My Blog

Next month our beloved country turns 231 years old. I know of a great birthday present that the 2008 Presidential Candidates in both parties can give the citizens of the United States and the world as a whole:

STOP CAMPAIGNING

That’s right. Beginning July 1, until the summer recess, every presidential candidate should cease and desist fund raising, trips to Iowa City and stints on the Daily Show. Instead, what would be great, especially for the candidates currently getting paid by U.S. taxpayers in the legislative branch, is if they would get some work done.

Just showing up to vote is not good enough. Demonstrate your potential as the next possible leader of the free world by building political consensus to pass bills and/or override vetoes. There is a lot of work to do, and the Country needs you to stop eating cat fish in South Carolina and start finding solutions to the following issues:

1. Iraq-what the hell now?

2. Homeland Security

3. Overriding Bush’s Stem Cell Research Veto

4. Immigration Reform

5. Ensuring Educational Reform mandates are funded

6. Bargain with China and Russia to enable progress in the Save Darfur campaign

7. Gun Control

8. Alternative Energy Sources

9. Health Care Reform

10. Afghanistan

These are urgent issues. These are pressing issues. I don’t really care what you are going to do as President. I mean, I do care, but not yet. What the voters want is for you to accomplish something in the job that you have now, instead of promoting what you might do in a job that you may or may not be hired for.

Call your travel agent and postpone your trip to Concord and make a reservation at Mr. Smith’s in Georgetown. I recommend the Original Smith’s Burger. It’s big, but you’re going to need your strength.

You have a lot of work to do. 

Here are five brief commentaries on “news” stories that have caught my attention (and ire).

1. Plan a Havana holiday! Adios Cuba! Meet the Rolling Stones of Cuba! Oh My God! Matt Lauer and the Today Show are in Cuba! Good work guys! Thank you for showing Americans the "positives" of Cuba: the beach, the music, the food, the dancers, the clothes, the CIGARS. Who needs news about dissidents? Who needs news about poverty? Matt, I know what you are up to though. You’re trying to score that last interview with Castro before he dies to ensure your legacy as a serious journalist.

Matt, your legacy will be your haircut and "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" a segment named after a children’s show on PBS.

Oh but, spoiler alert, there’s an update on Elian Gonzales.
Today Show

2. Oh President Bush. Do you really think suddenly embracing environmental causes after denying their validity will reverse your legacy of the failed war in Iraq? Also, I need to tell you something. You can’t reverse global warming by bringing back the Cold War. Cold War is a metaphor like "axis of evil."
Time and New York Times

3. What the hell is up with the Cubs? I have been a Cubs fan since I dreamed of marrying Ryne Sandberg as an elementary schooler. I don’t mind them losing (although that Bartman mishap and the ensuing losses took years from my life). You know things are bad when your pitcher and catcher get in a fight in the bullpen. Then you have the coach, who acts like a five year old whose American Girl doll just fell down the gutter. Here’s an idea. Instead of entertaining us with your antics, just win more games than you lose. Oh. And act like men, not little babies. 
ESPN

4. Have you ever heard of a guy named Norman Finkelstein? He is up for tenure at DePaul University and has caused a fire storm (never really seen a fire storm) because his scholarship includes criticism that Jews use the Holocaust to promote Israel’s sometimes flawed agenda and that Survivors also have bilked Germany out of money. He is part of the Jewish left (to orient him with me think left, diagonal, a few more hundred yards, there, I think) that finds peace with the opportunities afforded to him that weren’t allotted to racial minorities by vehemently criticizing other Jews. There are many of them. I had a professor at DePaul who was also Jewish and also hypercritical of Israel. I’m not sure if he received tenure. You’ve never heard of him because no one usually hears about professors except other professors.  And no one read his stuff except us (because he forced us to buy his book which I think so uncool.) I don’t think the Jewish Community should get involved in preventing Finkelstein’s tenure. If DePaul’s president, the Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, wants Finkelstein’s scholarship a mainstay on his campus, that’s his and the University’s right. It’s called academic freedom. Just like it’s my freedom to say Finkelstein’s work is more about his own personal issues as the child of Holocaust survivors than its basis in reality. Also, he’s a political scientist, not a real scientist. We don’t have to believe what he says, all he has to do is back up his claims with speculative research.  Or maybe he’s still angry about the fact that his parents named him Norman Finkelstein.
Chicago Sun Times

5. Paris Hilton is in jail. I’m not going to make fun of her because I don’t really care. But I thought, as an educator, I should recommend some books for the rest of her stay to enrich her being.

Einstein:by Walter Isaacson
The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron
A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein
Presidential Courage by Michael Beschloss
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Not on Our Watch: A Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond
Don Cheadle, John Prendergast, John Prendergast
Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
(sorry, that last one was mean)
This blog was posted in memory of Dave Adams.