Things to Know - 23 September

9/23 Mike Luckovich cartoon: Two-state solution

1.  This is an interesting piece.  Not sure what to make of it.  The writer makes Joe Bageant seem like a Centrist (almost).  In any event, it is worth reading just to reveal that what you think is a "Leftist" attitude is trumped by something more extreme.  There are some scary postulations in this column, and it kind of makes you wonder.  Then, when you get to the bottom, you see that this guy is a professor at Hofstra University.  It is presented to you as something to keep your mind open to all kinds of perceptions, and maybe inspire us to get moving to prove him wrong on a few points:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print/38549/

2. More on "Class Warfare" by Richard Wolff:
http://www.truth-out.org/print/6684

3.  What the Rick Perry possibility means to the Canadians:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/13292c4927382769

4.  This thing on taxes and "class warfare" is going to be repeated every day, by different writers with different perspectives.  The Republicants have got themselves boxed in a marginalized corner that is going to very difficult, nay impossible, from which to mount a respectable defense.  Chiming in today is Paul Krugman, sniping from his Nobel Prize Laureate vantage point:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

5.  NY Editorial.  The Treasonist Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, has called Rick Perry's bluff.   I guess that shall shortly we will see the Texas Rangers riding to the nation's capitol to "treat him pretty ugly"...right?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/the-fed-defies-the-gop.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

6.  Timothy Egan, on the environment, dumb people saying harmful things, and looking for a real reason to be passionate enough to work hard enough to win an election:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/idiocy-and-advocacy/?pagemode=print

7.  I must admit, that I do not watch the so-called GOP presidential debates.  I take in a few reviews or second-hand observations.  I have more important things to do, like put out the trash, and check the evening sky for an impending 6-ton piece of junk landing on my head.  So, this piece is what I take away from the latest GOP cluster-kerfuffle:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/debate-wrap-up-or-rick-perry-is-really-bad-at-these-things-isnt-he/2011/09/22/gIQArsFLpK_blog.html?hpid=z2

8.  Last Saturday, I attended my old college alma mater's football game, an NCAA Division 3 affair of the SCIAC (Southern California Interscholastic Athletic Conference).  Let me assure you, that nothing has changed since I went there.  I was watching future teachers, medical professionals, lawyers, bankers, and maybe even a scientist or writer all suited up in football paraphernalia, playing an opposing team of about the same mixture.  I can assure you that there were no NFL scouts, recruiters, or any professional sports interests there.  It was just plain football.  The coaches are not making obscene millions of dollars to run a multi-million dollar program to bring in multi-million dollars from doting alumni. Just just two amateur athletic teams giving the participants a venue to participate in the good old small-college tradition of football.   This column by David Brooks, speaks to the other end of the spectrum where the learning institutions of the Division 1 and maybe some Division 2 athletic programs take advantage of all the money being thrown around - where the "student-athletes" could actually be called employees, but are really compensated under the table, and masquerade as amateurs.  Kids in those programs actually get an education (some times), but are trashed when they are no longer productive.....and perish the thought if they try to get Workers Comp when they get hurt.   Oh, by the way, back to my old Pomona College football game....Lewis and Clark (an Oregon school) beat Pomona - 49 to 38.  Well, there's always the next game to work to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/the-amateur-ideal.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212&pagewanted=print

9.  I hate to close out on a bummer, but I gotta get it out quickly, or some guy up in Albany has to re-arrange his day:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0923-tobar-20110923,0,1883275,print.column


--
Juan Matute

"When I told my doctor I couldn't afford an operation, he offered to touch-up my X-rays."
       -- Henny Youngman

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death."
       -- Joan D. Vinge

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work."
       -- Richard Bach

"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
       -- Benjamin Franklin

"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."
       -- John Stuart Mill