Atom Feed
January 3, 2011
Joyce Appleby makes the case for returning fillibusters to their old role as a moral trump card played when a matter of real principle was at stake. The Senate was not intended to require a 60-vote majority, and conservatives ought to join with liberals in honoring the Constitution. (The “Coffee Party” has a link that’ll get you your Senator’s contact info.)
November 20, 2010
When my wife and I spent a year in Portland Oregon in 1979 or so, we went house to house for Ron Wyden, who was running for his first term as a Congressional Representative. This was so early in his career that when my wife first called his headquarters to get his position on some issues (that’s what you did before the Internet, children), Wyden himself called back that evening and talked with her for half and hour.
So, now Senator Ron Wyden has put the kibosh on the awful bill that would have let the government censor the internet.
I understand that if I had stayed home instead of knocking on doors for a few afternoons, Wyden would still have won and history would have unfolded in exactly the same way. A volunteer could not do much less than I did for the Wyden campaign.
Nevertheless, I have three observations:
First, I have felt attached to Wyden (who obviously wouldn’t remember me) ever since pitching in three decades ago. Silly, but there you have it.
Second, a relative handful of people — there were maybe dozens of volunteers? scores? — did make some difference to the campaign, and those little actions have unrolled to much larger consequences. One might even say that history consists of disproportionate effects.
Put the first and second observations together and you get the fact that even though your individual action may have no decisive effect, it can contribute to a tiny nudge that ends up making a difference, and, in any case, you can feel connected to a cause and a narrative.
Third, thank you, Senator Wyden!
November 11, 2010
Now for the de-sensationalizing of that headline.
Lawrence Lessig is indeed finding common cause with the Tea Party, but only with one part of its agenda: fighting earmarks — a position that has put the Tea Party at odds with many members of the Republican Congressional delegation.
If any of the Tea Partiers want to back the end of gerrymandering, I’d be happy to tip my liberal hat at them.
November 9, 2010
Here’s a short article (and semi-puff piece) about James Kloppenberg’s new book Reading Obama, that situates Obama within America’s intellectual history. Kloppenberg says (according to the article) that Obama’s two books lay out quite clearly how he thinks and how he approaches problems.
Kloppenberg says in the interview that Obama’s “commitment to bipartisanship is rooted, not just in a desire to be strategic, but instead in what I see as a really sophisticated and robust conception of deliberation — that you cannot have at the beginning of a process of debate the same understandings that you have at the end of that process.†And, says Kloppenberg, his books show that he is a pragmatic problem solver.
Exactly. Read Obama’s books and tell me why you’re surprised at how he has behaved in office.
November 3, 2010
August 13, 2009
From my close, dear, intimate, personal, BFF, David Axelrod (Hi, David, you remember me, I was the one in row 32, on your left, that time you gave that talk…):
8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage
1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
5. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won’t be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.
Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/
Yes, I know you’re probably one of the millions of people who got this email also, but I think it’s important to say these things, given that some of those campaigning against health care reform have taken lying to a new level of ridiculousness.
July 26, 2009
According to a Boston Globe poll, the popularity of Mass. Gov Deval Patrick has plummeted.
Too bad. I think he’s been doing a good job in an economic and political environment within which success can only be measured by degrees of failure. (Those who worry about one-party control turning into a tyranny have never met Massachusetts Democrats.)
But, I was disappointed to receive an email this morning from Doug Rubin, of the Deval Patrick Committee, containing “talking points” for his supporters, with a form that lets us forward it to ten people. The msg begins:
Friends,
In light of today’s Globe Poll, we know that many of you will be receiving many questions about the Governor and the Commonwealth. Below are some talking points to help with those conversations. We ask that you use these in conversation and distribute them to your friends and family. I’m proud of what we have accomplished, feel confident talking about our work, and I hope you are as well.
Sincerely,
Doug Rubin
Jeez, I really don’t want to be recruited as a spin agent.
Governor Patrick, I know this has to be a sucky day for you. There are lots of us in the Commonwealth who think you’re the right person for the job and that you’re an exceptional person in near impossible circumstances. We want to help. Don’t spin us. Fall back on us. We’ll rise to catch you. Trust us.
One more thing: The email msg and the DevalPatrick.com site it comes from do not explain who Doug Rubin is (Google reports he’s the Governor’s Chief of Staff [NOTE later that day: Doug Rubin says in the comments that he was Patrick’s Chief of Staff but is now part of the Governor’s campaign team] or Deval Patrick’s relationship to the site, other than noting that it is not an official government site. How about a little more transparency than that?
July 22, 2009
Link. (The video embeds my slides, but (1) they get more and more out of order in this YouTube; they were in the right order when I actually presented them. 2. My font got lost somewhere in the translations, and so there’s a fair bit of mis-sizing, text overflows, etc.) (I posted about one of the ideas in the talk (transparency as the new objectivity) here.)
