July 2008 Archives

Mariel got it right. The handful of political noisemakers in the U.S. have zero, nada right to get on the moral high horse and call for a protest, speak out, snub, or even more ludicrous, a boycott of the Olympics. The political sins and high crimes of the U.S. in countries from Vietnam to Iraq could fill up a mini telephone directory.

But even if the U.S. was as pure as Caesar's wife and did not have its dubious war record, saber rattle of small nations, and dance with every despicable dictator that's come down the pike in the past half century, talk of Olympics protests should still be off limits.

This is sport not politics, and it's for athletes not politicians. Yes, politicians and nations shamelessly wave their flags, primp their colors, and bellow about their medals, but in the end it's still about athletic achievement, pride, and honor, not protests and boycotts, and certainly not by anyone waving a U.S. flag.

Boycotts might not always accomplish tangible results, but their impact can be highly educational. How many people have the time to worry about state-sponsored violence and censorship in China when they are struggling to keep their jobs, fill the gas tank and keep their houses out of foreclosure?

That said, the idea of a boycott of the Olympics by the United States is laughable. The U.S. hardly has the moral high ground at the moment. When our own government is torturing people, ignoring the Geneva Convention, spying on its own people in the name of security (an excuse you just know that Chinese officials use frequently to explain their atrocities) we've got a lot of nerve judging another country. We may not have sunk to lows of China -- yet -- but the country is hardly a shining model at the moment.

Plus, imagine the psychic blow to the already ailing American economy with no big sports extravaganza.

China, Stephen Colbert's famous "frenemy," poses an ethical conundrum. It's fascinating to think about what we would do if we were offered a mulligan on1936, as Jonathan notes.

China is mainly getting kid-glove treatment from America's hawks, because they've staked their identify on the notion that some jihadist hicks in the frontiers of the Iraq-Pakistan border (oops, I just had a McCain moment) are the chief issue facing humankind. Such would-be Churchills haven't spent much time seriously pondering what it means to deal with a well-nuked creditor that may have far more credible plans than Al Qaeda to be a rival of the "civilized West." Here, strangely, our hawks are being relatively dovish.

Jonathan's right that "No country is pure enough not to be worthy of protest," and that boycotting the Olympics is a futile gesture. Carter's boycott of Moscow '80 didn't get the Soviets to leave Afghanistan, nor did Moscow's boycott of L.A. '84 drive Reagan to his ant-communist knees.

Still, we ought to give the Butchers of Beijing the shudder of polite disgust they've earned. Our athletes may go to the games, but our president should not. And American corporations like Coca-Cola, which have spent millions underwriting Peking's PR effort, won't be getting any of my business.

Remember that not far from these games, a Chinese woman is being forced to have an abortion. A believer is being persecuted. And a dissident rots in a gulag.

I don't like mixing politics and sports and thought that our boycott of the USSR and their boycott of our Olympics were useless gestures. No country is pure enough not to be worthy of protest. And yet, I'm ill at ease with Peking.

The Olympic tradition of accommodation to dictators and their own institutional corruption are nearly as bothersome as China's flagrant disregard of human rights, openness and keeping promises. While the Olympic committee is merely hypocritical, the Chinese regime is brutal and murderous.

Hitler's Olympics come to mind--as does this question: Would we have stayed away in 1936 if we'd only known of Hitler's brutality? Today we know of China's violence and abuse of people foreign and domestic. We have no plausible deniability.

McCain's advisers accuse Obama of "playing the race card" when he points out that Republicans are subtly playing the race card.

I think the accusation goes like this: "Barack HUSSEIN Obama is playing the race card by daring to suggest that we would focus on how he's not really like you and me. Can Mr. Hussein, I mean, Mr. Osama, I mean, Mr. Obama, get any lower? Can he get any less like you and me...?"

