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A STARK CHOICE ON ABORTION - Jeff Jacoby MCCAIN'S MAVERICK PICK...Jacoby 8/31/08 Calling Ryan Mathews - Bakersfield and Valley Champ. Spiraling Cost Of Health Care? Read on. Next Vice President? Brand new, Superstar in the making THE MYTH OF THE COMING WHITE MINORITY...Jacoby Thought For The Day BACK IN THE USSR Are you a Republican or Democrat? August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 
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A STARK CHOICE ON ABORTION By Jeff Jacoby The Wednesday, September 3, 2008 http://www.boston.com/bosto... During a town hall meeting in He replied that "the most important prevention is education," including "information about contraception." Then he added: "Look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16." If Obama had deliberately set out to appall pro-life voters, he couldn't have uttered four words more jarring than "punished with a baby." The equation of a new child with punishment -- even if the pregnancy was unintended -- set teeth on edge, and Obama's campaign quickly issued a clarification. The candidate, a loving father of two, believes that "children are miracles," it said; he only meant to underscore the importance of reducing teen pregnancy. But Obama's unscripted words needed no clarifying. They tartly encapsulated the extreme position on "choice" he has staked out in his career. What brings Obama's revealing turn of phrase to mind, of course, is the pregnancy of Governor Sarah Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter. "Our beautiful daughter Granted, Obama was engaging in a hypothetical speculation, while the Palins were dealing with a real-life family challenge. Still, what a contrast! To the Democratic nominee, a teenage daughter's unforeseen baby is a punishment to be prevented; to the Republican Veep-designee, it is a blessing to be embraced, difficulties and all. The polarity of the candidates' reactions would be arresting even if these incidents stood alone. But in both cases they reinforce the record each campaign brings to the emotional question of life in the womb. This is hardly the first presidential campaign to pit a pro-life Republican ticket against pro-choice Democrats. Never before, however, has the difference been so stark. Obama advocates abortion rights even more sweeping than those enacted under Roe v. Wade. "The first thing I'd do as president," he assured the Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, "is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The measure would not only codify Roe, it would eliminate even restrictions on abortion that the Supreme Court has allowed -- the federal ban on government funding of abortion, for example, or parental-notification requirements, or the law prohibiting partial-birth abortion. During last month's forum at the And when has a Republican ticket ever been so unabashedly pro-life? Senator John McCain, long one of the Senate's reliably pro-life votes, is a father of seven, including an adopted orphan from
http://asp.usatoday.com/_co... href="javascript:;"> "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential," she said a few days after Trig Paxson Van Palin was born in April. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection." Ambiguities may muddle the 2008 campaign, but not when it comes to abortion. The next president and vice president will be the most pro-choice in (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)
-- ## -- To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) Jeff Jacoby's mailing list, please visit http://www.JeffJacoby.com. To see a month's worth of his recent columns, go to http://www.boston.com/bosto.... Jeff Jacoby welcomes comments and reads all his mail. Unfortunately, he receives so many letters that he cannot answer each one personally. MCCAIN'S MAVERICK PICK By Jeff Jacoby The Sunday, August 31, 2008 http://www.boston.com/bosto...
