Dark days for liberals

As I've said in earlier posts, I'm completely for reelecting President Obama. He's earned a second term and he is surely a much better choice than the guy who's got Romnesia.

But my complaint is that the Democratic Party has drifted uncomfortably far from what I believe its core ideas and values should be.

This post, written by a guy named David Dayen at the Firedoglake blog says it way better than I could:

Obama comes at the end of a 30-year cycle of narrowing and narrowing what passes for the liberal agenda. The landscape was so different in the 1970s that Nixon was calling for a guaranteed income. Now when Democrats are really feeling bold, they highlight policies that they are proud to reveal were based on Republican ideas of just a few years earlier, things like the Heritage Foundation’s health care plan or the market-based solution of cap and trade.

I would disagree that liberalism – although that’s probably the wrong phrase – has disappeared. It’s just become hidden beneath a thicket of campaign contributions from wealthy donors. The decline of unions as a political counterweight means that Democrats chase big money, and not surprisingly they respond to big money concerns. Issues like poverty, hunger, and need go unremarked upon on the national stage, even while they remain core concerns at the community level.

Amen to that.

I'll see your VoterID and raise you hours-long lines and thousands of provisional ballots

I'm through trying to argue the common sense "anti-voterness" of this ID law. Either the courts will see it and rule as they always have that uncommon barriers to voting are unconstitutional, or they will cave to the Republican assault and allow it.

If Voter ID is not tossed out in court, then Democrats should fight fire with fire.

We should recruit as many Democratic voters as possible in heavily Republican districts and have them show up in November without ID and demand to vote through the time-consuming process of provisional ballot. We should do it in every county across the state of Pennsylvania. We should do whatever we can to make voting lines in those districts hours long - if Republicans want to vote, they should have to pay the price, just as they're making Democrats do.

If Repubs want to play the game, we should show we know how to play, too. When one side declares war, the other side either fights back or it surrenders. I'm not ready to give up, and I hope the Democratic Party feels the same way.

So this is what MCDC has become

The French have a saying for it: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...The more things change, the more they remain the same. Less than a year after taking the courthouse, Montgomery County's Democrats have apparently become the New Republicans.

And now that they're in charge, they even get their very own "best networking event in Montgomery County" held at a swanky, upscale country club. An event like that just oozes the working-class/middle-class values that Democrats are supposed to represent, doesn't it?

They can juice this thing up all they want with the list of co-sponsoring unions and marquee political names, but the real names to see on the list of sponsors are the corporate law firms, civil engineers and financial advisors who are only too happy to throw money and fancy soirees at the ruling party.

And, quite apparently, the new Ruling Class is only too happy to step up to the trough and accept.

I think George Orwell had them pegged:

"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Time has come today...

...And with it, a question.

Yes, I am one of the two dozen or so people who still get a print version of Time Magazine each week. I keep saying I'm going to give it up and subscribe to the New Yorker instead, but so far the law of inertia is winning.

So anyway, the latest edition showed up today and I'm stuck on the page with the Book reviews. What's with the bar codes on every book cover on that page? I literally went from cover to cover in this week's issue (well, April 16's to be accurate), looking for some sort of explanation, but there is nothing there.

At first, I was thinking this might be some sort of link to an online book-sales page, but there doesn't appear to be any kind of app or software that covers this. So now I'm guessing that these were leftover internal layout codes for each book cover photo (note the % figures for each, likely relating to how each should be sized from its original).

Just putting this up in hopes that somebody might know for sure. Anyone have an answer?

Jobs good? Jobs bad? Whose news is true?

Yes, it's April Fools Day again. And today's foolishness is brought to you by the competing truth squads at the Philadelphia Inquirer and MSNBC.com, who both decided that today would be a great time to take a look at the current job market for 20-somethings.

Trouble is, they both came away with polar-opposite reports.

Here's the uplifting take that MSNBC.com offers:

Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction. After four years during which many students graduated to find no job and had only their loans to show for their studies, most college campuses are teeming with companies eager to hire.

Sounds pretty good, eh? But then we have the front-page series that kicked off today in the Inquirer. Here's their take:

...[F}or young people these days, the American Dream is imperiled.

A forever-altered economy, combined with a seemingly unending recession, is impeding the path to adulthood and prosperity for the "millennial generation" - about 80 million people ages 18 to 34.

In Philadelphia, as elsewhere, young adults struggle with the highest unemployment rates of any age group and with unprecedented levels of college debt.

High school graduates and dropouts face lives of diminishing prospects; college graduates clutch somewhat sturdier umbrellas against the storm.

Although college has never been more vital to success, degrees aren't worth what they were a generation ago: There are 80,000 bartenders in America with B.A.s.