I haven't seen Raph Worrick since November 21, 1979. He was using crutches due to some leg trouble he was having, which made him look particularly clumsy as we all scampered from terrorists who were attacking our American-run school in Islamabad. While we hid in gym locker rooms, the jihadists dispensed only minor mayhem around our school grounds, perhaps because they were already exhausted from a long day of destroying the American embassy across town. That latter story is detailed here in this Washington Post story (written by a former student of our school). These Carter-era events, among the first signs of growing anti-American Sunni rage, are also recorded in painful detail in entire chapters of Ghost Wars and The Siege of Mecca.

Raph and other American foreign-service brats were promptly evacuated, while I stayed in Islamabad for another year. We touched base by post or phone only a couple more times over the next few years. Then 25 more years ensued before the magic of Facebook allowed us to get back in touch. He's now a talented singer/songwriter, and one of his newer songs brings back some wild and bitter memories.

"Atom Girl" is his ode to Ayesha Khan, the pretty but brutally snobby girl who stole his heart just as skillfully as her fatherm, A.Q. Khan, stole nuclear technology from the Netherlands. A.Q.'s theft made him a hero to ordinary Pakistanis who had felt bullied by a nuclear India. And his subsequent marketing of that technology made him a hero to rogues around the world.

Scroll to the bottom here to listen to Atom Girl, a great little melody with some hilarious lyrics. It will make you think about what an odd world we live in, and it will remind me, again and again, of that elitist Ayesha, the girl who mocked me during square dancing, who beat me in a class president vote that I still think was rigged, and who was the scion of one of the most controversial men on this planet.

What a small, strange world. An interesting footnote: We used to proudly refer to our school as ISI, short for the International School of Islamabad. Now that ISI is more commonly used to refer to Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, the school now differentiates itself by calling itself ISoI.

Hate came to church, and it brought a shotgun. While police are still investigating the irrational rationale of the shooter, we are safe in believing that he was motivated by hatred, grievance and a sense of holy righteousness.

This particular shooter may have staked out a Unitarian Universalist Church because they offered sanctuary to homeless and aid to illegal immigrants. Possibly it was the church's affirmation of the dignity of all people, of all races, ethnicities and sexualities. Whatever his internal cover-story was, we can be sure that he believed that he was doing right.

He could have picked another church or religion. He could have gone after a Jewish synagogue. Tragically there is ample precedent. He could have taken aim at a Muslim mosque. There is more than a little Islamophobia today--both from 9/11 and our losses in Afghanistan and Iraq. Were he a member of some radical Protestant sect, he might have gone after a Catholic church. Maybe a Catholic and militant Protestant could have cooperated and bombed a reproductive services clinic. All in God's name. A radical eco-terrorist might have set fire to a mega-church for not being green enough and using too much electricity and gas. And no traditional God would have been (miss)used.

Racial, religious and political intolerance have always been a part of our world. Even as this terrible story is playing out, we read that 7 Shiites were killed by Sunnis on their way to worship in Iraq, 16 bombs were set off in India and there are 16 dead in Turkey from bombs (possibly set not by religious extremists but ethnic Kurds). There is no end of the reasons we take up arms in the name of righteous indignation against each other.

This particular atrocity hits close to home because it is, well, closer to home than the far or middle east. We feel a sense of connection and a shared vulnerability. We realize that it could be us. In fact, it is "us." There is a natural connection that people feel by affinity. A plane goes down in some far-away country, and the story is bigger, closer to home, if Americans were on board, or Californians. It is not that the lives' of foreign people have less value, only that we feel more connected by geography or common denominator--religious, ethnic and even political.

When the fires ravaged San Diego, many local people participated in offering help and hospitality. When churches, mostly Black and integrated churches, were being bombed and burned a few years ago, many felt connected to them too and raised money--significant money--to help in their rebuilding. When the terrible Christmas Tsunami hit in South East Asia Americans were exemplary in giving money that was turned into food, water, clothing and medical supplies. We know that we are not an island but a part of the mainland of humanity.

