The Redstar Perspective

I loathe this man.  Read on.

With 8 days until the March 4 primaries, this is how I feel. Exhausted of the he said/she said. Tired of sifting through the various charges leveled at candidates, campaigns, their supporters, the media, bloggers, at me. A week ago I was fired up - This is participatory democracy! - and NYC Weboy and I laughed about how the blogs need a mediator to keep the place civilized. I was spending all day on the web, and at one point exchanged emails with a dear friend of mine about the rise of social isolation in contemporary society and how I am one of those people who have *traded* face-to-face interaction for virtual socializing.This dear friend, a young black woman married and raising an interracial child, has so far been a voice of reason for me in this campaign. While the clunky media-driven debate over “Race v. gender” has raged for months, searching greedily for The Biggest Loser between our two Dem candidates, she said to me in an email that this has been her “dream” primary - she’s supporting Obama, but would have happily supported Clinton. With Obama she gained a role model for her daughter and theoretical future sons, but she got teary at both Obama’s “Yes We Can” and Clinton’s “This One’s for the Girls” videos. This friend is who I think of when I see The Obamas grace three magazine covers in one week (he on The Economist and US News, and Michelle on Newsweek) and am struck by how cool and overdue that is for this nation. It is her that I think of when I feel pride watching these two candidates share the debate stage and make the Democratic Party look great. And it is this friend who I am now pulling into the blogosphere, at her own peril.

Because now this my lovely friend is spending more time than usual on-line, discovering for herself how f***ing obnoxious so many of the blog comment threads are about the candidates. And my experiments in consciousness-raising here at The RP suddenly feel especially unpleasant. I’m taking her down with me! Oh No!

My support for Clinton has origins in her qualifications for the Presidency - she’s the smartest and the realistic best the Dems have to offer, I think, and her gender firmly pushes me into her camp. But I don’t think I’m alone when I say that her candidacy has taken on a whole new level of meaning for me, divorced from the candidate. This has become a fight for me about gender equity, a battle I’ve long waged, whether aggressively or sometimes just silently in my head. I feel like I’m fighting for Clinton in honor of my mother and her peers, in honor of the women’s lives I’ve had the privilege to study for school, and for myself and my and my peers’ future. Watching the attacks on Clinton this primary season has unleashed an anger in me that I’d either been ignoring or resisting until now, one that I’m hoping will last for the rest of my life.

The problem is that Clinton - of course - is not a perfect candidate on which to mount my fight for justice. No single woman would be; the fight to reduce oppression and domination of women is a battle to be waged across campaigns, political and economic and social structures, and on behalf of and with a range of activists committed to social equity.

The meta-narrative of this campaign, and electoral politics more generally, have pretty much prohibited such a coalitional struggle, as the false choice between the “black man and the white woman” exploits and reinforces the already fragile relationships between activists representing different social groups and struggles. As a Clinton supporter, in the time and space available to me in my current on- and off-line life, I’ve sacrified depth of analysis about this race for qualified support of my candidate. I say qualified because most everything I post in her favor is casually vetted and posted at a deliberately partisan site for other Clinton supporters. I’ve characterized this site as a safe space that I think legitimately has its place here in the ’sphere. And I love being a part of it.

But I cannot stress enough that this Clinton support is not my politics as usual. The reason I rarely get fired up about elections or candidates is because I think politicians are pretty much all the same, and the system is set up such that their self-interest always comes first. I believe that to get things done you need to be willing to negotiate with a pretty varied range of people and groups, and that conflict (versus violence) is fundamental and necessary, and difference is to be tolerated and embraced, not suppressed. I think change comes incrementally, due to a variety of intertwined external and internal pressures, including movement politics, protest, behind-the-scenes deal-making, and policymaking.

