March to a Different Drummer

Not long ago in history, and in some parts of the world even today, being left-handed was seen as a curse. Despite the best science and medicine today that overwhelming tells us that being left handed is not a moral choice but is a state of being, there exists some level of prejudice, bias, and discrimination against the left-handed among us. In America, generally those born left-handed are not insisted to change their handedness to right-handedness, although that was the case just a few decades ago. Parents and teachers would routinely coerce the left-handed to adopt the majority handedness. We don’t persecute or torture the left handed as happened in earlier generations although in Muslim cultures being left handed can be quite a disadvantage as religion requires food to be eaten only with the right hand – the left being used for personal hygiene. What does this have to do with a left-handed president? NBC news tonight reported that four of the last six presidents were left-hand...

Recent House Votes Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act - Vote Passed (355-59, 20 Not Voting) The House passed this bill to cancel a scheduled 10 percent Medicare reimbursement cut to physicians. Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act - Vote Failed (276-146, 13 Not Voting) The House fell short of the two-thirds margin necessary to pass this bill, which would have expanded the Federal Trade Commission’s powers to combat price manipulation. Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008 - Vote Passed (233-189, 12 Not Voting) The House voted to “patch” the alternative minimum tax. Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act - Vote Passed (322-98, 14 Not Voting) The House approved $1.7 billion in grants to mass transit authorities. Rep. Eric Cantor voted NO ====================== There is an alternative to those who seem to have a higher loyalty to their party than to the district they represent,...

The current 24/7 news cycle this week latched onto several clips from sermons from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the pastor to presidential candidate Barack Obama for some 20 years. Most have now seen these clips of the minister’s theatrical and hyperbolic style. And it would be to walk among mine fields to attempt to defend the several sound bites that the networks have chosen out of the many sermons the minister’s church apparently makes available on video. Wright’s statements in these clips have been almost universally characterized as incendiary, outrageous, and anti-American. It may not be possible now, in this poisoned atmosphere, to view these in context, but I challenge you to do that. I challenge you to imagine you are in the congregation during these sermons and I challenge you to abstract yourself from the current controversy and honestly ask yourself if you had been there, would you, without the coaching of TV and radio’s talking heads, have the same opinion of this minister....

For the first six years of the Bush administration all three branches of government were under tight Republican control. It was no secret over those years that a housing bubble was growing. Speculation was rampant. Housing developments were carving a new landscape. Whole TV channels were being devoted to how to make fast money by flipping real estate. And TV commercials were full of enticements to buy and refinance at suspiciously low rates with lots and lots of small print. Where were the regulators of this industry? The mortgage bank regulators? The federal and state financial institution regulators? Were they all asleep? Bear Sterns demise over the weekend may be just one domino. And though I have little sympathy for the Bear Stearns execs and the threat to their multi million dollar salaries and loss of millions of their equity, what about all the middle class Americans who were lured into this market bubble and are now threatened with loss of home and hearth? When the D...

Beginning before the January 3rd Iowa primary, there was a heady storm of general interest in November’s upcoming presidential election. Eight more primary election dates would build this crescendo of public attention before the Chesapeake primary on 12 February that included Virginia. Election Commissions and Registrars across the Old Dominion were gearing up for what was to be a very high turn out primary. But somehow this preplanning was far insufficient for one Virginia County – Chesterfield County. Early on the morning of 12 February red flags were going up in the county about long lines and long waits to vote at several insufficiently staffed precincts. And as the day progressed problems compounded to the point that disgusted voters walked away from lines that circled around polling sites. And then even worse -- precincts began running out of ballots. As the polls closed almost 300 votes had been placed on scraps of paper, countless voters had walked away from the long line...

Virginia is perennially considered a red state by TV’s talking heads and the print world’s political pundits. Virginia is considered a conservative bastion and the home of fundamentalist Christians as shown by being custodian of the two holy places of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club and the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Last Tuesday’s primary would expect these authoritarian Virginians to march lock step to the polls and vote solidly Republican – but they didn’t. Where the voter had the option to choose a Republican or a Democratic ballot, only 34% chose a Republican ballot as opposed to 66% who chose a Democratic ballot. And in my county of Chesterfield, which has been a bastion of Republican ole boy politics up until the last board of supervisor’s election, the breakdown was 38% choosing the Republican ballot and 62% choosing the Democratic ballot. Virginians were going Democratic versus Republican – two to one! This is a seismic shift, a pole reversal, an underreported story t...

The following is a response to blogger Paul Hammond's posting on Barack Obama's position on marijuana. ----------------------------------------------------- America’s criminal justice system has over the past few decades evolved into a criminal justice industry where vested interests and corporate interests have propelled our country into the largest prison in the world, and the largest prison population in the world. And it is not just the two million who languish in cells; it is the millions more affected as families and communities are disrupted. It is not just the millions incarcerated; it is the consequences of the world’s greatest crime university that takes in young men who committed small crimes and turns out hardened criminals and recidivists. It is not just the millions who sit imprisoned, but the fact that one in three adult black men in America are felons or ex felons – deprived forever of not just their suffrage, but disadvantaged regarding housing, employment ...