Still, what makes this event different is not its magnitude but its emotional proximity. Hate walked into the door of a house of worship. What do we do with this pain and psychic trauma? As vulnerable we might feel, we should try to find balance--neither denying this reminder of the precarious and precious nature of life, nor surrendering to terror and panic. There is no perfect security, no foolproof plan to keep us safe. There are guns, rifles, shotguns and automatic weapons. But this is not about the guns. It could have been an axe, a bomb or a Molotov cocktail. We do know, at least intellectually, that we are far more at risk in our cars on the way to and from worship than at worship.

We accept that the world is not a safe place, but that most people are decent and kind. We know that there is a price in vulnerability for participating in life and bearing prophetic witness for our values.

The Rev. William Ellery Channing, the minister of another Unitarian church, wrote a powerful anti-slavery book in 1835 called, fittingly, Slavery. For this his life was put in peril and his house repeatedly vandalized. He had to write his sermons sitting at a desk with both sword and pistol by his side. But he did not shrink from either engagement in the world or from speaking and living his deeply held values. Nor shall we.

People of all faiths must, with pain in our hearts and compassion nourishing our souls, continue to speak, affirm and live our values. We will not be fearless, for there are things to fear. We will, however, be courageous.

We got through a firing circle on U.S. policy toward Israel without any fisticuffs or injuries! I think this calls for pats on the back. Jonathan and I should now go out on the road and do interviews that prove that two people of Jewish and Muslim origins can discuss these issues civilly. And Lina and I could go on the road and do interviews that prove that Bruins and Trojans can get along -- but sadly, we still don't.

I do want to circle back to Chris' comment about how easy it is to be tagged as a homophobe or xenophobe or Islamophobe for daring to question various shibboleths, mainly as it involves liberal pet causes. I agree that some liberals are too quick to brand other people as intolerant, in a way that chills rational discussion.

I think that the charge of anti-Semitism, however, carries unique explosiveness in recent decades. This isn't even a direct result of the Holocaust.

If a Jewish lobby seems "powerful" to Muslims now, Muslims shouldn't complain, but rather seize their own initiative in portraying the narrative of Palestinians, poor Pakistanis, immigrants to England, and so on. I remind Muslims that the Holocaust was followed by years of American ambivalence toward Israel, years of Jews still being excluded from prestigious clubs, and years of Christian leaders noting dryly that God does not hear the prayers of Jews.

Most strikingly, that last tendency has been replaced by the over-the-top "I'm the champion of all Jews" militancy of Rev. John Hagee and other pseudo-McCain supporters (never mind that Hagee is shockingly anti-Catholic, supposedly as a visceral reaction to past Catholic mistreatment of Jews). It all adds up, as Chris says, to some odd coalitions, like this. Does Joe Lieberman know or care enough what most members of the Hagee crowd really believes about God's ultimate disposition toward "unbelieving" Jews?

Yet the religious right in America has astoundingly contributed to the chilling effect on Israeli-Arab discussions, so that any votes for American neutrality in that mess are condemned as the worst form of bigotry possible. That is not helpful, and wise people on all sides of the issue should acknowledge this.

Our governor, Der Arnold, wants to cut the wages of the people who work for the State of California down to the federal minimum of $6.55 an hour. He wants to punish them for the legislators not doing their job. Huh?

Against the provisions of the constitution of the State of California, our paid representatives in Sacramento have failed to follow the law, do their duty and pass a budget. Therefore it makes perfect sense to punish the innocent and hold those who are actually doing their jobs hostage to the recalcitrance of those who aren't. Wow! No wonder people have lost faith in government.

I have a better idea. How about holding the irresponsible legislators responsible and just turn off the air conditioning until they pass a budget? That might concentrate their minds.

