Tag Archive for 'Politics'

Gossip | We’re more likely to believe political untruths forwarded by email

Published on May 3, 2011 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Stephen Weitzman's 1992 Sculpture photo © 2007 takomabibelot | more info (via: Wylio)Even though we’re well between major elections in this country I still get the occasional fear-mongering email forward that is so blatantly inaccurate that I almost don’t bother to fact check it. But I force myself to seek out reality and forward the corrections and evidence to the contrary back to the sender — I have yet to see such an individual issue a retraction or update their audience after getting my helpful response.

People continue to hit send on these missives with long e-mail header trains, as if, somehow, the tales within must be true for it to have mushroom clouded across the the internet.

Researchers from Ohio State University contacted 600 people after the 2008 election to discuss their exposure to rumors about the candidates on the websites, blogs and by email. The publishing findings indicate that fibbing on the internet itself is  to some degree checked because the facts are out there with a quick google search.  Email was more pernicious:

The more political e-mails that participants received from friends and family during the 2008 election, the more rumors they were likely to believe. And the more rumors they believed, the more political e-mails they sent.

In addition, receiving e-mails only promoted belief in rumors about the candidate whom the person opposed, the study found. And people were more likely to share e-mails as belief in rumors about the opposed candidate increased.

The filter effect at work, again.  You’re more likely to believe, seek out and forward media content that parrots your own opinions; facts be damned.

Twenty Set: How to Become a Leader if You're a Woman

Published on December 5, 2008 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Twenty Set’s Monica O’Brien interviewed several Gen-Y women by e-mail as part of her postmortem of the 2008 election.  She just posted a piece on the role female candidates and First Lady-to-be Obama played and the ramifications of their presence on the very public political stage for future elections.

You can find my thoughts on why Hillary lost and what Michelle Obama represents to professional women over at Twenty Set.

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VOD: West Wing turns a page

Published on November 10, 2008 in Entertainment and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

The election of Barack Obama aligned with the election of Matt Santos in the final season of The West Wing. Given our knowledge of the people who inspired them The West Wing (Obama, Emanuel, etc), it seems life imitated art that imitated life.

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QOD: relevant Thomas Jefferson

Published on November 6, 2008 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

democracy image by jarnocan

Thomas Jefferson said:

“In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time.”

“It is the steady abuse of power in other governments which renders that of opposition always the popular party.”

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QOD: President Barack Obama

Published on November 5, 2008 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

obama-progress

The road ahead will be long.  Our climb will be steep.  We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.  I promise you – we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts.  There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem.  But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.  I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.  And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change.  And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.  It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.  Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

– President-Elect Barack Obama, November 4th, 2008

QOD: Molly Ivins on Knives v. Guns

Published on October 13, 2008 in Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

creepy photo by itsgreg

“I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”

– Molly Ivins, controversial Texan columnist

My junior year of high school we read a series of essays in English class. One of those essays was written by Molly Ivins.  More than a decade later, I still remember being throughly impressed with her half-joking suggestion that we swap guns for knives and the defense weapon of choice.

She made a point; people don’t accidentally kill people with knives.

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VOD: Foreclosure Alley & Tent City USA

Published on October 3, 2008 in Politics and Society. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Andrew Sullivan embedded the heartbreaking piece on what happens to foreclosed homes.

Though I’ve been reading about “jingle mail” since last winter, I never realized that people abandon their homes fully furnished.   Not only are they losing their largest and most expensive (bad) investment, but many people leave behind closets of clothes, computers, family pictures, children’s toys, and even grandpa’s ashes.

Worse, the companies hired to clear out the homes have been unable to find a charity that can take perfectly usable furniture and clothing for resale on the low-end charitable sales market because the timing doesn’t work out.  (Part 1, Part 2)

Where do people wind up after losing their homes? They downgrade to apartments, stay with family, and some wind up in tent cities that are springing up across America.

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VOD: Using reverse psychology — DON'T VOTE — to get out the vote

Published on October 1, 2008 in Entertainment and Politics. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I love this video.  The celebrities aren’t taking a stance on any issue in particular.  Instead, they press the importance of voting, period.

A bunch of celebrities are demanding that you don’t vote because voting is stupid. No one cares about education, health care, abortion, polar bears, the economy, etc.

But then celebrity after celebrity point out that what you care about might matter.  From social security to Darfur to the AIDS crisis at home and abroad, the 2nd ammendment, war on drugs. “This is really only about your future.”

They remind you that you need to REGISTER to vote and insist they’ll wait for you to register before moving on.

It’s completely non-partisan, but it reminds people of the issues at stake (regardless of the position you take on those issues), the need to register (the deadline is October 4th in some states) and the necessity of voting.

And of course, they ask you to take the message viral and share it with 5 friends.

PS. Maybe it leans left. But much of Hollywood is pretty liberal. The point is non partisan — vote!

