Wow, this is depressing. In yet another step towards Idiocracy, students are now *less likely* to graduate high school than their parents, according to a national study. What happened to the America I knew where a large percentage of my classmates were the first in their family to go to college? Where America was a leader of science and entrepreneurship? According to Anna Habash from the article, “The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us … The United States is now the only industrialized country where young people are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma.” That is sad.

I do think Obama has the right idea of making education a priority again, and I hope he makes good on his word and I hope enough dems are elected to enable him to change policy and I hope he gets elected. Things are looking good, but I’ve been disappointed and have felt swindled by polls before…Remember when Zogby called the election for Kerry? Remember when Kerry said no incumbant president with less than 50% approval rating has been elected before? Yeah, I’m still going to be donating more to the Obama campaign. I’d rather this be a landslide.

In another step towards Idiocracy, McCain was twice dumbfounded last week by the appalling ignorance of his base. These two clips from a Lakeville Minnesota rally show McCain getting booed for calling Obama a ‘decent man’, and then taking away the mic of an audience member calling Obama an Arab.

I have to say, I’ll be heartbroken if McCain wins this election, but he gets a lot of credit for playing this game fair, and by putting his base in their place even while being booed. I’m somewhat troubled by his correction of ‘Arab’ with ‘decent’ (did you mean, ‘Christian’?), but I think he was just too flabbergasted by the ignorant attacks of his audience members.

I’m heartened by McCain’s integrity in this election but depressed by how ignorant this country is.

On a side note, Obama also thanked McCain for his remarks.

Kucinich just presented thirty-five impeachment articles for President Bush, ranging from the false case for war against Iraq to secret and illegal wiretapping. Unfortunately a successful impeachment of Bush leaves a scary thought - Cheney in office for any amount of time, however brief. However, Kucinich attempted to impeach Cheney in 2007. Both acts were more or less symbolic and have little possibility of moving forward, but it is nice to hear these truths stated on record and I admire Kucinich’s bravery for voicing them formally. Listen to the video clip of his introduction - he speaks with the conviction of a prosecutor in court, and to hear truth spoken that bravely is music to my ears. Although this is not on the Drudge Report, CNN or Fox News, it is on the front page of The New York Times via Reuters and on the front page of google news and digg.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Kucinich _presents_Bush_impeachment_ articles_0609.html

This article makes me furious. From the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/02/usa.humanrights

From the article:

“By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001.”

EIGHTY THOUSAND people? Where is the outrage? How are we, the freeest country in the world, allowing our government to “disappear” and torture people without trial? Eighty thousand? How can anyone possibly argue that eighty thousand people are guilty without trial and deserve this kind of treatment?

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

- Martin Niemöller

80,000 people, guys. 80,000.

I can’t tell you how sick I am of reading this phrase after every primary:
“Neither candidate is expected to reach the 2,026 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination. That means the race is likely to be settled by “superdelegates” — party leaders and officials who will cast votes at the Democratic convention in August.”

It’s like they are copying and pasting as if to say “no new news here”.

The Pundit Analyzing Obama? Some TV Upstart Named Rove

What is “fair and balanced” about having Karl Rove as a news analyst? And what’s he doing on TV, shouldn’t he be in jail?

From U.S. News:

President Bush often argues that history will vindicate him. So he can’t be pleased with an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted by the History News Network. It found that 98 percent of them believe that Bush’s presidency has been a failure, while only about 2 percent see it as a success. Not only that, more than 61 percent of the historians say the current presidency is the worst in American history. In 2004, only 11.6 percent of the historians rated Bush’s presidency in last place. Among the reasons given for his low ratings: invading Iraq, “tax breaks for the rich,” and alienating many nations around the world. Bush supporters counter that professional historians today tend to be liberal and that it’s too early to assess how his policies will turn out.

As conservative as the Drudge Report is, credit goes to him and his staff for this tip.

Just a note that The Daily Show finally broke its no-celebrity streak by hosting George Clooney on Thursday. My friends and I had noticed that as Jon Stewart has gained more control of the show and as his budget has increased, the show has focused more on political guests and less on celebrities. They’ve also expanded their coverage such as Rob Riggle’s trip to Iraq and their Indecision 2008 team. It felt like years since Jon has hosted a celebrity, though I guess they did host Phil Simms in January.
I am a fan of George Clooney for his work in Darfur, his socially active films, and his political beliefs as well as his acting, but was disappointed by this latest plug for Leatherheads which looks awful.