While I find it a commendable effort on Obama's part to visit Israel, I don't think it will work miracles in terms of votes. According to J Street, a Washington-based Jewish group, only 8% of voters listed Israel as one of their top two issues. More said the economy (55%) would be the most important factor in their voting decision. Granted, the recent trip to Israel was a boost for his public image--he's being proactive about working toward a peace solution, and appealing to both Israelis and Palestinians. But his efforts are questionable and debatable - should America continue to appeal to Israel? Nevertheless, Obama needed this trip to show McCain he can handle foreign policy, and, at the very least, it distanced him further from radical former pastor.

There is a contingent of Israel supporters who will brand any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. True enough. But then, this phenomenon is at work throughout all of American politics. If you think I'm wrong, then:

• Go question the wisdom of "gay marriage" -- you will be called a homophobe.
• Go argue for stricter immigration policies -- you will be called a xenophobe.
• Go argue against Bush foreign policy -- you will be called unpatriotic.
• Go argue against rampant radicalism in the Islamic world -- you will be called an Islamophobe.
• Make a case for the humanity of the unborn -- you will be called a sexist.
• Or, try criticizing Obama -- you will be called a racist.

I'm sure readers could come up with many more examples of such abuses. It's a sad commentary on the state of American discourse these days. The ad hominem has become the principal weapon in political debate. It's true for critics of Israel, and it's true for everyone else, too.

What makes things tricky is that some of these bogeymen truly do exists -- there are people who oppose immigration not for prudential reasons, but racist ones; there are people who hate Bush's policies not because they're flawed, but because they hate the U.S.; and there are people who criticize Israel -- while giving her Arab neighbors a pass for much more serious offenses -- because of anti-Semitic animus.

The nature of politics today is that well-meaning people will be unfairly smeared, and sinister people will try to infiltrate legitimate causes. Complaining about it won't do much good. We just need to make our cases as completely and transparently as possible -- and hope fair-minded people will judge us accordingly.

Unfortunately, Rob things aren't that simple when it comes to reasoned criticism of Israel's controversial policies on settlement expansion, restricting political rights of many Palestinians, the use of preventive detention, and even the assassination of Palestinian leaders. Any criticism of these policies draws near maniacal rebuke from the Israel-Can-Do-No-Wrong lobby. And predictably, the smack down tag of Anti-Semite.

With an eye on the Israel can do no wrong crowd, Obama at times has sounded more fervently Zionist than many Zionists on Israel's policies. It's not Obama's fault that he thinks this is what you have to do and say to get Jewish votes. He's been cowed like others. The rub is that he'll get the majority of Jewish votes anyway--even as a constructive critic of Israel's polices.

Political coalitions often unite people who otherwise want nothing to do with each other. Thus, in today's Democratic Party, we get one of the oddest of all coalitions -- Jews, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic; and left-wing anti-Semites, who blame Israel (and Jews in American government) for all the world's ills.

Enter Obama, whose base is his party's hard-left wing (home of the party's anti-Semitic minority), doing what all party nominees must do in the general election -- moving to the middle.

Israel, whatever its faults, is by far the most rationale, humane state in the Middle East. And a would-be president ought to be able to say as much. But for Obama, it's tricky, because doing so means alienating his fan base in the left-wing blogosphere.

Of course Barack Obama feels sympathy for ordinary Palestinians. He should. Most Palestinians want peace. And yes, Barack is speaking to the American Jewish community, trying to reassure us both that he isn't a Muslim, and he loves Israel. Sympathy and policy, however, can be in conflict since ordinary Palestinians don't control their own communities. Militants do.

Were Israel to go away, move en mass to Mojave (my people are a desert people), Sunnis would still fight Shiites and the Palestinians would not get the newly vacated territory.

An Internet posting some years ago was eloquent in its simplicity: "Does anyone doubt that if the Arabs put down their weapons, there'd be no war, and if Israel put down its weapons, there'd be no Israel?"

