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War Opposition from Addams to Murtha

Posted November 20, 2005 By Dave Thomer

The political news this weekend is probably the firestorm around Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania calling for a redeployment of the troops in Iraq. Murtha may be from my home state, but he’s from the western side of the commonwealth, so I have only been vaguely aware of him up to now. Kagro X at The Next Hurrah had a terrific post pulling together the reasons why his voice on military matters holds so much weight.

Clearly there was an impact because Republicans in the House tried to pull a maneuver Friday night to either embarrass Murtha or force other House Democrats to disavow his position and support the war. The stunt went haywire. Murtha had suggested that Congress pass a joint resolution calling for the orderly redeployment of troops and a continued use of diplomacy, which would include introductory language that established the reasons for such a move. House Republicans instead offered a one-paragraph sense-of-the-House resolution simply calling for the immediate termination of operations in Iraq. Again, for the parliamentary distinctions, check out Kagro. At one point, a newly-elected Representative from Ohio named Jean Schmidt quoted a Marine who asked her to send a message to Murtha that “cowards cut and run, Marines never do.� Thing is, Murtha is an ex-Marine. The House was in an uproar until Schmidt retracted her remarks.

Now, I’m not sure how this is all going to play out over the next few weeks. Public support for the war is clearly dropping, but I just don’t know if it’s going to have any effect on the government’s decisions in the short term. What I have found interesting, as yet another example of history repeating itself, is the way opponents of the war are characterized as disrespecting our troops and aiding the enemy. (Check out this post from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo for another example.) There’s a particular incident about Jane Addams, one of the leaders of the settlement house movement and a major progressive force at the turn of the century, that Jean Elshtain cites in her book Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy and which I frequently think about these days.
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Filed in Special Order Speeches

So Long, and Thanks for All the Inq

Posted November 19, 2005 By Dave Thomer

I’ve been generally aware that Knight-Ridder, the company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, has been cutting budgets and trying to squeeze more profit out of the papers. I’ve also been aware that some pretty heavy staff cuts are hitting both papers. But it wasn’t until I saw Daniel Rubin’s latest post at Blinq that I realized how many voices that have been part of Philadelphia for as long as I can remember are leaving.

When I was a kid, I used to love to read the paper, especially the sports and features sections but also the political news. I remember columnists and critics like Bill Lyon and Desmond Ryan. I remember recognizing their bylines or seeing those little photo boxes that acompanied a column, and I remember how much I wanted to follow in those footsteps once upon a time. I don’t like the circumstances under which these folks are leaving, but I value them for being a part of the public discourse in this city for so long, and giving a certain continuity to the conversation.

I’ve recently read a book called Civic Literacy that I’ll blog about more when I finish doing some background and fact-checking, but one of the book’s claims is that reading newspapers is a far better means of staying informed than watching television news. I really hope the current state of media economics doesn’t hasten the demise of this vital resource.

Filed in Culture and Media

A Home Repair Theory

Posted November 19, 2005 By Dave Thomer

The number of things in your house that require immediate attention and repair is directly proportional to the number of guests you’re expecting for Thanksgiving dinner.

Filed in Life in Practice

Pay Raise, Maybe, But Not Now

Posted November 18, 2005 By Dave Thomer

The state legislature pay raise that Pattie mentioned earlier this month has officially been repealed now that Governor Rendell has signed the repeal measure that legislators finally agreed on.

Philly-area blogger Above-Average Jane has started a series of posts detailing changes she’d like to see the legislature enact the next time they want to justify a pay hike. It’s a good series so far. I especially like the most recent post about making legislators’ votes more visible. I’ve talked about transparency from time to time on the old site, so it’s no surprise that I think it’s a good cause. But I think Jane makes the point very clear in this post.

Also, while I’m tossing out links to Philly bloggers, Smoke-Filled Room is a good round up of stories affecting better government in the city and state. There’s a lot of mention of city ethics reform and the pay hike, as well as a mention of a bubbling effort to revise the way Pennsylvania selects a Lt. Governor.

