For the Record

Good reporters opting for comparatively free expression

Being a columnist mean not having to launder your views.

Want the good life? Live in a social democratic country

Call it what you want, but on indexes of what everyone wants the SD-ers knock it down cold.

Progressives, unlike conservatives, get better informed with time

Talking with some friends last night about this study, showing that people are very effective at filtering out information not conforming to what they already believe, it struck me that while progressives are also subject to this phenomenon, in their case the end result is likely to be more and better acquaintance with the facts.  That's 'cause progressives, unlike conservatives, typically start out in the ballpark of reality and so are more likely to be able to "take in" the true, subsequently refining their basically correct positions towards the increasingly accurate.

All hail al-Zaidi

There was never a better reason to throw a shoe:

Zaidi, whose unusual protest overshadowed Bush's final visit to Iraq, insisted he had not planned the December attack.

Instead, he said, Bush's smile as he talked about achievements in Iraq enraged him as he thought of "the killing of more than a million Iraqis, the disrespect for the sanctity of the mosques and houses, the rapes of women.

"He was talking and at the same time smiling icily at the (Iraqi) prime minister. He said to the prime minister that he was going to have dinner with him," Zaidi told a three-judge panel, a small army of 25 defence lawyers lined up next to him.

"Suddenly, I saw no one in the room but Bush. I felt the blood of innocents was running under his feet while he was smiling coldly as if he had come to write off Iraq with a farewell meal."

Zaidi added: "After more than a million Iraqis killed, after all the economic and social destruction ... I felt that this person is the killer of the people, the prime murderer. I was enraged and threw my shoes at him."

At the time, Zaidi shouted at Bush that the shoe-throwing was a "goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog."

One of the things I love about Toronto is that the Star publishes stories like this all the time.

Happy days are here again

OK, maybe that's a bit pollyanna of me.  Still, one can't but feel optimistic after Barack's first week in office brought these tidings of great joy (among many others):

Obama signs executive orders closing Guantanamo, closing CIA detention centers around the world, and banning the use of torture in interrogations.

Obama's first call to a foreign leader is to Mahmoud Abbas; he chooses Lebanese-American George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East; he speaks up for Palestinians.

Obama reverses the "gag order" on funding to organizations providing abortions or abortion information.

Obama pledges to lift ban on federal funding of stem cell research.

Obama announces plans to fast-track regulation of the financial industry.

You can keep up with the good news here.

Yes we can

It's wonderful to contemplate the transformative effects that will attend Barack Obama's being elected president tomorrow, as now seems inevitable.  Three are of particular note.  First, the return to sanity and competence as regards national and foreign policy and implementation, along pretty much every dimension.  Second, the rise of a respectful, issues- and fact-based model for political discourse.  Third, and surely most importantly, the deep-tissue cracking of the racist "schemas" (to use Sally Haslanger's term) that have been so foundationally undermining, for so long and for so many.  Here's to the end of these long national nightmares!!

This "hope diary" has all sorts of wonderful embedded visual tidbits.  Enjoy!

Read this book (or at least the review!)

Larry Bartels's 'Unequal Democracy' reviewed here. Looks to be a treasure trove of interesting and/or surprising and/or hopeful info about the attitudes Americans hold about various political issues -- eg the alleged "rightward shift" in the US is pretty much entirely at upper income strata. (Not too surprising, when was the last time any high profile sources paid the slightest bit of attention to the "little guy"?)

Obama's speeches

The MLK day/economic justice speech here.

"A More Perfect Union" here.

A little patience

One last word, courtesy of Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to his friend John Taylor:

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.  It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, & incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt [...]  And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist.  If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

On Remembrance Day

*CANADA** IS AT WAR *

Canada is at war right now.

We barely know why.

At school we never talk about it

For math is on our minds.

We always say we will remember

When 'Remembrance Day' is here.

But once this day is done

We go back to our school year.

World War One was said to be

"The war to end all wars."

In World War Two, "Never again"

Would we die on foreign shores.

But we are fighting in Afghanistan.

We must understand why.

We should always talk about it,

And remember our lost lives.

-          Emma Toner age 10