20 years after the Berlin Wall came down in Germany, the story of another wall is starting to emerge. Today a group of Palestinians removed a segment of the Israeli-built barrier in the West Bank. But the celebration was short-lived when Israeli soldiers arrived in a jeep and started firing tear gas.
The much neglected region is only brought to the world’s attention when rockets are fired. But we forget that these people are also living behind a wall, under a constant watch and harassment from the more heavily fortified, U.S. backed, nation.
It was a historic day in Washington: the House of Representatives pass a Health Care reform bill! Now all Americans have access to health care, right? Not so fast. Reform supporters were quick to celebrate, but I just want to make sure it’s clear that the law has NOT been written yet. This is just the beginning.
It started with Congressional committees passing similar bills, and then opening up a version to the House, which as we saw, was passed. Now, a reform bill will have to pass the Senate, where the proportion of Democrats isn’t as large. The Senate bill will likely be a lot more bi-partisan because of that. If that bill passes, then both House and Senate will have to come up with a matching bill, and vote again.
The biggest struggle will be that now that an initial bill has passed, conservatives will now have the political fuel to rev up their efforts against the bill. Funny thing is most of politicians say “something has to be done,” that they believe in some type of reform but without increasing our national debt… and maybe a swimming pool in the capitol… Ok, maybe it’s not an impossible task, but you have to expect some degree of spending, but the latest budget assessment shows that health care reform will actually help the national debt in the long run.
One republican actually voted for the bill, but 30 democrats in the House voted against it, including Congressman from Utah, Jim Matheson. We spoke to Matheson yesterday and he said he will continue to fight for reform. Again, this is just the beginning, but the end is as near as lawmakers want to make it.
It started with Congressional committees passing similar bills, and then opening up a version to the House, which as we saw, was passed. Now, a reform bill will have to pass the Senate, where the proportion of Democrats isn’t as large. The Senate bill will likely be a lot more bi-partisan because of that. If that bill passes, then both House and Senate will have to come up with a matching bill, and vote again.
The biggest struggle will be that now that an initial bill has passed, conservatives will now have the political fuel to rev up their efforts against the bill. Funny thing is most of politicians say “something has to be done,” that they believe in some type of reform but without increasing our national debt… and maybe a swimming pool in the capitol… Ok, maybe it’s not an impossible task, but you have to expect some degree of spending, but the latest budget assessment shows that health care reform will actually help the national debt in the long run.
One republican actually voted for the bill, but 30 democrats in the House voted against it, including Congressman from Utah, Jim Matheson. We spoke to Matheson yesterday and he said he will continue to fight for reform. Again, this is just the beginning, but the end is as near as lawmakers want to make it.
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Just when you thought Muslim relations in the U.S. couldn’t get any worse, a gunman opens fire on the biggest U.S. military instillation in the world, apparently all in the name of Jihad.
But this wasn’t the job of a Mid-east hit squad. This gunman was trained on U.S. soil by our very own. MAJOR Nidal Malik Hasan of the U.S. Army! U.S. born; Palestanian descent.
But where did Hasan get his extremist dogma? When crews spoke to members of the mosque Hasan, a recent convert to Islam, attended, fellow Muslims described Hasan as quiet and looking for a wife. Apparently that didn’t go too well for him, but it wasn’t the loneliness that allegedly ticked him, but the news he was deploying to Iraq.
Hero stories are surfacing among the 12 dead and 30 plus wounded, but the bigger story is how will Muslims in the U.S. and around the world be portrayed after this. It’s bad enough that almost every movie and tv show choose Arabs as their prime terrorists, but the subconscious racial/religious profiling is now heightened.
This is a time for the Muslim and Arab community to come together in defiance of terrorism and extremist Jihad, and show the world, community by community that Islam can be a peaceful religion. That its people are lovers of peace and lovers of people. And it’s time for us to not let these extreme acts taint our perception of our Muslim neighbors and thereby fuel the hate that cause these acts in the firstplace.
But this wasn’t the job of a Mid-east hit squad. This gunman was trained on U.S. soil by our very own. MAJOR Nidal Malik Hasan of the U.S. Army! U.S. born; Palestanian descent.