If it did nothing else, John McCain's choice of Governor Sarah Palin of Those who have observed the 44-year-old governor up close speak highly of her political skills and personal appeal. She took on her own party's ethically challenged leadership and beat it handily, and has gone on to earn stratospherically high approval ratings for her own performance in office. Unlike Palin is about as far from a " Of course McCain is taking a big gamble. Palin has been governor for less than two years, has no foreign-policy or national-security experience, and has never been through the gauntlet of a national campaign. Whether she can hold her own on the stump and under the withering glare of the national media, we will all know soon enough. Many voters will understandably read McCain's choice as cynical, in part because he has made such an issue of Obama's limited record. But surely Palin's lack of expertise on defense and international issues makes *Obama's* inexperience all the more conspicuous. The Democratic nominee is as green and untested as McCain's new running mate. (Arguably even more so, since Obama has never been an executive.) There is, however, one key difference between them: She's not running for president. Which is why it seems to me that McCain's choice of Palin, like Obama's of Biden, probably changes very little about this campaign. For all the attention they get from the pundits and politicos -- for all the contrived drama of the vetting process, the public speculation, the stage-managed announcement -- VP picks rarely make a difference in the essential nature of any presidential contest. Think back to 1988, when George H.W. Bush's selection of Senator Dan Quayle of In 1996, Republican Bob Dole picked Bush; Edwards couldn't even carry his home state. For all the ink and bandwidth devoted to the Veepstakes, it is almost always the candidate at the top who seals the deal with the electorate -- or doesn't. Palin and Biden will enliven the nine weeks remaining until Nov. 4, but barring some extraordinary development or colossal blunder, they won't change the outcome. The race isn't about them. It is about Obama and McCain. It is between the uplifting but insubstantial charisma of the former and the battle-tested experience and judgment of the latter. In But most voters know that McCain is his own man. The real mystery, as the Republicans gathering in (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)
-- ## -- To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) Jeff Jacoby's mailing list, please visit http://www.JeffJacoby.com. To see a month's worth of his recent columns, go to http://www.boston.com/bosto.... Jeff Jacoby welcomes comments and reads all his mail. Unfortunately, he receives so many letters that he cannot answer each one personally. Received in email from motopoet (Ryans Proud Pa). Apologies if I violated any copywrite laws. Here is a short interview with Ryan....
Countdown to Kickoff: 4 Days
Aug. 28, 2008
FRESNO, Calif. - Last year Ryan Matthews shattered Fresno State's freshman records and led the nation in both touchdowns and average by a freshman. Matthews looks to continue that success in 2008. With less than a week before the first game, Matthews sat down with GoBulldogs.com to talk about the training, upcoming season, and life as a Bulldog. GoBulldogs.com: What's been the most important adjustment you've made from playing high school football to college ball? GoBulldogs.com: What have you done to increase your speed? GoBulldogs.com: Where do you get your explosive speed? GoBulldogs.com: What are some things you have done in the offseason to help prepare you for the season? GoBulldogs.com: What goals have you set up for yourself this season? GoBulldogs.com: What are you most looking forward to this season? GoBulldogs.com: Who are you closest to on the team? GoBulldogs.com: What personal goals would you like to accomplish before leaving Fresno State? GoBulldogs.com: Do you have any superstitious behaviors you have to do before each game? GoBulldogs.com: What do you like to do for fun outside of football? GoBulldogs.com: The number 21 was retired for Dale Messler, so it took a long process to bring the number out of retirement. What's so special about 21? GoBulldogs.com: Tell me something fans don't know about you that you'd want them to know.
Motopoet sent this to me and gave me permission to post it. _________________________________________________ _____________ I am sick of hearing politicians whine about the spiraling cost of healthcare while at the same time trying to convince me that the government can do it cheaper and more efficiently OR that they have some sort of plan to force healthcare insurance costs on employers, many of whom would be put out of business by such legislation.
The issue should not be THAT healthcare is so costly, but rather, WHY it is so costly. Healthcare is not free. SOMEONE has to pay for it and that someone is those of us who do have insurance or provide our own payment in whatever form. Who is NOT paying for it are illegal immigrants who receive care with no intention of ever paying for it because they know they don't have to and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.
Save this to your favorite places so the next time you want to whine about the plight of illegals in this country and tell me that a wall between us and Mexico is somehow immoral, pull this testimony up and think about it then multiply this number by about 40. That's about 4 BILLION dollars a year in unpaid medical bills by illegals. This problem will not go away until people stop trying to be politically correct about this and stop worrying about hurting peoples feelings.
Getting rid of the illegal immigrant problem would make a huge difference in the cost and availability of healthcare in America.
If I stepped on your toes..Rub the damn things or go to the ER and wait four hours behind the very people I have just denounced so you can get those toes looked at....
Mark
Just for a little fun, you guys really need to see this. Can your kids or grandkids do this at that age? THE MYTH OF THE COMING WHITE MINORITY By Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
http://www.boston.com/bosto...
When the Census Bureau announced last week that white Americans would dwindle to less than half of the US population within a generation, the media quickly spread the word.
