April 17, 2009
February 9, 2009
Obama, Elkhart, and the Economic Crisis
For some reason I feel compelled to write something. Not sure what exactly, but the fact that President Obama chose my hometown of Elkhart, IN as his venue of choice to talk about the economy, well, freaks me out a little. The stat I keep hearing is that Elkhart’s employment is among the worst in the nation, going from around 4 percent in Dec 07 to over 15 percent in Dec 08.
So Obama is using Elkhart as a geographic symbol of the economic pain being suffered around the country and no doubt, increasingly the globe. He campaigned there and now he is back to promote the stimulus bill in congress. Back to make good on his campaign promises. His speech sounded like a stump speech from the start, but then he broke it down to specifics:
1) extend unemployment benefits and health care, job training programs
2) tax relief for “middle class workers and families.” $1000 per families and 2500 for college expenses
3) create or save jobs (80,000 for indiana), 90 percent in the private sector. Jobs to rebuild infrastructure.
4) work toward energy independence. alt energy sources and efficiency programs.
5) rural broadband expansion.
Meanwhile, the democrats in the senate are “compromising” away with republicans on getting a version of the stimulus bill passed.
Obama said he recognizes that the bill that comes out won’t be perfect, but it needs to be passed asap. “Doing nothing is not an option.” And this bill is just the beginning, recovery will take years.
February 6, 2009
February 4, 2009
November 13, 2008
November 4, 2008
Obama Wins!
It’s hard to find the words to describe this right now. Amazing.
But this is only the start. We need to do our part, hold people accountable, and keep the faith.
For those who kept asking: Who is the real Obama?
Well, I think a better question is not “who is the real Obama,” but instead, who is the real citizenry of the United States and what are their biggest priorities? I doubt Obama could have ever been elected twenty years ago, but America today is different place. I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but it’s not like he beat McCain by a narrow margin; voters made a decisive choice. So I am asking, who exactly is the “real” America? Maybe the “center” is shifting to the “left.” No doubt we still have a fair amount of our xenophobic “I won’t vote for no Muslim” jackasses, but they either are not the majority or they didn’t vote.
But frankly I am tired of the rigid notion of liberals versus conservatives. From my perspective, the real problem is the mounting social inequality that results from governmental acquiescence (or blatant subservience) to elite corporate interests. And we see this from liberals and conservatives alike. This inequality is what people are against. If you want to call that “liberal,” that’s fine, but if that’s the case then there are a lot more liberals out there than you’d like to think. Obama holds out the promise to not only move beyond left/right, but more importantly to even the playing field for millions of people who are frustrated by a political economic system that simply isn’t working in their best interests. And I hope he can make some steps to do it, but it is all of our jobs to hold him to these tasks in the face of what will be immense resistance from the entrenched power holders.
All I know is that it feels damn good to finally be from a blue state! Maybe those doors I knocked on even made a difference. What a concept.
October 17, 2008
October 14, 2008
Unemployment hits home
This is my hometown.
From the New York Times:
Elkhart, near the Michigan border in an area known as Michiana, is the white-hot center of the meltdown of the American economy. Its main industries, the manufacturing of recreational vehicles and motor homes, have fallen apart over the last year because of high gasoline prices. That has taken down ancillary businesses like R.V. parts suppliers and storage warehouses.
The jobless rate in Elkhart has increased more than in any metropolitan area in the country; it rose over 4.8 percentage points from August 2007 to August 2008. According to labor statistics released this summer, nearly 10,000 people were out of work, a rate of 9.3 percent.
September 5, 2008
Giving the iPhone to students…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/technology/21iphone.html
At least four institutions — the University of Maryland, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardeman — have announced that they will give the devices to some or all of their students this fall.
August 20, 2008
Digital image alteration, revisionist history
In the NYT: I was there. Just ask Photoshop. Williams, Alex. Aug 17, 2008.
As image-editing software grows in sophistication and ubiquity, alterations go far beyond removing red-eye and whitening teeth. They include substituting head shots to achieve the best combination of smiles, deleting problematic personalities or adding family members who were unable to attend important events, performing virtual liposuction or hair restoration, even reanimating the dead. Revisionist history, it seems, can be practiced by just about anyone.
This article could be paired with the previous post to illustrate two opposing affordances of digital tech (esp. at the consumer level). The previous post deals with challenging official narratives, where this story involves altering (photoshopping) our own histories.
[[[Could be used in 391 for Nov 19, visual culture
Here is a related story, also from NYT: Photography as a weapon. Morris, E. Aug 11, 2008.
August 13, 2008
Digital tech as challenging official narratives of public events?
Thought-provoking story from the NYT: When Official Truth Collides With Cheap Digital Technology. Dwyer, J. July 30, 2008
The availability of cheap digital technology — video cameras, digital cameras, cellphone cameras — has ended a monopoly on the history of public gatherings that was limited to the official narratives, like the sworn documents created by police officers and prosecutors. The digital age has brought in free-range history.
[[[Could possibly use this for 391 on Oct 15, new media, new journalism.
June 11, 2008
Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil
Blind adherence to “free market” principles continue to muck up our political system.
Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil
WASHINGTON – Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won’t do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.
…
The bill’s supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their “windfall” to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.
In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats’ bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.
We are overly dependent on oil, especially foreign oil. Prices are skyrocketing yet oil companies are making RECORD profits. This can only mean that they are passing all of the excess costs to consumers, who now pay $4 a gallon at the pump. As large multinational corporations with huge Washington lobbies, the oil companies can, without penalty, defer the added costs of oil to the unorganized, apparently under-represented consumers and still make billions. This bill would have taxed these gross excesses of profit (at the public’s expense) and forced Big Oil to either redistribute some of their ill-gotten wealth or even better, skip the taxes by way of investment in alternative energy, which we desperately need. Instead, republicans killed the bill.
But it gets even better:
Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation.
What the hell is going on? This is a text book example of how unrestrained capitalism creates inequality. The republican congresspeople clearly feel no accountability to a majority of their constituents, i.e. average people who can’t afford lobbies. They need to be held accountable at the polls. This is so damn frustrating.
Bad News: I’m a fascist
Woo hoo! That unbelievable moron Bill O Reilly called me a “lunatic,” a “fascist,” and “anti-American.” Does this mean I have now arrived as a progressive?
I just got back from the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis – an amazing event. Paraphrasing McChesney and Nichols, “media reform” describes the broad goals of a movement that holds that consolidated ownership of broadcast and cable media, chain ownership of newspapers, and telephone and cable-company colonization of the Internet are bad for our culture and for democracy.
Apparently this is “lunacy” and “far left” to O Reilly, which shows that he is is a total jackass, and more importantly, that he is completely out of touch with the actual “center” of American politics. The only people who believe that big media are beneficial to the public are the people who own them and their sock puppets like O Reilly. Word.
