The Florida Vote

A reader writes:

I am getting a little sick of the meme that the “Republican Legislature” in Florida forced the early primary date down the throats of the Democrats.  This argument that the Dems had no say in this, and were just innocent victims, flies in the face of the facts.  The bill to move the Florida Primary earlier in the calendar was passed by a vote of 118-0 in the House and 37-2 in the Senate.  The Florida Dems were a willing party to this violation of DNC rules.

Florida’s Dems now want a June 3  mail-in ballot.

Face Of The Day

Azizipaulabronsteingetty

Afghan track star Massoud Azizi, 20, runs along a dirt trail on a hill overlooking the country’s capital on March 6, 2008 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Azizi, who participated in the 2004 Olympics, is one of three Afghan athletes confirmed for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Aziz says he is faster and stronger now in the 100 metre and 200 metre sprints. His brother is also a former Olympic runner who now lives in California. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images.

Dissing Astrology Ctd.

A reader writes:

I have a problem with your reader’s comment.  Astrology, as developed by the Babylonians and as practiced in the ancient and modern worlds, does NOT consider itself an irrational belief system. If you would like a nice summary of it from a rationalist point of view, I would suggest an essay of the late Isaac Asimov: "The Stars in Their Courses."  It’s in an essay collection with the same title.

So your reader’s argument is just plain WRONG.  Astrology argues that from the positions of the planets in the constellations and the date of one’s birth etc. valid predictions can be made about future events.  To equate it with religious beliefs is nonsense.  Every religion I know anything about always admits that at bottom that it is based on faith.  Astrology did not start out that way and does not make that assertion.  I will agree with your reader that astrology IS irrational.

Ending The Victim Spiral

1207cover

The Ferraro flap has left me feeling queasy. Not just because racial polarization is always an ugly thing; not just because the condescension toward a minority is cringe-inducing; not just because these cycles of blame and counter-blame can go on and on and wound more and more … but because it is inherently corrosive of a multicultural polity, and will, in the long run, benefit no one but those who cannot appeal to the public beyond crass interest group grievance.

The one indisputably positive aspect of the Obama candidacy – to left or right – has been his remarkable ability to make a case for his nomination without relying on this kind of identity politics and victim-mongering. That he doesn’t shrink from minority status and pretend that his blackness doesn’t matter is not the same thing. His ability to both represent a black man and yet represent a figure beyond a black man is the core of the historic salience of his candidacy. It’s why a gay man living in many different worlds feels that Obama can and will move all of us forward. It is why so many with complex identities and revulsion for racial or gender groupthink have been given new hope this time around. It shows that he has actually moved beyond the kind of thinking that lay behind Ferraro’s original nomination and the toxic politics of the 1970s left.

I hope this stuff ends soon – and that the Obama camp does not degenerate into constantly being offended, however justified the offense is. Better to remind ourselves of the positive aspects that Obama has allowed for and that his enemies are trying to cloud and pollute. Here’s one from almost a year ago that is worth remembering again today:

My favorite moment was a very simple one. [Obama] referred to the anniversary of the March on Selma, how he went and how he came back and someone (I don’t remember who now) said to him:

"That was a great celebration of African-American history."

To which Obama said he replied:

"No, no, no, no, no. That was not a great celebration of African-American history. That was a celebration of American history."

Yes.

When this election is fought on their terms – on grievance and resentment and identity victim-mongering – the bad guys win. We mustn’t let them take this moment away from us.

Obama On Abortion

I had forgotten this speech when I posted this. Here’s the relevant section:

A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School . . .

[T]he reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose." The doctor went on to write:

"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice…and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason…Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded….You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others…I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."

Fair-minded words.

So I looked at my website and found the offending words.  In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.

Re-reading the doctor’s letter, though, I felt a pang of shame.

It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own – a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.

And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It’s a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It’s a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come. Thank you.

Attention Rick Klein

Ahem:

[Obama’s] victory in Saturday’s Wyoming caucus, coupled with another win in Mississippi, mean he’s on track to reclaim most or all of the delegates he lost with Clinton’s resounding victories in the far larger states of Ohio and Texas last week.

Clinton narrowly lost the Texas primary/caucus when you count delegates; her popular vote victory (not counting the caucuses) was by three points.