Barack Obama has been accused of a great crime - of feeling sympathy for ordinary Palestinians. To counter this charge, he has demonstrated on his current world tour that he will tilt more toward Israel than most Israelis would. Let's consider a better way:

1. Consider the practical benefits of neutrality. When U.S. politicians conclude that God gave Israelites enduring control over Canaanites and Palestinian Arabs, the world criticizes our unfairness and we violate our own separation of religion and state.
2. Exhort Muslims from Morocco to Pakistan to get on the therapist's couch and stop playing "vicarious victim." They can do more to get Palestinians on their feet, but they often prefer to complain.
3. Even if we remain "Israel's good friend," we can critique it constructively. Many Israeli citizens are such critics, and they are not "mere self-loathing Jews."

Dan Rather slips here and refers to Obama as Osama. And yet the Osama-loving, I mean Obama-loving MSM dismissed this Southern California prophet as a mere Fear Engineer when he said that Obama will hand the country over to folks like Obama. Eat some crow, you silly doves.*

* nonliteralness disclaimer for the sarcasm-challenged.

On a less sarcastic note, I've long felt that the election will not go to a black liberal whose name rhymes with Public Enemy #2 (Public Enemy #1 always was Saddam, my more hawkish friends insist). Colin Powell, maybe. He's a military heavy who rhymes with no discernible enemies.

While I would arrive at a different overall conclusion, I agree with much of what Rob has written about the gay-marriage debate below. It is true that many religious people have given up on the idea of sexual morality (or any other kind of morality, for that matter), but still get hung up on homosexuality for one simple reason: It doesn't tempt them. And, oh, how much easier it is to condemn a temptation that I don't care to commit than to confront the ones I indulge each day!

To quote a column I wrote back in 2005:

Yet the problem for defenders of traditional marriage is that their message sounds terribly anachronistic in our post-sexual-revolution age, which has turned the traditional notion of marriage on its head.

These days, sex outside marriage is common, and child-rearing outside marriage is hardly unusual. The combination of cohabitation, contraception and widespread fatherlessness has, in the public consciousness, all but obliterated the idea that marriage and child-rearing are inextricably linked....

And what about other qualities traditionally associated with marriage? Monogamy looks like a quaint cultural artifact in the days of "Desperate Housewives" and "American Beauty." Permanence? Not in an era of no-fault divorce laws, in which as many as half of all marriages end in divorce, many in the first few years.

This is why defenders of traditional marriage are easily branded -- and not always unfairly -- as homophobic. The only element of traditional marriage too many are willing to defend is the one that doesn't impinge on their own predilections, namely its restriction to heterosexual couples. For all the worthy efforts to enact constitutional gay-marriage bans across the country, you don't see anywhere near as much desire to bolster marriage-preparation programs, tighten up divorce laws or remake a popular culture that celebrates promiscuity and "sexual freedom" over commitment, responsibility and sacrifice.

After all, it's easier to lay the blame for the sad state of modern marriage at the feet of gays and lesbians than to accept personal responsibility.

Gay activists are right when they observe that the institution of marriage is crumbling, and it's heterosexuals who are to blame. They are also right to claim that gay unions won't destroy the institution of marriage. On the contrary, should the day come -- and by all indications, it's coming soon -- when America puts traditional marriages and gay unions on the same legal plane, it will not be because of some homosexual plot, but because heterosexuals have managed to obscure almost all that was unique and important about traditional marriage in the first place.

But as woefully short of the marriage ideal as we may currently fall, the need for the ideal couldn't be more severe. A generation of fatherless kids, of dysfunctional homes, of children lacking proper care and role models, has taught us that societal tinkering with foundational institutions comes at a steep price. It has taught us that rendering marriage little more than a public blessing of one's private choices is a recipe for social disaster.

In short, I don't think "Well, we're already so far down the slippery slope anyway," is a good reason to take another step. But Rob is right: As long as defenders of "traditional marriage" keep firing away at homosexuality, without seriously confronting the far more prevalent, far more serious threats to marriage, they will continue to undermine their credibility -- and continue to lose the broader culture war.