"A new census report says that whites in the US will be a minority by the year 2042," announced NPR's Farai Chideya, while over at CNN Tony Harris proclaimed that "the complexion of America is changing and a lot faster than you think: In just 34 years, the Census Bureau says whites will no longer be a majority in this country." The Associated Press moved a story headlined "White Americans no longer a majority by 2042." In the Wall Street Journal, a graph depicted the "declining share" of whites in three age groups -- three lines sloping sharply downward. Once again, the government’s unhealthy obsession with sorting people into categories based on color and ancestry was in the news.
But there was another problem with all this coverage of how white America is rapidly becoming a minority: The Census Bureau never actually said it.
No need to take my word for it -- you can see the numbers for yourself on the Census Bureau website. In a spreadsheet titled "Projections of the Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: 2008 to 2050," the bureau forecasts a rise in the number of whites from about 243 million today to 325 million at midcentury -- an increase of 82 million. A related spreadsheet gives the percentages: Whites today account for nearly 80 percent of the US population. In 2050, they'll constitute 74 percent -- somewhat less, but still a very hefty majority.
So what explains the persistent drumbeat about the impending white minority? A statistical distortion: the exclusion of Hispanic whites. If only non-Hispanic whites are counted, the white population today amounts to 66 percent of the total, and will fall to around 46 percent by 2050.
But excluding whites of Hispanic origin from the overall white population makes no more sense than excluding whites of Slavic or Scandinavian origin. "Hispanic" is not a race. It is an ethnic category. As the Census Bureau repeatedly points out, Hispanics can be of any race. In the 2000 census, 48 percent of Hispanics identified themselves as white; Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has characterized them as "white in every social sense of this term." Bottom line: Of the 46.6 million Hispanics in the United States today, at least 22 million are white -- even if it suits some people’s racial or political agenda to pretend otherwise.
On both right and left, there are pressures to treat Hispanics as a distinct racial category. Many on the left covet the political attention and affirmative-action largesse that comes with minority-group status. In some quarters of the right, meanwhile, immigration alarmists warn that Hispanics are overwhelming the nation's "white" culture, dissolving the bonds of language and patriotism on which American civilization depends.
One of the lessons of US history is that racial categories are anything but meaningful scientific classifications. For generations, "whites" have been hearing that they are about to be engulfed by unassimilable foreign races, and for generations those "races" have gone on to become -- white! Benjamin Franklin worried mightily about the threat posed to white American culture by the influx of German immigrants. "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens," he demanded in a pamphlet published in 1751, "who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us
Another German-language American newspaper, the Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote, was the first to break the news of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. instead of our Anglifying them?" Those "swarthy" Germans, Franklin was quite sure, "will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can adopt our Complexion."
A century and a half later, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge witheringly described the Russians, Poles, and Greeks entering the country as "races with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are most alien to the great body of the people of the United States." In the early 20th century, federal immigration officials classified the Irish, Italians, and Jews as separate races. Yet today all these groups are viewed collectively, and benignly, as "white."
And so in time, we may hope, will Hispanics, who give every indication of being just as assimilable as earlier groups. Most third-generation Hispanic Americans, for example, marry non-Hispanics. The overwhelming majority speak English -- in many cases, only English. With a little luck, common sense, and goodwill, it will seem as odd in 2050 to focus on "non-Hispanic whites" as it would today to insist that only "non-German whites" are really white.
Better still, perhaps by then we will have really progressed, and abandoned the pernicious notion of racial categories altogether.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.) -- ## -- To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) Jeff Jacoby's mailing list, please visit http://www.JeffJacoby.com. To see a month's worth of his recent columns, go to http://www.boston.com/bosto.... Jeff Jacoby welcomes comments and reads all his mail. Unfortunately, he receives so many letters that he cannot answer each one personally. -- ## --
A fellow blogger sent me a really nice inspirational story this morning and reminded me that we could all use a little something to inspire us. The story was of a young man with Downs Syndrome who was a bagger at a grocery store and put a thought for the day in each bag. As I explained to my fellow blogger, I used to put one on the whiteboard at every group and later printed them up and passed them out to the groups. Sometimes their inspirational, sometimes a little sappy, sometimes funny. But always with a message. I am going to try, the operative word being "try", to put one out each day again and would love it if you'd contribute any that are appropriate. I forgot which of you posted one I used to use a lot but I thank you for reminding me. When I saw it, it reminded me that a few words can say volumes. My version of the one posted which I used in the recovery programs is "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail." In my field at least, it simply means if the only way you know how to handle problems is with drugs or alcohol, then the only way you will handle them is with drugs or alcohol. Goes toward anger management too. In any case I'll start off with this one. Please feel free to join in. "When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves." attributed to Anthony J. D'Angelo By Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe Wednesday, August 13, 2008 http://www.boston.com/bosto...
