The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Croissants, Coffee & Tea -- Part the Eighth
I am hopeful that more will get done, too. This time, Obama can't run again, so he can get tougher without worrying about alienating anybody for the next election. Also, Mitch McConnell (agree with your assessment, Lynn!) stated the last time Obama was elected that their number one priority would be working to make sure Obama wasn't re-elected. Well, now he has been, so maybe they can focus on something else for a change.
I think he won largely because his team worked so hard to get the vote out. It was a triumph of democracy! I hope the Labour Party (who always send people to work with the Democrats at election times) have taken note!As the Latinos might say ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! (The people united will never be defeated:).)
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MadgeUK wrote: "I think he won largely because his team worked so hard to get the vote out. It was a triumph of democracy! I hope the Labour Party (who always send people to work with the Democrats at election t..."Romney had contacted thousands of people affected by Hurricane Sandy and handed out food to them. Just heard the story today, don't know the details. Does anyone have an article?
Lynnm wrote: "Although...there always is an although...Mitch McConnell is an idiot. So, maybe the Republican Senators will be stubborn as well. To their detriment...."What was the name of the guy who called Obama a liar during his address to Congress? Is he still in office?
Quote re Election:"You know your party is in trouble when people ask 'Did the rape guy win?' and you have to ask 'Which one?'" ~ Alec Baldwin
Some interesting election statistics:Underpinning the president's success was a shift in the very nature of the US electorate, with white voters accounting for a smaller share than ever before. Now 28% of American voters are non-white, a threefold increase over the past four decades. And these rising groups that make up the new America vote Democrat.
That much was clear in what analyst John Heilemann called Obama's "coalition of the ascendant". The president could trail Romney among white men because, exit polls showed, he could rely on 93% support among black Americans, 71% of Latinos, 60% of the under-30s and 55% of women. The lift in the Latino vote may well account for Obama's wins in Nevada, Colorado and Florida. And this is no one-off: 50,000 Latinos turn 18 and become eligible to vote every month. That translates into 2.4m new Latino voters able to take part in the election of 2016.
Good article on the election and gay rights:-'Gay rights have inertia, not momentum, on their side: the effort it takes to convince someone to oppress someone else has become greater than the effort needed to maintain the status quo.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...
MadgeUK wrote: "Good article on the election and gay rights:-'Gay rights have inertia, not momentum, on their side: the effort it takes to convince someone to oppress someone else has become greater than the eff..."
I'm not so optimistic. Nothing is going to convince the extreme right in the Bible Belt who believe that being gay is sinful. Some states are circumventing Roe vs Wade, removing evolution from the textbooks, are already planning to get around Obamacare. They'll do the same with gay marriage.
Yes, but how many states, how many people. It is a bit like the South's determination to cling onto segregation and deny the negro civil rights, eventually things caught up with them. Bunwat is right - these are the views of oldsters, not the up and coming generation.
Very true and young people who have grown up with openly gay people know full well that they don't threaten the social fabric whereas their parents and grandparents feared the unknown.I also took heart that 5 Tea Party candidates were defeated and that many right wing pundits are now saying that the Republicans lost because they veered too much in that direction. It is a sign that times they are a-changin' and if by the next election the GOP has shifted back to the centre, it will allow the Democrats to shift a bit to the left - and Americans politics will be more in line with Europe:).
Oh dear oh dear - I've just watched pictures of new York and New Jersey in this new snowstorm. As if they haven;t suffered enough:(:( I do hope Rochelle and Lily will be OK and do not have power outages:(. Big Warm Hugs to both.
MadgeUK wrote: "Quote re Election:"You know your party is in trouble when people ask 'Did the rape guy win?' and you have to ask 'Which one?'" ~ Alec Baldwin"
Luckily, they didn't.
Deborah wrote: "Snowing like crazy in NYC. Cold too. Hoping Lily is ok"Thx for the concern. Still out of the area. Return tomorrow. Home apparently has 3 1/2 inches of snow.
Are my posts disappearing? Send me a msg, will someone if they see this one? Thx. The caring out there really matters to all of us -- it does make so much difference. I didn't realize how much until going through this -- and I so far am one of the relatively lucky ones -- some cold, dark nights alone with lots and lots of blankets and a roof rapidly repaired, albeit temporary.
Me too. Pleased to hear from you Lily. Don't return home too soon, you surely must get some heating there first. Please do try to get some form of camp heater for now and for the future. We had electricity shortages during our 3-Day-Week political unrest in the 70s (power for only 3 days a week for 3 months) and I was very grateful for all my camping gear - calor gas and solid fuel tablet stoves, a calor gas lamp which also gave off heat. I still have them, together with lots of nightlights and boxes of matches! Also, a thermal sleeping bag to sit in is better than a blanket.
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"You know your party is in trouble when people ask 'Did the rape guy win?' and you have to ask 'Which one?'" ~ Alec Baldwin"
Equal parts sad and funny!
I'd like to send the rape guys to re-education camp. Failing that, losing may be a message to other rape guys to keep their mouths zipped in future. On the other hand, it's probably better that they just come out and say what they think so that people can see how stupid they are.
Kim wrote: "I'd like to send the rape guys to re-education camp. Failing that, losing may be a message to other rape guys to keep their mouths zipped in future. On the other hand, it's probably better that the..."Who was the 2nd one?
Goes for Romney too. Every time he opened his mouth, his foot went in. It's scary, though, that he got 48% of the vote.
I'm very upset about the BBC. I hope that it survives! What will happen to my favorite shows? And why can't we trust anyone anymore? Are there no ethical people left on the planet? It seems as if there is a new scandal every day. Scandal du jour...