Clinton and Obama both represent different pieces of the scenario I just described. They comprise different coalitions of voters, different tactics (between them and within their campaigns) to land the nomination, different narratives of how they’ll lead, different leadership styles, yet very similar political positions and stances across a wide range of issues that matter to various voters. Neither of them will really change our power to influence the system, regardless of how much both camps of supporters believe they will (beyond the diffuse and thrilling symbolic empowerment many of us will feel should our preferred candidate take that oath in January). Only we can do that, and once either of them is in office, both become more representative than they are now of all the legislative, regulatory, distributive, and participatory changes we need in our government.

What has been a real loss for me this campaign is how divergent I feel from my usual stances of a) trying to better understand the intersectionality of various forms of oppression that women, people of color, LGBT, and others feel, and b) fighting for greater anti-poverty policy and equity in the U.S. I don’t believe that loss would be vindicated by participating in the Obama campaign either. What I’m hoping is that at the end of this primary, rather than tripping over deepened gendered, ethno-racial, sexist and classist divides, our mutual desire to heal our (re-) opened wounds is stronger than ever.

After Hurricane Katrina, there was a national outcry for an honest conversation about the persistence of racial and economic inquity in the U.S. Some folks actually began that conversation, picking up where they left off before the storm struck, and are still talking and agitating to this day. May the 2008 Presidential elections leave us with a similar mandate, and may more of us engage with it than the many-but-still-too-few who are fighting for justice in the Gulf Coast now.

Because just like Katrina evacuees in TX, all of us matter well beyond March 4, November 4, and January 20, 2009. Pretty soon Clinton or Obama or even McCain will be behind the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’ll still be sitting here at our desks, in our cars, on the bus, or behind the counter. Staring down the same old shit.

Over at The Hillary 1000, Donna Darko offers an (as promised) depressing summary of the sexism rampant in the election.  One culprit she doesn’t address directly is the MSM, though their shenanigans have been documented extensively by fellow bloggers. 

Well, as I posted over in H1K comments, here at the Cinci airport, I just watched a commercial for CNN where they trumpeted their diversity (as in their range of global news coverage and topics).  To demonstrate their depth and breadth in appealing to all corners of humanity with their hard-hitting journalism, they paraded 5 different MALE faces across the screen.

Of course.  This makes sense, you know, because all women hate politics.  We, after all, spend all our time watching Lifetime and HGTV and WE and Oxygen and HSN. 

Though perhaps the commercial is prescient.  After this election cycle, dudes may be the only folks left watching CNN, MSNBC, and their ilk.

Part 35.  (Because why always tear myself down?  So unbecoming.)

A Slate columnist applied the Myers Briggs personality type tests to the three presidential candidates.  Turns out Clinton and McCain are common presidential personalities; Obama, he’s more of a movement leader.  Sometimes these articles just write themselves.

So, rather than go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, I knew I needed to immediately discover my own personality type.  Using a free on-line version of the test, I discovered I’m a INTJ: Introverted / Intuitive / Thinking / Judging, with Intuitive traits comprising the majority and Introverted and Judging making up the bulk of the remainder.  Sounds about right. 

Apparently, INTJ’s are Masterminds, comprising less than 1% of the population (think Nietsche, Stephen Hawking, Eisenhower, Keynes, and Ayn Rand).  Here’s the excerpts that both ring true to my ear, and are my leadership qualities, despite my amazing capacities for sitting on my couch in my pj’s not engaging with the world for hours on end:

Entailing or contingency planning is not an informative activity, rather it is a directive one in which the planner tells others what to do and in what order to do it. As the organizing capabilities the Masterminds increase so does their inclination to take charge of whatever is going on.

…there is one attitude that sets them apart from other Rationals: they tend to be much more self-confident than the rest, having, for obscure reasons, developed a very strong will.

Being very judicious, decisions come naturally to them; indeed, they can hardly rest until they have things settled, decided, and set [like this primary, for ex!!]. They are the people who are able to formulate coherent and comprehensive contingency plans, hence contingency organizers or “entailers.”

Natural leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once in charge, however, Masterminds are the supreme pragmatists, seeing reality as a crucible for refining their strategies for goal-directed action. In a sense, Masterminds approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity [I do this nightly, as the hours pass and I fail to sleep, I reorganize the coming day to reflect how much energy and time I’ll have].

