Austin Frakt asked how we can increase mobility during slumps. He flags a paper from Brookings with a solution that sounds an awful lot like Adam Ozimek's relocation vouchers:
The mobility bank could facilitate and speed up the moving process for some workers, increasing economic recovery in distressed areas. Ludwig and Raphael’s mobility bank would offer loans to individuals who want to look for employment in a new area or start work at a job already found. So as not to be burdensome for movers who found only lower-wage jobs, monthly loan repayments would depend on reemployment earnings. The mobility bank would be accompanied by increased use of national job banks that search more broadly for jobs to meet a given worker’s qualifications, illuminating the full set of options available to dislocated workers. With better opportunities available to them and a mobility bank from which they could draw loans, more workers may be encouraged to leave distressed communities. This could speed recovery in distressed areas by reducing the glut of unemployed labor and could have a positive effect on workers’ long-term earnings.
Obama’s summary doesn’t address how to mitigate the provocative effects of the war. Its assessment of the war in Afghanistan is cautious and vague — although, to be sure, this is just the unclassified version of a longer, secret report, so perhaps there’s more detail in the secret version. But the “frail and reversible” progress in Afghanistan — giving the Taliban a bloody nose in Kandahar, training Afghan soldiers and cops — is said to set the stage for starting to draw down NATO combat forces from 2011 to 2014. And that doesn’t mean an end to the war. The summary explicitly points to “NATO’s enduring commitment beyond 2014.” What effect that will have on future Faisal Shahzads goes unaddressed.
When Britain went into decline as the globe’s stabilizing power, America was right there, ready to pick up the role.
Alternatively, the British Empire was a force that destabilized many of its colonial possessions, and its relative decline among the European powers during the 20th Century coincided with two devastating world wars. Only after the latter ravaged Europe did the United States emerge as a clear superpower, and far from doing so alone, the Soviet Union rose too, dominating half of Europe.
Myths matter, of course. One will recall the gem from Tony Blair's speech to the Congress after 9/11, when he pointed out that America had always stood by Britain, even during the Blitz, and that Britain would always do the same. In fact, the US had not entered the war when Britain fought its core battle for national survival.
I thought I should share with you a screen capture of your posts. The first post is about dealing with “Racist relatives over the Holidays” followed by “Fa Ra Ra Ra.” Now I understand the latter post references the “classic” movie moment in The Christmas Story, but seeing the two posts back to back struck me. As a biracial Asian-American male that “classic” moment was my first realization of the long heard phrase “laughing AT you not WITH you.”
Growing up in suburban Virginia, every Christmas kids (even parents) would reference that moment as if I was part of the joke. The intent to relate to me through what I considered to be a racist cinematic punch line was most offensive. As a young man my response was that I wasn’t “fresh off the boat” or Mr Yunioshi (as portrayed by Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). I celebrated Christmas like most households, but in such exchanges I understood how I was perceived by many.
I’ve long struggled with Hollywood’s insistence to portray Asian-Americans’ inability to pronounce the English language as a form of humor. It is at the most base of our instincts to mock someone for being different especially one who is attempting to better your tragic Christmas evening. I know through societal taboos that Asian-Americans are supposed to turn the other cheek on such minuscule offenses, but in these modern times it’s increasingly frustrating.
The article you linked to contained a quotation that encapsulates my point. It includes a perception generations of Asian-Americans are attempting to dispel:
“Yes, the only people in the world whom it seems to me the Jews are not afraid of are the Chinese,” Alexander Portnoy tells us. “Because one, the way they speak English makes my father sound like Lord Chesterfield; two, the insides of their heads are just so much fried rice anyway; and three, to them we are not Jews but white and maybe even Anglo Saxon. No wonder they can’t intimidate us. To them we’re just some big-nosed variety of WASP.”
We are not simply fried rice and Fa Ra Ra Ra’s.
Agreed. But funny ways of speaking – with “funny” being totally determined by random race, class, society, country, period – are simply funny. Whether parodying upper-class twits, or stammers, or R and L jokes for Asians, or lisps for homos, it’s just human to laugh at weird cultural mismatches. I know my reader knows I mean no harm. And I do not mean to offend. But fun is not the same thing as offense. And they will remove the Dish’s non-p.c. silly humor quotient from my cold dead hands.
"Because watching any kind of physical intimacy between two men makes me extremely uncomfortable (you call it homophobia, I call it wiring), I’ve only seen “Brokeback” once but the final scene’s stayed with me ever since. Heath Ledger’s character alone in that house trailer with nothing but that shirt worn by Jake Gyllenhaal’s character to remember him by is emotionally devastating stuff. There’s nothing right or left about “Brokeback Mountain,” and I personally found it refreshing to see the rare Hollywood portrayal of homosexuals as something other than the easy stereotype of flamboyant Judy Garland fanatics," – John Nolte of Big Hollywood.
Ross refuses to dismiss Romney's chronic pandering:
I believe that Mitt Romney is a more serious person, and would probably be a better president, than his campaign style suggests. But issue by issue, policy by policy, that same campaign style makes it awfully hard to figure out where he would actually stand when the pandering stops and the governing begins.
There is nothing there there, I'm afraid. The record is definitive. Nothing but ambition.
I noticed a slightly desperate edge to Sean Hannity's eyes last night. Before the Tea Party quite realized what was going on, Obama forced them into an immediate decision on whether to back the GOP in Congress, following McConnell, or to start a civil war now. This was a lose-lose proposition for the tea brigade. This Hugh Hewitt monologue captures just how difficult a time the Republican Party is having as it tries to square its campaign rhetoric with, you know, governing:
The worst part of "the deal" is the damage it does to the Pledge to America. Speaker-designate Boehner's website prominently features the Pledge, and this Facebook page provides all the handy links to GOP rhetoric about it from September forward.
"The deal" violates five provisions of the Pledge, though hopefully one of those provisions –"Read the bill"– will be honored before the House votes on "the deal" this week. Representative Steve King of Iowa bluntly declared what everyone knows on last night's Sean Hannity program –he hasn't read the bill yet because there is no bill to read. Thus all the GOP members declaring for the bill have been abandoning the pledge for the sake of creating a sense of momentum around "the deal."
On yesterday's program Congressmen Dan Lungren and Tom McClintock, both fiscal conservatives, declared for "the deal." Both argue that it was the best this Congress could do. Many conservatives reject that argument, but it is obviously a legitimate position to hold. But the GOP leadership needs to get out and talk about the Pledge and why it needs to be abandoned for the moment but will guide the new Congress. ?
Good luck with that. They're a calm, reasonable lot, as we know, and abandoning their promises before they have even taken their seats is quite an achievement.
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