Jonathan Miller's Blog, page 408
June 27, 2011
Greg Harris: Standing My Ground
I didn't expect at age 39 to already be writing about my political career in past tense.
I grew up with a love of politics, and tended to worship political heroes over, say, sports or movie stars. My earliest political memory is of Jimmy Carter's 1980 defeat to Ronald Reagan. I didn't understand how such a good, decent and honest man could possibly lose, and wrote him a letter conveying my anguish. The President and Mrs. Carter responded with a nice letter and a booklet about his...
June 24, 2011
Next Week on The Recovering Politician
Witha full week that began with Fathers' Day tributes and ended with anti-Semitic insults, we here at The Recovering Politician are relieved that the weekend has arrived.
But next week, we will be up in full force again. On Monday, we debut our newest recovering politician, Greg Harris, who served as a Council Member for the City of Cincinnati and now is doing some great work for his hometown from the private sector.
We will have much more as well, including a bunch of stuff that we can't...
The RP's Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Wealth

The Politics of Wealth
Why did President Obama tap the strategic oil reserves now? Stock market analysts break-down the strategy behind the decision. [CNBC]
The Wealth Report: What it's like to party like an NHL Stanley Cup winner. [Wall Street Journal]
Surprise, surprise: There are more millionaires now than there were before the recession. [MainStreet.com]
Mad Money's Jim Cramer lists five major bank stocks that the analysts "love to hate" right now. [The Street.com]
GOP negotiators pull out...
The RP's Weekly Web Gems: Politics of the Planet

Politics of the Planet
Welcome to the Anthropocene Era, dominated by humans changing the environment. [npr.org]
Wind power may be closer in the Great Lakes than in the Atlantic. [npr.org]
Oceans may be heading for a mass extinction. [msnbc.com]
New ice maps of the Antarctic can help analyze global warming. [bbc.co.uk]
The Politics of Tunes: A Void Too Big to Fill
The music world lost a legend on June 18 when Clarence Clemons, the "Big Man" of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, passed away at the all-too-young age of 69. With hips and a back that made it hard for him to even stand up on stage, it sometimes felt like Clemons was 69 going on 89. But Clemons and his prolific saxophone sounded like 69 going on 39 . . . and that was all that mattered.
Thanks to my Dad, I've been a Springsteen fan for as long as I can remember. I can't recall the date or...
The RP's Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Wellness
What's popcorn brain? If you don't want to find out, step away from that smart phone and get out into the world. [CNN]
New research shows that living in an urban environment can actually alter the chemical makeup of your brain, making you more anxious and stressed than you would be otherwise. [Time]
The cost of misdiagnosing children with bipolar disorder: [Newsweek]
The U.S. government just rolled out nine new designs for cigarette warning labels, coming out next year. And boy, do they do the j...
The RP's Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Love

The Politics of Love
In an opinion piece in the New York Daily News yesterday, Seth Forman presented Five arguments against gay marriage: Society must brace for corrosive change. Your correspondent is still flummoxed by the fact that people put any credence into the types of arguments that were used to deny women the right to own property or vote, to deny "mixed race" marriages, to support segregation and Jim Crow laws, etc., etc. How can these arguments hold water in a country that...
Jeff Smith: Obama Should Endorse Gay Marriage Now
In his piece published yesterday in Politico's Arena, Jeff Smith joins the RP in urging the President to endorse gay marriage now. Here is Jeff's response to the Arena question: "Is Obama being pushed into gay marriage support?"
I don't know what he'll do. I do know that it's better to lead than to follow. I also know that future public opinion on this issue is easier to predict than that on any other major policy issue.
That's because of the stark generational split: polls consistently show...
June 23, 2011
Tomorrow at The Recovering Politician
Whew. What a day!
We began it with the debut of former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele at The Recovering Politician, and we end it with more national feedback on the RP's article earlier this week denouncing the injection of anti-Semitic language into the political debate in Kentucky.
If you thought we'd take a rest from controversy, tomorrow another contributing RP joins the RP in his call for President Obama to endorse gay marriage now.
Come back for the latest developments...
UPDATE: Ntl. Jewish Democratic Council Denounces Anti-Semitic Slurs in KY
Within the past hour, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) issued a release that strongly denounced the anti-Semitic language used by former Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate, Larry Forgy, in a TV interview that was discussed earlier today at The Recovering Politician.
If you missed this morning's post, here it is again.
The NJDC stated:
[T]his incident is deeply troubling and deserves condemnation from all who believe that anti-Semitic language and canards have no place in our...