On the other hand, Masterminds can be quite ruthless in implementing effective ideas, seldom counting personal cost in terms of time and energy. [This is why I surround myself with emotional people!!]

Self-confidence; a willingness to make decisions; an analytical, organizing mind; and an ability and willingness to course-correct (one of my fave corporate buzzphrases) as we go along. Yep; yep; yep; and yep.

What’s your personality type?  Please submit all reports to my desk by 10am Monday morning, when I’ll next be on-line.  Family duties call this weekend.  Why not hang with my fellow bloggers Donna Darko and Pocochina over at The Hillary 1000 while I’m gone? 

UPDATE: The LA Justice Institute and The Children’s Defense Fund (Sen. Clinton’s former employer, I might add) have released preliminary data from a survey of families living in the 38,000 FEMA trailers still spread out around the Gulf Coast. They found that approximately 100,000 people live in those trailers, or an average of 3 people per unit. (FEMA trailers are about 400 sq ft, IIRC.)

Other findings include (their emphases):

Most families have been in the trailer for over 2 years, since the fall of 2005 or spring of 2006.

The majority of people living in FEMA trailers are employed. Many are retired.

15% report depression, anxiety, other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. 10% report that their mental health problems are their biggest obstacle to getting out of the trailer.

55% report that if they are evicted from their FEMA trailer in the next few months they have no family they can turn to for help and they expect to be homeless.

29% reported rashes, itchy eyes, breathing problems and other symptoms usually related to high levels formaldehyde in their FEMA trailer.

“Our presidential candidates must understand the plight of FEMA trailer residents and answer the tough questions those conditions present concerning affordable permanent housing for Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita survivors. This is no way to treat our people!”

HERE ARE THE DETAILS ON SEEING A FEMA TRAILER FIRSTHAND AT TONIGHT’S DEM DEBATE IN AUSTIN :

Though the Democratic debate in Austin on Thursday has limited space for the public, there is an opportunity for folks in the vicinity to visit the KatrinaRitaVille Express: The National FEMA Trailer Tour. From krvexpress.org:

This is a rare opportunity to place our region’s unaddressed recovery/justice needs squarely before the candidates, media and US electorate. Our FEMA Trailer and a caravan of survivors/speakers from coastal AL, MS, LA and TX would certainly help raise the region’s national visibility.

Friends at UT Law School’s Justice Center are currently looking into a day-long exhibit and speak-out at some campus location not far from Thursday night’s debate.

With your help, the event will feature the trailer, human testimonials, video, and the distribution of information on housing, environment and other social justice/policy needs for gulf coast communities.

Click here for more debate info.

Meanwhile, legal activists have filed another lawsuit to halt demolition in the on-going public housing struggle in New Orleans, even as buildings at C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, and St. Bernard have come down (No word on any demolition at Lafitte). In DC, Sen. Landrieu has again marked up S. 1668, the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act, to renew the negotiations with her colleagues and staunch opponents, Sens. Shelby (R-AL) and Vitter (R-LA), on this critical affordable housing bill.

This fight is far from over! ! !!

$20M Gift Planned for Gentilly.

There’s a press conference next week.

Wahoo!

Say what you will about private sector development - I’ve certainly done my fair share - but bringing 100 homes to a neighborhood with only 25% of its population back is a noble effort.

I’ve written extensively here about my Obama skepticism.  Quotes like this don’t endear me to the man either.

From the February 25th issue of People, in “25 Questions for Barack Obama”:

Q: What was your best effort for Valentine’s Day?

A: Interesting question.  [Pause.] I’m so good to her in so many ways, no one gesture of undying love really stands out.

I really hope he was being facetious. The M.A.S. is a phenomenal partner, but if he ever uttered something like this, I’m pretty sure I’d be waiting with my “Need for Improvement” checklist when he got home that night.  But maybe that’s just me.

