Category Archives: Current Events

Ken Levine remembers the late Sky Saxon.

Michael Kinsley makes the case that we need to replace our National Anthem and discusses a few likely contenders. I agree with Kinsley as to why "The Star-Spangled Banner" should go. (It's an undemocratic song because no one less musical than Robert Goulet can sing it, and also it's about war.) But the fight over what to replace it with would be so ugly that no one will have the tummy for that battle. One can already hear the fundamentalists seeing the adoption of "God Bless America" as a way of declaring, once and for all, that this is a Christian nation and all good Americans believe as they do.

Incidentally: The other day, the famous-for-not-much-of-anything Joe the Plumber declared that there are places in America where you can be shot for saying, "In God We Trust." Of course. Why, just last week, three people on my block were killed for reading their money aloud.

Question for Fred Kaplan: What exactly will happen when U.S. forces start leaving Iraq?

There are many holes in which our current financial crisis grew and festered but none deeper than the outfit known as Goldman, Sachs. Its head honcho, Lloyd Blankfein, recently penned a kind of blame-shifting apology and Matt Taibbi is having none of it. It's one of those scandals that America would be a lot angrier about if everyone understood just what was done to us and how much loot the perpetrators have gotten away with.

My pal Bob Elisberg, with whom I will have lunch when my schedule eases a bit, writes about age discrimination in Hollywood. Not every time an old guy doesn't get hired is an example of this — though the old guys usually think it is — but there certainly is that kind of prejudice and it's a shame.

One of my favorite political writers, Gene Lyons, says that Obama oughta just trample over bipartisanship and do what has to be done to fix this nation's health care system.

Maybe I'm gullible but I'd like to think that our Chief Exec intends that as a last resort; that what he's doing now is horse-trading and manuevering and trying to achieve the goal in a manner more elegant (and perhaps more effective in the long run) than George W. Bush ramming something on his wish list down Democratic throats. After all, you have polls like this one saying that 76% of Americans want to have that public option made available. That's a staggeringly high number in a country where, we're told, so many people love the health plans they already have. So it's not like the whole nation's going to turn on him if he pushes that through.

Anyway, Lyons makes the point I did, and which I'm sure others said long before I think I thought of it…that opponents of the public option are simultaneously arguing that since it's the government behind it, it couldn't possibly be any good, while at the same time they insist it'll be so successful that it will put private insurers out of business. I thought Free Market Capitalism was based on the premise that consumers will always opt for the best product. Apparently now, we have to be protected from having a choice.

Despite requests that I address the subject, I haven't written much here about abortion. Not being a doctor and not having a womb, I always feel like there are aspects of this issue that are forever beyond me. A lot of the people debating this issue in public, it seems to me, are inflammatory in a way that is not helpful to anyone. I also think that contrary to their claims, these people really aren't all that concerned with the welfare of any possible children. Then again, I think most feel as I do in this regard. We just disagree on which ones are the troublemakers.

To the extent I feel sure of anything it's (a) that the welfare of the pregnant woman should be of paramount concern and that it's too often neglected and (b) that the discussion needs a lot more civility and a lot less demagogy. I was therefore impressed with this blog exchange between a young pregnant lady and a couple hundred strangers. They discussed the issue in public with, for the most part, compassion and a desire to help someone solve a genuine and not unique dilemma.

I'm not going to start an abortion discussion on this weblog because it's too serious an issue…and also too complex for someone who, like me, watches from afar with many mixed feelings. But I do think that the folks who should be discussing the issue need to discuss it with more of the tone and benevolence of the linked thread.

Ken Levine recalls an interesting encounter with Rush Limbaugh.

So what's the deal with Iran? Let's go to Fred Kaplan, the man with most (if not all) of the answers.

My buddy Robert Elisberg writes about his view of Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol. I agree with Bob.

Fred Kaplan writes an article entitled, "Obama Couldn't Sway the Iranian Election Even if He Wanted To." Apparently, Fred thinks that Obama couldn't sway the Iranian election even if he wanted to.

Ezra Klein offers a quick overview of where this country may be going with regard to a "public plan" (i.e., government-offered) of health insurance. As one who thinks the current system is fatally broken, I'm for the strongest possible public option. Right now, the private insurance companies have no competition in the sense that you can go sign up with a firm that is not interested in boosting its earnings by denying coverage and claims.

Carl Hulse thinks that Barack Obama's strategy for dealing with partisanship is to, in effect, kill 'em with kindness…or something to that effect.

President Obama gave a speech this morning in Cairo that many are dissecting and discussing. Fred Kaplan tells us what he thinks it all means.

Our nation's health care system is more than broken. It's lethal. If a foreign country had killed as many Americans as our health care system, we'd have long since invaded it, toppled its government and created a new quagmire for ourselves. Just in terms of personal financial disasters, health care is a major league disaster. If you don't believe me, take a look at these numbers.

And every time I mention something about this, I get an e-mail from someone who says, "Would you really want the government making decisions about folks' health care?" The answer to that question is yes. They couldn't do a worse job of it than the people doing it now, who are all insurance companies trying to beat the previous quarter's profit margin.