September 18, 2007
Tasered for Talking
Unsurprisingly, Google News headlines today were topped by the story of a student tasered at a Kerry speech at the University of Florida. The best account I found of the events so far was that on the WaPo blog, and the story is a bit more telling, if still somewhat unsettling:
I'm sure a million bloggers are venting their rage right now at the flagrant violation of the speaker's rights, while others are writing this off as a lone nut who didn't know when to stop. Both of which seem fair reactions. What interests me is Kerry's conduct throughout the incident, which to my sensibilities comes up morally short.When his diatribe on secret societies, Iran and a mysterious "yellow book" ran over the one-minute mark, his microphone was cut off.serialnumber musicmatch
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Officers approached him several times to wrap it up, but he declined. University Police then proceeded to remove him from the auditorium.
Kerry remained stoically focused on answering the young man's questions (the ones to him, not the ones he asked the police). Even as Meyer's shrieks grew in urgency, the Massachusetts senator reflected calmly on the importance of not contesting the results of the 2004 election.What strikes me about this reaction is that Kerry is taking pains to validate the student's question in spite of the disregard for decorum - an attempt which would be noble if the circumstances were general antagonism from the rest of the audience. But in a situation where police are becoming involved, to the degree of using (admittedly fairly mild) force against a student, Kerry should have used his position as speaker to address that - unless of course he thought the use of force appropriate, but that would seem to contradict his attempt to legitimate the question asked. It may be that I'm thinking about this too much in terms of Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis, as I often do with all aspects of everyday life these days, but it's rather as if Kerry had no way of dealing with the frame violation by the police (and I think it's safe to say that even in a heated university event police activity will usually constitute a frame violation) except by attempting to accept the student's dissent within the bounds of the frame, and was sadly ineffectual in doing so. But I suppose that's what you get for being the outspoken nut at a Kerry speech.
Posted by tony at 2:59 PM | Comments (0) serialnumber musicmatch
June 18, 2007
Hillary on the War
I finally found time this week to read through this article from the NYT Magazine in May, "Hillary's War." Although it delves into some superficial detail at times (I don't really care that she was chewing gum at a Democratic strategy session), it gives a thorough account of ways she postured herself both prior to the Iraq war and in the past four years as support for the war has waned. In brief:serialnumber musicmatch
At the time she cast that vote, she was among the Senate’s most outspoken Democrats warning of Saddam Hussein’s dangerous arsenal. Unlike nearly all of her fellow Democrats, she even went so far as to argue that Saddam Hussein gave assistance to Al Qaeda members. Now she speaks with equal fervor about the need to bring the war to an end.serialnumber musicmatch
There's nothing wrong shifting to a new stance on the war, and actually I think Hillary's more or less in the right camp at this point (in so far as any of our options are good at this point). But that doesn't change the fact that she voted to authorize the president's decision to use force, and in light of intelligence reports she seems not to have read, and which would have made it pretty clear the WMD case was shaky at best. After the past 8 years, it would be refreshing to have an elected official who can admit their own mistakes, and Hillary seems unwilling to do that. You can make of that what you will; for my part, I'm inclined towards an Anyone But Hillary policy on the Democratic ticket.serialnumber musicmatch
Oh, and for your convenience, here's a YouTube video mentioned in the article of Hillary and Code Pink, an anti-war group, several days before the Iraq invasion (but after she voted). It's not really so remarkable, except for a part at the end where she snaps at a protester who berates her for sending soldiers to their deaths.serialnumber musicmatch
Posted by tony at 3:06 PM | Comments (0) serialnumber musicmatch
January 26, 2007
A Third Way?
Since mourning the deplorable state of American politics is the cool thing to do nowadays, I thought people might be interested to hear about Unity08. As the name implies, the idea behind it is a dissatisfaction with the current polarization of the two-party system. Apparently, a number of veteran campaign coordinators, instrumental in the early days of television campaigning, are just as sickened by what the system has become as much of the voting public, and their solution is to try to intervene using the internet, and hopefully prevent it from becoming equally detrimental. The way they settled on is creating an online movement to form a bipartisan ticket based entirely on small donations, with the aim of entering it as a temporary third party on a national level. It's an interesting idea, and at least promises to shake things up over the next 22 months. Read about it in this Atlantic article, "Surprise Party," and if you like what you hear, spread the word at work, school, among friends and family, etc. I'm curious to see how far this will go.
Posted by tony at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) serialnumber musicmatch
August 27, 2006
Holy Crap
Maybe it's a sign of how jaded I've become, but I thought Over-the-Counter Plan B was a lost cause. Happy to be corrected.serialnumber musicmatch
(Via Crooked Timber)serialnumber musicmatch
Posted by tony at 9:17 AM | Comments (0) serialnumber musicmatch
April 5, 2006
I Don't Need No Hospitals
People (especially my fellow Bostonians) are probably already aware of this, but it's still pretty remarkable that Massachusetts will require residents to have health insurance. While that sounds scary, the structure of the legislation is interesting:
Individuals who can afford private insurance will be penalized on their state income taxes if they do not purchase it. Government subsidies to private insurance plans will allow more of the working poor to buy insurance and will expand the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. Businesses with more than 10 workers that do not provide insurance will be assessed up to $295 per employee per year.Basically, it seems that a lot of individuals and businesses not paying for insurance will be fined, with those fines going back into insurance. This will then subsidize people who actually can't afford insurance. serialnumber musicmatch
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about "requiring people who can afford insurance to buy it," but at the very least, this sounds like an interesting experiment. Plus, it sounds like they've been doing they're homework on this issue:
Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's communications director, said that for those people with incomes above 300 percent of poverty, "our assumption was that these would be mostly single mothers who just did not have the wherewithal to get insurance. It turned out it was mostly young males. In some cases they are making very attractive salaries. These are people who just don't imagine themselves needing care, but of course when they break a leg when they're out bungee jumping they go to the hospital and we end up paying for their care anyway."Yes, I know the sentiment all too well. I like to think of it as machismo, although I suspect others would just call it being a damned fool. serialnumber musicmatch
Posted by tony at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) serialnumber musicmatch