There’s some other comments in the piece, such as the first legislation he hopes to sign as President is “health care for all Americans,” that his last splurge was a birthday necklace for his wife that “wasn’t fake,” that she reminds him everyday that he is “not a perfect man” (though he has the “wisdom” to say she has “no flaws”), that he misses “anonymity” the most from his past life (though this Newsweek piece on Michelle Obama suggests otherwise - and also, in my opinion, does her less justice as a kickass independent woman than this NYT piece), and that he’d most like to meet Springsteen because he seems like a “good person.” 

I realize this is a People article, and that all the MSM links I’ve provided here deliberately paint - per the joint wisdoms of the campaigns and the publications - certainy portraits of the candidates, but honestly, someone should explain the concept of “modesty” to Sen. Obama.*

 

*Thank you for joining me in this latest edition of The RP’s Pot Kettle Black Politics.

 

Cross-posted at The Hillary 1000.

This is vile.

In case any Democrats and/or feminists missed the memo, no matter the nominee, we’ve got a serious fight on our hands.

Click here for a round-up of post-primary chatter.  I want to re-iterate what is buried in a long, late nite post below:

I like Obama’s call to increase the diversity of representation in the existing system.  Change at the top is key, but truly diversifying the ranks starts at the bottom - increase women or minority participation at the local level, and you’ll see change work its way up. 

Now, Obama’s campaign has done an amazing job at the grassroots level - their fundraising, their volunteer organization, their GOTV operation has been tremendous.  For this he is rightfully praised.  But how will this translate into the role of President? 

Organizing, no matter how routinized, depends on a symbolic position outside the system.  Obama knows this and speaks to this when he talks about changing Washington.  But, and I’m embarrassed to quote David Brooks here, “what if the 261,000 lobbyists” don’t get Obama’s message about unity?  Organizing, especially the Alinsky model to which Obama is frequently linked, is about bringing in outsiders to train community members to become leaders so that they can fight for change themselves.  Obama is doing an excellent job with inspiring and instilling skills via his campaign operations.  But this positions Obama as the consummate outsider, training others to take on the system for positive change.  How can we then elect this person to be the consummate insider? 

Strains of participatory democracy are prevalent in Obama’s campaign.  Participatory democracy, it should be noted, has highly positive impacts, mainly related to increasing people’s and groups’ sense of civic engagement and self-efficacy, and in practice at the local level, can lead to decision-making power.  But it is not a practice that layers very easily onto our political bureacracy, and, in its most reviled characterizations (from academic haters, mostly), is disparaged as process over results, or, that the process is the result.

There is a reason organizing is a distinct institution from bureacracy; there is a reason that social movements wax and wane, and that protest and direct action is appropriate in some instances and negotiating and deal-making is appropriate in others.  One thing that has been made dramatically obvious during this primary is that our current electoral system is not a fair and open one, and we’ve got two tremendous Democratic candidates to thank for exposing that with their breathtaking contest and its accompanying voter and citizen participation.  Perhaps one outcome of this campaign season will be a re-tooling our our electoral system, or more modestly, the Democratic Party’s rules.  But I’m skeptical.  Bureacracies are pretty entrenched; hence the staying power.  I hope that if Obama secures the nomination, his inside game is as good as his outside one. 

I squeezed about 6 hours of sleep between last night and this morning’s primary coverage. Here are the major themes I’m hearing in my on-line universe:

Despite the white woman/black man Democratic primary slate, white men reassert their primacy.

Just who is Obama’s constituency? And should Dems be worried? If Obama gets the nomination, he’ll get my vote, even though I’m so over him. Other Dems, though, are thinking twice.* Ironically, if unsurprisingly, the question of inauthenticity looms. On this conservatives and Green Party members agree. No one said he wasn’t a coalition-builder!

The turnout of 500,000 voters in Washington state’s doesn’t-count primary is more than twice that of its binding caucus. (The breakdown differed too: 50% for Obama, 47% for Clinton in the former, whereas Obama took 68% in the latter.) Discussion: Caucuses are neither representative, nor fair.

