Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Another crazy, confused kid

Only a few details about accused killer Jared Lee Loughner have come to light. It seems that he was declined enlistment to the Army due to suspected drug use, although that isn’t confirmed yet. Also, Loughner’s targeting of Giffords apparently goes back to some contact he had with her in 2007 — before the Tea Party, and before Obama.

So it’s not possible to draw a direct line between the toxic political tone of the times, and what Loughner allegedly did. However, I’ve seen video of Giffords back in March saying that she was concerned about Sarah Palin putting crosshairs on Democratic districts. Based on that, Palin’s PAC was aware of how the map was perceived, and yet left it in place.

Tucson tragedy

On April 19, 1995, as soon as I heard about the Oklahoma City bombing, I turned on the radio and flipped between stations WBZ and WRKO in Boston. On ‘RKO I heard Howie Carr, a notorious reactionary hothead talk show host, spout with absolute certainty that Muslims were behind the explosion. The bomber was, of course, all-American boy Timothy McVey.

Today, we have news of a terrible crime in Tucson, Arizona…

(CNN) — Six people were killed and 12 others wounded — including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — in a shooting outside a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store where the congresswoman was holding a constituent meeting, police said.

The suspect in the shooting was in custody, according to U.S. Capitol Police, who did not identify the alleged gunman.

The shooting happened at a supermarket where Giffords was meeting with constituents. She is still in surgery as I write this. Unlike Carr, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions about the suspect.

Follow-up: The alleged shooter is 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, of Tucson. This YouTube video was supposedly made by him.

The Buck stops now

Longtime Boston sports writer-caster Steve Buckley has a column in the Boston Herald announcing that he’s gay. The news has been picked up by media outlets in Boston and New York, the Huffington Post, and Keith Olbermann tweeted it:

Boston Herald sports writer Steve Buckley: I’m Gay http://bit.ly/fiX6YM Buck’s a friend of 17 yrs & has my full support & friendship

I hope that the unpredictable world of baseball will support Buck too. Knowing his reputation therein, I think it will.

Thirty years ago I worked at a newspaper with Steve — or Buck, as he’s often called — and although he never said or did anything to indicate he wasn’t straight, I’m not surprised by his admission, for reasons I won’t go into. If anything, my love of art, and my utter lack of interest in any sport other than long-distance running, may have given Buck reason to suspect that I was gay. I think Steve Buckley coming out is good and great, and he deserves praise and encouragement.

Buckley’s been a fixture on Boston sports radio station WEEI for years, and today he went on the air to talk about his announcement. You’ll find some of the program on the audio player.

[audio:http://audio.weei.com/hosting/media/weei/1598200/w-stevebuckley-howthischangeshisjob-010611-bs-weei.mp3|titles=WEEI The Big Show: Steve Buckley comes out]

Econumbics by Mankiw

I follow the blogs of three economists — on the left, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman; on the right, Greg Mankiw; and sort of in between, but mostly left, Brad DeLong. I’m wary myself of Krugman’s insistence on borrowing more money to stimulate the economy, but he makes a good case. Mankiw is, however, never compelling to me in any of the positions he takes, which all seem to come straight from the Republican handbook. Sunday he had a New York Times editorial called, “How to Break Bread With the Republicans“. Here are some of his points, and what I think of them…

  • If economic policy is to make any progress over the next two years, you really will have to be bipartisan. To do so, you’ll need to get inside the heads of the opposition.

    Oh, I think Obama understands the heads of the opposition. I for one sure do. Actually, they operate as a single head, like the Borg. Resistance is futile.

  • …because many Americans lose some of the credit as they earn more, the credit reduces their incentive to work.

    Well, that sure sounds like a winning attitude to have at work. “Hey, boss, my taxes are going up, so I don’t feel like working as much as I was.” What is really being claimed here is that the personal wealth of the wealthiest affects what they do in their professional lives. Isn’t this what unions do — stage work slowdowns when their financial demands aren’t being met? This argument, more than any other, by Republicans and their apologists, needs to be thought through more carefully.

  • …it is not the proper role of government to fix the income distribution in an attempt to achieve some utopian vision of fairness.

    Doesn’t the extreme concentration of wealth over the past 30 years represent a redistribution… up? Shouldn’t taxes be at least reasonably fair and progressive? Mankiw doesn’t think so, because he says……..

  • One of best analyses of this long-term trend is by the Harvard economics professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz in their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology.” The authors conclude that widening inequality is largely a symptom of the educational system’s failure to provide enough skilled workers to keep up with the ever increasing demand.

    I’m no Harvard economist, but this is nonsense. The laborers in Chinese textile mills and electronics assembly lines aren’t better educated than American blue collar workers, they’re cheaper.

  • Republicans are not terrorists. They are not the enemy.

    Give me a fuc*ing break. As if the Democrats are the ones who have spent the past 15+ years attacking and demonizing the other side. Obama made a lot of compromises in his health care legislation, and what concessions did he get from Republicans? None. And now they say they’re going to do their darnedest to get it repealed all together. Does the Republican Party ever bargain in good faith anymore?