Well, I guess Patrick O'Connor, the talented cartoonist for the Daily News and Friendly Fire, is no longer "our very own." Now he belongs to the ages. His satire of the New Yorker's satire of American fears about the Obamas was picked by the New York Times for their Sunday selection of the best of the week. Way to go, Patrick!

A new Fields poll shows that Californians tilt toward allowing gay marriage. This will be seen as bad news by religious conservatives who believe they are doing the Lord's work in upholding traditional views of marriage.

As someone who has gay friends and friends on the religious right, I find all this to be a puzzlingly high-schoolish issue.

Those who are exemplars of monogamous commitment and who detest promiscuity are trying to keep one community from practicing fully sanctioned monogamy. Those who should be celebrating their freedom from traditional rules are demanding, "I want a ball and chain too." As a single person who is ambivalent about marriage, I imagine that one solution to all the political fighting would be to allow gay marriage but to outlaw divorce. That would make many gays say, sensibly, "who needs marriage?"

As for religious conservatives who believe that they must ensure that marriage is a sacred, lifelong union of one man and one woman in order to raise a stable family, I am not sure why they put more importance in protesting gay weddings than in protesting Brangelina, who has done much to popularize infidelity, divorce and shacking up within the straight community. I believe the answer is that the former is, at this point, still an easier target. But this will inevitably change.

Traditional morality and the "clear" teachings of Scripture meant that conservative churches frowned on divorce and remarriage just a generation ago. Now, pastors themselves can divorce and remarry while pontificating about how gay marriage undermines Biblical authority. A conservative friend, commenting on the ongoing battle among Presbyterians on gay ordination, complained to me last night about how his church allows practicing gays into membership. I told him that his church doesn't bar from membership or even leadership those who engage in various forbidden activities such as gossip, slander, gluttonous materialism, hatred toward others, and so on.

The difference is that, in such religiously conservative communities, there is great empathy for such persons -- they are "sinners like myself." But to them, gays are "sinners totally unlike myself." The reaction is a more visceral, "Ew, how can anyone do that?" That's why they have come to accept divorce but not homosexuality, even though divorce was more expressly forbidden by Jesus and even though divorce has far greater ramifications for the majority of society.

I suppose that religious conservatives' visceral reaction to "others" is something like my reaction to "saggers," who are now being banned in Flint, Michigan. Ban the butts! But I also understand that some "sins" are a matter of taste, and that we are better off dealing with more substantive issues such as how to pay for a half-trillion dollar war.

Ultimately, until religious conservatives convince the rest of society that the yoke that they seek to place on others is no heavier than the one they place on themselves -- and that it is not based on a matter of visceral personal taste -- will lose political battles inside and outside their churches.

Reader Dante asked:

Once Alvarez was found guilty why should he not be immediately executed? What is the cost of an execution? What is the cost to keep this criminal alive for the rest of his life? Who is paying for all this and who is going to make money on this?

Good questions. Let's take them one at a time.

1.Why should Alvarez not be immediately executed? Because convictions can be wrong, and are oftentimes overturned. Our justice system guarantees everyone the right to an appeal -- especially when that which is being appealed is a death sentence.

When I wrote a column on this subject in 2003, I discovered this haunting statistic: For the 11 inmates the state had executed between 1978 and 2003, 62 others were released, resentenced or had their sentences overturned. Those numbers probably need a little updating now, but the central truth still stands -- if we executed people immediately upon conviction, we would be putting numerous innocent or otherwise undeserving people to death.

2. What is the cost of an execution? What is the cost to keep this criminal alive for the rest of his life? The cost of an execution is a fortune if you include the price of all the legal appeals -- which are necessary, unless you are unconcerned with executing innocent people. It's estimated that the total cost of trying, housing and executing a Death Row inmate can run more than 40 percent higher than that of simply sticking him behind bars for the rest of his natural life.

