Bush ‘hatred'; Wilson Carroll Talks Back
Very compelling column by E. J. Dionne Jr. in the Washington Post: "Republicans won in 2002, but Bush lost most Democrats forever. Conservative critics of "Bush hatred" like to argue that opposition to the president is a weird psychological affliction. It is nothing of the sort. It is a rational response to getting burned. They are, as a friend once put it, biting the hand that slapped them in the face. No one understood this sense of betrayal better or earlier than Howard Dean. Dean's candidacy took off because many in the Democratic rank and file were furious that Washington Democrats allowed themselves to be taken to the cleaners. Many of Dean's current loyalists had been just as supportive of Bush after Sept. 11 because they, too, felt that doing so was patriotic. So Dean also spoke to their personal sense of grievance."
Howard Dean on the race question
"'Dealing with race is about educating white folks,' [Howard] Dean said in an interview Tuesday on a campaign swing through the first primary state where African-American voters will have a major impact. 'Not because white people are worse than black people about race but because whites are in the majority, and therefore the behavior of whites has a much bigger influence on hiring practices and so forth and so on than the behavior of African-Americans.'"
Dean to Washington Dems: Drop Dead!
Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon that Dean's gaffes may well be helping him:
‘The New Republicans': ‘Drunken sailor' spending?
The NY Times editorializes: "The most striking thing about the new Republicanism is the way it embraces big government. The Bush administration has presided over a $400 billion expansion of Medicare entitlements. The party that once campaigned to abolish the Department of Education has produced an education plan that involves unprecedented federal involvement in local public schools. There is talk from the White House about a grandiose new moon shot. Budgetary watchdogs like the Heritage Foundation echo the Republican Senator John McCain's complaint about 'drunken sailor' spending." ...
Comic David Cross on voting and f*ckin' bumper stickers
Wiretap's Dan Hoyle interviews comic Dave Cross: "It's pretty galling that I know people will wait in line for a weekend to see a f*ckin' movie that's gonna be there for three months, but won't wait in line for 12 minutes to vote. If not for yourself, then for everyone else, it's truly one of the most selfish things you can do. Just the fact that you won't educate yourself on the issues. It's truly one of the most selfish things you can do. Especially because so many people have suffered to obtain that right, or obtain the idea of that right."
[City Buzz] Colonel Snoop Reporting for Duty, Sir
JACKAL SMOKED OUT … Like the rest of the world, Jacksonians of all political persuasions were all aglow in the days leading up to Christmas over the capture of long-time dictatorial butcher Saddam Hussein. We were surprised, though, to see how quickly some locals tried to make political hay out of the capture. Within two hours of the announcement, one loquacious blogger posted on the JFP site, "Game, set, and match. 4 more years. Yeeeeeeeehawwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!" About the same time, a local businessman sent around a photo of the bearded Saddam to his e-mail list, saying simply, "Recent photo of potential candidate that can out do even Howard Dean in demonizing 'W.'" It was forwarded to us by an artist with the subject header, "It didn't take long." We prefer a simple non-partisan "good riddance" to the Butcher of Baghdad. …
The Death of Horatio Alger
Paul Krugman writes aboutreading "a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago." That "rag," he says, is Business Week. "The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society. And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains -- or even points out what is happening -- as a practitioner of 'class warfare.'"
God is not a right-wing zealot
A compelling story in Salon: "In the heart of the Bluegrass, a Bible Belt preacher is rallying people to political action around what he calls 'basic religious values.' Think you can describe his politics? Think again. This man of the cloth wants 'regime change' in Washington. The Rev. Albert Pennybacker, a Lexington, Ky.-based pastor, is head of the Clergy Leadership Network, a new, cross-denominational group of liberal and moderate religious leaders seeking to counter the influence of the religious right and to mobilize voters to change leadership in Washington. Pennybacker, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a pastor of 35 years, is tired of the conventional wisdom that equates religiosity with conservatism. Nationwide, he says, the religious right often squeezes out the left in public debate. The group is 1,000 members strong -- and growing.
Bennie Thompson to endorse Howard Dean
AP is reporting that Rep. Bennie Thompson plans to endorse Howard Dean for president: "Dean's campaign had said Thompson would have a conference call on Monday with reporters and former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke to announce Thompson's endorsement and discuss 'African-American outreach and strategy.' Thompson, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said he's ready to endorse Dean, but not quite yet. 'I will make an endorsement, probably by the first of the year,' Thompson said. "I've looked at all the candidates. And Dean, in my estimation, has the best chance of beating Bush.' Unlike the other Democratic candidates, Dean is 'willing to discuss controversial issues,' Thompson said."
