Let me be clear, I'm glad this ugly debate appears to be cooling down. But I hope everyone is aware of the following fact. THE GOP WILL THROW MUCH UGLIER RACIAL/GENDER SLANDERS AT US IN THE GENERAL. Tough ugly primary fights as long as they don't last too long (cooler heads prevail) are actually good for the party. The GOP has had them for years and this is where they perfect their killer instinct, they use on us.
Obama and Clinton Seek a Softer Tone
A Democratic presidential debate unfolded with an exchange of pleasantries and acts of contrition among rivals on Tuesday as Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama promised to dispel a rancorous feud over race and gender that had threatened to divide the party and alienate voters.
CULTURE
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It's good to see a community take a stand. After six black teenagers nearly beat an older white lawyer to death in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Instead of engaging in race baiting the citizens are bravely banding together and saying "we won't run but will solve the problems!" But of course notice how this story uses the "somepeople say" canard to print mean spirited rightwing hate speach? A Suburb Looks Nervously at Its Urban Neighbor
What has surprised Ludlow residents most since the attack is the reaction of people around the region. Cleveland has grown steadily poorer over the last five decades. Many people in the surrounding area believe that Shaker Heights will eventually be overwhelmed by Cleveland residents, many of them African-Americans, trying to escape the city’s high crime rate and struggling schools. They wonder why residents of Shaker Heights have not moved to more distant — and safer — suburbs.
"So move," Dick Feagler, a columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote after the attack. "But do it like we all have — like the whole three-county area has — don’t call it racism. Call it reality."
Underneath this fear of urban decay lies the quiet thread of resentment. For many years, Shaker Heights was one of the richest cities in the United States. As presidents of Cleveland’s largest companies, a few Shaker Heights citizens were bosses to generations of Clevelanders. In the middle of what the Census Bureau found in 2002 to be America’s third-most-segregated urban area, Shaker Heights flouts local racial attitudes by actively encouraging integration. Of the town’s 27,245 residents, 61 percent are white and 34 percent are black, according to the census.
For many outsiders, the attack on Mr. McDermott is seen as comeuppance for a community that seemed smug about its wealth, security and racial diversity.
"I wonder how much ‘tolerance’ the ‘progressive,’ snooty, pseudo-intellectual limousine liberal, socialists of Shaker Heights will show now that the thugs are in their neighborhood too," a reader wrote on a Cleveland Plain Dealer blog.
Ludlow residents understand that for a place just seven blocks across, their little neighborhood carries tremendous symbolic weight. "People in the Cleveland area resent us because we’re a repudiation of everything they believe," said Brian Walker, 56, who was among the first African-Americans to attend Ludlow school. "We’re proof that white people and black people can live together." Rather than flee, Ludlow residents say they plan to stay and organize.
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INTERNATIONAL
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Still no end in sight to this crisis....
Kenyan Opposition Plans More Protest
Kenya was in partial lockdown mode on Wednesday as opposition supporters pressed ahead with plans to hold protests across the country.
Demonstrators clashed with police in the streets of Mombasa, Kenya's biggest port and a main artery to the rest of East Africa. Witnesses said that hundreds of demonstrators, many of them Muslims, tried to block roundabouts in the city center but that police officers in riot gear chased them away with tear gas.
Previous unrest in Mombasa has seriously disrupted food and fuel supplies, leading several neighboring countries like Uganda and Rwanda to ration gasoline. Many Muslims in Kenya support the opposition because they feel that the Kenyan government, a close American ally, has cracked down harshly on members of their community.
UPDATE
Police crack down on Kenyan protesters for 2nd day; at least 5 fatally shot
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My heart goes out to the people affected by thses floods. African flood 'catastrophe' fear
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent says more rain could be "catastrophic" for flood-hit Mozambique and nearby countries.
Further rainfall is expected in the coming days, and IFRC spokesman Peter Rees called for immediate action to deal with the crisis.
Several people have died and about 70,000 have been displaced by the recent flooding in central Mozambique.
Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have also been badly hit.
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A slight glimmer of hope? Compromise Plan May End Political Stalemate in Zimbabwe
South African President Thabo Mbeki traveled to neighboring Zimbabwe on Thursday to pressure leaders to complete negotiations that have brought the government and the opposition to the brink of a deal after years of political stalemate, officials from both countries said.
The two sides have deadlocked in recent days over the timing of elections and when to implement a new constitution, sources familiar with the negotiations say. Mbeki flew to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, with a compromise plan, raising hopes that a deal might be imminent.
Negotiators representing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the two wings of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have made substantial progress in recent months, including a deal for a constitution with a bill of rights guaranteeing expanded political freedoms.
"What I saw of an earlier draft constitutes a substantial improvement over what we've got," said David Coltart, an opposition member of parliament. Deals between Mugabe and opposition leaders also have led to the easing of restrictions on journalists and on political gatherings, and steps also have been taken to make the electoral commission more independent.
