Category: The Dish

The Darker Continent

Another big non-surprise: Africa has close to zero Internet culture, as a new UN report chronicles. Money quote:

"For most people even making a telephone call is still a remote possibility in an era when most of the world is now communicating almost instantly across cities, regions and the globe using wireless and satellite technologies to send high-speed electronic messages."

Just don’t tell James Watson, okay?

Edwards Targets Clinton

I’d say that one deep reason for Hillary Clinton’s slight slide in Iowa is the passion of John Edwards’ rehtoric against her. Marc accurately sums up the message:

Hillary Clinton is too emeshed in the corrupt culture of Washington to fix things and to take on the entrenched interests that need taking on. He — Edwards — is unafraid.

The truth is that Edwards has been making that case much more cleanly than any of his opponents, whether or not they began to make it first. It’s a different case than Barack Obama’s — he argues that Clinton is too polarizing to get the job done — Edwards takes the charge further: it’s Clinton herself who is part of the system that needs reforming, that it’s the Clinton legacy that has consigned the Democratic Party to second-tier status.

If Obama wins Iowa, it will be because of Edwards’ rhetoric and his own organization. And if Edwards falls below 15 percent in some caucuses, his supporters will surely not put Clinton second.

The Sacred Cow Of Social Security

Amity Shlaes does us all a favor by reminding us of the actual purpose of social security: in FDR’s words, to provide "some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family." That’s it. Not total security. Not a total guarantee that the gold-plated benefits of the late-century will keep growing and growing. And not a peg to wages rather than prices, linking retirees to current wage-earners rather than actual needs. I agree with Amy that the obvious, simplest reform to keep social security solvent is to remove the peg to wages, and  keep it indexed solely to price inflation. She rightly points out the trade-off:

The peg adjustment would make Social Security a smaller part of Americans’ retirement package a few decades from now. It would also erase at least two-thirds of the shortfall.

But how many of us in our thirties or forties expect social security to be as it once was when we retire? I’d rather settle for a lower sum because we planned for it than because we let the system collapse into insolvency.

A Stealth Attack On The HIV-Positive?

The late introduction of a new policy further burdening travelers to the US with HIV has caught many AIDS organizations off-guard. The new visa waiver – promised as "streamlined" – is anything but. Worse:

The 30-day deadline for public comment imposed by DHS means a cut-off date of December 6 for reactions to the new regs, leaving little time for the AIDS advocacy community to mobilize. That, Ordover told Gay City News, is a departure from standard practice for proposed new federal regulations; the time frame for public reaction isusually much longer, she said.

No other democratic country bars people with HIV from even entering their borders; no other democratic country uses HIV as a bar to becoming a permanent resident or citizen; no other democratic country treats HIV as if it were malaria. The US does solely because of a Jesse Helms conniption decades ago now, when knowledge of HIV was minuscule compared to today and subject to massive hysteria. Instead of burdening people with HIV with even more stigma, hostility and fear, the Bush administration should surely adjust its travel and immigration policies to reflect the rest of its AIDS policy: humane, destigmatizing and rational. I’m baffled why they – and the Democrats, for that matter, cannot seem to end this draconian anachronism. Increasingly, it’s an international embarrassment. If China can end its ban to avoid global embarrassment during the Olympics, why cannot America? Is America really more backward than China on treating those with HIV? Here’s a small measure that the Bush administration could get through Congress that would add to the kudos they deserve on tackling the global stigma of HIV.