What Kind of Person Can’t Afford Community College? I’m going to begin this blog like a Cassandra, but end it more positively. No one needs another blog entirely dedicated to how awful things are. So here’s the bad part:
I was talking with some moms recently and one, disparaging an acquaintance who was saving up to attend a two-year college, asked with an incredulous laugh, “What kind of a person can’t afford community college?” The remark sent a chill through my bones.
New York-based artist and political activist Norm Magnusson applies a personal approach to national issues in a series of paintings entitled “America’s Seven Deadly Sins,” and an ongoing collection of provocative road signs entitled “The I-75 project.” He uses his background in economics, extensive research, shrewd marketing sense, and playful sense of humor to spark dialogue about what’s going on in our country. To see more of Magnusson’s work, visit the Tikkun Daily Art Gallery and visit the artist’s website. Magnusson founded an art movement to describe the goal of his work. funism.
The word was only supposed to be spoken once. Enough. In a prepared speech, upon the printed page, it was typed just once. Enough. And yet, by the time Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had neared the conclusion of his historic speech on Friday before the United Nations General Assembly – as throngs chanted in the West Bank and his English translator choked back tears – Abbas couldn’t say it just once.
According to a report from Haaretz, the Obama administration is engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts to delay voting on recognition of Palestine as an independent state in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. A “silent agreement” is reportedly in place between several Western countries to postpone the U.N. votes through a number of bureaucratic stalling tactics, the use of which are being promoted by Washington. On Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to present an official request to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon which will specify the Palestinians’ desire to seek full U.N. membership through the Security Council. While a vote on the request could take place by early October, sources indicate that the potential exists for such a vote to be postponed by months. According to Shlomo Shamir, there are several options available to the Obama administration for postponement of voting in the Security Council, including the use of closed-door consultations:
If the Palestinian request does go ahead on Friday, the United States can refer the request to a debate inside the framework of informal consultations that Security Council members hold behind closed doors – a procedure that could last weeks or months…a month ago, France distributed a draft resolution that included sanctions against Syria.
[UPDATE – On Monday 9/19/11, the clemency board denied Davis a stay. The NAACP is launching a last resort petition to urge the DA to ask the Judge to withdraw the death warrant]
The state of Georgia may take the life of an innocent man on Wednesday. For nearly two decades, Troy Anthony Davis has sat on Death Row for the 1989 shooting of off-duty White police officer Mark MacPhail. Though Davis has maintained his innocence for two decades and built a compelling case for his freedom, he has exhausted the appeals process and is now scheduled to die. The Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons has the power to grant him clemency and spare his life.
On Friday, after much speculation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas officially announced that the Palestinians would seek full U.N. membership by going directly to the Security Council, setting the Palestinian Authority on a diplomatic collision course with the United States. The Obama administration, which has vowed to veto any such efforts by the PA, has been engaged in frantic attempts to avert this move by the Palestinians. Why? Vetoing a Palestinian statehood bid at the Security Council will significantly damage one of President Obama’s main foreign policy goals: to cast the U.S. as a champion of Arab freedom and democracy in a turbulent and shifting Middle East. This is why Washington has initiated last-minute talks with Abbas, trying to convince him to forgo the Security Council.
American diplomats acknowledge that they do not have the votes to prevent the General Assembly of the United Nations from recognizing Palestine and granting it some of the rights of member states. The U.S. can block full membership only by exercising its veto in the Security Council, an act likely to intensify hatred of the U.S. in many countries around the world.
I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to create and air over a dozen 2-minute “perspectives” on our local public radio station, KQED. The editor there asked those of us who have been on the program over the years to write a special perspective about how we experienced September 11th and the impact of those tragic events. Though mine didn’t make the cut for airing during a special half-hour program this weekend, I thought I would share it with my Tikkun Daily friends. What does the song I’ve Got You Babe have to do with September 11th? Read on.
According to a classified cable obtained by Haaretz, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, has informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Israel has no chance of preventing the U.N. General Assembly from recognizing Palestine as a state. Prosor’s assessment is consistent with what has been observed for some time: that only a handful of U.N. member states plan to vote against the Palestinian initiative in the General Assembly, with an expected 130-140 countries voting in favor. And among Western nations, only five so far have pledged to vote against recognition of a Palestinian state: Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the United States. Of those five countries, which nation stands alone in refusing to consider changing its voting stance if the Palestinians include language indicating a continued commitment to peace talks with Israel in its U.N. bid? The United States.
Why is the left so weak in this country and the right so strong? There are many reasons for our sad situation, but one of the most important is the monetary advantage held by the right. This is a difficult problem to solve, but one vitally important piece of the solution has to be passing a constitutional amendment to undo the Citizens United decision. Corporations should not be able to pour unlimited money into elections and call it free speech. Corporations are not people, they should not have free speech rights, and money is not speech!