Hurray! The system sometimes almost works!

Genarlow Wilson was finally freed after spending more than two years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. Wilson was convicted as a sex offender and sentenced to 10 years in prison for the act, which was recorded on video.

Douchebag Georgia Attorney General Thomas Baker appealed an earlier ruling on June 11 that would have set Wilson free and reversed his charges, and released the video tape to the press, without protecting the identities of anyone involved including the female teenagers on the tape. This was an illegal act of distribution of child pornography as well as the Title 18 U.S.C. §2257 (legal statement that all people involved in a pornographic video are documented as over 18). Baker not only acted inappropriately and illegaly, but also kept Wilson in prison 4 months longer.

It’s amazing how much public opinion can sway the courts. If there hadn’t been as much outrage as there was, lawmakers wouldn’t have reacted the way they did, this case wouldn’t have been challenged, and Wilson would still be rotting in prison. But if you have a good enough publicist, like OJ simpson, you can get away with murder.

It’s too bad the public doesn’t care enough about other cases, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, or the Jena 6. It’s great that Wilson didn’t have to serve an outrageous 10 years in prison, but the 2 years in prison, disruption of his life, felony charge, and sex offender charges aren’t going to help him. It’s nice that sometimes our collective conscious can have enough sense to realize the law can be horribly applied and corrupted. Why do we hide behind it then and feign helplessness when we question these other cases?

Sources
Georgia Court Orders Man Freed in Sex Case - The New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/us/26cnd-georgia.html?hp

10 Years in Prison For Consensual Sex: Genarlow Wilson’s Mother Speaks Out on Why Her Son Remains Locked Up
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/17/1356206&mode=thread&tid=25

Paris Hilton Should Die… Well, At Least She Is Going To Jail.

Actually, I wish death upon no one.  However, I do wish that she would cease to be such an influential figure in our nation’s popular culture.  Since the dawn of human civilization, individuals have been praised and celebrated for nothing other than genetic dumb luck.  From musician to monarchs, people have been praised for things that were no fault of their own; either they were born with innate abilities or they were born into privilege and power.  Usually, though, those born into privilege and power had some purpose in society: they led wars, movements or people. 

Rarely have there been people who were so lacking in skills or contributions to their culture as we see today.  Paris Hilton is the epitome of this unfortunate circumstance.  She is rich.  She is not rich due to any of her own efforts.  Actually, neither are her parents.  They were all born into this exponential wealth, the likes of which most people could never dream.  In fact, when I try to imagine $250,000,000 I come up short.  Numbers that large have no place in the human understanding.  We can barely wrap our heads around the idea that we are made up of trillions of cells. 

Thousands of young women, and burgeoning gay boys, look up to this vapid, insincere waste of skin.  They are signing petitions numbering in the millions of signatures to aid in her avoiding prison time.  Do you see the same droves of mindless teens signing petitions for poor, minority individuals that get caught doing the same thing?  No, because they are not the beloved famous people we are so infatuated with today.  On the contrary, they are poor saps who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or they just legitimately broke the law.  I do not believe that all of our many, many laws are just, but if I am going to pay the price for breaking them, then you better believe that I want that stupid, talentless idiot to have to do the same.  For the “freest nation on Earth,” there are an awful lot of things that can get us tossed in the clink.

It would be one thing if she stood up and said to the judge “I’m sorry.  I messed up.  I take full responsibility for my actions and I will do what is necessary to make it right.”  Instead, she blamed her publicist for leading her astray.  She is two years younger than me.  By her age, I sure as shit knew what would and what would not land me in jail.  For a woman of her privilege and opportunity, could no one have given her an education?  Can the Hiltons really not afford the best money can buy?  Well, they can, which is why no one in that family is ever seen wearing the same outfit twice.

It makes me sick that so many young men and women look up to these false idols.  They do nothing to contribute to the betterment of our world or our even our society.  Can we really afford to tolerate these people as the primary examples of success to our youth?  Why are we so obsessed with these people?  Why are their accomplishments, of which there are none, held above individuals like the Dalai Lama or Albert Einstein, who genuinely contributed to the discourse on the course of human events?  It sickens and disgusts me. 

Sometimes I wonder if I will have to raise my children in a box to avoid exposing them to this part of our terribly flawed society.  However, that will surely result in a lengthy sentence of my own.