Year: 2015

WHAT IF THERE WERE A WAY TO MAKE IT EASY TO VOTE?

Oregon has enacted just such a plan.  Voting there was already “by mail,” so no missing work or waiting in lines.   Now, every adult citizen with a driver’s license (for which proof of citizenship is required) will be automatically registered to vote.

Read about it here.

As you would expect, this was unanimously opposed by Oregon’s Republican legislators.  What a bad idea: making it easy for citizens to vote.

AL FRANKEN GIVES DAVID LETTERMAN CAREER ADVICE

At the end of this three minutes.  Very fun.

Six minutes on how we got there.  Amazing.  AMAZING.  USA!  USA!  USA!

And here’s how one TED talker thinks 80,000 of us a year will follow.

I so don’t want to go myself — but I so can’t wait to watch it on TV.  (The real housewives of Mars?)

The first thing to say about storage bins is — just throw it all out instead.  You’ll never get around to dealing with all that stuff, you’ll just be paying monthly rent for years . . . for decades . . . and if the monthy storage fee rises (and it will), what are you gonna do?  Move it all?  Where?!   So you’ll stall and delay and procrastinate and before you know it you have a long grey beard and that $3,000 heirloom in your bin will have cost you $18,000 to store ($30,000 before taxes).  You should have just given it to charity (saving you a further $1,000 in taxes).

The second thing to say is that I, of course, have shown zero ability to follow that good advice, spending a fortune storing junk that I only now, finally, partially, have dealt with, paying several hundred dollars just to have boxes and boxes carted off to a dump.  (Did I really need all my phone bills and cancelled checks and receipts from decades past?)

But you can’t just throw everything out or you’d miss some of the stuff I found, such as copies of the Pennsylvania Gazette, from 1740, printed by “B. Franklin, Postmaster” and a bottle of 30 legally prescribed Quaaludes dated February 5, 1982 and a letter from Ronald Reagan correcting misimpressions of his views on welfare.  (I collect “historic documents.”  Not sure how the Quaaludes got in there.)

The Pennsylvania Gazettes are fascinating in about a thousand ways.  To think that 1740 was just three long lifetimes ago (or eight expired Quaalude prescriptions ago), and how far we’ve come — we’re going to Mars!  

TO BE SOLD

A Dutch Servant Man and his Wife, for Two Years and Eight Months, a genteel riding Chair almoft new, a Ten Cord Flat with new Sails and Rigging, a Fishing Boat, and sundry Sorts of Houshold Goods.  Enquire of the Printer hereof.

A Likely Mulatto Girl, aged about 16 Years, has had the Small Pox, is fit for either Town or Country, to be disposed of very reasonable, enquire of the Printer hereof.

SENEKA Rattlesnake Root to be sold at the Post Office in Philadelphia, with directions how to use it in the Pleurity, Etc.

That was just the first thing that caught my eye, bottom right corner of the back page, June 12, 1740.

So I’m certainly glad I didn’t throw those out.  Or Reagan’s note, handwritten for his secretary to type:

Jan ’67

Dear Miss Cerda

I appreciate your letter and the chance you’ve given me to set the record straight.  First of all I’ve never used the expression; “W.F. which my taxes pay for.”  You’ve evidently been subjected to a distortion or mis-quote.

My position has been stated repeatedly that the overwhelming majority of W.F. recipients want to work & should be helped so they can become self sufficient.  I have attacked the red tape and excessive administrative costs of W.F. but never the amount rec’d by the recipient.  It is my contention that W.F. should be directed at salvaging human beings without drying up their confidence and will to live independently.  But for those unable to work I have flatly stated we must do even more.

I hope you will soon be well & I wish you the very best. — Sincerely, RR

Pretty sensible stuff, worth preserving.  As is:

THE BIBLE AND INDIANA

Frank Bruni kinda nails it here in the New York Times.

This is a big deal that even Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly thinks should be given a chance to succeed.

Appearing on the conservative network just minutes after President Barack Obama held a news conference in the White House Rose Garden laying out the broad outlines for how the United States hopes to limit Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, O’Reilly — a harsh critic of Obama’s foreign policy — argued that conservatives should give diplomacy a chance.

“You don’t want a war with Iran,” he explained. “You don’t want to bomb that country because the unintended consequences will set the world aflame. So if you can get something that’s decent, you give it a shot. I think that’s a legitimate point,” O’Reilly said to a surprised Gretchen Carlson, host of the network’s daytime show, The Real Story.

