rant
December 28, 2008
- Would you be surprised to hear that we can all haggle about our hospital bills as if we were dealing with an amiable rug-merchant in a Moroccan souk?I know, it surprised me too!Consider the following quote from Victoria Zackheim about her own experience with this phenomenon:"In the spring, I contacted Blue Cross and upped my deductible to $5000. I'm on no prescription meds and never get ...
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December 10, 2008
- In an upset worthy of Marin Day School covering the spread against the Green Bay Packers through the first three quarters of a spirited scrimmage at Lambeau Field, the coveted Clueless Cup appears to be on the verge of falling out of the clutches of President Bush’s staff for the first time in 8 long years. And the usurper is a little known agency that has blissfully slipped the bonds of reason ...
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November 28, 2008
- Recently, after a presentation to teachers about racial bias in high school curricula, I got into a tiny spat with an instructor who objected to my using the word "holocaust" to describe the process by which nearly 99% of indigenous Americans perished from the 1400s to the present day. He also objected to the use of the term to describe the experience of Africans, forcibly kidnapped and ...
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November 18, 2008
- I thought I'd take a trip through a few things I dislike in novels. They're not dealbreakers, but the more of these an author incorporates into their work, the less I'm likely to enjoy the result.In the comments, you're welcome to add your own. Mine aren't listed in any order - they're just hitting the post as I dream them up.1. A cast of thousands.In a movie you get to put a face to every name. ...
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November 14, 2008
- I've started seeing this in the media recently, and it's driving me nuts. When talking about figures, politicians and reporters have started using phrases such as 'we expect inflation will be a number with a two in front of it' or 'unemployment will be a number with a four in front of it.'First, it's not accurate. Is the former two point something, twenty point something or two million point ...
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November 12, 2008
- Maybe it's my fault. I think I write pretty clearly, but perhaps I don't. In the last few days, ever since I counseled both excitement at the post-election possibilities for progressive activism, and caution at the risk of over-exuberance, it seems as though some on the left with a heavy investment in their self-righteous sense of radicalism have allowed their personal hatred of all things ...
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November 10, 2008
- My political entry into the left (and by this I mean the real left, beyond the Democratic Party) came a little more than twenty years ago in New Orleans, when, as a college student I became involved in the fight against U.S. intervention in Central America. In particular, the groups of which I was a part sought to end military aid to the death squad governments in El Salvador and Guatemala, and ...
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November 10, 2008
- There is a common hypothesis, becoming increasingly popular on the eve of Obama's election (an important step forward in the history of race relations and a major change from the last eight years of Republican neo-conservative decimation, but hardly a revolutionary or progressive vanguard-to-be), that likes to call itself "color-blind". The reasoning goes somewhat like this: "The ...
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November 5, 2008
- Hey everyone, I thought I should share this with you. Seeing as how I earlier penned an elegy to hope in the wake of this historic moment, ("Good, and Now Back to Work"), I thought I would take you back, a mere seven years, to see the words I penned on September 12, 2001. The contrast between that day--and the fear and dread that surrounded my every thought, and which I expressed via ...
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November 5, 2008
- Tonight, after Barack Obama was confirmed as the nation's president-elect, I looked in on my children, as they lay sleeping. Though they are about as politically astute as kids can be, having reached only the ages of 7 and 5, there is no way they will be able to truly appreciate what has just happened in the land they call home. They do not possess the sense of history, or indeed, even a clear ...
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