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Tag Archive for 'politics' Page 7 of 7

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Here’s something novel

Published on October 16, 2007 in politics and trends.

I am an occasional user of Jott.com, a free service that allows you to phone a message (which is then magically transcribed) to an e-mail address. It’s a handy way to send reminders to yourself. You call up a number and a recording asks “Who do you want to Jott?” You give it a name or say “myself” and then there is a beep and you state your message, which is then transcribed and sent to the recipient’s e-mail address. Pretty neat.

Today, I got an e-mail from Jott about a new program called Jott the Vote, wherein you can phone-email a message to any presidential candidate.

You could send a message to, say, Rudy Giuliani: “Hey, Uncle Rudy, why don’t you tell us about 9/11 one more time.”

Much has been written about how the internet is changing our politics, perhaps even making it more democratic. Where does Jott the Vote fit into this concept?

Is a Jott to a presidential candidate worth anything? I’d like to explore this further, but I gotta go. Maybe later.

Nothing is obscene anymore

Published on October 15, 2007 in music and politics.

Last week, I came across some great footage of Frank Zappa on Crossfire.

The subject was music, obscenity and censorship. The show (it aired in 1986) also featured Robert Novak (who, curiously, looks exactly the same as he does today—old and crotchety), a columnist from the Washington Times named John Lofton, and host Tom Braden.

A lot of commentators say we’re shriller than ever before, but when you look at this video, you’ll consider the possibility that we have made progress since the culture wars of the 1980s.

Not surprisingly, Zappa takes the anti-censorship side. He’s conservative in the libertarian sense of the word—he doesn’t want the government to tell him what he can listen to.

On the other side, there’s the goon from the Washington Times. I say goon not because he supports censorship, but because he’s a ridiculous caricature of the hyperventilating social conservative. Mencken wouldn’t have bothered to dress this guy down. To make your counterpoint is simply to let him talk.

The debate veered toward one song that the Washington Times guy thought was particularly offensive—“Sister,” by Prince. He claimed the song promoted incest. It’s certainly a foul song, and my guess is that Prince, now a Jehovah’s Witness, would like to put it as far behind him as possible. But I doubt that it had much of an effect on the sexual mores of innocent listeners at the time.

Continue reading ‘Nothing is obscene anymore’

I guess that makes me a Dodd-ball

Published on October 11, 2007 in politics.

I was surprised at the results of a candidate-matching exercise I did today.

Sen. Christpher Dodd, D-Conn., and I disagree on only one issue—immigration.

I checked the ‘provide a path to citizenship/secure border’ option. I think the discrepancy comes from the fact that, according to this site, Dodd would like also to see a fence along the border.

My idea of securing the border has nothing to do with erecting physical barriers. In fact, securing the border, for me, is more about terrorism than immigration. But the more I think about it, the less practical border security seems as a terrorism prevention measure. Similar to how to you can never have a totally poo-free food supply, you’ll never have a hermetically sealed border, even if (god forbid) that were the top domestic priority.

I hate fences. My opinion on fences matches that of Owen Wilson’s character in Shanghai Noon:

I am like a wild horse. You can’t tame me. You put the oats in the pen, though, and I’ll come in for a nibble every day… But if you ever shut that gate, I’ll jump the fence and you’ll never see me again.

OK, it’s not the most apt quote, but my point is that fences aren’t the answer to anything. They never have been. Not only do they not work (people have been successfully jumping them as long as they’ve been around) they’re philosophically and aesthetically repulsive, and that’s enough for me to never support them. So, to be clear, even if they were the best way to curtail illegal immigration, I think a fence—and what it represents—is a bigger threat to the republic than Mexicans looking for work.

I might consider quarantining Texas, though.

The White GOP

Published on September 28, 2007 in politics.

In the past 50 years, how many non-white candidates have vied for Republican presidential nomination?

Presidential politics is a pale affair on both sides of the aisle, but it’s particularly pasty on the right side. And since the 1960s, the Grand Old Party seems to be getting whiter and whiter, in all areas of electoral politics.

The current crop of Republicans running for the nomination couldn’t even be bothered to debate at Morgan State University, a predominantly black school. The conventional wisdom says they were nervous about possible negative reactions from the audience.

Can anyone tell me of a non-white person who ran in the Republican primary? (And this isn’t simply a rhetorical question meant to make a point about the homogeneous nature of the Republican Party; I’m actually curious.)

Anyone? Bueller?

Here’s my second question: could a black candidate win the Republican nomination?

I wonder if it’s possible. In the current context of Republican presidential politics, I sort of doubt it. Why? Because so much of the party is controlled by the fringe, and that’s never more apparent than in the primary months.

In 2000, push polls and whisper campaigns about John McCain fathering an illegitimate black child helped George Bush win South Carolina’s primary.

The “illegitimate” part was immaterial. (At best, it was a cover for supposed family values voters.) It was the “black” part that mattered.

As recently as the 2006 midterms (the Tennessee senate race, specifically), Republicans in the south have played on racist attitudes toward inter-racial relationships. Although we’ve come a long way as a country, the Republican Party, once the party that freed the slaves, is still mired in prejudicial politics.

The employer-health insurance link should go

Published on September 24, 2007 in politics.

Last week, I posted (to my work blog) on the anachronistic employer-health insurance link.

[Lest any of my co-workers follow a Google Alert link to this blog and subsequently read my unvarnished opinions on sensitive topics like politics and religion, I've opted to omit a link to the post. If you want to read it, e-mail me and I'll send you the URL.]

A little over a year ago, I had no strong beliefs—and no clue—about the health care debate. Now, I know enough about the subject to talk more confidently than I probably should. (Isn’t that always how it goes?)

Anyway, in the post I make the case for separating health insurance from the workplace. The tie was established by accident in WWII during a labor shortage, and it is still around for no good reason other than we’re all used to it.

But more than just getting rid of the connection, I think we ought to have an individual mandate—meaning everyone should be required to get coverage, like people living in Massachusetts.

And on a partisan, somewhat-related note, I find it ridiculous that Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts signed into law the bill requiring people to get health insurance, would criticize Hillary Clinton’s recent health care proposal, which from my point of view looks an awful lot like the plan that got Romney’s signature.

Either I’m missing some key difference between the plans (very possible, I will admit) or politicians like Romney have no compunction about attacking the opposition even when the opposition has the same position (also very possible).

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