* There are many, many comments around the ’sphere that reflect this blogger’s thinking. I linked to this post because of the actual activity of leaving the Democratic party. See here for the future split of the party.

by xkcd.

Another commenter somewhere in the ’sphere tonight wished that this election cycle results in our two mammoth parties splitting into four.  I sort of agree, and wonder if such a shift is possible in my lifetime - not least because the M.A.S. reminded me that we’d have to change the Constitution (maybe we could tuck the ERA in there while we’re at it).

Within the Dems, what would our ideological fault lines be?  There are many like me who prefer the vetted, highly experienced and prepared Clinton over the relative unknown of Obama; as I’ve said before, there’s a strong risk aversion/cynicism streak involved in this.  I also dislike what I think is blatant disingenuousness and hypocrisy on Obama’s part, pretending to be a non-political politician.  Politicians are in the business of politics - let’s not pretend otherwise.  That theme of his alienates me more than any of the others. (I mean, what’s not to like about “hope”?  And “change” - as long as it’s not for the worse?)  In Clinton, those of us who support her see not only a seasoned, well-groomed, skilled candidate who is, as she tirelessly reminds us, ready to lead; we also see a person who is committed to doing her job, and who has a clear understanding of the structures, rules and responsibilities of the office she’d be entering, and someone who will fight - and negotiate - like hell to protect and uphold those systems (cue the haters who think she’s instead amply demonstrated her contempt and disregard for the Oval Office).  So we can theorize here that Clinton supporters accept or believe in our liberal democratic system.  We are the future Liberal Democrats of the U.S.

Who are Obama supporters?  They’d like the mantel Progressives for themselves, but if so, then he’s not their guy.  I like his call to increase the diversity of representation in the existing system (though Clinton’s actually the one practicing what he’s preaching - see their Campaign ethnic/gender staff composition, for ex).  Given I’m shaping up to work on this question of increased representation for the rest of my cognitive life, I’m the first to tell you that change at the top is key (hell, it’s why I’d love to see a female in office), but truly diversifying the ranks starts at the bottom - increase women or minority participation at the local level, and you’ll see change work its way up. 

Now, Obama’s campaign has done an amazing job at the grassroots level - their fundraising, their volunteer organization, their GOTV operation has been tremendous.  So much so that Obama has the free time to make speeches and meet people rather than spend so much time fundraising like Clinton is doing.  And for this he is rightfully praised.  But how will this translate into a Commander-in-Chief role?  I seriously wonder. 

Organizing, no matter how routinized, depends on a symbolic position outside the system.  Obama knows this and speaks to this when he talks about changing Washington.  But, and I’m embarrassed to quote David Brooks here, “what if the 261,000 lobbyists” don’t get Obama’s message about unity?  Organizing, especially the Alinsky model to which Obama is frequently linked, is about bringing in outsiders to train community members to become leaders so that they can fight for change themselves.  Obama is doing an excellent job with inspiring and instilling skills via his campaign operations.  But this positions him as the consummate outsider, training others to take on the system for positive change.  How can we then elect this person to be the consummate insider? 

Obama supporters, I think I’ll call them Participatory Democrats.  (No doubt they’ll come up with a much cooler moniker.)  Participatory democracy, it should be noted, has highly positive impacts, mainly related to increasing people’s and groups’ sense of civic engagement and self-efficacy, and in practice at the local level, can lead to decision-making power (I’ll find some links to projects in Latin America).  But it is not a practice that layers very easily onto our political bureacracy, and, in its most reviled characterizations (from academic haters, mostly), is disparaged as process over results, or, that the process is the result.

