This weekend is another busy one for us, no matter where we happen to be in the U.S.
Some of us are celebrating the weekend at the 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art in Columbus, Ohio. The first day of the festival was technically yesterday, but the festival still runs through Sunday. Tickets are still available for two events: "An Evening With Matt Groening," the creator of The Simpsons and Life in Hell cartoons will be Saturday evening, while "Art Spiegelman: In Conversation" will be Sunday night.
If you're in the Ohio Valley region, we hope you'll come join us.
Our staff members in the Washington, DC area are hoping to get some sleep this weekend. Jet lag and infant teething can be hard things to recover from - but both overseas travel and generally happy kids are enjoyable experiences.
If you have the chance, we highly recommend visiting Italy and especially the island of Sicily.
Or spending time with your kids or grandkids.
As for the rest of our staff, we'll be in Nebraska this weekend, getting ready for what we hope will be a fantastic weekend of Husker sports viewing, including a significant - and long overdue - beating of the Texas Longhorns in college football.
No matter where we go, home or away, inside the United States or overseas, we continue to notice that most Americans - and most regular people - are beginning to reject the histrionics of the fanatics.
The fanatics may dominate the TV and radio - and it's obvious that many of them are simply shills for those groups attempting to buy the election - but contrary to the yammering of infotainment media, more Americans seem to be looking a bit deeper at subjects they'll be voting on in just a few weeks. They're doing research - actual research from legitimate sources, like those we link to - and having civil discussions again, even with people they don't agree with.
To paraphrase a letter released by the legendary Tom Osborne this week, regarding the conduct of Husker fans this weekend, this is a great time for us all to display the pride we have in our country. Be courteous, responsible, and respectful of those we agree with - and those we don't - by showing our pride in ourselves, through our behavior.
We couldn't agree more, sir.
Enjoy your weekend.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Great Success In The Journey To The Center
Most humans disagree with each other from time to time. It's natural, after all - even identical twins don't always agree. So it goes to reason that anytime one billion people - that's one in every six people on the planet - is paying attention to any one event, and cheering the results, it's not a small event at all.
That was the case over the last couple of days, as the rescue of 33 miners trapped for 70 days in a remote mine in Chile culminated in success. We're fairly certain you, or someone in your house, saw some of the footage, read stories, saw pictures or heard coverage of the event.
It's not been a small feat.
In under 70 days, a team comprised of engineers from twelve countries, plus advisors from many other countries, have assembled and built a transit system like no other. Built with parts, experience and knowledge from Chile, Germany, Japan, South Africa, the United States, Argentina, Spain, and even Bolivia - Chile's rival neighbor - this unique system was designed to transport one person at a time, inside a capsule less than 3 1/2 feet wide, through a hole over a third of a mile deep.
As many of the media reporters from all over the world have continually marveled, the focus of virtually everyone on the site hasn't been cost or nationality, politics or religion. No one has refused to help because the miners haven't paid a $75 rescue fee, or because the mining company broke the law. Nor did the Chilean government turn away any offer of help, because some minor law might have been temporarily broken. It has been a team effort, in every way.
It hasn't just been the rescuers on the surface that have been teaming up successfully.
The miners themselves organized their own - literally underground - society. They designated tasks and responsibilities, chose leaders, rationed resources and kept the peace. Because of their ability to work together with people they don't always agree with (or even like), after 70 days, they've all emerged alive and in a relatively healthy condition.
Whether it's an official coalition or just an ad hoc group, no group of human beings can manage to organize themselves and achieve any significant task without working TOGETHER, as a group, for ideas that will move everyone forward - or in this case, upward - to a better place.
If an event like this is what it takes for a group of people to be able to find some productive consensus, we see no problem with the idea of sending all of Congress back down the mine shaft, and closing things off for another 70 days. Strangely, we think citizens of many other countries may have the same idea regarding their legislators.
Who would have ever expected that Jules Verne would be the one to come up with the solution to our hyper-partisan politics?
That was the case over the last couple of days, as the rescue of 33 miners trapped for 70 days in a remote mine in Chile culminated in success. We're fairly certain you, or someone in your house, saw some of the footage, read stories, saw pictures or heard coverage of the event.
It's not been a small feat.
In under 70 days, a team comprised of engineers from twelve countries, plus advisors from many other countries, have assembled and built a transit system like no other. Built with parts, experience and knowledge from Chile, Germany, Japan, South Africa, the United States, Argentina, Spain, and even Bolivia - Chile's rival neighbor - this unique system was designed to transport one person at a time, inside a capsule less than 3 1/2 feet wide, through a hole over a third of a mile deep.