The reality is almost certainly somewhere between MSNBC's rosy forecast and the Inquirer's bleak-and-bleaker outlook. Read 'em both and see if you can figure out which one is closer to the way things are today.

Media blackout lifted on Bevilacqua death

Now that the days of viewings and services marking the death of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua have concluded, it is apparently safe for the Inquirer to wade into reporting on the circumstances surrounding the former archbishop's unexpected demise.

In a story that appeared on Philly.com shortly after 10PM tonight, Inquirer reporter John Martin details how Montgomery County coroner Walter Hofman has been involved in probing the prelate's death since shortly after Bevilacqua passed away last week:

A representative of the coroner's office came to the seminar(sic) the night the cardinal died, according to Donna Farrell, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese...

Hofman said he was asked the next morning by county prosecutors to conduct his examination. He arranged for Bevilacqua's body to be transported to the coroner's office in Norristown.

It had already been embalmed, but Hofman said embalming would not interfere with his exam. The body was returned to the funeral home later Tuesday.

The coroner also asked the archdiocese to turn over medical notes and any medicines Bevilacqua had ingested in the three weeks before his death, Farrell said.

For the record, it has taken 10 days for this story to make its way into the news. No explanation is offered in the Inquirer article for the delay in reporting these developments.

The strange case of Cardinal Bevilacqua

I can't get past this, though it seems like I'm the only one bothered by it or even thinking about it.

At the beginning of last week, in a story posted on philly.com at 3AM on Tuesday, Jan.31, the Inquirer reported that Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sardina ruled former Philadelphia archbishop Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua competent to testify in an upcoming abuse case brought against three Catholic priests.

Less than 24 hours later, Bevilacqua was dead.


Now if this had been a Mafia don or the head of a drug-dealing street gang, the papers would have been full of the "stange circumstances and convenient timing surrounding the death of a key witness."

But to date, not one word in that regard as it applies to the Cardinal has been written or reported by any media outlet in Philadelphia - or anywhere else, for that matter.

Granted, Bevilacqua was an old, sick man when he died. He reportedly was battling cancer and Alzheimers, and his death was not a shock. But according to a post in the Catholic clergy blog Whispers in the Loggia Bevilacqua's passing was "not expected to any imminent extent."

So we have the unexpected death of a key witness in a high-profile sex-abuse case...and not a single solitary piece of reporting about it. The death reportedly took place at the Cardinal's residence in Lower Merion, so jurisdiction would be in Montgomery County. Yet we have had almost no word about whether Montco DA Lisa Vetri Ferman has opened an investigation or whether county coroner Walter Hofman ordered any medical examination or autopsy of the Cardinal following his demise.

I say "almost no word" because there appears to be one very brief attempt to contact Hofman reported in an article appearing on something called Pahomepage.com. Here's what it says:

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has resisted expanding on claims Bevilacqua suffered from cancer and dementia.

A cause of death is not being released at this time.

A call to Montgomery County Coroner Walter Hofman said on the phone to Eyewitness News, "I'm not talking about His Eminence."

A reporter was asking if Hofman's office had pronounced the Cardinal dead on Monday night. Hofman said information will only be released after his office completes its report. He said that would be four to six weeks.

So apparently anyone who has questions about the suspicious timing of Bevilacqua's death will need to cool their heels until sometime in March or April.

Meanwhile, we are left to ponder the deep mysteries of how the Philadelphia news media, government authorities and Catholic hierarchy can seemingly work hand in hand to ignore this curious turn of events. And it seems we must ponder it to ourselves, because Philly.com has also decided to delete its Comment section beneath all stories dealing with Bevilacqua's death.

To me, the past week has not only seen the passing of a high-profile religious leader.

It's also seen local journalism lapse into a coma.

Proud Liberal

I might have some problems with the Dem label, but never with being Liberal. Thank you, Lawrence O'Donnell, for the reminder of why this should not ever be something we're scared to be called. Like O'Donnell says, it's a badge of honor.

Not yet

A few have wondered whether the "Ex-Dem" thing has run its course and whether I'd be removing it in the run-up to the 2012 Presidential festivities.

My answer? Not just yet. For now, it stays as-is.

Oh, I'll vote for Obama, and for Casey, and for whatever Democrat steps up to the plate in whatever gerrymandered Congressional district they've got me in this decade.

But I won't buy into the Party, and I won't be sending off scads of campaign contributions to support these guys this time around. Because even with Newt's racist rants, and Mitt's bowing down to Corporate Personhood, I'm not convinced that the powers driving the Democratic Party are all that much different than those at the core of the Republican Party, with the end result being that where we end up is right about in the same sorry position no matter which party is in power.

I don't believe that top Democrats are at all devoted to Democratic ideals. And until they show me otherwise, I don't want to be a member of their team.