July 15, 2009
The relevant paragraphs from Sonia Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” speech:
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.
Sotomayor is saying something designed to inspire those against whom expectations have run: In American culture, the image of a wise judge generally is that of an old white man. Sotomayor is asking her audience to embrace a different image. In fact, she says, the very life experiences that traditionally have worked to disempower people make one wiser than those who haven’t had those experiences. The unfortunate implication of Sotomayor’s rhetoric (or, at least the inference taken by some white male Senators) is that race is the differentiator, not the experiences…an inference that does not survive reading the rest of the passage. Clearly, Sotomayor is saying exactly what all Americans are taught: We are a melting pot made stronger by the diversity of our culture.
So, here’s what I’d ask the Republican Senators who are questioning her about that line in her speech:
Senator, would you be ok with an all white, all male Court?
That is, if all else were equal, Senator, would you prefer to have a Supreme Court made up of nine white men from similar backgrounds, or a Court that includes men and women, people of various hues, and people from a variety of backgrounds?
If you’re ok, Senator, with a lily-white, male Court, you may sit down. Thank you.
If, however, you think we are better now for having some diversity among our Justices, then don’t you agree that “a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench”? Don’t you agree that diversity strengths the Court — makes it wiser — because it brings different points of view to bear? So, Senator, you agree that one’s background affects one’s judgment, and that we are better off having multiple life-experiences represented on the Court.
So, Senator, don’t you think it’s a great for the Court to have, say, a wise Latina woman in the discussions? Me, too!
In creating a Supreme Court rather than one Supreme Justice, our founders recognized that wisdom is more reliably a property of a system than of an individual. Wisdom is most likely to emerge from a network that embraces diversity.
Especially a diversity of people who are empathetic. But that’s another issue…
July 10, 2009
Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., secured $30 million in federal funding for the State Department’s efforts to promote Internet freedom as part of the agency’s fiscal year 2010 spending bill. The program must be approved by the full Senate and the House before it makes its way to President Obama’s desk. The money would promote widespread, secure Internet use by individuals residing in countries practicing repressive Internet monitoring, censorship and control. The outlay is “a low-cost method of allowing people, especially those living under repressive regimes, to access all-source, uncensored, unfiltered information,” the senators said in a Friday press release.
“Tearing down these Internet cyberwalls can match the effect of what happened when the Berlin Wall was torn down,” Specter said. “This funding seeks to enable freedom of thought, expression and the unimpeded flow of ideas and information, and I am pleased my colleagues have recognized the program’s importance.” Brownback added the battle being waged in the streets of Iran and China is also being fought on micro-blogging site Twitter, social network Facebook and other platforms. “This is a pivotal moment for people living in oppressive regimes. The best way to ensure their ability to communicate and share their story with each other and the world is to keep the Internet open,” he said.
The House passed a State spending bill Thursday that did not include Web freedom funding but Energy and Commerce Committee member Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., earlier this week urged lawmakers to hold a hearing on the role of the Internet in giving a voice to those in repressive countries. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who in the 109th Congress chaired a high-profile Internet freedom hearing of the House subcommittee that oversees global human rights, has repeatedly introduced legislation that would prevent U.S. tech firms from working with nations that capture and convict citizens for engaging in democracy promotion and human rights advocacy online.
The NY Times reports on danah boyd’s kick-butt keynote at PDF09, in which she pointed to the class divisions in the Net:
Is the social-media revolution bringing us together? Or is it perpetuating divisions by race and class?
Many of us would like to believe the Internet is a force for unity, but danah boyd, a social-media researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, thinks we’re deceiving ourselves.
Speaking last week at the Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference that explores how technology is changing politics, Ms. boyd asked a packed audience of activists, political operatives, entrepreneurs and journalists to raise their hands if they use Facebook. Almost every hand in the place went up. Then she asked who uses MySpace, and barely a hand was seen.
How could that be? Sure, Facebook is growing much faster. But MySpace is far from dead. In May, Web-traffic tracker comScore reported that Facebook and MySpace are neck and neck in terms of U.S. visitors, with 70.28 million that month for Facebook, up 97% from a year ago, and 70.26 million for MySpace, down 5% from last year.
vMs. boyd got some answers from group of people she’s been hanging out with over the last four years: U.S. teens. During the 2006-2007 school year, her conversations with high-school students began showing a trend of white, upper-class and college-bound teens migrating to Facebook–much like the crowd in the conference hall has. Meanwhile, less-educated and non-white teens were on MySpace. Ms. boyd noted that old-style class arrogance was also in view; the Facebook kids were quicker to use condescending language toward the MySpace kids.
“What we’re seeing is a modern incarnation of white flight,” Ms. boyd said. “It should scare the hell out of us.”
More in the article, including research by Eszter Hargittai…
Joho the Blog uses WordPress blogging software.
Thank you, WordPress!