Filed in Public Policy

History Sure Does Rhyme

Posted November 17, 2005 By Dave Thomer

I should probably be working on something else, but I jsut did a quick blog search for mentions of Dewey, and found a great post on the Educational Technology and Life blog. The writer, Mark Wagner, is studying educational technology out in California and has just started reading School and Society for a research project. He compiled a list of ten significant quotes with comments from him. Here’s an example:

“[When introducing real word occupations into the curriculum] the entire school is renewed. It has the a chance to affiliate itself with life, to become the child’s habitat, where he learns through directed living, instead of being only a place to learn lessons having an abstract and remote reference to some possible living to be done in the future. It gets a chance to be a miniature community.” (p. 18) So let’s see, we’ve got project-based learning, school to industry connections, and small learning communities – maybe even professional learning communities… sounds like cutting edge 21st century educational reform to me.

Contrary to what a lot of critics may say, we don’t have the educational problems we do today because we listened to Dewey. We have them in large part because we didn’t. And so everything old is new again.

Filed in Philosophy

All-Star Superman Lives Up to Name

Posted November 16, 2005 By Dave Thomer

So I just read Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman #1. I definitely liked it enough to follow the series, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. (In my opinion, it could be better than what I expected. So no complaints there.)

Spoilers on the inside. Read the remainder of this entry »

Filed in Comics

Bigger Brains for Buddhists?

Posted November 16, 2005 By Dave Thomer

Neat story I found floating around the web, best explained in this column from the Hartford Courant. A recent study suggests that a form of Buddhist meditation actually increases brain size in several key areas, and may improve meditators’ attention and decrease age-related brain loss. This may be something I have to try for myself. If I can remember this story long enough to do anything about it.

Filed in Philosophy

Which Reform First?

Posted November 16, 2005 By Dave Thomer

Via Blinq, one of the blogs at the Inquirer, I just discovered Young Philly Politics, a group blog that seems to be mostly devoted to local issues. There’s a lot of really good discussion there, including a post by Ben Waxman called Why Blogs Matter that turned into a conversation about the priorities reformers should have, as well as the conflict and compatibility between issues of good-government reform (currently huge in Philly) and issues of economic justice (currently not quite so huge, but always simmering in the background).

Hmm. I wonder what the cutoff for “Young” is . . .

Filed in Public Policy

Courting Conflicts?

Posted November 15, 2005 By Dave Thomer

For the sake of my own sanity, I maintain a certain intellectual and emotional detachment from the issue of George W. Bush’s nominations for the Supreme Court. Whoever gets appointed by this president and confirmed by this Senate is not going to be someone I agree with on much past the possible exception of where to order lunch. And I have to make my peace with that, because heck, these are the folks that got elected. I can’t quite figure out where the dividing line between an objectionable level of near-total disagreement and an acceptable level of near-total disagreement lies.

On the other hand, when it comes to Samuel Alito, there’s something about this story from the Washington Post that concerns me. Some Senators have raised questions about Alito’s decision not to recuse himself from two cases involving the company that manages his mutual funds and the company that serves as his broker, despite indicating that he would do so in his Senate questionnaire during his confirmation to the apellate court. Alito explains it by saying that he was “unduly restrictive” with his questionnaire answer. It may well be that there’s a harmless explanation for this, but right now, it’s one of those things that chips away my faith in the cofirmation process. So I figured I would write a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who also happens to be my Senator. I’m posting it up here as part of the So Now What? collection.

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Filed in So Now What?

Take Me Out to the Black

Posted November 15, 2005 By Dave Thomer

If anything bugs me the most about the fact that Joss Whedon’s Firefly didn’t even run a full season, it’s that I didn’t get to hear more of Greg Edmonson’s distinctive music for the series. At least there’s a soundtrack album, which I review on theLogBook this week. Other related reviews:

Filed in Culture and Media
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