It’s potentially a win-win for Iran and her negotiating partners, the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K., France, and Germany — and, by extension, the world.  Huge kudos to the President and John Kerry for getting us this far, with the possibility of an agreement in June.  The people of Iran, quite obviously, don’t want war — or death to America or Israel or themselves — their hard-right lunatic fringe notwithstanding.  They want to buy Macbooks, tweet, and surf, like anybody else.  (Full disclosure: I personally do not want to tweet or surf, and use a Lenovo.  But you know what I mean.)

As Ronald Reagan said of his deal with the Russians: “Trust but verify.”  Maybe here we need to rephrase: “Don’t trust — verify!”  But the general concept is the same: we should not let the hard-liners in Iran or the U.S. (or Israel or Russia or anywhere else) take us down the path to war when there’s a path to peace.

THEY’RE PLAYING YOUR SONG

You cannot fail to have fun with this site, which tells you the #1 hit song the day you were born — or, perhaps more tellingly, the night you were conceived . . . plays them for you . . . and (just because it was so easy for whoever programmed this to toss in), tells you the number of minutes you’ve been alive.

My songs were “Heartaches,” by Ted Weems and His Orchestra, and “The Gypsy,” by The Ink Spots.

Thanks, Mel!

HOW GREAT IS THIS?

To think how many kids once routinely killed themselves as preferable to living as gay or lesbian Americans . . .

. . . and that today we have the CEOs of Walmart and Apple and the mayors of Little Rock and Indianapolis — and just about everybody else — the President! the Pope! — saying, in effect, “Lay off!  LGBT folks should be welcome everywhere; love is a good thing; if you want to run a business open to the public, you need to welcome everyone.”

Etc., etc.

I use the phrase “etc. etc.” joyfully, in that this is by now so largely old news.  How great is that?

To a kid who centrally focused, from age 10 to 22, on never letting anyone know his true feelings — anyone! — the idea that we would have come so far in accepting — often embracing — our friends and relatives and neighbors and coworkers . . . and our “shared” friends like Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Elton John and Martina Navratilova . . . it’s just such a tribute to the good hearts and minds of the American people.

With further to go, to be sure . . .

. . . especially as regards the T in LGBT — transgender.

But we’re making progress there, too.  As previously noted, I love that the highest paid woman CEO in America last year, on the cover of New York Magazine for having made $38 million, is my pal Martine Rothblatt, born Martin.

And I love Krystal Ball’s piece on MSNBC a couple of days ago concerning a nine-year-old in Virginia.

Watch.

Particularly powerful, to me, were the remarks of that nine-year-old’s dad.

Amazingly, the school board voted against the nine-year-old.

But it’s only a matter of time before hearts and minds open wide enough to do — if you don’t mind my shorthanding it (and claiming to know) — what Jesus so clearly would have done.

AND HOW ABOUT THIS — IN CHINA!

“ . . . Everyone is unique in some way, so let’s work to have society catch up with science,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party flagship news media outlet, wrote on its microblog account. “Respecting the choices of people like Li Yinhe is respecting ourselves.”

Li Yinhe’s partner of 17 years is transgender.  Li herself is (vaguely) the Dr. Ruth of China.  Read it all here in the New York Times.

Come on, Virginia: “let’s work to have society catch up with science.”

Have a great weekend!

You cannot fail to have fun with this site, which tells you the #1 hit song the day you were born — or, perhaps more tellingly, the night you were conceived . . . plays them for you . . . and (just because it was so easy for whoever programmed this to toss in), tells you the number of minutes you’ve been alive.

My songs were “Heartaches,” by Ted Weems and His Orchestra, and “The Gypsy,” by The Ink Spots.

Thanks, Mel!

HOW GREAT IS THIS?

To think how many kids once routinely killed themselves as preferable to living as gay or lesbian Americans . . .

. . . and that today we have the CEOs of Walmart and Apple and the mayors of Little Rock and Indianapolis — and just about everybody else — the President! the Pope! — saying, in effect, “Lay off!  LGBT folks should be welcome everywhere; love is a good thing; if you want to run a business open to the public, you need to welcome everyone.”

Etc., etc.

I use the phrase “etc. etc.” joyfully, in that this is by now so largely old news.  How great is that?

To a kid who centrally focused, from age 10 to 22, on never letting anyone know his true feelings — anyone! — the idea that we would have come so far in accepting — often embracing — our friends and relatives and neighbors and coworkers . . . and our “shared” friends like Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Elton John and Martina Navratilova . . . it’s just such a tribute to the good hearts and minds of the American people.