Back in 2003, I learned that California's then-25-year history of capital punishment -- which had thus far yielded just 11 executions -- had cost roughly $2 billion.

3. Who is paying for this? You and I are -- and every other taxpayer, too.

4. Who is going to make money on this? Under the death-penalty system, a lot of lawyers, that's who.

Jonathan's position seems to be: Too many people who deserve the death penalty don't get it, so we should stop giving it to people who do. Huh?

We'd be better served asking what value -- besides vengeance -- is served by executing a killer. In the case of Alvarez, the answer is: none.

Does killing him make society safer? No. Would it deter crime? The threat of execution didn't deter Alvarez. Would it save money? Nope. Life sentences are much cheaper than the capital-punishment appeals process.

If we answer these questions honestly, we find that capital punishment is usually of little value in modern society -- except that, viscerally, it feels good. And that's a terrible reason to do anything, let alone take a life.

Jonathan raises a fascinating point, arguing that "We execute the poor, minorities and males disproportionately," and that we need a moratorium "until we catch up by executing a lot of rich guys and middleclass white women."

There is an imbalance. Does anyone really want to argue that the poor, minorities or males are more evil or more criminally negligent as a group? And yet, they're getting the death penalty because they're being found guilty of murder more often. Does it mean that our lawmaking is stacked against such groups, or our justice system, or both? And, if we kill them for killing others, do we really believe we're deterring future injustices? I'm not opposed to capital punishment, but I believe we do it out of vengeful rage rather than a serious cost-benefit analysis.

In an overly-simplified definition, the death penalty is to be utilized along the lines of the old adage, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

But, truth be told, the actual fulfillment of the death penalty and death sentencing is severely flawed in California. Currently, the average time from death sentence to execution in California is between 20-25 years. This is due to the complicated web of appeals for the prisoner's life, trials, media attention that sheds light on certain cases, and, of course, red tape.

This concept of the death penalty delay was first brought to my attention in high school when my AP US History teacher addressed the question, "What is your opinion on the death penalty?" Students were swiftly split into opposing parties - between supporters and protesters, justice-seekers and pacifists. Some saw the death penalty as the simple solution, whereas others believed in preserving the prisoner's life only for the sake that he or she may suffer-- slowly and painfully in the California prison system. And, of course, there were those who believed in giving a person a second chance.

My opinion is that the death penalty should be imposed on those who commit murder. Perhaps it's my belief to follow the "eye for an eye" theory. But the reality is that no case is a simple cause-and-effect play by play. There are always complications. Can you prove the murderer had a motive? Is he or she mentally ill? Can he or she be held fully accountable? Questions such as these are the precise reason why there were 640 men and women sitting on death row in 2005. These were people who had been sentenced to death but, most likely due to appeals and trials, will not be executed in the near future.

But, on the other hand, to call for immediate execution after conviction (after the judge and jury have sentenced a prisoner to death) completely ignores the reality of the California justice system. So, I guess there is no immediate answer, but it is an interesting topic to investigate as it progresses over the years.

We have become a very punitive society with huge rates of incarceration, longer sentences than elsewhere in the Western World and the use of the death sentence that is unique amongst civilized nations. We try children as adults by magically certifying them as adults, and we subject juveniles to life sentences. We often sentence psychopaths and imbeciles as if they were responsible, and we do criminalize stupidity and bad judgment. Are we safer for all this?

I believe there is a place for the death penalty--but only in theory. In practice, we can't be trusted. We execute the poor, minorities and males disproportionately. Until we catch up by executing a lot of rich guys and middleclass white women, there should be a moratorium.

But we sure treat it as one sometimes.

As Chris knows, I'm not opposed to capital punishment. I truly believe some people have violated all the provisions of their human membership. To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson in that crappy law movie, some people need killing. People like Jeffrey Dahmer, Pol Pot, and others who have clearly and purposely preyed on other humans just for the pure joy of it.