Idiot's Guide to Cocktails
Looking back over the last couple of decades, I've certainly enjoyed my serious journalistic life. But I must admit that some of my best times, my favorite memories, involved not just having fun, but helping other people have a good time—whether by hosting a fun party, deejaying at clubs, emceeing events or mixing drinks as a bartender. And I don't mean throwing together some vodka and tonic and a hunk of lime. I mean creating and serving delightful cocktails—heavenly and other-worldly concoctions that make your toes tingle and your tongue dance in delight: true golden margaritas; unpredictable martinis; saucy mojitos; and my all-time-favorite drink, the Brazilian caipirinha.
[City Buzz] Screw ideology; Mississippians want health care
MOVE OVER, VERMONT: The John C. Stennis Institute of Government announced the surprising results of a statewide poll on Dec. 8, showing that a wide majority of Mississippians want the state to pay more of their health-care coverage, and are willing to raise some taxes to pay for it: 78 percent favored guaranteed health coverage for every Mississippian, and 74 percent said they would pay higher taxes to make it happen. Of the 78 percent, 87 percent were Democrats, and 70 percent were Republicans. A full 89 percent want every child covered; 70 percent want smoke-free public places; 66 percent want smoke-free restaurants; 56 percent want the government to spend more to fight AIDS and STDs. The full results of the study are at healthyfutures.cc. …
Dean's Foreign Policy: I Am No George Bush
An interesting piece about Howard Dean and his foreign-policy ideas by John Tirman of the Social Science Research Council:
‘Is this the neo-con century?'
(Be afraid. Be very afraid.)
Michelle Goldberg reports in Salon: "Neoconservatives are very sensitive people. Even those who've attained stature and power are exquisitely attuned to insults hurled from obscure quarters of the left as well as the barbs of French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin. It's not only bombastic blogger Andrew Sullivan who trolls Web sites like Indymedia.org, hunting for evidence of moral relativism. No less a personage than Richard Perle, the neocon kingpin who sits on the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Board, bristled with irritation when mentioning Talking Points Memo, the blog of liberal Washington journalist Joshua Micah Marshall. To answer the criticism directed against his movement, Perle appeared with Marshall at a panel on Monday in Washington called 'Is the Neoconservative Moment Over?' Perle's answer: Not even close."
Supreme Court to consider Cheney's secret task force
CBS Marketwatch is reporting: "The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the White House must reveal the energy-industry contacts that helped a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney formulate an energy policy blueprint in 2001. The high court on Monday said it would hear a White House appeal of a lower court ruling that ordered the Bush administration to hand over details of the task force meetings to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, and the Sierra Club, an environmental group."
Dean Under Attack, Trippi Says
To watch the attack ad in Windows Media Player, click here:
E-mailed to Dean list this a.m. from Trippi: "A faceless group that the Washington Post calls 'despicable' is using hundreds of thousands of dollars to air vicious television ads that use pictures of Osama bin Laden to attack Howard Dean. Don't wait. We're under attack, and we need your help now.
Democratic ‘Shadow' Groups Face Scrutiny
The Washington Post reports: "Leading campaign finance watchdog organizations as well as Republican activists intend to challenge the new 'shadow' Democratic Party -- a network of independent groups gearing up to spend as much as $300 million on voter mobilization and pro-Democratic TV ads. The organizations -- the Center for Responsive Politics, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 -- contend that the pro-Democratic groups are violating prohibitions on the use of corporate and labor money for partisan voter registration and mobilization drives. Trevor Potter, chairman of the Campaign Legal Center, said the groups have become 'the new soft money loophole. . . . This is the beginning of an important discussion about how these groups are going to operate.'" ... Harold Ickes, who runs the pro-Democratic Media Fund, contended the Republican and watchdog critics are "one, trying to tie us up; two, divert our attention; three, force us to spend money on legal fees rather than electoral activities; and four, to try to chill our contributors."
[Talk] Gettin' Safer
Jackson has lunged out of the "Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities" to No. 16, according to just-released 10th annual Morgan Quitno Press "most dangerous city" rankings for 2002. Using M-Q's standards, the city of Jackson made gains in 2002 over 2001 relative to other U.S. cities based on overall FBI crime figures, moving up six spots in the new rankings from the No. 10 spot (framed as "in the top 10" by key Republican candidates in the 2003 election) in the group's 2001 rankings.