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Am I missing something? The girl next door is not qualified to run for VP.

Published on October 1, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I’ve tried. Repeatedly.  I even went out to dinner with a Republican to attempt to make sense of the conclusion so many McCain-Palin voters have reached — Sarah Palin is a great choice for VP.

I’ll be the first to say that I wish I had her schmoozing skills.  Palin has a way of gift wrapping words that drives the Republican base wild.  She’s that colleague at work that you love going for drinks with because she tells the funny stories and relates to everyone at the office.  She’s the big sister you want to confide in.  I could look past her political orientation and be frenemies with Sarah Palin.  Yes, frenemies. Because I have no doubt she’d stab me in the back, and the front, if I stood in the way of an opportunity she wanted to pursue.

But being personable is not a qualification for being Vice-President; it’s a qualification for getting invited to a hot-ticket dinner party.  And it’s incredibly short sighted of voters to want the “girl next door” to reside a seventy-two year-old’s heart beat away from the Presidency.

Sure. She’s just like you and me.  A mid-September poll by the NYTimes and CBS found that “77% of Republicans said they had a favorable view of Palin.” The adjectives brought to mind by Palin:

But when asked what specifically they liked about her, their top five reasons were that she was honest, tough, caring, outspoken and fresh-faced. . . (By the way, her intelligence was in a three-way tie for eighth place, right behind “I just like her.”)

So you need to ask yourself, are YOU qualified to be Vice-President?  Would you be comfortable being thrown on a national stage handling the Wall Street melt down with the leader of your political party? Or the next terrorist attack by foreigners (since we like to avoid labeling the home grown variety as such)? How would you make health care affordable for uninsured, high risk Americans?

If you possess or are working towards a degree in political science, economics, public diplomacy, international relations or history, you are over qualified and exempt from this line of questioning. You know way more than the average American about internal and external forces and policies that shape the current political and financial climate of America to answer.

I suspect most Americans would not want to shoulder the burden of a national economic crisis, let alone be determine the best course of action from the myriad he or she is offered. Surely, you don’t want the girl next door, who cruised through 5 schools in 6 years (more evidence of her short attenton span?) before graduating with a degree in  journalism influencing those executive decisions.  The clean up of 8 years of a Bush administration in charge is not the job of light weights or those who agreed with Bush 90% of the time

Jay of Ill Doctrine shares his take on what voter need to do in light of the current economic crisis sucking up Wall Street, with Main Street already stunted.

That feeling that you’re feeling right now, hoping and praying that you leaders are actually smarter than you.  Please remember that feeling when you go in the voting booth. Because just this once, I think we really need to vote for the annoying smart guy.

I know how you feel. He’s always got this smug look on his face, and it brings up all our esteem issues from high school, but we need him right now. As soon as this crisis is over, we can give him a wedgie and lock him inside his locker.  But this is his moment.

I know this is not an easy choice. But this moment in history is a time for courage.  It is a time for change.  It is time for a nerd we can believe in.

Out of all the people I know, I can think of one person, I’d trust to make hard decisions with global ripples.  And he’s not the guy next door. He’s an arrogant know-it-all that has spent years reading up on economics and politics, both domestic and foreign.  He makes me feel really dumb a lot, but I keep going back for more because he inspires me to be better.  He’s a cut above the rest, and it’s that quality I want in the leadership that represents my country. It’s a quality that’s sorely missing from both halves of the Republican ticket.

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Tim Wise: This is Your Nation On White Privilege

Published on September 17, 2008 in Politics and Society. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Jill over at Writes Like She Talks recommends that bloggers “spread Tim Wise’s article, ‘This is Your Nation on White Privilege,’ far and wide.”

I’m happy to help the cause.

This election season has demonstrated the profound double standards in our country in regards to gendered personality traits, qualifications, character, and experience.  Obama’s March speech on race is just the tip of the ice berg in terms of conversations that need to be had about how our race defines us and what privileges and challenges our genetic makeup hands us.

Whether or not you plan to vote for Barack Obama in November, we need to acknowledge that all Americans aren’t equal, yet.  The repeated and prolonged attacks on Barack Obama throughout the primary and general election periods are not just about politics.  Every challenge made of Sarah Palin’s qualifications can’t simply be written off as sexism and sour grapes over a personable Phyllis Schlafly 2.0.

There’s this false notion that nearly 150 years after slavery was outlawed in America, that race is no longer an issue.  Throughout the country ballot wars are raged against the continuation of affirmative action in employment and education systems.  People insist that the sins of their fathers, are not their own.    Sadly, the civil rights movement of the 1960s shifted our culture some, but not enough.

Here are a few of  Tim Wise’s observations on white privilege:

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

…

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

…White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

Click through for the full piece. Your thoughts?  Pass it on.

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