But where did Hasan get his extremist dogma? When crews spoke to members of the mosque Hasan, a recent convert to Islam, attended, fellow Muslims described Hasan as quiet and looking for a wife. Apparently that didn’t go too well for him, but it wasn’t the loneliness that allegedly ticked him, but the news he was deploying to Iraq.
Hero stories are surfacing among the 12 dead and 30 plus wounded, but the bigger story is how will Muslims in the U.S. and around the world be portrayed after this. It’s bad enough that almost every movie and tv show choose Arabs as their prime terrorists, but the subconscious racial/religious profiling is now heightened.
This is a time for the Muslim and Arab community to come together in defiance of terrorism and extremist Jihad, and show the world, community by community that Islam can be a peaceful religion. That its people are lovers of peace and lovers of people. And it’s time for us to not let these extreme acts taint our perception of our Muslim neighbors and thereby fuel the hate that cause these acts in the firstplace.
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I was reading with a fifth grade boy at the Boys & Girls club yesterday. He pulled out a book that I realized was way too simple for a boy that age. Still, he needed me to sign off for it, so I helped him sound through it. I could tell he was embarrassed, but he wanted to get through it. We worked on that book, and I tried to make it fun for him, but we soon attracted a small crowd. A cute little fourth grade girl came over to hear the story. He tried to excuse himself to her, but she tried to make him feel like it was ok. Then another boy came over, his purpose not so altruistic. I sent him off, and we got through the book.
So many of the children in this country are grades under their normal reading or math level. Recently a think tank group commissioned a polling firm to conduct a telephone quiz for Oklahoma public school students.
The questions:
“What is the supreme law of the land?”
“What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?”
"How many Supreme Court Justices?"
(These are the questions asked of naturalized Americans as they go through the immigration process.)
The results:
77% didn’t know the name of the first President of the United States.
86% couldn’t name the author of the Declaration of Independence.
90% didn’t know how many justices there are on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Only 2.8% actually “passed” this mock citizenship test.
It seems like Jay Leno's "Jay Walks" are not a search for idiots on the street, but a snapshot of a reality not often noted in America.
I remember going through the immigration test just a few years back, and luckily I paid attention in U.S. history class, but there were also many recent immigrants that studied hard to learn the basics of this country.
But the problem is bigger than just civics, education in this country is just doing enough for our children. Not enough attention is being given to the individual child, the fifth grader reading at a kindergarten level. As budgets are being cut, teachers laid off, we forget that THESE are the kids that can bring an end to economic downturns, or come up with the ideas that will revolutionize the way we look at the world today.
So many of the children in this country are grades under their normal reading or math level. Recently a think tank group commissioned a polling firm to conduct a telephone quiz for Oklahoma public school students.
The questions:
“What is the supreme law of the land?”
“What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?”
"How many Supreme Court Justices?"
(These are the questions asked of naturalized Americans as they go through the immigration process.)
The results:
77% didn’t know the name of the first President of the United States.
86% couldn’t name the author of the Declaration of Independence.
90% didn’t know how many justices there are on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Only 2.8% actually “passed” this mock citizenship test.
It seems like Jay Leno's "Jay Walks" are not a search for idiots on the street, but a snapshot of a reality not often noted in America.
I remember going through the immigration test just a few years back, and luckily I paid attention in U.S. history class, but there were also many recent immigrants that studied hard to learn the basics of this country.
But the problem is bigger than just civics, education in this country is just doing enough for our children. Not enough attention is being given to the individual child, the fifth grader reading at a kindergarten level. As budgets are being cut, teachers laid off, we forget that THESE are the kids that can bring an end to economic downturns, or come up with the ideas that will revolutionize the way we look at the world today.
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Just weeks after a media frenzy highlighting the life of the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy’s memory and last wishes that affordable health care could be provided to all Americans, is all but forgotten.
In its place, we have seen two sides of a growingly heated debate:
On the left side of the ring: An attempt at universal healthcare… err… a public option… err… health care reform? (We’ll take what we can get?)
On the right side of the ring: An attempt to discredit everything Obama; starting from the ridiculous notion that he’s NOT a U.S. citizen, and then death panel health care, and this week: brainwashing our children in school.