With further to go, to be sure . . .

. . . especially as regards the T in LGBT — transgender.

But we’re making progress there, too.  As previously noted, I love that the highest paid woman CEO in America last year, on the cover of New York Magazine for having made $38 million, is my pal Martine Rothblatt, born Martin.

And I love Krystal Ball’s piece on MSNBC a couple of days ago concerning a nine-year-old in Virginia.

Watch.

Particularly powerful, to me, were the remarks of that nine-year-old’s dad.

Amazingly, the school board voted against the nine-year-old.

But it’s only a matter of time before hearts and minds open wide enough to do — if you don’t mind my shorthanding it (and claiming to know) — what Jesus so clearly would have done.

AND HOW ABOUT THIS — IN CHINA!

“ . . . Everyone is unique in some way, so let’s work to have society catch up with science,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party flagship news media outlet, wrote on its microblog account. “Respecting the choices of people like Li Yinhe is respecting ourselves.”

Li Yinhe’s partner of 17 years is transgender.  Li herself is (vaguely) the Dr. Ruth of China.  Read it all here in the New York Times.

Come on, Virginia: “let’s work to have society catch up with science.”

Have a great weekend!

It turns out climate change is a hoax!

Just as the Republican House and Senate science chairs have been telling us all along.

They’ve been right and the scientists have been . . . pulling our legs.

In case you missed this yesterday, this three-minute video explains why and how they pulled it off.

If Monday’s clip showing college students who couldn’t name the Vice President left you depressed, this post by Andew Nacin is the antidote.

Did you even know we had a U.S. Digital Service?

Snippets:

[Boy did I have this wrong.  I was so sure, just from the context, that he’s a Republican, I didn’t check before I clicked “publish” a few minutes ago.  Well — guess what? . . .]

DON’T SAVE THE CHILDREN

Nicholas Kristof tweets: “West Virginia had an admirable program to break the cycle of poverty. So the governor just slashed it.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va., March 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s move this week to slash programs that help struggling children succeed in school is extremely short-sighted, Save the Children said today. . . .

“The governor is cutting programs we know help struggling children succeed in school,” said Anna Hardway, state director of Save the Children’s U.S. Programs. . . .

“At a time when Governor Tomblin has publically stressed early childhood education, we are very disappointed with his decision to cut children’s programs again.  Studies have shown that investing $1 in early education now returns $7 later through increased productivity and savings in public assistance and criminal justice. Aren’t our children and the future of our state worth that kind of investment?”

Save the Children’s early education programs in West Virginia consistently show strong results. Despite poverty and multiple risk factors they face, 88 percent of 3-year-olds in the program score at or above the national average on pre-literacy tests.  Save the Children’s elementary-school-based literacy programs also help children make significant gains – equivalent to what they’d learn in five additional months of schooling each year.

“There are mountains of research showing that whether a child is reading at grade level by 3^rd grade determines the whole course of their future.  Our literacy programs are designed to get kids on track so they are equipped to succeed in school, graduate and go on to become productive members of society, ” Hardway said.  “Fewer kids in West Virginia will have that chance now.”

Save the Children invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.

There’s more to the Republican/Democratic divide than that, to be sure — the R’s refuse federal Medicaid expansion money . . . block attempts to revitalize our infrastructure . . . block the comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate 68-32 . . . seek to make voting more difficult . . . and so on — but that’s pretty much it: don’t invest in kids, cut taxes.*

(Was there any doubt as you read the press release that Governor Tomblin is a Republican?  The article didn’t say; and you had never heard of him before; but you knew he was a Republican.  No?  WELL, AS IT TURNS OUT, HE’S A DEMOCRAT.  Agh!!!)

#

Jeff Cox: “Republicans come up with some simple Wishy-World idea, like trickle-down economics, and responsible Democrats spend all their energy treating voters like adults, explaining why we need taxes for schools, roads, ships, retirement income and everything else.  Eventually Democrats grow frustrated and call the Republicans simple-minded, and then the independent voters grow frustrated with the ugliness of the campaign and just refuse to participate, which leaves everything open to the Republicans who will — no matter what else you can say about them — take the time to vote.  We need a simple, easy-to-understand slogan.  I suggest “Helping the working class.”  Nearly everything about the Democratic agenda would fit into that category.  The working class needs good schools for helping our children achieve the American Dream.  The working class needs well funded Social Security, clean air and water, good infrastructure and a process that makes voting easy.  The working class needs government.”

