The Inheritance

I am an inveterate reader of books about current events and history.  But I don’t do book reports.  Occasionally I will refer to a book and author in a post, but it is up to the reader to decide if that book is for them.

And I am not going to do a book report now.  But I do want to mention a book that lists some of the biggest challenges facing the United States and how George W.  Bush failed those challenges and what President Obama might do to ameliorate those challenges.  Maybe a book you want to have on your end table for the next couple of years to refer to, to see how we are doing.

The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power by David E. Sanger.

Women – Afghanistan

McClatchy has this interesting piece about the situation for women in Afghanistan.  From my readings the article refers to Pashtun women.  The Pashtuns live in the southern two-thirds of Afghanistan. 

Cities in the north and west, such as Mazer-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Bamiyan and Herat, have a large population of Central Asians – Turkmen, Uzbeks and Tajiks – which are Shia Muslims. 

While both of these groups are Muslims, the Pashtuns are Sunni.

Disappointed

I fully realize that no administration and no politician will ever agree with all of my thoughts or ideas.  Some things I may want to see happen are not politically possible.  I suppose.

But, the Obama administration, with all it lofty rhetoric up to and including 20 Jan of this year (Inauguration Day), has fallen short on what I consider some of it’s most important tasks.

First.  The financial industry.  Obama hired two insiders, Geithner and Summers, and then was too timid to tackle the real problem.  No company should be allowed to get so big that it cannot fail.  Those huge Wall Street firms that we gave over $175 BILLION to, should have been nationalized and then broken up.

Second.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  If this can only be repealed or changed by an act of Congress and if it is truly having a detrimental impact on our national security, President Obama could direct the Department of Defense to slow down their investigations and not discharge anyone under DADT.

Third.  Transparency.  President Obama promised transparency in government and in how his administation operates.  Health care/insurance negotiations were supposed to be broadcast on C-Span.  Hasn’t happened.

Fourth.  Job creation.  China is creating 30 million new jobs a year.  The USA is bleeding jobs to China.  And China has a population over three times as large as ours.  The USA needs to be creating something on the order of 8 million new jobs a year.  Government may not actually create jobs but government can put in place policies that encourage companies to expand and new businesses to spring up.

Fifth.  The U.S. Constitution.  Investigations of the many alleged transgressions of the document that guides us, is perhaps my biggest disappointment.  As a member of the bar, Obama should hold the Constitution sacred.  His statements about looking to the future are all well and good.  But any gross criminal misconduct by the Bush administration needs to be at least investigated.

Reax to Limbaugh, Via Glenn

Glenn Greenwald has reactions from conservative pundits and Jewish organizations to Rush Limbaugh’s analogy yesterday between Barack Obama and Hitler.

It’s All Obama’s Fault

When anti-health care reform protesters get violent, scream at members of Congress, refuse to let them speak, burn them in effigy, threaten to kill them, whose fault is it?

Culture Change ?

As I approach the end of my seventh decade occupying ol’ Mother Earth, sometimes it is hard to judge whether it is my attitudes that have become fixed and unyielding or whether the change I see going on around me, really is a degradation of the culture in which I grew up.

I spent my formative adult years as a member of the U. S. Navy.  Sailors are renowned for having tattoos.  Some of the sailors that I was stationed with had one or two tattoos, mostly on their forearms or upper arms.  A very few had tattoos on their chest or other part of their anatomy.

I never had a desire to partake of that Navy tradition and to this day, I have no tattoos, piercings nor body art of any kind.  Unostentatious, the only jewelry I wear is a wedding ring.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Tattoos.  Whenever I go shopping, when I go to the Mall, when I go anywhere,  I see dozens of people, male and female, with tattoos.  Mostly with multiple tattoos.

I wonder, is it a generational thing? 

Am I just out of step?

 Am I not keeping up with progress?

I was a teen when Elvis came out.  Rock ‘n Roll was just starting up.  The adults were afraid ‘us kids’ were leading the nation on a path to ruin.

Is raising questions about tattoos more of that same old thinking?  Or is it an example of our society, the pre-eminent and powerful United States of America, losing its way and sliding to second class status?

Is it me, or has our country fundamentally changed?

Great News from Marc Ambinder! Evidence Obtained Via Torture May Be Usable After All!

Wow, Marc Ambinder is really hitting ’em today. First, he tells Josh Marshall that it’s “not terribly germane” to distinguish between Republicans screaming at speakers inside meetings, disrupting them, issuing death threats, etc.; and Democrats protesting Social Security “reform” outside of meeting places.

Huffington Post Blows It With Snarky Clinton Headline

Yesterday, The Huffington Post chose to frame the safe return home of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee with the headline “Bill Upstages Hillary … Once Again.” In huge 24-point type. Today, Taylor Marsh slammed them for it (itals in original):

Being Right Means Never Having To Say You’re Wrong

Attaturk on the right’s inability to admit being wrong about anything: “You can never say, ‘Y’know, that’s a good point, maybe I’m wrong.’ ”

And so it is with The Village and [its] attitudes toward the teapartiers and ending civil discourse by screaming over it, an Orange Pekoe Putsch. After all, as Marc Ambinder reflexively said, “it’s just like the liberals when Bush tried to reform social security”.

Well, no. When Josh Marshall reminded Ambinder that the protest over social security “reform” did not involve actually screaming at meetings to ruin them, threatening representatives with physical violence including assassination, and generalized douchebaggery, the response was telling:

Democrats may have used different tactics — protesting outside of places as opposed to inside of them — but that’s not terribly germane.

Well, aside from that being the entire point of what Marshall just said, and that it completely contradicts your original argument, you’re right Marc, it is not terribly germane, to you.

California Under Court Order to Reduce State Prison Population

Kevin Drum writes about “California’s prison disaster“:

A couple of weeks ago I described California as “a penal colony with a nice coastline.”  The coastline is still nice, but a three-judge panel has finally ordered the state to get off its ass and do something about our wretched and overflowing prison system:

California’s prisons are so overcrowded that the state is violating inmates’ constitutional rights, three federal judges ruled today in a decision imposing a cap on the prison population that will force the state to release nearly 43,000 prisoners over the next two years. The 185-page opinion also accused the state of fostering “criminogenic” conditions, compelling former prisoners to commit more crimes and feed a cycle of recidivism.

A combination of dumb drug laws, dysfunctional parole policies, “three strikes” laws passed by initiative, an endless procession of tougher-than-thou politicians, and a famously thuggish and politically powerful prison guards union has gotten California into this mess.

Read the rest of Kevin’s piece, and follow the links for more information.