There is a reason organizing is a distinct institution from bureacracy; there is a reason that social movements wax and wane, and that protest and direct action is appropriate in some instances and negotiating and deal-making is appropriate in others.  One thing that has been made dramatically obvious during this primary is that our current electoral system is not a fair and open one, and we’ve got two tremendous candidates to thank for exposing that with their breathtaking contest and its accompanying voter and citizen participation.  Perhaps one outcome of this campaign season will be a re-tooling our our electoral system, or more modestly, the Democratic Party’s rules.  But I’m skeptical.  Bureacracies are pretty entrenched; hence the staying power.  As a Liberal Dem, I hope that if Obama secures the nomination, his inside game is as good as his outside one. 

Still I believe.

Part 1,000,000.

Because I’m known for better and worse for my honesty, and no doubt I’d end up saying legitimate but incendiary things like Michelle Obama’s I’m finally proud of my country remark. 

(And like Barack Obama, I could quite possibly spring onto the national scene as the latest golden child [if my prior jobs are any indication], but unlike Obama, ultimately alienate everyone for insisting on doing things my own way, and losing my temper and telling one too many people off - cue McCain here.  Also like Obama, some of the *friends* I’ve made along my radical-pragmatic way will surely come back to bite me in the a**.)

Though I’ve enjoyed the solidarity of the blogs of other Clinton supporters in the last couple weeks, I disagree strongly with the scornful responses of several of them to Ms. Obama’s comments about her national pride (one post has already been pulled).  First of all, the theoretical beauty of our country is that we are free to express disappointment, pride, anger, faith or any level of investment in our nation, its leaders, our fellow residents, etc.  Secondly, if case anyone missed the Democratic primary meme, the issues of race, gender, identity, privilege, and social difference have been front and center this season.  While the media would have us believe that black women are the epitome of our national struggle between voting with our skin or our vaginas (or our default hatred of either), of course the choice between candidates runs much deeper for most of us.  Policies matter, past and present performance matters, personal histories matter, associations matter, constituencies matter, perceptions matter.  The symbolic choice of Clinton v. Obama represents two sides of the same cultural coins, to name a few: rewarding hard work, experience and preparedness versus renewing our faith in the American Dream; playing it safe (middle-class conservatism) versus entrepreneurial risk-taking; or challenging the patriarchy versus the legacy of slavery.

It’s this last scheme that provides the greatest context through which to interpret Ms. Obama’s comments vis-a-vis the white women who have leapt to critize her here.  Just as women have repeatedly argued (see comments) during this campaign’s on-going Hillary Sexism Watch ™ that men are not in a position to set the parameters of what constitutes sexism, neither should white folks feel free to chastise an African-American woman’s pride in her country.  The truth is that our shared history of slavery splits our country in a crude but material fashion.  White women who criticize Ms. Obama for her remarks, no matter their own experiences of oppression as females in the U.S., do not share with her the specific cultural history of slavery and the on-going experience of being a person of color in a country that has never reconciled our brutal and violent past built on on the backs of those women and men. 

(more…)

I’ve updated my blogroll, especially the Politics category, but also some overdue additions in my Feminist links.  Check ‘em out.  Introduce yourself.  Make friends.

I’m spending some time with the fam this evening (currently blocking one of my mom’s dogs from the box of Cheez-its beside me as I type), and will be back tomorrow.  In the meantime, here’s some links to what I’m reading:

On-line:

Who Represents the Progressive Movement?

Periodically Speaking;

Count WHOSE Vote?;

“White” Like Who?;

and

Generation Gap.

 

Off-line:

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears;

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao;

Bargaining for Brooklyn: Community Organizations in the Entrepreneurial City;

and Justice & the Politics of Difference.

 

Happy reading.

The Hillary 1000 fundraising network blog has had an awesome debut week.  I think it’s stats may already blow The RP out of the water.  Check it out for links to a pro-HRC on-line network, and a round-up of blog and MSM coverage of Sen. Clinton’s campaign. 

And don’t forget to leave a little something on your way out!!

Take the Presidential Candidates Implicit Association Test to see who you really prefer!  (Developed in part by that other Cambridge university.)

