Libya has really brought a lot issues to the forefront lately. One of those is what is the definition of war. After skimming the blogosphere, one can from US point of view, say that war is anytime that tomahawk missles and some jets drop some bombs is an act of war.
In other words, war is any act of overt act of a government's military against another country.
With the approaching SOTU speech by Obama I know some may wish to focus on specific policies said or not said. But what I will find interesting to watch during this fundamentally pure political theater event is the theoritical framing which builds with his discourse.
The tragedy that unfolded today in Arizona is one of those events that both leaves one speechless and unleashes a torrent of words trying to make sense of it all. That it appears to have political motivation only intensifies the reactions.
At this point, I will say this: this tragedy is a reflection of us. There are those who are more culpable than others, but we collectively own this. This is us. The blood is on our hands. This is our society.
And so another Christmas has passed. The twenty-sixth of December. Just another day. Yet the New Year approaches. Time to look back on the year that was, make the lists and debate over the most memorable moments, the greatest achievements, the best movies, the worst commercials. A seemingly collective effort not to forget, to ensure some shared memory of what has actually passed, and which is now fading like a dream, is somehow captured, made permanent and enduring. A time, too, of looking forward, to ponder one’s resolution for the new year, the one thing not to drag along into the f
Christmas and the whole holiday season stretching back into my teens has not always been exactly my favorite time of the year. This is neither the time nor the place to go into all the reasons for this. I would say this has something to do with the fact that I am not religious, and spiritual only through a lifetime of struggle to rise above the militant atheism of my youth. I can remember one particular moment when this affliction born of a teen’s anger toward God began to finally melt.
As a lead up to my next blog which explains why I accept that I am defeatist liberal, I offer today’s blog by Charles Blow in the NY Times: Whose Party Is It? He begins:
The near-apoplectic level of agita within the liberal screeching class over President Obama’s tax-cut compromise has exposed a seismic crack in the Democratic monolith — outspoken liberal Democrats on one side and barely audible moderate Democrats on the other.
These days we see a lot of folks bringing up the class war, the working class folks versus the wealthy elite (corporate or otherwise) and their servants in D.C. And in attempting to show just how much Obama and his administration has sold out the working class, people will turn to FDR as example of someone who took on the powers to be and the kind of leader Obama should be. In a OrionXP's recent blog Effectively Skewering the Tea Party, SleepingJeezus makes such a point. I t
Just like about everybody else on this planet, I am at the very least thoroughly disgusted by Pastor Terry Jones and his followers. Now there seems to another in Tennessee who thinks burning Korans is an idea whose time has come. I have to remind myself that these whackjobs don’t represent our country, or even the region in which they live. Yet for every one that actually carries out or talks about carrying
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,