can i brag on some of our community members who blog?
i've been catching up today on things i read quickly and really savoring them. i want to steer you to folding star's piece on real i.d.s at a winding road:
Finally, I hope you're all fully aware that we Americans are about to have national identification cards forced upon us. The provision, the REAL-ID Act, was neatly tucked away in a bill that no one dared to vote against, one that provided funding for the 'war on terror' and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Though Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee took to the floor to protest the inclusion of the act in the bill, he and the other 99 Senators ultimately voted in favor of it.
The Act will turn our Driver's licenses into what amount to National Identification Cards, setting national standards that make them more than what they are now, just a license to drive a car issued by individual states under their own standards. What's more, the states will have to bear the cost of these changes, which is primarily what Senator Alexander was protesting.
The good news is that several state Governors are already speaking out against this act, some talking about challenging it in the courts. So all hope is not yet lost. But do you see where we could be headed? National ID Cards now, passports to travel between states next? We're getting less and less free every single day under this administration and this Republican dominated Congress.
How ironic that the Republicans still like to pretend they're the party that keeps 'big government' out of people's lives! Irony is lost on these people, though.
over at the third estate sunday review, i want to steer you towards their editorial:
Though like many Americans, we long ago realized that Bully Boy says one thing and does another, the issues at stake here are too great to ignore. That should be obvious to even Bully Boy.
Luis Posada Carriles has engaged repeatedly in activities that should bar him from receiving political asylum. The U.S. should move quickly to hand him over to Venezuela where "[h]e escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985 while awaiting the result of an appeal against a conviction for the bombing. "
As the international community awaits to see if the "proof is pudding," the United States should not postpone acting on this issue.
Anything else would appear to condoing the actions Carriles has been convicted of.
Like many, we applauded the refusal of Margaret Thatcher's son into this country after his involvement with an attempted coup. That Bully Boy could stand up to Thatcher but waffles on Carriles reveals how the adminstration will determine any action based on how they think it will affect elections.
blog betty never fails to make me laugh but i hadn't read her early morning saturday post until today. i was aware of it because an excerpt went up at third estate sunday review but i hadn't read the post. it's hilarious. even the title makes me laugh. for those who've missed betty's thomas friedman is a great man, betty is doing a humorous site. she writes it as bettina. she is thomas friedman's wife. he drugs her and tells her the pills are vitamins. he's convinced her that he and nicholas kristof have rescued her so she needs to be grateful to him. as betty's unwound the story, we've seen bettina wake up a little each entry. now thomas friedman is out pushing his new book all over the country and he's taken bettina on the road with him in
'8 Days on the road to hell and heartland:'
For the last eight days, I've been in every flea ridden, cheap motel room you can imagine. The kind of rooms where the glasses, plastic, in the bathroom have spots on them even before you take them out of the plastic. My husband Thomas Friedman's latest book isn't doing as well as it should be doing or as well as he expected it to be doing. So we've gone from one city to another, with him doing multiple signings in each city. The crowds have been rather sparse. In fact, only my husband Thomas Friedman refers to them as "crowds."
I refer them to as "couples" and the occasional "threesome." Or rather I did until I noticed how the latter got Thomas Friedman's bushy eyebrows wagging. As if his libido needs any more excitement right now. Most night's it's like he's snorting or mainlining Viagra. I don't mind all that much, the five to six minutes give me a period to reflect and organize my plans for the next day. Right about the time that he's crying out, "Gut check time!" I've finished my personal inventory.
But the "neighbors" are far less than tolerant than I am. It was the rare night that management didn't ring up the room to ask us to hold it down. Thomas Friedman would get off the phone and lecture me about the noise level. I have no idea why, I'm not even bothering to fake moans of late. And I'm certainly not the one repeating, "Mommy! Mommy! Oh Mommy!" a half dozen times before finishing with the hollered cry of "Gut check time!"
But I'm grasping that Thomas Friedman, besides being hugely jealous of the actress who is outselling him, is also not one to grab the blame. One might even suggest that he's one to push the blame off on others.
finally or firstly there is c.i. as community members of the common ills none of us would have thought of blogging if we hadn't been part of the common ills community. tasha e-mailed me last night wondering how i decided to start blogging. because of the common ills. i e-mailed her back about that and she had never heard of the common ills but checked it out and enjoyed it. i'd told her about folding star, betty, jim, dona, ty, jess and ava and she was under the impression that with three web sites coming up as a result of the common ills, c.i. must have been blogging for years. no, the common ills is 6 months old thursday.
think about that a moment, ok? besides the sites i named above, you also have the gina & krista round-robin which is the e-mail newsletter/discussion done by gina & krista that goes out once a week. you have the biweekly newsletter from the uk computer gurus advising you about security and other computer issues. and at the site itself, besides having members contributing all the time by e-mailing in things they want noting, you have people like rob and kara doing evaluations of the times in their own entries. you have ruth doing ruth's morning edition report where she covers npr's morning edition. you have isaiah providing the comic strip the world today just nuts. and kat who started doing cd reviews back in december with her kat's korner.
i mean is this not amazing? it hasn't even been 6 months.
i don't know if you know the site the new york times annotated. jim gave me a heads up to it.