As much as I want to give the right side of the ring some type of credibility, it just seems to become more and more ridiculous to me. Yesterday, the Health Care, McCain/Palin rally outbursts spread to Representative Joe Wilson – (R) South Carolina—when he yelled "You lie!” after Obama said health insurance would not be provided to illegal immigrants. He immediately sent an apology letter, but it just goes to show how frustrated both sides are on this issue.
And as much as we should take the time to really think such an expensive and extensive bill through, there is at least one factor that gives its passage a sense of urgency. If a reform bill isn’t passed this fall session of Congress, it will likely not pass for a long time. Why? Well January begins a new election season for many Congressman, which means that voting on something as controversial as this, will likely be put off, for fear of not winning re-election. And the sad truth is that many of these politicians’ campaigns are funded by companies, health insurance companies many times, and if they want to win, they’ll, again, avoid a vote for reform.
So what do we do? The Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. spoke at the Brigham Young University campus yesterday, and I realized that a line he said about United Nations negotiations could really apply to this situation: He said that in negotiations, both sides learn to write a (treaty) in a way that clauses can be included that could be taken out. He was referring to a Palestinian-Israeli negation, and, just like this never ending issue, unless concessions are made on both sides, there will be NO progress.
In its place, we have seen two sides of a growingly heated debate:
On the left side of the ring: An attempt at universal healthcare… err… a public option… err… health care reform? (We’ll take what we can get?)
On the right side of the ring: An attempt to discredit everything Obama; starting from the ridiculous notion that he’s NOT a U.S. citizen, and then death panel health care, and this week: brainwashing our children in school.
As much as I want to give the right side of the ring some type of credibility, it just seems to become more and more ridiculous to me. Yesterday, the Health Care, McCain/Palin rally outbursts spread to Representative Joe Wilson – (R) South Carolina—when he yelled "You lie!” after Obama said health insurance would not be provided to illegal immigrants. He immediately sent an apology letter, but it just goes to show how frustrated both sides are on this issue.
And as much as we should take the time to really think such an expensive and extensive bill through, there is at least one factor that gives its passage a sense of urgency. If a reform bill isn’t passed this fall session of Congress, it will likely not pass for a long time. Why? Well January begins a new election season for many Congressman, which means that voting on something as controversial as this, will likely be put off, for fear of not winning re-election. And the sad truth is that many of these politicians’ campaigns are funded by companies, health insurance companies many times, and if they want to win, they’ll, again, avoid a vote for reform.
So what do we do? The Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. spoke at the Brigham Young University campus yesterday, and I realized that a line he said about United Nations negotiations could really apply to this situation: He said that in negotiations, both sides learn to write a (treaty) in a way that clauses can be included that could be taken out. He was referring to a Palestinian-Israeli negation, and, just like this never ending issue, unless concessions are made on both sides, there will be NO progress.
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It’s almost gone… the $2 billion dollars set aside for “Cash for Clunkers.” But how much of a “stimulus” has it been for the country?
Don’t get me wrong, I see the good intentions in trying to boost an ailing car industry, but let’s really think about what we’re doing:
1) The money has to come from somewhere. More borrowed money equals more deficit.
2) Destroying perfectly good “clunkers” that could be used by people that don’t have ANY car right now.
3) Since you can only buy a NEW car through the program, it either makes it impossible for those that really need the help to use the program, OR it puts them in a car payment that they may not be able to afford.
4) We just found out that many dealerships have NOT been paid by the government so far, for recycling the “clunkers.” The more the government stalls on the payments, the less likely the dealerships will be able to stay open. (They may even have to take out loans and pay interest for the money they should have been paid by the government.)
5) Many of the people that have used the program were likely potential buyers anyway, not people that had no prior intention to buy a car, therefore not “new” buyers.
And although there may be many advantages to “Cash for Clunkers,” it’s hard to see how to justify such a big price tag. But what’s another couple billion in the pot?
Don’t get me wrong, I see the good intentions in trying to boost an ailing car industry, but let’s really think about what we’re doing:
1) The money has to come from somewhere. More borrowed money equals more deficit.