As many of the media reporters from all over the world have continually marveled, the focus of virtually everyone on the site hasn't been cost or nationality, politics or religion. No one has refused to help because the miners haven't paid a $75 rescue fee, or because the mining company broke the law. Nor did the Chilean government turn away any offer of help, because some minor law might have been temporarily broken. It has been a team effort, in every way.
It hasn't just been the rescuers on the surface that have been teaming up successfully.
The miners themselves organized their own - literally underground - society. They designated tasks and responsibilities, chose leaders, rationed resources and kept the peace. Because of their ability to work together with people they don't always agree with (or even like), after 70 days, they've all emerged alive and in a relatively healthy condition.
Whether it's an official coalition or just an ad hoc group, no group of human beings can manage to organize themselves and achieve any significant task without working TOGETHER, as a group, for ideas that will move everyone forward - or in this case, upward - to a better place.
If an event like this is what it takes for a group of people to be able to find some productive consensus, we see no problem with the idea of sending all of Congress back down the mine shaft, and closing things off for another 70 days. Strangely, we think citizens of many other countries may have the same idea regarding their legislators.
Who would have ever expected that Jules Verne would be the one to come up with the solution to our hyper-partisan politics?
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Full Disclosure
Over the last few weeks, and especially over the last week or so, the issue of unlimited amounts of corporate money - and possibly foreign money - being used by organizations to buy influence in our American election process has been covered extensively here and elsewhere.
There have been some in the media who've attempted to drag the focus away from the main problem with the campaign finance law as it now stands. There has also been a great deal of squirming and non-denial denials coming from those who have been abusing the current system, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Karl Rove.
What there hasn't been a lot of is full disclosure, which is what Americans are truthfully looking for, in finding out who is attempting to buy elections. In fact, that's what the DISCLOSE Act - which passed the House in April of this year, but remains stalled in the Senate - was specifically designed to do.
Thankfully, full disclosure appears to have come to another contentious issue that's been argued over for most of the last 17 years.
Last night, a judge in California finally pulled the trigger and killed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, by barring enforcement of the policy worldwide, by the U.S. military.
In the suit, which was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of LGBT GOP members, Federal District Court Judge Virginia Phillips said that DADT infringed on the First and Fifth Amendments of servicemembers and potential servicemembers. In her ruling, Judge Phillips also permanently enjoined enforcement of DADT and forced the military to "immediately suspend and discontinue" any DADT related military separation in progress.
The Defense department's recommendation on how to implement the elimination of DADT - not IF it should be buried, but HOW to move from current standards to new ones - was already scheduled to be released in early December. In some ways, yesterday's ruling is merely another step on the path to eliminating DADT completely.
It's also a step towards aligning the methods and laws with which we treat our armed servicemembers with the rhetoric of freedom, openness, and full disclosure those members of our military fight for.
Notice - the defeat of DADT was accomplished with support from BOTH Republicans AND Democrats.
Let's hope achieving the full disclosure of campaign finances doesn't take another seventeen years.
There have been some in the media who've attempted to drag the focus away from the main problem with the campaign finance law as it now stands. There has also been a great deal of squirming and non-denial denials coming from those who have been abusing the current system, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Karl Rove.
What there hasn't been a lot of is full disclosure, which is what Americans are truthfully looking for, in finding out who is attempting to buy elections. In fact, that's what the DISCLOSE Act - which passed the House in April of this year, but remains stalled in the Senate - was specifically designed to do.
Thankfully, full disclosure appears to have come to another contentious issue that's been argued over for most of the last 17 years.
Last night, a judge in California finally pulled the trigger and killed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, by barring enforcement of the policy worldwide, by the U.S. military.
In the suit, which was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of LGBT GOP members, Federal District Court Judge Virginia Phillips said that DADT infringed on the First and Fifth Amendments of servicemembers and potential servicemembers. In her ruling, Judge Phillips also permanently enjoined enforcement of DADT and forced the military to "immediately suspend and discontinue" any DADT related military separation in progress.
The Defense department's recommendation on how to implement the elimination of DADT - not IF it should be buried, but HOW to move from current standards to new ones - was already scheduled to be released in early December. In some ways, yesterday's ruling is merely another step on the path to eliminating DADT completely.
It's also a step towards aligning the methods and laws with which we treat our armed servicemembers with the rhetoric of freedom, openness, and full disclosure those members of our military fight for.
Notice - the defeat of DADT was accomplished with support from BOTH Republicans AND Democrats.
Let's hope achieving the full disclosure of campaign finances doesn't take another seventeen years.
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