Yea hospice!

My daughters dance group is performing at the Hospice and these are the words of a 6 year old in the group when told the news of their upcoming performance. The exact quote - "Yea Hospice!!!! My grandmother lived their before she died!" She was very excited about the upcoming performance.

One more reason to move to the burbs

I just stumbled upon a report about a "plan" to remodel West High. I just found out that the Madison school district, which is cutting jobs and programs each year due to rising operations costs and shrinking resources, needs a mere $46 million to remodel West High. I am sure by the time my kids get there it will be in even better shape.
This seems part of a larger problem in that the city residents need to pay for the cost of decaying infrastructure that suburban companies and residents can just toss out like an old TV.

The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom

I have not watched the show but Newsweek has a great article about how this new show has added some fuel to the mommy war fire.

Basic idea - stay at home moms get a chance to do old job or new job for a week to see how they like getting back to work.

Part of the point of the article is that the show got many people all pissed off and felt that the idea that the mom would be happy to get out of the house was terrible. This article makes you think and I think there are some big differences in the way people think about working and kids.

One minor point is that the article does something which is somewhat irrisponsible in that it takes a few argry comments on line about the show and says there is a mommy war. If there is some piece of media, a tv show and 50,000 people watch it and 50 write angry letters and a few put angry posts on blogs about it does that mean there is a firestorm of controversy. The article actually cuts comments from the online comments about the show and includes them in the article. There are angry online comments about everything these days and this type of article more than the show itself really fuels the war.

How many stay at home moms really would like to get back to work but don't for various reasons?

How many working parents wish they could switch to a more interesting job?

Interesting quote from the article
it describes "stereophonic guilt" some parents feel "the kind where you feel bad for leaving work and for getting home late"

Amazon's Marketing Toys with Psyche

Amazon being the smart online retailer has a practice of sending out helpful email to people who bought stuff telling them about other related products you can buy. While this may seem innocent, seeing these reminders or your past may not be the best idea depending on your past buys.

Isn’t nice that Amazon selected for me ‘The Defiant Child: A Parent's Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder’, I guess they just thought I would love to read it. It is always good to be reminded about this stuff when I am sitting at work.

Click on the link and I can seem more about what my friend Mr. Amazon thinks I'd like to buy. Other recommendations just for me:
- DVD Young Frankenstein
- GoFit Push Up bars
- Dan Zanes Sea Change CD

A well rounded life is key.

Fuzzy math - Why Clinton would Win the Electoral College ???

Evan Bayh is an idiot and making a nonsensical argument about why super-delegates should vote for Clinton. I think the over all point is somewhat right in that both Clinton and Obama should try to make a public case to super delegates as to why they are the most electable but this one doesn't make any sense. Evan Bayh is saying that Clinton is more electable because she won states with more electoral college votes.

“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

This make no sense to look at who won which state's primaries and conclude that that person would win or loose the general election match up vs McCain. A proper analysis would be to look at the swing states only and try to get a sense given the primary results and other information who would likely win.

Think about Senator Bayh's logic. Clinton won TX but that will go for McCain. Clinton won NY but Obama or Clinton would win NY in the general. There may be something to Clinton winning Ohio and maybe she would fair better there than Obama but Obama would do better in the tight state's of MN, WI, and NM (now with Richardson).

I hope that the public or the media realizes this makes no sense.

no blog for a while

I will probably not be on this for a while because I will be on vacation, hopefully I will not run into any of these in the back yard......

I am not sure the Obama's Hyde Park casa has room for such an event

I have watched a few of McCain's daughter's lame videos on YouTube and most are pretty boring stuff. This one teaches us a bit:
1. McCain has a very nice vacation home in Sedona, AZ with lots of room for parties.
2. His daughter likes Taco Bell
3. McCain likes to BBQ ribs
4. McCain is working hard to butter up the media so it will be harder for them to criticize the guy who cooked them up some grub at the ranch.



I am intrigued about the whole thing because while it is hip and youth orientated, I am not sure it will really attract anyone to McCain because she really says nothing about her dad's qualifications or policies. Nothing about the democrats, nothing at all. I think the point is to give the impression that McCain is a nice normal dad/ person and that his daughter is a nice normal cute girl. But it is so fake or she is really a bimbo because what kind of person in her shoes would have no intelligent thoughts or ideas related to the campaign she is covering - in some ways she sounds like she is 12.

nice cake

Americans Like to Comment

I read this NY Times piece about the spat about the Ferraro comments. When I read the piece it said there were 8 comments about the piece. Just for kicks I wrote a comment (see below) and the submitted it. I looked back later to see if it was there expecting to see it in the 9, 10, 11 slot. Then I searched and saw it pop up as comment number 88. Wow!

I am not sure how much or how they screen the comments and that may have something to do with it. I am sure they don't want unrelated junk up there and that would be a big job to go through all those comments. Does it matter who is first or what order the put comments? Who could read all these comments? Now the article has 363 comments. Sometimes I find comments interesting and they are core to blogs and the net but it is overwhelming. Another top article has over 500 comments. When do they cut it off? and why do some articles allow comments and other do not?

Since I don't get many readers to this blog I figured I'd include my blog address half expecting the NYTimes to not post my comment or take out the website but it is included. I am adverstizing this brillinant blog on the NY Times for free. hmmmmm....