2) Destroying perfectly good “clunkers” that could be used by people that don’t have ANY car right now.
3) Since you can only buy a NEW car through the program, it either makes it impossible for those that really need the help to use the program, OR it puts them in a car payment that they may not be able to afford.
4) We just found out that many dealerships have NOT been paid by the government so far, for recycling the “clunkers.” The more the government stalls on the payments, the less likely the dealerships will be able to stay open. (They may even have to take out loans and pay interest for the money they should have been paid by the government.)
5) Many of the people that have used the program were likely potential buyers anyway, not people that had no prior intention to buy a car, therefore not “new” buyers.
And although there may be many advantages to “Cash for Clunkers,” it’s hard to see how to justify such a big price tag. But what’s another couple billion in the pot?
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I remember the frustration last year when a flight I was on from Newark to Salt Lake was delayed, waiting over 3 hours on the runway. I get jittery enough on a four hour flight, but 3 more hours on the plane waiting for it to take off? Not to mention the fact that they couldn’t serve food or drinks before the plane took off. All the while we wondered what was wrong. Mechanical problem perhaps? To our relief AND dismay, it was a scheduling problem. We eventually made it back to the gate but were told that if we got off the plane, we couldn’t get back on and had to be rescheduled. But as soon as that door opened, I was the first one off, followed by a few others. No compensation; no apologies. Still, I was just glad to get off.
I thought of myself as such a victim until I heard what happened last Wednesday to a group of passengers headed from Houston to Minneapolis, who were diverted to a small airport in Rochester, Minnesota because of bad weather.
The passengers on this Continental flight had to wait 6 hours on the tarmac!! I heard a passenger on the phone with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as he described deteriorating conditions, including smelly toilets, crying babies, and no food or water. It was my experience times 2!
ExpressJet, the Continental partner carrier in charge of this flight justified their actions by saying the passengers couldn't enter the Rochester terminal at such a late hour because security screeners weren't available.
But Steven Leqve, the manager of the Rochester Airport doesn’t buy it. "For the life of me I don't understand why they didn't come to the terminal," he said. In an interview with NPR today, Levque said that Delta Air Lines offered the Continental flight crew their three employees present at the terminal so that the passengers could sit in the terminal. Levque assured that the terminal has a capacity for 500 people, more than enough for the less than 60 passengers on board. But the most important fallacy in ExpressJet’s argument was that if the passengers got off, there wasn’t personnel to re-screen them. Hello!! If the passengers got off in the terminal, there WAS no need to go back through security.
But this is not unusual. USA Today recently reported that about 200,000 domestic passengers have been trapped on about 3,000 planes for three hours or more while waiting to take off or taxi to a gate since January 2007. The most famous may have been two years ago when snow and ice caused hundreds of people to be stranded on the tarmac at JFK International in New York because JetBlue ran out of available gates. JetBlue had a big campaign to make sure their name wasn’t tarred because of the incident. And Continental is also trying to cover their butts on this one, refunding the passengers’ fares and given them vouchers for a free future flight. Not so much luck for me, then again, I didn’t have to fly on a plane with a broken toilet. That’s right, after using up the tiny toilet for 6 hours on the tarmac, the passengers were let off for two hours, then it was back on the plane to Minneapolis, but this time the toilet was out of order.
And if Continental stocks weren’t bound to be hurt enough because of this, check out what the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:
“Houston-based Continental (NYSE: CAL) was fined $75,000 for violating a requirement that airfare advertisements must state the full price to be paid by the consumer.”
It seems that Continental was less than honest in advertising accurate prices online. The Department of Transportation cited the carrier for not including additional taxes or government fees at the first point at which fares were displayed. On top of that, Continental advertised some fares as “each way” or “one-way” without showing that they were only that price on round trip tickets.
But if airlines weren’t incompetent enough, on a flight I was on from Atlanta to El Paso just a week and a half ago, Delta overbooked the plane, and offered some passengers a free future flight and hotel stay if we took the net morning’s flight. Since we were meeting our party that night, we refused, but I should have known something was up. When we got to El Paso, we were informed that our baggage was still in Atlanta. So we waited in El Paso until the next day anyway, while we tried fruitlessly to figure out when they would arrive. Moral of the story: When you’re offered a free flight, take it, cause they’re up to something.
