It Means.... I Should Live in Seattle?

A couple people have told me I seem like a Seattle person. By that, I was told, they meant that I did not come across as relaxed enough to be a California girl. On the other hand, they said, I wasn't ... east coasty? enough to be from the east coast. Hence, I seemed like a Seattle person.

When I listen to rainbow man, I think back to that conclusion because his crazed wonderment reminds me of how much I hated SF's uber-hippies. On the other hand... it kind of sucks that no one in DC could probably relish over a rainbow with me like that. I mean, who doesn't like rainbows? And a FULL DOUBLE rainbow at that.

I'd like to be sitting on a mountaintop soaking in the glow of a double rainbow right now.

Jugular

Once, during a hurricane, our mom warned my sisters and me to stay aware from windows, or risk being sliced in the jugular.

SHE WAS RIGHT.

Leadership

It's about the movement, not the leader.

$5 to Your Name, and a New Dog Park

In 2010, just how closely are race and class intertwined? Are young minorities as upwardly mobile as young whites? When a neighborhood gentrifies, is it a given it's whiter? By how much?

I've always had the impression that D.C. could be a unique case, given that an ambitious young person -- from any background -- probably, in this economy, has more opportunities for success here than anywhere else. That's why, while reading this Washington Post article this morning, I doubled back at this quote that smoothly equates race with class (The article is about whether Mayor Adrian Fenty favors whiter D.C. wards over blacker -- and poorer -- wards):

Ronald Walters, an expert in urban politics and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland at College Park, said that as the city's population has changed, the mayor has pursued policies that place a premium on certain projects -- dog parks and recreation centers -- that reflect what more-recent residents want but may not be as important to residents of wards with high unemployment or lack of easy access to city services.

"In D.C., you have gentrification, the return of the white population . . . to the point that it has become the effective electorate," said Walters, who points to the city's plan to invest in a $1.5 billion streetcar system as part of a massive gentrification effort. "Look at that kind of investment and the fact that Washington, D.C., has one of the highest poverty rates."

In truth, the correlation between race and wealth remains higher than I ever would have imagined, given the diversity I see in my everyday life. According to the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in Oakland, Calif., the median net worth of a white American woman aged 36 to 49 is $42,600. The median net worth of a nonwhite American woman of that age: $5.

$5.

That's stunning to me.

There are ambitious young minorities in D.C. who can hopefully bring down the disparity, and eventually help raise up entire minority communities. In the meantime, what about the rest of D.C.? I wonder how strongly race and economic status are correlated in the city as a whole. Probably much more so than a Northwest dweller is aware of  :(

Giving up privacy for gun control

In the span of little over half a year, hundreds of thousands of names have been added to a federal database used to screen potential gun-buyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said this afternoon. Since the shootings at Virginia Tech in August, the number of names in the database has doubled to almost 400,000, Mukasey said at a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

No one can dispute that screening people attempting to purchase weapons is necessary-- even the NRA approves of the database. Yet collecting names of the mentally ill for a national database seems like an unsettling topic for the new attorney general to address in his first policy speech since replacing Alberto Gonzales, who resigned from the Justice Department under the shame of having approved warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. The names are only collected from courts and other authoritative bodies-- not from private mental health records from hospitals or insurance companies. Still, the possibility for abuse of the list is scary to think about, especially given the Justice Department's current reputation.

Perhaps some freedoms have to be ceded in the name of safety; Rudy Giuliani argued as much during last night's debate when asked about the strict gun laws he enforced as mayor of New York. "I enforced all laws very aggressively, and that's the reason we reduced shootings by 74 percent," Giuliani said in last night's debate. "And we went from being one of the most dangerous cities in the country to being one of the safest." While it's true that the city changed dramatically while he was mayor, it's also true that Giuliani was notorious for using draconian measures to get things done. Such measures are sometimes tolerable, but they are more questionable when they make vulnerable a group of people who are already targets of discrimination. People suffering from mental disease don't need the extra burden of having public figures like an NRA spokesman calling them "mentally defective" to the AP.

But as long as the database is used appropriately, it should be a huge benefit for the country; the news of its growth should have been great. Instead, it only feels like a reminder of how much the Justice Department has to earn back our trust.

DCCC shoots itself in the foot

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee initiated a new web-based fundraising campaign this week, pinning rising gas and energy prices on republicans. Sure, no one likes rising gas prices, but the Democratic party is practically asking to be punished with this move. Predictably, the Republican party has already thrown the issue right back in their face.

"When Republicans had the chance to protect us from high gas prices, they instead chose to oppose punishing price gougers," the DCCC claims. Actually, given that the Democrats were in power at this point, they were kind of the ones who had the chance. Not sure how they missed that. The NRCC certainly didn't, and promptly used the opportunity to point out that the democratic majority has failed to fulfill its promises. They then stepped it up a notch and named every democrat in Congress who's taking money from oil companies. Whoops!

Even if republicans had been responsible for the lack of reform in oil or energy in general, it seems rather foolish to set up the expectation that democrats could do better when there are certain factors involved in oil prices that are simply out of anyone's control. It's sort of like saying Bush was responsible for Hurricane Katrina because he didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol... sort of. In any event, while there is certainly politics involved in oil prices, there's no denying that worldwide growth is constantly increasing the demand for oil while our supply continues to shrink. Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC country able to expand its output, oil analysts say, but the oil left in its reserves is of a lower quality.