[Ladd] Just As I Am
I was baptized when I was 13 in a Southern Baptist church in Neshoba County. I wasn't particularly spiritual; there was more anger and selfishness and confusion in my heart than love. I couldn't have been ready to live a godly life; I didn't know what it meant. I just walked down the aisle because everybody else was doing it.
[Jacktown] M-I-CROOKED's Year, by Alphonso Mayfield
First off, I really want to thank everyone for the love that I have received since I started writing this column. All the pounds and props I've been getting have been very appreciated. A lot happened this past year that helped put the M-I-CROOKED on the map. Of course, there is the obvious signing of David Banner and the subsequent release of his album "Mississippi," which sold 400,000 copies while being relatively slept on.
Gore Endorses Dean
Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean for president today. AP reports: "Gore said Dean 'really is the only candidate who has been able to inspire at the grass--roots level all over the country.' He said the former Vermont governor also was the only Democratic candidate who made the correct judgment about the Iraq war. 'Our country has been weakened in its ability to fight the war against terror because of the catastrophic mistake the Bush administration made in taking us into war in Iraq,' Gore said."
MSU Slapped with NCAA Charges
First Croom, then the bad news ... The press release from State just in: Mississippi State University has received a letter and notice of allegations from the National Collegiate Athletics Association regarding the football program. The notice contains allegations of rules violations from 1998 to 2002. Mississippi State has been cooperating fully with the NCAA and has assisted in the investigation of these matters over the past two and a half years. The allegations address improper offers and inducements to prospective student-athletes. There is no allegation of academic misconduct and no allegation of lack of institutional control or failure to monitor. At this time, these are only allegations.
Bloggers Speak Out
Mississippi keeps cropping up out there on the weblogs (called "blogs," we're talking about Web sites that update daily with news and politics coverage) and—almost universally—in a familiar context. I saw our fair state mentioned last week on the Democratic "inside baseball" site http://www.dailykos.com)]DailyKos, in a completely gratuitous mention that's par for the course: "Don't fear, however. CT is a safe Dem state. There's as much chance of Bush taking the state as of the Dems taking Mississippi."
Move Over, Boys
Lakshmi Chaudhr writes: "Whether she is a divorced waitress in Harlem, a welfare mom in Iowa, or that thirty-something singleton sipping a Cosmopolitan at your local bar, the unmarried woman may hold the fate of the 2004 elections in the palm of her hand. 'Unmarried women, given what they think and feel, are the group with the greatest potential to be agents of progressive change in this country because of their size, their desire for change, and their record of under-voting,' says Page Gardner, manager of the 'Women's Voices Women's Vote' project."
MoveOn.org Parties in Jackson this weekend
Heard of MoveOn.org, the hip and powerful grass-roots movement that is doing an end-run around party politics and the media? This Sunday, Dec. 7, MoveOn is holding house parties all over the country to screen Robert Greenwald's new documentary, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War." The Jackson screening and party will be held in Rainbow Plaza, at the corner of Old Canton and Lakeland, at 7 p.m. Steve Rozman, political science professor at Tougaloo College, will lead a discussion after the film. See you there. Read a story about Moveon.org here. And enter your zip code here for other parties around the country.
FOX Works for GOP
MoveOn.org warns: "The wall between objective journalism and partisan politicking at Fox News fell last week when it became clear that Fox News staff contributed to the orchestration of the Republican-led 39-hour Senate talk-a-thon intended to counter the Democrat filibuster against four of President Bush's most radically conservative judicial nominees."
MoveOn.Org Irritates the Right
Michelle Goldberg writes in Salon: "Bill O'Reilly wants its nonprofit status revoked. Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie sees it as part of the 'Democrat plan to subvert campaign finance laws.' House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's office plays phone pranks on its staffers. ... Clearly, MoveOn.org has arrived."
"Letters, Prayers, and Journal Entries," Anne Davis
I have a confession to make: I am inherently suspicious of confessional albums with a message. So when I received a copy of Anne Davis' "Letters, Prayers, and Journal Entries"—which, by the way, is a very confessional piece of work—I had my misgivings about doing a review. As I glanced through the lyrics, credits and art work on the record, it became clear to me that Davis, a Jackson native and longtime Nashville resident, is serious about showing the world who she is, where she's been and how serious she is about her faith. I braced myself for a listen, thinking that this must be yet another earnest female singer-songwriter with a beautiful voice and not much new to say.