I thought of myself as such a victim until I heard what happened last Wednesday to a group of passengers headed from Houston to Minneapolis, who were diverted to a small airport in Rochester, Minnesota because of bad weather.
The passengers on this Continental flight had to wait 6 hours on the tarmac!! I heard a passenger on the phone with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer as he described deteriorating conditions, including smelly toilets, crying babies, and no food or water. It was my experience times 2!
ExpressJet, the Continental partner carrier in charge of this flight justified their actions by saying the passengers couldn't enter the Rochester terminal at such a late hour because security screeners weren't available.
But Steven Leqve, the manager of the Rochester Airport doesn’t buy it. "For the life of me I don't understand why they didn't come to the terminal," he said. In an interview with NPR today, Levque said that Delta Air Lines offered the Continental flight crew their three employees present at the terminal so that the passengers could sit in the terminal. Levque assured that the terminal has a capacity for 500 people, more than enough for the less than 60 passengers on board. But the most important fallacy in ExpressJet’s argument was that if the passengers got off, there wasn’t personnel to re-screen them. Hello!! If the passengers got off in the terminal, there WAS no need to go back through security.
But this is not unusual. USA Today recently reported that about 200,000 domestic passengers have been trapped on about 3,000 planes for three hours or more while waiting to take off or taxi to a gate since January 2007. The most famous may have been two years ago when snow and ice caused hundreds of people to be stranded on the tarmac at JFK International in New York because JetBlue ran out of available gates. JetBlue had a big campaign to make sure their name wasn’t tarred because of the incident. And Continental is also trying to cover their butts on this one, refunding the passengers’ fares and given them vouchers for a free future flight. Not so much luck for me, then again, I didn’t have to fly on a plane with a broken toilet. That’s right, after using up the tiny toilet for 6 hours on the tarmac, the passengers were let off for two hours, then it was back on the plane to Minneapolis, but this time the toilet was out of order.
And if Continental stocks weren’t bound to be hurt enough because of this, check out what the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:
“Houston-based Continental (NYSE: CAL) was fined $75,000 for violating a requirement that airfare advertisements must state the full price to be paid by the consumer.”
It seems that Continental was less than honest in advertising accurate prices online. The Department of Transportation cited the carrier for not including additional taxes or government fees at the first point at which fares were displayed. On top of that, Continental advertised some fares as “each way” or “one-way” without showing that they were only that price on round trip tickets.
But if airlines weren’t incompetent enough, on a flight I was on from Atlanta to El Paso just a week and a half ago, Delta overbooked the plane, and offered some passengers a free future flight and hotel stay if we took the net morning’s flight. Since we were meeting our party that night, we refused, but I should have known something was up. When we got to El Paso, we were informed that our baggage was still in Atlanta. So we waited in El Paso until the next day anyway, while we tried fruitlessly to figure out when they would arrive. Moral of the story: When you’re offered a free flight, take it, cause they’re up to something.
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The latest racial controversy was sparked last week when a white cop arrested an African-American Harvard scholar at his own home.
I've been waiting days to comment on this until the investigation was underway. I mean I don't want to have to pull an Obama, and recant my words to the world.
But it does seem now, after the 911 tapes were released today, that the neighbor that called didn't even know if the man was white or black, just that he was trying to force his way into he neighbor's door. Either the woman didn't know who her neighbor was, or, like she said in the phone call, she couldn't really see. So Officer Crowley arrives on scene and asks Gates for ID: understandable. But he makes Gates step out of his own house, because apparently "the acoustics in his kitchen" weren't very good, according to the police report. A little fishy, but still not completely out of line, in my opinion.
Here's the caveat: Being a man of color myself, I've grown up with the stigma that police will just treat you differently, and assume that you are up to something unless you prove to him that you don't, more so than would have to a white person. It's parrallel to the "black tax" that is talked about, in which a person of color has to work harder, double check their work more, etc., just to prove that he's at par with his white counterparts, not because he's less smart or talented, but just because he has the stigma of color to his disadvantage.
