Maddow, Heroine, Tilts at Windmills - Betsy Woodruff. Sandra Fluke v. Joe the Plumber - By Jonah Goldberg. You may recall that when Joe Wurzelbacher was approached by Barack Obama entirely accidentally, he became something of a political celebrity for having a philosophical disagreement with the president over spreading the wealth around and all that. Before long, the mainstream press went to battle stations to discredit the man. He didn’t even have a plumber’s license! (didn’t need one in Ohio). He had financial problems! Meanwhile, here’s Sandra Fluke a 30-year-old law student and committed political operative and activist.
Even Jake Tapper, easily among the fairest of MSM reporters, treats Fluke with kid gloves as if she’s simply a victim of history (note: I think she was an unfair victim of Limbaugh’s ill-advised and offensive attacks, but she has to be delighted with how successful she’s been over the last month). Still, I think the comparison is interesting in numerous ways. Obviously, there are differences between the two cases. UNC-Greensboro Declares Christianity Not a Religion - By Jay Schalin - Phi Beta Cons. The End of the New Deal Order. The reporter went to the City of Light in the summer of 1925. He found himself in the capital of a nation at the height of its military, economic, and cultural power. The continental empires that had been threats to France—Germany, the Hapsburgs, Russia—were smoldering wrecks. France’s economy seemed to have recovered from the destruction of the First World War. Modern culture flourished in the city.
A visit to the Left Bank brought encounters with writers, artists, and philosophers; with the giants of the French avant-garde; with bankers, newspapermen, and politicians fluent in literary debate. The County Election, 1852 George Caleb Bingham The reporter was struck by the equanimity of his surroundings. Inflation, meanwhile, was robbing the franc of its purchasing power. Politics was a font of instability. Reality finds ways to dispel illusions. The Third Republic proved incapable of dealing with the crises of its time. The Wehrmacht entered Paris on June 14, 1940.
Bittersoft Liberalism. Life is, undoubtedly, bittersweet. But not America. According to President Obama, America is bittersoft. In April 2008, candidate Obama told donors in San Francisco that small town Midwesterners “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Last Thursday, President Obama said in a TV interview, “The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and, you know, we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades.”
So, according to Obama, Americans are both bitter and soft. We’re a bittersoft nation. Obama’s analysis is, in a way, commendably bipartisan. Obama is right in this respect: Bitterness and softness, though seemingly at odds, can go together. And God knows our politicians (Bill Clinton: “I feel your pain”; George W. Getting to know the Tea Party - Tea Parties | Tea Party Movement, Tax Day Tea Party. Scholar Robert Putnam, best known for his study of American atomization in “Bowling Alone,” has produced new data on the Tea Party and it’s being billed as a shocker. Sit down before you read this: They are older, white conservative Christians “who were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born.” Not surprised? Neither was I, but the research is actually fascinating. Putnam and Notre Dame’s David Campbell tracked the role of faith and politics for their last book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.” They went back to look at attitudes toward the Tea Party among 3,000 survey respondents for the paperback edition, and wrote an Op-Ed in Wednesday’s New York Times.
Some of their key findings: “Even compared to other white Republicans, [Tea Party backers] had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.” They’re not a product of the Great Recession, Campbell and Putnam write. The good news, though? Jesse Jackson on Obama: 'Some Layer of the Excitement is Gone' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. The Day Our Leaders Got Unstuck.
Washington (AP) — It was a news conference the likes of which the White House had never seen. President Obama stood in the East Room, flanked by the House speaker, John Boehner; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell; the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid; and the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi. The president asked Mr. Boehner to speak first: “My fellow Americans,” the Ohio Republican began. “We have just concluded a meeting with the president, prompted by this moment of extraordinary economic peril. Our party, as you know, is convinced that the main reason for our economic decline is that we have too much debt, that government has grown too big and that taxes and regulations are choking our dynamism.
President Obama warmly embraced Mr. “Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell, thank you for your commitment to act in our nation’s highest interests. “But the most important thing that will be on the table will not just be a plan to make our country solvent. ‘Pissarro’s People’ at Clark Art Institute - Review. Lars Lohrisch Pissarro's People “Peasant Woman Lying in the Grass, Pontoise” (1882) is in this show of his work at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. More Photos » Then a slightly older man with a rabbinical beard and a gaucho hat would step forward and hold out his hand: “Camille Pissarro. Join us, please.” He’d introduce you around, settle you down and bring the talk back to where he usually left it, a continuing conversation about art, life and revolution. Pissarro was, by temperament and belief, a welcomer — of people, ideas. And there’s an embracing feel to “Pissarro’s People” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute here, a modest, openhearted show that demonstrates how central a role human presence played in the work of an artist usually associated with landscape painting.
More than many of his colleagues, Pissarro understood what it felt like to come from outside, uncertain of the rules. Even on St. His guests included hungry, ambitious younger artists. Students Pressure Chile to Reform Education System. One Nation, One Chicago Strives for Interfaith Understanding.