Everyone needs to take an Ethics 101 class. And then Ethics 102, Ethnics 201, Ethics 202, etc.
Until people can learn how to behave again.
It isn't about ethics Lynn, it is poor management, not 'keeping an eye on the ball'. The new Director General has proved to be incompetent but not unethical and the management of Newsnight have behaved ethically but foolishly. I think it will survive but the real problem is that the Tories want to privatise it and will 'diss' it at every opportunity, so will Rupert Murdoch, who would love to get his hands on it. That is what it may not survive:(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...
'Given the bubbling cauldron of violence that the Middle East so frequently and regrettably is, the prospect of the US outstripping Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer in the next decade is deeply striking. The redrawing of the geopolitical map may cool some tensions and perhaps spark others.'(And it seems even less likely that the US will embrace climate change policies:()
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment...
'The economic abyss is a distortion peddled by the US right and Obama's Democrats – just like Britain's left – need to counter the myth.'http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...
The Petraeus thing has gone too far. There's only one important question in this story: was our security compromised? If not, who cares about "the affair between David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, which had many people claiming surprise where there wasn’t cause for any, reverting to clichés that should be retired and indulging in a sexism we like to think we’ve moved past."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/opi...
Rochelle wrote: "The Petraeus thing has gone too far. There's only one important question in this story: was our security compromised? If not, who cares about "the affair between David Petraeus and Paula Broadwel..."
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/14/opinion...
Found this one reasonably balanced in its assessment and as an opinion piece.
It does seem a rather puritanical approach to public life and not something that would happen in either France or Italy where Presidents often take mistresses. If the FBI had actually found breaches of security all well and good but for just an affair to bring down a brilliant man seems like a shot in the foot.
Thanks Bunwat. I didn't know they had been so foolish as to talk/email about such things.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20..."
No, but it is wonderful to see-that is true voluntary simplicity.
I wish it would catch on, but it never will.People just want more and more and more.
This call for withdrawal from Afghanistan comes from a respected senior politicians who was also an army colonel who served in Bosnia:-http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/...
The first head has rolled after Hurricane Sandy. The head of LIPA, the power company on Long Island, has resigned.Thousands are still without power, and there's still gas rationing in NYC. For some reason, Westchester never goes into such statistics, and is often ignored in nightly traffic reports.
http://www.king5.com/news/Sandy-uproo...
Stephanie Coontz, Special to CNNhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/11/17/opinion...
I certainly don't agree with all of this, but thought some of you might find at least one or two items or opinions here of interest.
BunWat wrote: "I really liked it and thought an awful lot of it was right on point. Thanks for sharing!"Yes, a lot was on point. But, I also felt she tried to delineate things as "clear" that simply are not "clear". The comments rather reflect those problems, it seems to me.
Lily wrote: "Stephanie Coontz, Special to CNNhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/11/17/opinion...
I certainly don't agree with all of this, but thought some of you might find at least..."
Thanks for sharing - good article.
I've used one of Stephanie Coontz's essays in a couple of my classes: What We Really Miss About the 1950s. (It's about why we have nostagia for the supposed simple times of the 1950s, some of which is very real and true. But she brings up all the bad things about the 50s, and why we really wouldn't like it if we did go back to the 50s.)
She has strong arguments, supports them well, but at the same time, is very readable.
BunWat wrote: "The comments made my head ache so I stopped reading them."Comments under internet articles are rarely worth the bother.
I thought Coontz is right on the button, although it doesn't apply to all men in power. Time for someone to do a study explaining why. ;-)
I was pleased to see Hilary Clinton announcing the Ceasefire between Israel and Hamas today but oh! how I wish she would get herself a good hairdresser! I very rarely comment upon the appearance of public figures but her hair so often looks unkempt and given that she must have access to the best hairdressers in the world, it isn't good enough! So there:D.BTW why is she no longer going to be Secretary of State - do they always change after an election? And who will be the next one?
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She's going to gear up to run for the presidency in 16!
Who is likely to succeed her? Will Biden also be replaced?
As BunWat said, Hillary announced that she was ready to leave the post; apparently she was tired. John Kerry had been mentioned as a possible replacement, but since the Secretary of Defense has now also said that he is leaving, Kerry may be more likely to get that appointment. Right now, it looks likely that Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) seems to be the frontrunner for Secretary of State, but the Republicans want to block her. They feel that she deliberately misled the public about the Ben Ghazi incident, for political reasons. It would be interesting if we end up with a second black female named Rice as SoS!No, Biden will not be replaced. The president and vice president run together as a package, so when Obama was elected, in effect, Biden was, too.
I thought that Hillary had announced some time ago that she had no intention of running for president again, but I may be remembering wrong. And, of course, she can always change her mind.
Denise wrote: " It would be interesting if we end up with a second black female named Rice as SoS!..."Does she play the piano?
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The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910
Books mentioned in this topic
The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (other topics)House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties (other topics)
Don Quixote (other topics)
The Rifle in America (other topics)
The Buccaneers (other topics)
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I agree...
Although Beohner came out this morning saying that he won't support any tax increases. But there was a Republican Senator who said, yes, they will put tax increases on the table. Republican Senators are going to have to push the Republican House - and the Senators will win.
I think the smart Republicans know that they have to compromise, and there is a lot of soul searching. They went way too far to the right.
Although...there always is an although...Mitch McConnell is an idiot. So, maybe the Republican Senators will be stubborn as well. To their detriment.
I guess only time will tell. We can only guess right now.
But the people will be on the President's side. At the end of the day, he won easier than everyone thought.