Santorum - just one definition
Was it just me? Or did any of you react with heavy disgust and disdain when you came across Republican presidential contender, Rick Santorum’s statement that “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” This was Santorum’s response to a speech he read that John F. Kennedy gave back on September 12, 1960 at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, where he made clear that the real issues of the day were not religious. Instead, Kennedy made clear that the issues that mattered in 1960 had to do with “old people who can no longer afford to pay their doctor bills, families who were forced to give up their farms, and an America with too many slums and too few schools.”
And now, here we are in 2012 and we have a candidate like Santorum, who brazenly panders to the religious right, openly castigates what should be an obvious truth in any democracy, and preys upon the obvious ignorance that afflicts so much of the American electorate. The separation of church and state is as pivotal to a functioning democracy as clean water is to the health of all animal and human life. Democratic government must operate free from the influence of any organized religion. But today’s republican party has devolved into a political institution that has integrated organized religion into its platform to such a degree that it no longer seems capable of championing the democratic values that are at the core of this country.
I still wonder in amazement at how the “Grand ‘Ol Party” seems to reflect more the times of 1912 over those of 2012. Not one of the current crop of republican candidates comes across as moderate in any sense of the word. You either have someone like Romney, who embodies the venture capitalist ethic of “build or destroy in order to maximize profit” or you have Newt Gingrich, the party’s favorite “masterdebator” who’s making the case that if Obama wins a 2nd term, he would pose a serious threat to the country’s national security. And last but not least, Ron Paul, the only consistent libertarian of the bunch who champions a return to pre-world war one isolationism and a government that no longer has departments of education or environmental protection (to name but a few).
Then you have Santorum, who recently called Obama a “snob” because he wants every American to get the opportunity of attending college, if they so choose. A college degree may not be the solution for every American but to insult a president who’s merely trying to advocate the benefits of higher learning is sheer nonsense and serves only to inflame the discord between the halves and the have-nots.
The Republican Party’s agenda does not fit the realities of living in the 21st century. It has quickly proven itself to be irrelevant. And the fact that it features voices that are contemptuous of the role government plays, putting organized religion first, should embarrass those of us who still cling to the founding father’s experiment in democratic governance itself. All of American society is inextricably bound with both the realities and idealized concepts of government. But one thing remains true. You make an enemy out of government and you make an enemy out of people. We must repair our relationship with government and those who wish to remain hostile to it, add nothing to the national conversation on how to achieve proximate solutions to insoluble problems.
The surest way to losing our democracy is by ignoring the appalling level of corruption that now grips it. After listening to a talk given by Laurence Lessig, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, I found myself too livid to even begin writing this post but finally came to terms with the reality of our disappearing democracy.
You see corporations are allowed to donate unlimited cash to the campaigns of legislators, who in turn tend to vote in favor of the interests of those corporations. Lessig cited the non-profit, MapLight, which can graph the evidence that a representative voting in favor of a particular corporate-friendly law will receive up to 13 times the funding than someone who opposes the law. Lessig cited as example the issues tackled by Congress 2011. In a year when the country was still waging two wars and still dealing with the effects of a near catastrophic economic recession, Congress spent most of its time on the bank swipe fee. Remember this? It was a relatively minor issue having to do with who was going to make more money, the banks or the merchants. But why did it dominate the attention span of Congress? Because corporations on both sides were promising sufficient campaign funds which in turn drove the attention span of legislators. Lessig made it clear, citing studies that the return on investment of lobbying is 1000% and is the surest expense a corporation can take to maintain its power and influence over citizen representative democracy.
Not to depress all of you who are reading this now but is there a plan to stop this corporate corruption of congress? Yes, and according to Lessig, it begins with the establishing of publicly funded campaigns. Lessig’s approach would be to give voters a $50 campaign voucher. The taxpayer pays for the voucher and it’s up to the politician to gain your voucher for funding of his/her campaign. Lessig says the amount of money that could be raised through the voucher system could easily surpass the amount currently raised by private means today. This would in turn force politicians to focus on a citizen-driven agenda as opposed to a corporate-driven agenda. Lessig also stressed that a new constitutional amendment would need to be passed, limiting additional private contributions to small dollar amounts (say $50 or $100) and preventing corporations from dominating the congressional agenda. Lessig also cited the need for a constitutional convention, which could only happen if two-thirds of the states—34 out of 50 state legislatures—passed an application calling for a Convention.
I interviewed Lessig back in 2008 on the problems and shortcomings of current copyright laws and he was correct in how we must stop criminalizing the human inclination to share and focus on the new hybrid economy which encourages such sharing, like Wikipedia, for example. Lessig is now championing the need to save our democracy from corporate theft and we, the citizenry, are only to blame for it if we lose it entirely.