Really guys? Is this really what you want to hit the republicans on?

Incidentally, the lackluster energy bill that would increase fuel efficiency standards for cars is slowly trudging its way through Congress, no thanks to Democrat John Dingell of Michigan.

Kucinich debates himself

While the Republican presidential candidates spent last night in Florida debating their interpretations of the Bible, not to mention the status of those people with "funny accents" who "look different" that happened to be working on Mitt Romney's lawn, Dennis Kucinich attracted a meager audience in person and online at a townhall session in New Hampshire, where he spoke about health care and relations with Iran. It could have been fun to see Ron Paul alongside the anti-war democrat in New Hampshire instead of the republican debate; seeing the two share their polar opposite views with each other (outside of the war, of course), could have been an interesting experiment in seeing how those outside of centrist positions could actually sell their ideas to skeptics. As it were, Ron Paul instead got sucked into the trap last night of trying to appeal to the values of the audience, even if they didn't quite match his own. The usually strictly libertarian congressman stooped to criticizing our relations that extend south of the border with crazy-talk of a North American Union, but he later went on to declare himself all for trade and internationalism. He wasn't the only one to fall in the trap of hypocrisy, though. Fred Thompson tried to make himself out to be the economic conservative but later stumbled and stalled when asked which federal bureaucracies he'd trim down first. Romney contradicted himself just about every time he opened his mouth. Giuliani, McCain and Huckabee seemed to keep to their principals and consequently, were able to put forth more substantive ideas about what kind of presidents they would be. Unfortunately, Tom Tancredo stuck to his principals, too, and even got everyone else to adopt them. "All I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo," he gleefully observed at one point. I'm glad Dennis was vocal last night about the issues missed at the debate, even if not many were listening.

For tonight's debate: the war is not a Yes or No question

When the main candidates for the republican nomination get up on stage in Florida tonight for the CNN/YouTube debate, there will only be one person standing who supports a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. And that man, though he earns the approval of a group including everyone from pastors to pimps, will-- let's be honest-- not win the nomination. The rest, for reasons more or less legitimate, are arguing to keep troops active there to some degree for some time. That's all well and good, but let's remember what made this war a debacle in the first place: no consideration for consequences.

I am open to the idea that leaving troops in Iraq could be the best thing to do at this point. But if anyone in the current crop of presidential candidates, republican or otherwise, wants to earn even a degree of my respect, they had better articulate what they expect the consequences of their actions in Iraq to be. As I watch the republican debate tonight, I hope to hear ideas about what our longterm role in the Middle East should be. I hope to hear what sacrifices we as a nation would have to make to fulfill that role. Perhaps most importantly, I would like to hear how we expect to repay those making the biggest sacrifices.

It's no secret that the government's treatment of veterans is pathetic. The deplorable conditions of Walter Reed hospital made it clear to the general public that veterans are not getting the medical attention they need and deserve. Read The Nation's investigative report from earlier this year about the questionable practices of the VA that are preventing veterans from collecting medical benefits-- the personal stories told are heartbreaking. The Nation also ran a story just yesterday commenting on the paltry educational benefits veterans receive, which are in stark contrast to the benefits they are promised. And what a surprise that, with no medical benefits or the resources to obtain an education, veterans make up more than their fair share of the country's homeless population.

When the White House declared its opposition to the new GI bill that Senator Jim Webb introduced in January, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, the president only demonstrated that he continues to be short-sighted. As pointed out in The Nation's article, a stronger GI Bill could potentially invigorate the economy as the Congressional Research Office showed the original did.

The next president cannot afford to have such narrow vision. The next Commander in Chief may or may not decide we should keep troops in Iraq-- but he or she better think about the decisions to make after that.

Giuliani acts like a winner, and not just in Florida

The polls out today show that Rudy Giuliani's "I'm the best to beat Hillary" campaign has been a hit in Florida, if not the earlier primary states. Not only do all the polls out of Florida show him beating the other republicans in the locale of choice for retired New Yorkers, but they show why: he is the "most electable," said 61 percent of people polled by CNN. A plurality of voters polled also said he is the most likeable, the most honest and the strongest leader. Giuliani's support there is also evident in his fundraising. While he has yet to run a television ad in Florida, Mitt Romney has been running them for months there but has still raised about a million dollars less than Giuliani, says the Hill.

Clearly, though, it is the "electable" element that Rudy is clearly hoping to bank on. Giuliani's campaign will be mailing out flyers in New Hampshire this week, where the New Yorker trails far behind Mitt Romney. Rather than going after the republican frontrunner, however, the flyer is all about Hillary Clinton's "out-of-control spending." Giuliani will also release a new television ad in New Hampshire this week. Perhaps his campaign thinks drumming the "electability" point home that much more in New Hampshire will earn him some significant support,-- or perhaps he really is banking on Florida and other states for the nomination and is already setting his sights on Nov. '08. “He never assumed he would win the early states,” former Rep. Bill McCollum, Giuliani’s state campaign chairman, told The Hill.