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POLITICS
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MLK Day, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate, and the primer for South Carolina's election, OBOY!
A Holiday Affair in Myrtle Beach
The Democrats will again face one another on Monday in a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute in Myrtle Beach, S.C. That happens to be Martin Luther King’s Birthday. And this happens to be the first time that the South Carolina city will officially recognize the holiday.
"It’s strictly coincidence," said a Myrtle Beach spokesman, Mark Kruea. "A happy coincidence."
City Councilman Mike Chestnut of Myrtle Beach said the council had been talking about making the civil rights leader’s birthday into an official city holiday for the past few years, but did not have money in the budget to cover another paid holiday for city employees. In May, however, the council voted unanimously to include money for the day in their 2008 budget.
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This is not electioneering. I am an Obama supporter. But I try to balance his historic run by only include stories that are relevant to the Week in Review diaries general theme.
What foreign reaction to Barack Obama says about foreigners.
In Europe, one senses a quiet shame. The left, which loves to criticize the Unites States for its imperial foreign policy and its discrimination against blacks and Hispanics, is not really saluting Obama. There have been few gushing articles in Italy's La Repubblica or France's Le Monde. And by sending the message that it might be ready to elect an African-American, a part of mainstream America is showing the industrialized world a more open-minded attitude than the United States usually gets credit for. This is particularly embarrassing in socialist Europe. Contrast the attitude of those white Americans who are ready for a President Obama with the conditions that have led France's North African immigrants to riot on the outskirts of Paris. And have the Scandinavian countries ever generated anything comparable to Obama among the minorities who are tended to so generously as long as they don't make too much noise?
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Ron Paul, I actually started to like him ( as far as Republicans go )until I found out what a racist dirt bag he is. At this point, it seems that the only people still defending Ron Paul are the openly bigoted or the comically credulous.
Mainstream libertarians almost immediately began to distance themselves from Paul. Over at Reason, the flagship libertarian magazine, most writers have denounced him. Editor Emeritus Nick Gillespie wrote that "It is hugely disappointing that he produced a cache of such garbage" and said that Paul's (non)-response to the magazine’s queries about the newsletters is "unsatisfying on about a thousand different levels." Radley Balko writes that he "find[s] the prospect that Paul never read the newsletter implausible." Even Brian Doherty, who penned this month’s enthusiastic cover story on Paul, wrote that "his campaign's reaction to this has been politically disastrous and given the third-rail nature of accusations of racism, Ron Paul's campaign was likely fatally wounded." David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, goes beyond the widespread denunciation of the newsletter's content, and judges that Paul cannot be trusted to be president seeing that his defense has essentially been: "I didn’t know what my closest associates were doing over my signature, so give me responsibility for the federal government."
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EDUCATION
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Hopefully this trend will continue, it's sad that it has taken this long.
Urban Schools Aiming Higher Than Diploma
At Excel High School, in South Boston, teachers do not just prepare students academically for the SAT; they take them on practice walks to the building where the SAT will be given so they won’t get lost on the day of the test.
Post a Comment »In Chattanooga, Tenn., the schools have abolished their multitrack curriculum, which pointed only a fraction of students toward college. Every student is now on a college track.
And in the Washington suburb of Prince George’s County, Md., the school district is arranging college tours for students as early as seventh grade, and adding eight core Advanced Placement classes to every high school, including some schools that had none.
Those efforts, and others across the country, reflect a growing sense of urgency among educators that the primary goal of many large high schools serving low-income and urban populations — to move students toward graduation — is no longer enough. Now, educators say, even as they struggle to lift dismal high school graduation rates, they must also prepare the students for college, or some form of post-secondary school training, with the skills to succeed.
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ODDS AND ENDS
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D.C. seeks NH's help for voting rights
The mayor of Washington, D.C., and more than half its city council has asked the New Hampshire Legislature to pass a resolution urging passage of a voting rights bill for citizens in the nation's capital.
Mayor Adrian Fenty testified Wednesday for the measure related to a U.S. Senate vote in September that blocked consideration of a bill giving the district one member in the House of Representatives.
The federal bill fell three votes short of moving forward. It balanced off a likely new Democratic member of Congress by adding one representative for Utah, a largely Republican state.
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DIARIES OF NOTE
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Yes I am a fan What King Taught Me by Robinswing
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FIREWORKS, I don't agree with the author but this caused fireworks so... Obama & Clinton: Is Black Feminism destroying Black Families? by civilrights
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The race card, wet foot, dry foot, black foot by Wally in Miami
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One of my long time favorite diaristkenya's political history of turmoil by Scoutbanana
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Thank you TomP, this was beautiful! Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from the Birmingham Jail by TomP
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Ron Paul and the Rosa Parks Medal by Ron Lawl
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UPDATE I wanted to add this link it's a great read Who's Afraid for Obama? by snout