Remember what Gordon Gekko said in the movie Wall Street? “You’re not naïve enough to believe you live in a democracy?”
After hearing Lessig speak, I’m reminded of Gekko’s prescient words and wonder if the great American experiment in democracy is coming to an end. Do you have reason to be optimistic about the fate of American democracy?
As you down your end of the year champagne and dream about all of the greatness that will come your way in 2012, you might want to remind yourself of just how addicted you are to the Internet and how tempting it will always be to try and download someone’s product without their permission. Congressman Lamar Smith introduced SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) earlier this year and the fiery outcry against the legislation by the Internet community has brought this legislation to center stage as we close out 2011. On the surface, who would object to preventing theft of intellectual property, right? If you didn’t create it, and it doesn’t belong to you, then in principal, it’s not yours, right? That’s why Hollywood and movie moguls have come out in full force in support of the legislation, saying rogue websites that are located offshore are stealing intellectual property worth billions of dollars and it’s hurting their business.
But the devil is always in the details! And opponents of SOPA rightfully argue that it’s what’s NOT specified in the bill that is cause for major alarm. In particular, SOPA does not protect legitimate sites that might get caught up by those ISPs and advertising networks, who in trying to enforce SOPA, might end up preventing you from accessing a legitimate website. What’s legitimate? How about YouTube or Facebook, for example? How often are you posting content that’s not technically yours to either of these sites? In order to be combat theft, you need to join the thieves! What do I mean?
Take my YouTube interview with Internet piracy guru and author, Matt Mason. Matt Mason, currently executive director of Marketing over at BitTorrent, wrote about how to solve online piracy with his best-seller, The Pirate’s Dilemma. Matt says online pirates actually add value to the product that’s been stolen. For example, the emergence of digital music or MP3s in the late 90’s nearly decimated the professional music industry and music labels galore were quick to try and shut down this new form of audio. But instead of fighting it, apple marketing genius, Steve Jobs, realized he could capitalize on it and iTunes was born as a means of competing with the pirates! And today, MP3s are as ubiquitous as analogue cassette tape was (so many years ago). Embracing piracy, according to Matt, can help companies further develop their product and find ways of profiting from it. Hulu, according to Matt, is the best most recent example of this type of effective competition against the pirates.
Joining the pirates can take the form of collective licensing agreements, revising outdated copyright laws, which criminalize the act of sharing content online, and if anything, simplifying copyright law from the overly complicated mess it is today that makes it nearly impossible to determine who actually owns what (Google ran into this problem as it tried to build its online library).
What do you think? Should we join the pirates?
The Descendants proves George Clooney can act and express sincere emotion without a trace of contrivance.
Campus police pepper spray colleges students passively protesting as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
On November 5th, news broke of Jerry Sandusky, now the former defensive coordinator for Penn State, was charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period. As of yesterday, the ongoing child-abuse investigation has found almost 10 other young men who may have been abused. In a telephone interview with Bob Costas, Sandusky admits to showering with boys, but he says he is innocent of the charges, and that he only “horsed around” with them. To see the full timeline on NPR of news events, click here.
Once head coach Joe Paterno got the ax, students didn’t take to the news so well. “Demonstrators tore down two lampposts, one falling into a crowd. They also threw rocks and fireworks at the police, who responded with pepper spray. The crowd undulated like an accordion, with the students crowding the police and the officers pushing them back,” reports the New York Times.
Although Paterno isn’t targeted by the Pennsylvania Attorney General yet, it is rumored that he knew more than he is letting on about the case.
What’s Your Two Cents on the case? Should the students have rioted? Is the university taking the right steps now that they have been alerted of the issue? Lets us know in the comments below.
Image Credit: Andersoncooper.com
He did it, he really did it.
Andy Murray bumped Rafael Nadal from the top three seats in men’s professional tennis. A position former world number one, Nadal has not seen since 2003. Murray’s Asian swing hat trick not only won him the Shanghai Masters title for the second time in a row, but put him one spot away from the highest ranking he has seen since Novak Djokovic entered the top four at the Australian Open in January.
Image by mirsasha via Flickr
“My goal for the last three-four months after the U.S. Open was to try to finish as high as possible and win as many matches as I could,” Murray said after winning the Shanghai final. “But I’m still not guaranteed to finish at No. 3. I’m still going to have to win some more matches.”
Some critics agree that Murray is playing the best game of his career and the numbers confirm that, as seen in this ESPN article, by Greg Garber.