What do I think about Ferraro's comments:

Ferraro is honest and calls is like she sees it. She is right in that there is sexism against Clinton and the media has, to some extent, gotten swept up in the Obama excitment. She is even right that to some extent his race has helped him get support from some people however it is not fair to say “He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.” Racism is real is part of why he is not winning more voters and will be a major challange for the general election. Also, her attitude accepting partisianship as the status quo is exactly why people don’t like Clinton.

You'd Think Eliot Would Have Known How to Cover His Tracks

I was surprised to find out how they came to find out about Eliot Spitzer's hobby. He has built a nationally known career on busting up fraud and corruption especially things involving money. As it turns out, they way they found him was that large amounts of his money was being transferred into funny accounts which raised concerns at the IRS.

According to the NY Times piece banks reported that money from the Governor's account:

ended up in the bank accounts of what appeared to be shell companies, corporations that essentially had no real business.

The transactions, officials said, suggested possible financial crimes — maybe bribery, political corruption, or something inappropriate involving campaign finance. Prostitution, they said, was the furthest thing from the minds of the investigators.

Soon, the I.R.S. agents, from the agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, were working with F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors from Manhattan who specialize in political corruption.

You would have thought that he would understand that this money would be noticed and investigated. I guess given the prices that place charged he could eaisly pay in cash but this seems stupid. Also, from what I can tell it doesn't sound like a one time thing. It mentions "transactions" which make me wonder how often he used these services.

I am curious if he resigns or not. Even if he is charged for the basic crime, I am not sure he really needs to resign and could weather the storm but if this is more, if he used state money, if he used state police or anything like that, then it would seem he would need to resign. I am not sure if the finanical games are a crime.
This is a blow to the democratic party. He was a strong leader and a very smart, effective person working for justice.

SNL Throws Wet Blanket on Obama

Why has SNL ran skits with a negative view of Obama three weeks in a row. Check out the latest. Of course they are supposed to be funny but they exploit the vulnerabilities that the Clintons are trying to make a case for and ignore Clinton’s serious electability issues. This skit actually introduced a new attack, he used to be a smoker, which I think will turn off some people.

Interesting discussion about the SNL skit this weekend on Althouse. She had a good point that:

“the ad really does push us to think that Hillary Clinton has a lot of experience and Barack Obama is a neophyte. The fact that we know it's an exaggeration doesn't prevent it from stimulating our anxieties about the underlying truths.”

While I am not going to say there is a conspiracy theory but it seems not to be very balanced given the number of ways they could make fun of Hillary. While politics can be funny, the issues in this election are not that funny. I am excited about Obama and I don't think them squashing that enthusiasm is funny. Not that SNL is that important in our country but I wonder whether the writers thought for a second about how they may be tipping the country in the wrong direction.

The public needs a reminder about all the skeletons in Clinton's closet

Can Obama run against Clinton without playing dirty? I think many democrats have forgotten or do not understand all the mud that will be thrown at Clinton if she gets the nomination. She is talking to the public about the vulnerabilities of Obama and makes the public think that he may have trouble fighting back. The public has to weigh those skeletons in his closet against the 100s of skeleton in her closet. He is taking the high road and doesn't want to dig up that dirt but someone has to.
PS
I don't think that all the scandels of the past are all that will come up for Hillary....see my post about a Newsweek story which raised the question about Bill's post presidental financial deals

I really don't want this Democratic primary to go on

I am sure I am not alone in thinking that I am very tired of this Obama/ Clinton race. I do not see how this will easily get resolved. She would need to win PA and the remaining states by a lot to win.

a couple of observations-
- The Clinton camp attacked Obama every way they could think of on a daily basis. Much of the attacks were really agressive dirty politics. Obama took the high road and has not attacked Hillary in such a way.

- While I can't prove this, I think that part of why Hillary won TX and OH is because of the racist democrats. I piece by Katie Couric on the evening news last night asked older white blue collar works whether they would support a woman and I got the feeling that they were not confortable having a black man be president. I tried to find any surveys of which states have the most racist people but could not find any. My sense is that both of these states have a lot of older white folks with latent racist feelings.

- I am sure that both Obama and Clinton are totally exhausted. I wish we could give them a two week break.

Could I Prove that I am Jewish?

Very interesting NY Times Magazine article about the serious scrutiny that the Israeli rabbinical court gives to people who want to get married questioning whether they are really Jewish.

Cheesehead connection - On page one, the family described in the article moved from Kiev to.....Wausau, WI.

The article makes me feel bad that I do not have a very solid history of my family, the who, what and where of my family tree does go very far back and has a lot of holes. Doing a search like this for me would not be easy.

You may of course say, who cares, I do not plan to move to Israel but this is somewhat disturbing as we move further and further away from the first generation of people who migrated to the US. It will become harder for anyone to prove they are Jewish. If a child of a reform family for 3-4 generations decides to move to Israel today, could Seth Farber even help them.

Today the US is a place where most Jews are well off and successful. In the future, who knows, the economy could take a major dive and our peace and security is not certainly. Israel on the other hand does not seem to be an appealing place for most these days but who knows 20, 40 or 100 years from now.

It seems from the article that this harsh standard applies to marriage but what about the general right of return. What if they applied such a standard to entry into the country.

It almost would seem that all American Jews should as sort of a due diligence insurance policy - do this research now and keep it in a safe place so that if their family members ever felt a need to move to the holy land they would have their documents lined up. I bet a company would make good money offing this service and agreeing to keep and document the information for people with no real reason to do the research.