My comparative preferences (they are in relation to one another) are hardly surprising:

I feel much “more [positively]” about Clinton than I do the three men - Obama, Huckabee and McCain - who are clustered somewhere in the middle.  Huckabee and Obama we might say I’m “neutral” about, whereas McCain is just below them, slightly closer to the “more negative” end of the spectrum. 

Effectively, I prefer Clinton to a slate of interchangeable candidates in whom I’m just not that interested.

H/t.

I’ve effectively narrowed my Google reader these days that if the blogs aren’t talking about the elections, I’m not reading them. But I feel compelled, obligated even, to talk about the shootings at NIU yesterday.

The most up-to-date reporting has two parallel threads: that the student was a well-liked, respected student (link above), and that he had recently stopped taking his medications (scripts not yet identifed). Especially after VA Tech, we’re familiar - if still unprepared to deal with - the *plotline* of untreated or *mis-managed* mental illness that weaves through these tragedies. At NIU, people seem mystified that this accomplished student deemed a contributing member of academic society could turn up and fire into a crowd of his peers at random and then kill himself. Nonetheless, I’m sure as the days pass the usual story of “we should have seen it coming” will continue to develop.

Listening to right-leaning talk radio the other night (here in MA that means Republicans arguing in favor of gun control), a former school board member and trustee was trying to explain that often this level of atrocity is not preventable. If MIT is any guide, I’m inclined to agree. Most campuses, sometimes surprisingly so, are accessible 24/7. MIT is a large, sprawling urban campus, with no clear borders and some doors that are never, ever locked. Most of the time, the few violent assaults (not necessarily on students) in the area of or around campus, whether by strangers or folks associated with a transitional house adjacent to one of the dorms, are minimized in formal release statements from MIT or Harvard police or the university administrations. Finally, last year, an eventful one in which MIT repeatedly showed up in the local and national press for one crisis after another, one of our students was stabbed in his dorm 10 times by an ex-girlfriend who was a student at Wellesley College; the major lesson learned from that experience was to belatedly tighten security at the dorms.

But I think this notion of “good kids gone bad” is under explored in this tragedy. (more…)

The original post is here.

To reinforce my point that the ire of this primary season is getting totally out of hand, I, blogger un-extraordinaire, got my first hate mail today.  It came after I commented on Ezra’s posts (links below), which I’ve reprinted here:

Ezra,

I’m surprised by this post from you. You’ve been pretty equinimical (sp? word?) thus far.

My reading of this MI/FL debacle is so different, and both campaigns are gunning for it to come out in their favor (obviously) - Obama’s caucus suggestion, anyone?

MyDD has a post today about how it’s the FL/MI politicians who are, again obviously, campaigning to have their votes count. Few seem to be covering this fiasco from the perspective of the states; it’s only one campaign’s shenanigans versus the others.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/13/223556/592

The email is as follows:

What does rationalizing and making lame excuses for people who are blatantly unethical and dishonest make you?  Answer?  A pathetic ass.

Have a nice day!

 

Amazing. 

Moving on.

I’m blown away by another campus shooting.  No words.

I’ll be back in calmer times with some thoughts.

This morning on one of Ezra’s posts about Clinton’s position re: seating the MI and FL delegates, a commenter compared the MI ballot to a hypothetical rigged election in the former Communist Soviet Union. 

Meanwhile, Sara over at Ornicus spent some quality time intelligently and calmly critiquing the latest *meme* that Obama is a cult figure (click HERE for a hilarious satire of Obama as Messiah). 

Then this afternoon one of the WI voters I was calling on behalf of the Clinton campaign told me she doesn’t discuss her vote with anyone.  As a reticent New Englander who recently lectured the M.A.S. that his inquiries into people’s voting preferences was invasive, I understood her position perfectly.  But more so, I found her stance of privacy to be at complete odds with the elevating on-line fracas (that I am admittedly participating in) over who should be our Democratic nominee, as the blogosphere’s tendency towards verbose hostility and invective merges fluidly with the factional and highly charged Democratic primary contest. 

Clearly I get off on this stuff.  (more…)