So back to the story: A black man, a Harvard scholar at that, is pulled out of his own home on suspicion of a crime. Wouldn't YOU be angry? So Gates turns on his righteous indignation. So the officer, in this open discretion that they're allowed, arrests Gates for disorderly conduct. Again, such a broad definition of disorderly conduct that such things like this are allowed to a point.
But what does this mean? What lesson can we learn from all this? For one, now that the subject has been brought up, we can take advantage and take a deeper look into this time of "discrimination" and see where we as a society stand on this topic; that decades after Dr. King and the marches, we analyze how far we've gotten.
And this IS still real. I remember my first job at a CVS pharmacy in Jersey City. The Latino security guard would tell me to watch out for black people when they came into the store. He would follow them around to see if they shoplifted.
Presumptions. But don't get me wrong, cops do get mistreated often and it sucks. But as much as I disagree with how Gates reacted, it did open a national discussion that I wonder if he had in mind when he did it; you know, a chance to make a martyr of himself, a la Rosa Parks.
And I do see where outrageous causes could get some people to re-think their presumption. For example, a gay couple that were handcuffed and kicked off of Temple Square in Salt Lake City "for kissing." I think it's bull that they say that holding hands and kissing was all they were doing, and moreover they were handcuffed not for the acts, but for their belligerent attitudes that I liken what Gates did. BUT, as much as I dislike all the "kiss-in" protests that followed, I do appreciate the dialogue it opened about how to treat our gay, bisexual, and transgenders neighbors.
So in the end, I guess in the end all the drama was worth it, at least for Gates and Crowley. I mean they DO now get to have a beer with the President.
I've been waiting days to comment on this until the investigation was underway. I mean I don't want to have to pull an Obama, and recant my words to the world.
But it does seem now, after the 911 tapes were released today, that the neighbor that called didn't even know if the man was white or black, just that he was trying to force his way into he neighbor's door. Either the woman didn't know who her neighbor was, or, like she said in the phone call, she couldn't really see. So Officer Crowley arrives on scene and asks Gates for ID: understandable. But he makes Gates step out of his own house, because apparently "the acoustics in his kitchen" weren't very good, according to the police report. A little fishy, but still not completely out of line, in my opinion.
Here's the caveat: Being a man of color myself, I've grown up with the stigma that police will just treat you differently, and assume that you are up to something unless you prove to him that you don't, more so than would have to a white person. It's parrallel to the "black tax" that is talked about, in which a person of color has to work harder, double check their work more, etc., just to prove that he's at par with his white counterparts, not because he's less smart or talented, but just because he has the stigma of color to his disadvantage.
So back to the story: A black man, a Harvard scholar at that, is pulled out of his own home on suspicion of a crime. Wouldn't YOU be angry? So Gates turns on his righteous indignation. So the officer, in this open discretion that they're allowed, arrests Gates for disorderly conduct. Again, such a broad definition of disorderly conduct that such things like this are allowed to a point.
But what does this mean? What lesson can we learn from all this? For one, now that the subject has been brought up, we can take advantage and take a deeper look into this time of "discrimination" and see where we as a society stand on this topic; that decades after Dr. King and the marches, we analyze how far we've gotten.
And this IS still real. I remember my first job at a CVS pharmacy in Jersey City. The Latino security guard would tell me to watch out for black people when they came into the store. He would follow them around to see if they shoplifted.
Presumptions. But don't get me wrong, cops do get mistreated often and it sucks. But as much as I disagree with how Gates reacted, it did open a national discussion that I wonder if he had in mind when he did it; you know, a chance to make a martyr of himself, a la Rosa Parks.
And I do see where outrageous causes could get some people to re-think their presumption. For example, a gay couple that were handcuffed and kicked off of Temple Square in Salt Lake City "for kissing." I think it's bull that they say that holding hands and kissing was all they were doing, and moreover they were handcuffed not for the acts, but for their belligerent attitudes that I liken what Gates did. BUT, as much as I dislike all the "kiss-in" protests that followed, I do appreciate the dialogue it opened about how to treat our gay, bisexual, and transgenders neighbors.
So in the end, I guess in the end all the drama was worth it, at least for Gates and Crowley. I mean they DO now get to have a beer with the President.
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