."

Moving On - Children of the Children of God

The Family - An International Christian Fellowship -- The Family's Homepage

News of the Wierd:
I have been following this story about the Children of God /the Family since it broke in the Tucson paper last week, I don't know why, exactly. I'm just obsessed because it is such a classically tragic story. Sins of the fathers, and all that. icle is just the latest, for the also-obsessed, see the moving on site for the children who have managed to leave. or just google on Children of God. This was the cult which River Phoenix's parents were/are associated with.

Fringe Group at Center of Deaths: "Almost 20 years after a fringe religious group renounced practices that included child sexual abuse and incest, a murder-suicide carried out in two states has brought the group's sordid past back to the fore. "

The New York Times > International > U.N. Report Urges Rich Nations to Double Aid to Poor

Billings man captured culture of Crow, Northern Cheyenne tribes - billingsgazette.com

I am sure that this quote is gong to be on thousands of blogs today, because it is so totally astonishing, and in keepiang with Bush's "the buck doesn't stop anywhere near me" attitude.
Right, no particular reason to hold anyone accountable for anything. The war in Iraq? "It just happened."
As I said before, maybe re-electing him was the best thing because otherwise, any bad outcome would have turned out to be Kerry's fault.

Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy (washingtonpost.com): "President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.
'We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,' Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. 'The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.' "

Cribbed this off of the Daily Kos, but, Hey, its a great idea.
Daily Kos :: Protest the Inauguration by Supporting the National Network of Abortion Funds: "Protest the Inauguration by Supporting the National Network of Abortion Funds
by Yoshie
Sat Jan 15th, 2005 at 16:12:33 PST

Here is a great idea from Katha Pollitt and Jennifer Baumgardner. Put it on your Counter-Inaugural to-do list:
Are you wondering how to protest Inauguration Day (January 20)? Here's a way to make a powerful political point and also help women in need: 'honor' George Bush, the most anti-choice President since Roe v Wade, by making a donation to the National Network of Abortion Funds. You know how pro-choice groups sometimes counter anti-choice demonstrations by asking people to Pledge a Picketer (give a small sum per demonstrator)? Think of this as Pledge a President!
FULL TEXT: http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/protest-inauguration-by-supporting.html. "

And on the subject of the $40 million of inaugural galas, fiddling while Baghdad burns, here’s a new theory about why the republicans won, maybe they want Bush to be the one who reaps what he has sown. The guy who gets to finish what he has started. If Kerry had won, he would have had to deal with this mess, and what is there to do?
The Specter at Thursday's Party (washingtonpost.com)

this is a very interesting, very well written article. but here, i think is the main point: KERRY DID NOT EVEN TRY TO WIN PART OS THESE RED STATES. Democrats cannot afford to cede territory like that, with the message concentrated at the behest of polsters and politcal analysist. No wonder there is no common understanding.

The Red Sea (washingtonpost.com): "THE MORE PEOPLE WE TALKED TO, the more I realized that Bush was helped enormously in this part of the country by the fact that he ran virtually unopposed. Kerry spent nothing on advertising in the Red Sea states; the unions and other groups that supported him put little or no effort into spreading his message here. Many of those we encountered spoke of Kerry as they might speak of a distant relative they had never met but had merely heard mention of as children at a family gathering. "

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washingtonpost.com: Class Struggle

As TA for those dreaded freshman surveys, I have experience firsthand the variety of the approach of various professors. Sometimes better in terms of theme, perspective, often worse because of large lecture, lack of personal attention. Yes, they do require the students to take responsibility, but of course, Freshmen often are not very interested in doing so.
I appreciated the persepcctive of your commentator who noted the value of the surveys, as after my experience I vowed never to teach one.
I think the real probelm with AP courses is the moniker: "Advanced Placement" implies that the student will somehow be placed out of classes. I know my daughter got no credit at all, and that was fine. I think they are really an oppportunity, as you and others have noted, to see that students get a challanging course at a pseudo-college level, and as an indicator that the student can do college level work. and if they are seen that way, then the survey would be valuable for a background. That in fact is how they are currently used, so as I said, the main problem is what they are called. But this relates mostly to History/English. I think the sciences may be different, but I don't know.

But the reason I bring this to your attention is that the Gates foundation has just put big money into Early College as a model for disadvantaged high school students. http://www.earlycolleges.org/ Apparantly they think it is a viable model. I am interested to see how this works out.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Iceberg Cometh: "The administration expects us not to notice, however, that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions, the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next 45 years, privatization would cost much more money than it saved. "

In GOP, Resistance On Social Security (washingtonpost.com)

The New York Times > International > International Special > Earlier Disasters: For Honduras and Iran, World's Aid Evaporated

washingtonpost.com: Media Notes Extra

Inaugural Excess (washingtonpost.com)

The New York Times > National > TV Host Says U.S. Paid Him to Back Policy

Resolutions For The Damned / A new year, a Bush-gutted, storm-ravaged world and you in need of some juicy, heartfelt pledges

Nicholas Kristof hits the nail on the head here,
After all, we're the most generous people on earth ... aren't we?
No, alas, we're not. And the tsunami illustrates the problem: When grieving victims intrude onto our TV screens, we dig into our pockets and provide the massive, heartwarming response that we're now displaying in Asia; the rest of the time, we're tightwads who turn away as people die in far greater numbers.
The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.
But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000)."
"Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily."

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Land of Penny Pinchers

When I was on the school board in Fairbanks in the long ago ‘90’s- the conservatives were ALWAYS harping about “LOCAL CONTROL.” Yes indeedy. I still remember my fellow board members waving their Phyliss Schaffley newsletter and shouting “We ain’t takin none of that stinkin’ federal money!!!” Must have been during the (Clinton admin, huh?) Then Bush got elected and passed “No Child Left Behind” a virtual Federalized education system, and the conservatives were all of a sudden all for it?#%^&
GO FIGURE I said to myself.
I’ve been waiting and waiting for the conservatives to bail, which I figured would happen as soon as THEIR CONSTITUENT’S dumb white TV watching juvenile delinquents were the ones who flunked the tests and were threatened with not graduating.
And VOILA! Here’s Arizona stepping up the plate!
See, the real reason they got on this bandwagon was that “Standards” were supposed to be the proof of their often vocalized wishful thinking that when it comes to improving education, “its not about money.” Raise your hand if you remember that one.
So, instead of building more schools, buying computers, and hiring more teachers and paying them a living wage, each state got together all their teachers and parents and created these so-called “Standards.” Then they had to create yet more high stakes tests to see if they could teach to their new standards, but that still wasn’t good enough. NO child left behind made them cow-tow to even more standards for the standards…….
OF course, if you read the article, good old Guv Janet was trying to play the hand she was dealt, about to ask for more money for education to meet the standards, and if there is one thing the ARiz legislature does not want to do, its give money to education.
Maybe it was about money after all…..

Lawmakers, lobbyists aim to dismantle AIMS test | www.azstarnet.com �

Lawmakers, lobbyists aim to dismantle AIMS test | www.azstarnet.com �

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Informed Comment