it pulls from various blogs and takes entries on the new york times and groups them together by the story they are commenting on. the common ills gets cited over there. so, following jim's tip, i go over there and see that this sunday's entry about the 3 crackpots who call themselves environmentalist but are supporting the building of nuclear plants has 3 pages worth of blog entries. and here's the thing, only c.i. shows any skepticism. the other entries champion it or accept it. c.i.'s saying 'there are millions of enivornmentalists and 3 is hardly a revolution.' it's a good point. a basic 1 and a common sense 1. but common sense flew out the window with all the bloggers. it's a very basic point. that the environmental movement, even just in this country, is made up of millions and that 3 people 'breaking from the pack' is not really news. but only c.i.
noted it. if you want to read that entry go here.
but it goes beyond 1 entry and that's what i want to focus on because tasha reminded me that there are new readers coming here for the 1st time and that they may also be unaware of the common ills.
right before st. patrick's day the press, the neoliberal press, decided to wage war on sinn fein.
they tried to humilate them and take them down. you might not have noticed. c.i. said the story didn't have traction and it turned out that it didn't. but for awhile there, if you were a reader, you read these editorials and these stories that were just dog pilings.
c.i. didn't run with the 'pack.' c.i. spoke out and called it what it was. and so did community members dominick, eli and krista with their own posts at the common ills. but who else?
the majority report gets credit for having a guest on who spoke about the reality in ireland.
counterpunch gets credit for covering it.
but this was a big deal and there wasn't a great deal of people saying 'woah, hold on, this is a tentative peace that was built in the 90s after years of strife. this press is 1 sided and akin to throwing a match on gasoline.'
that's why people like me became members in the 1st place, for the brave stands. for c.i.'s ability to speak out when others didn't. on the bullshit myth of the 'red states,' c.i. dealt with that in a 4 part series (and more) in the 1st month of the common ills and warned you that it wasn't just republicans who would try to use it, it was also dlc democrats who wanted to push the party to the center. or when no 1 wanted to question the 'unstoppable' simon rosenberg as he tried to be dnc chair and everywhere you went you heard what a great guy he was. only c.i. told you that rosenberg had the war lust for hugo chavez, that he support the invasion/occupation of iraq then and now, that he was dlc as late as may of 2004. on and on and on. all based on the public record.
i read the common ills today from sunday straight through. and i see so much that goes on there that doesn't go on elsewhere.
that includes here. i usually write a few paragraphs on a few topics.
good god, c.i.'s doing essays over at the common ills. this morning's entry on the shining on of daniel okrent, the need to talk up his dismal performance as public editor, and i'm not just agreeing with it, i'm also thinking, 'good lord when did c.i. get the time to write this?'
with the third estate sunday review, when we all are lucky enough to be able to assist the 3rd gang, i notice things. like when an entry is falling apart, c.i. will say 'what if you quote' and give an example. jim will tell you that when it all looks bleak and like nothing will go up there and they'll miss a sunday, c.i. will come up with an idea.
that's really a gift. to be able to face the turmoil and do it with optimism. when everyone's thinking something's not going to happen, c.i. will say 'what if . . .'
now jim will tell you, he and i were on the phone dicussing this today, that he likes the turmoil. he likes the excitement and the 'oh my god we're not going to pull it off!' and it can be fun and i enjoy it as well, to be honest. but dona's talked about how it can get on her nerves. so jim passes the phone to dona for me to talk to her about it. and like she said, 'when i'm about to scream at jim and maybe throw something at him, that's always the time that c.i. says we don't have to trash something, we can just fix it with whatever.' dona was talking about the thing on okrent too. 'who's going to do that?' she asked. 'who else? you're standing up to some big press names with that entry, not just okrent but the inner circle that's applauding him. so you hear a lot of silence on the issue. but c.i. rushes into those silences, seems to think that it's most important to speak truth when the silences gather.'
and that's what you get with the common ills. somedays you're getting highlights and some editorials. but besides steering you to the stories that matter, c.i.'s doing those brave stands that are just so amazing.
i called up c.i. today and we were having a conversation when i mention i'm going to be writing about this and i get 'please don't.' and i understand that because the issues are what matter to c.i. which is why c.i.'s ripped off, and it happens quite a bit as members know, c.i.'s doesn't make a stink about it but takes the 'i'm so glad these things are being addressed' attitude.
that's part of the optimism of c.i. that i don't have. i've noted before that i'm much more cyncical. i'll tell you something else, something betty asked me to put in. when she's working on an entry, she 'always knows i can e-mail or call c.i. and ask if it makes sense or does it need something more. i always say thank you and mean it but if you're writing something up about the common ills and c.i. i hope you'll note that. c.i. can be yawning on the phone or sounding really under the weather and i'll say never mind but c.i. will listen to me bounce ideas until i feel like comfortable about what i'm working on.'
i can back that up because i can go to a c.i. and say this line is funny but not as funny as i want and c.i. will say invert this or use this term and it's been a big help. in the early days especially i doubted every other post and was always thinking that i couldn't do it. c.i. is the community cheerleader who roots for you and tells you that you can do it.
if you haven't checked out the common ills you need to. it is an amazing community. c.i.'s created something that members really enjoy and trust. for less than 6 months, i marvel at the impact that the common ills has had, on me on every member. credit for that goes to c.i. and the members for that.