“Murray, not Djokovic, is actually the hottest man in tennis. Murray has won 25 of his previous 26 matches — taking titles in Cincinnati, Bangkok, Tokyo and Shanghai, along with two Davis Cup victories.”
His only loss was to Nadal in the U.S. Open semifinals. Murray started playing tennis when he was 3 years old. He went professional in 2005. Since then he has collected 21 career titles, five from this year alone and five of those 21 are Masters Titles. Nadal has collected 46 titles since 2004, but only three of those are from this year.
“It’s been one of the best runs of my life. I’ve played very, very well the last few weeks and I was very nervous today because I wanted to try and win here and defend my title. I’m very happy I managed to come through,” Murray told AFP for a CNN article.
Despite Murray’s dominance on the court and the recent flux of sales in Andy Murray posters, autographed tennis balls and even his signature Head tennis bag line, fans and critics alike are not impressed with his presence on the court, as evidenced in forum comments and Facebook posts.
The Murray bashing was so prevalent, Tennis.com reporter Steve Tingor found it necessary to defend the Brit and his ranking in this NBC sports opinion article.
“Murray, as you probably know by now, just completed an Asian-swing hat trick, winning in consecutive weeks in Bangkok, Tokyo, and at the biggest tournament of the three, the Shanghai Rolex Masters. He didn’t do it smoothly, like Roger Federer. He didn’t do it with rousing passion, like Rafael Nadal. He didn’t do it with athletic precision, like Novak Djokovic. This was a purely Murray-esque win, with anxious misses, ill-advised tantrums, and rectangular-lipped roars intact. And that might be the best thing about it.”
What’s Your Two Cents on Andy Murray’s rise to number three? Do you think he is playing better than Nadal? Let us know in the comments below.
Since the middle of September (the 17th to be exact), a large group of protesters decided it’s time to take a stand, and be heard. Now known as Occupy Wall Street, this demonstration has inspired the entire nation to stand up for what they believe is right.
According to OccupyWallSt.org, “Occupy Wall Street is a horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America. We use a tool known as a people’s assembly to facilitate open, participatory and horizontal organizing between members of the public. We call ours the NYC General Assembly and we welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to participate in our daily assemblies.”
As of today, October 10, 2011 Wikipedia is reporting more than 70 cities have planned their own Occupy _______ (fill in which city it is). Some of the cities include:
- San Diego
- Atlanta
- LA
- Seattle
- Las Vegas
For a full list of the cities, check out this link, or take a look at the screenshot below.
What’s Your Two Cents on Occupy Wall Street? Do you think we are on the edge of a historic time for our country? Let us know in the comments below.
Image Credit: Wikimedia.org
Death. It is one thing we all can count on encountering in our lives–and eventually experience personally. Unfortunately, that time has come for the Jobs family. Steve Jobs was one of America’s the world’s greatest visionaries.
Living in a time where we get to see the evolution of the the PC and its capabilities, the revolution the iPod, iPhone and iPad have had in our everyday lives is amazing. Not to mention iTunes and the shear volume of Apple supporters.
I learned the loss of Mr. Jobs today on Twitter. The news was so new, @NBCSanDiego didn’t even have a link to the AP story yet–because it wasn’t up. I wasn’t even sure (more like hoping) it wasn’t true.
Eventually, I realized it was in fact true. Now that it has been a few hours, many people are weighing in on how Jobs effected their lives. Nathan Burgess (@prcog for those of you on Twitter) has written a beautiful post on his blog, go check it out.
The AP has now published a great timeline of important events regarding Jobs’ life. Some of them are below, you can find the entire timeline here.
1974: Jobs works for video game maker Atari and attends meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend who was a few years older.
1977: Apple is incorporated by its founders and a group of venture capitalists. It unveils Apple II, the first personal computer to generate color graphics. Revenue reaches $1 million.
1986: Jobs starts Next Inc., a new computer company making high-end machines for universities. He also buys Pixar from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas for $10 million.
1996: Apple announces plans to buy Next for $430 million for the operating system Jobs’ team developed. Jobs is appointed an adviser to Apple. Gil Amelio replaces Spindler as CEO.
1997: Jobs becomes “interim” CEO after Amelio is pushed out. He foreshadows the marketing hook for a new product line by calling himself “iCEO.” Jobs puts an end to Mac clones.
1998: Apple returns to profitability. It shakes up personal computer industry in 1998 with the candy-colored, all-in-one iMac desktop, the original models shaped like a futuristic TV. Apple discontinues the Newton.
Share your thoughts, emotions and other comments below.