Apartment buildings in the Georgian city of Gori, which was bombed by Russia on Saturday Henry Kissinger used to say that while it can be dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, to be a friend is fatal. The people of South Vietnam learned that bitter lesson when the United States abandoned them in 1975. The Poles learned it after Yalta, the Hungarian freedom fighters learned it in 1956, the Cubans learned it at the Bay of Pigs. And tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites learned it in 1991, when at the urging of George H.W. Bush they rose against Saddam Hussein, only to be slaughtered when American support never materialized. We can now add Georgia to that list. Yet last week, when Russia contemptuously wiped its boots on that map, sending tanks and bombers to smash and kill their way across Georgia's frontier, Bush's response was feckless. As the president horsed around in Beijing, posing with bikini-clad Olympic volleyball players, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin -- no longer pretending to have relinquished executive power -- was in the Caucuses directing Russian military operations against Georgia. The first response from the White House to Moscow's naked aggression was milquetoast: evenhanded mush about the need for "a stand-down by all troops." It took four days before Bush finally blasted Russia's "dramatic and brutal escalation" in Georgia, and declared such behavior "unacceptable in the 21st century." By then it was too late. Not only had Russia seized control of the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it had taken the Georgian city of Senaki with its military base, and was bombing two other key cities, Poti and Gori. This was a "3 a.m. phone call" if anything ever was, and the White House bungled it. So did Barack Obama, whose first response was the same as Bush's. "Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint," he announced, seemingly unwilling to choose between the imperialist invader and its weaker neighbor. It took Obama three tries to catch up with John McCain, who had recognized at once the import of Russia's first military offensive beyond its borders since Soviet rule ended in 1991. McCain denounced Russia's aggression as soon as the news hit, then followed it up on Monday with a forceful explanation of the moral and strategic stakes in this crisis. And what are those stakes? Simply put, whether Russia can intimidate the countries on its periphery into toeing Moscow's line and keeping their distance from America and the West. Putin couldn't care less about the rights of South Ossetians or Abkhazians. But he cares intensely about restoring Moscow's Cold War hegemony in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In 2005, Putin characterized the end of the Soviet Union -- i.e., the emancipation of Eastern Europe and tens of millions of human beings -- as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." Putin, the apparatchik who spent 17 years in the KGB, aims to restore the glory that was the Brezhnevite USSR, and has revived every Soviet technique in pursuing that goal: The jailing and exile of political opponents. The murder of aggressive journalists. Gross interference with foreign elections. Top-down control of the media. Advanced weapons sales to villainous regimes. Anti-American obstructionism at the UN. Cyberwar against Estonia. Energy extortion against Ukraine. Savage destruction in Chechnya. About the only Brezhnev-era tactic not tried was the invasion of a neighboring country. Now that line has been crossed too, and with impunity. For months, the United States has claimed to be ready for a military alliance with Georgia; that is what NATO membership means, after all. Yet it was unready to do a thing when its potential ally came under attack, except ferry Georgian troops home from Iraq. "Why won't America and NATO help us?" a distraught Georgian farmer asked a Western reporter this week. "If they won't help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?" (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)
-- ## -- To subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) Jeff Jacoby's mailing list, please visit http://www.JeffJacoby.com. To see a month's worth of his recent columns, go to http://www.boston.com/bosto.... Jeff Jacoby welcomes comments and reads all his mail. Unfortunately, he receives so many letters that he cannot answer each one personally. Why are you a Republican? http://www.youtube.com/watc... |