☞ And at the risk of piling on, I can’t help noting this deeply simple-minded yet remarkably accurate slogan, drawn from your automatic trasmission: “R stands for REVERSE; D stands for DRIVE.”  If you want to move forward, you choose D.

*E.g., West Virginia’s corporate income tax.

Boy did I have this wrong.  I was so sure, just from the context, that he’s a Republican, I didn’t check.  Well — guess what? . . .

DON’T SAVE THE CHILDREN

Nicholas Kristof tweets: “West Virginia had an admirable program to break the cycle of poverty. So the governor just slashed it.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va., March 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s move this week to slash programs that help struggling children succeed in school is extremely short-sighted, Save the Children said today. . . .

“The governor is cutting programs we know help struggling children succeed in school,” said Anna Hardway, state director of Save the Children’s U.S. Programs. . . .

“At a time when Governor Tomblin has publically stressed early childhood education, we are very disappointed with his decision to cut children’s programs again.  Studies have shown that investing $1 in early education now returns $7 later through increased productivity and savings in public assistance and criminal justice. Aren’t our children and the future of our state worth that kind of investment?”

Save the Children’s early education programs in West Virginia consistently show strong results. Despite poverty and multiple risk factors they face, 88 percent of 3-year-olds in the program score at or above the national average on pre-literacy tests.  Save the Children’s elementary-school-based literacy programs also help children make significant gains – equivalent to what they’d learn in five additional months of schooling each year.

“There are mountains of research showing that whether a child is reading at grade level by 3^rd grade determines the whole course of their future.  Our literacy programs are designed to get kids on track so they are equipped to succeed in school, graduate and go on to become productive members of society, ” Hardway said.  “Fewer kids in West Virginia will have that chance now.”

Save the Children invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.

There’s more to the Republican/Democratic divide than that, to be sure — the R’s refuse federal Medicaid expansion money . . . block attempts to revitalize our infrastructure . . . block the comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate 68-32 . . . seek to make voting more difficult . . . and so on — but that’s pretty much it: don’t invest in kids, cut taxes.*

(Was there any doubt as you read the press release that Governor Tomblin is a Republican?  The article didn’t say; and you had never heard of him before; but you knew he was a Republican.  No?  WELL, AS IT TURNS OUT, HE’S A DEMOCRAT.  Agh!!!)

#

Jeff Cox: “Republicans come up with some simple Wishy-World idea, like trickle-down economics, and responsible Democrats spend all their energy treating voters like adults, explaining why we need taxes for schools, roads, ships, retirement income and everything else.  Eventually Democrats grow frustrated and call the Republicans simple-minded, and then the independent voters grow frustrated with the ugliness of the campaign and just refuse to participate, which leaves everything open to the Republicans who will — no matter what else you can say about them — take the time to vote.  We need a simple, easy-to-understand slogan.  I suggest “Helping the working class.”  Nearly everything about the Democratic agenda would fit into that category.  The working class needs good schools for helping our children achieve the American Dream.  The working class needs well funded Social Security, clean air and water, good infrastructure and a process that makes voting easy.  The working class needs government.”

☞ And at the risk of piling on, I can’t help noting this deeply simple-minded yet remarkably accurate slogan, drawn from your automatic trasmission: “R stands for REVERSE; D stands for DRIVE.”  If you want to move forward, you choose D.

*E.g., West Virginia’s corporate income tax.

MUST-SEE THREE MINUTES

I know nothing about the “common core” curriculum.  But after watching this, I’m so so so for it.*  No matter how cherry-picked those interviews may have been (let us pray), you will still be amused and appalled.  (Thanks, Mel!)

THE NIGHTLY SHOW

I assume you watch Jon Stewart every night.  It’s funny, informative, cathartic, and could replace the need for common core civics.  I further assume that you frequently watched Stephen Colbert, who came on directly afterward — equally brilliant and irreplaceable.

Well, as everyone knows, Jon Stewart will be leaving “The Daily Show” sometime this year — democracy’s only hope is that Comedy Central will choose John Oliver to replace him — and Stephen Colbert has already gone.

What you may not know is that Larry Willmore’s “The Nightly Show” now follows “The Daily Show” in Colbert’s place and, while entirely different, is terrific, too.  For my taste, he took a little while to get his stride; but now I watch more or less Nightly.  Very smart and funny.

*And now that I’ve Googled a little, and found that it’s only math and English, I propose we add “civics” — as discussed, interestingly, here.