But, Mr. Cleo
I first saw Robert Little, a very handsome toastmaster-by-trade and Jacksonian, take on a young, somewhat skeptical audience Nov. 19 at the North Midtown Community Development Center. He was the guest speaker, the guest motivator, at the gathering of about 40 parents and kids from Brown Elementary and Rowan Middle schools, schools scoring far below the levels deemed acceptable by No Child Left Behind federal standards.
Harvey Talks Back: The 2003 JFP Interview with Mayor Johnson
Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. is having one hell of a year. On the one hand, the Vicksburg native has presided over a city for six years that seems to have shifted into high-gear renaissance mode, or certainly as high gear as re-development has been in this city since harmful out-migration to the suburban areas began decades ago. About everywhere you look in the city, it seems there is construction; dilapidated buildings are being razed; a city that has been left to decay for many years by other administrations seems set on re-inventing itself at a slow, if steady, pace. Yet, there is a dark side.
[City Buzz] Crackheads vs. Democrats
CRACKHEAD SON-IN-LAWS: The usually-respectful Jackson 2000, a group that meets regularly at Mikhail's to discuss racial reconciliation, got a little saucy this month when a panel gathered to discuss the impact race had on the state's elections on Nov. 4.
Whip It Good
Watching George Glass demonstrate his skill with a bullwhip, I was convinced that I could grow to enjoy this sport. On eBay I could find myself an inexpensive whip, then I could order some videos from Western Stage Props: "Whip Cracking Made Easy" and "Whip Cracking Made Easy—Part Two," finally working my way up to "No Bull Whip Cracking"—a study of over 30 advanced whip cracking techniques." For now, though, Glass—a 57-year-old insurance man who lives in Ridgeland with his wife, Sherrie, a music teacher at Northwest Middle School—is my best bet for hands-on whipping.
Drug Testing in the NFL
Malcolm Gladwell writes in The New Yorker: "Despite the N.F.L.'s claims that it is concerned about the health of the players, it is more concerned about the health of the N.F.L. Football's governors make a distinction between natural violence and artificially aided violence, and it's their contention that the former has a good deal more market appeal than the latter, in the same way that consumers are believed to be willing to pay more for pure orange juice than they are for the adulterated version."
Truth in the Hands of Artists
Radiohead's Thom Yorke and author/historian Howard Zinn talk about the artist's role in politics. Yorke: "This goes back to what should be causing extreme alarm. If there are political programs on TV, yet it takes an artist to actually energize political debate, that tells you something really quite frightening about the level of the political debate happening on mainstream channels – right-wing-biased mothers. One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom. Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change. I think that would be great, but the reason people think like that is because there is no other element of participation anywhere."
Bush's ‘Crimes Against Nature'
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes: "George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats."
Dixie Dems: Dean Too ‘Liberal'
The Washington Times reports that Democratic leaders in the South consider Howard Dean "too liberal" to win electoral votes in the South: "Most acknowledge the growing conservatism that dominates their region, and some concede it will be difficult, if not impossible, to carry many Southern states if the nominee is out of step with mainstream Southern values."
[City Buzz] Best Gov, Gandhi in Jackson, Two Lakes Doom, more
BEST GOVERNOR: Haley Barbour may have ridden the GOP machine into town, but he's got a long way to go before he can take over the throne of Governor Emeritus William Winter. Winter was honored yet again for his contributions to Mississippi—which meant meeting race and education problems head-on—when the new William F. Winter Archives and History Building was dedicated on a chilly Friday afternoon.
Bill Minor on the Democrats' Future
Bill Minor writes that Democrats didn't lose in the state as big as Republicans would like to pretend: "In the wake of the Republican mini-earthquake that hit the state Nov. 4, not just a few Democrats were wondering if their party can survive in Mississippi. That question arose after Kirk Fordice sent shock waves through Democrats in 1991, and some said it heralded a mass conversion to the state GOP in the 90s. It didn't happen. Republicans got a momentary uptick, but by the end of the decade, Mississippi Democrats, unlike those in several other Southern states, still had a decided majority in the Legislature and held virtually all state offices."
Vouchers, They Are A'Comin'
AP is reporting that national Republicans are about to make a push for vouchers: "Republican Senate leaders plan to force a vote this week on the nation's first federally funded school voucher experiment, tucking the program into broader spending legislation that would be politically difficult for Democrats to block.
Bush may veto overtime, media ownership rules
AP is reporting : "The GOP-run Senate voted in September to block proposed Labor Department rules that opponents say would make it easier for employers to deny overtime for millions of workers. The House, also run by Republicans, voted narrowly to support the rules, but later cast a nonbinding vote in favor of blocking them. The administration is insisting the proposed rules be allowed to take effect."