But as with many ideologically simple things, the application is where things go awry. Most people who are given a death sentence don't fit into my category of irredeemableness. That the death penalty was even considered for Juan Manuel Alvarez, the deeply stupid man whose suicide attempt derailed a Metrolink train killing 11 people, is one glaring example. It's astonishing enough that he was convicted of first degree murder, which ought to be reserved for those who intentionally kill people. But the death penalty shouldn't be a possibility for what was essentially an accident. If it were, the captain of the Exxon Valdez would have fried. Thank goodness the jury decided Alvarez didn't mean to kill anyone.

By all accounts, Alvarez was just one dumb dude who caused a horrific accident -- so bad that the state wanted to punish him by killing him too. That's not justice, that's revenge. In any case, dumbness isn't a crime. If it were, we would need a lot more jails.

On November 26, 2006 at a press conference in Los Angeles guess who said this: "We will challenge and urge all artists and comics to stop using this (n) word. What other group is subjected to such a degrading terminology?"
And then guess who called for this action: We will go after TV networks, film companies and comedians and demand that they stop using the word. We will boycott sales of the DVDs of Seinfeld's seventh season TV show. The speaker of course was Jesse Jackson. The offender who dared utter the dreaded N word was comedian Michael Richards.
Now we hear that Jesse did a Richards like imitation with the N word in his infamous unguarded open mic dig at Obama on Fox.

Jackson's pound of Richards and saber rattle of the entertainment business was strong stuff. In fact it was vintage Jackson; a denunciation of the N word, railing against the entertainment industry and entertainers for their racial insensitivity, and, of course, a threatened boycott. Jesse was riding tall on his moral and racial high horse at the time and had thousands revved up to go after Richards and anyone else who used the N word.

The problem is that the "anyone else" Jackson had in mind was not simply, a white bit part comedian, and some off color comics and filmmakers, but any and every black that used the word. Jesse would settle for nothing less than a total ban by blacks on the N word.

Jackson's press conference tirade against the N word was hardly the first time he had hit the warpath against the word. He had spent years lecturing, hectoring, and admonishing blacks to dump the word from their vocabulary.

So that makes his N word slur even more unpardonable than if it come from a rapper or comic. They're trying to make a buck off of using the word as cutesy shock value so at least there's logic, commercial and twisted, but logic nonetheless to their spew of it. In Jackson's case that doesn't apply.

He committed two serious offenses in casually and recklessly using the word. Though he didn't call Obama the word, by knocking him ("cut off his n...ts") and tossing in the word to describe blacks who Obama allegedly offended, Obama by inference became an N... too. Jackson's bigger offense was his tar of blacks with the word. If a white celebrity, personality or politician slandered and disrespected blacks with the word, guess who would be the first person to charge the barricades demanding their head and then that they banned in Boston for perpetuity. The chances are pretty good that Jackson would have gotten their head and the ban. But in this case, the famed personality that offended with the word is not a white notable but Jackson.

So what should we do about him? He's already apologized to Obama, and since Obama wasn't the target of Jackson's loose lip slur, Jackson should immediately apologize to blacks for not only trashing them, but also apologize for his hypocrisy. That's not all. Since Jackson called for a boycott of the DVD's of the Seinfeld show for Richards N word offense, then turn about is fair play. In this case, listeners to Jackson's national radio show should consider a brief tune out of the show to show that the N word no matter whether it drips from the lips of a tired white comedian, gangster rapper, blue room black comedian, radio shock jock, or a one time civil rights icon, is just as offensive.
Jesse has taken a much deserved hit for his intemperate personal rap of Obama. Now he should take an even bigger hit for his far worse racial rap of blacks and in the process himself.

I wouldn't touch it. As the old adage goes, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Or maybe the more apt one is, you get what you pay for. So why is some Craigslister so obviously lowballing this SUV?

Gas prices might have SUV owners dreaming about dumping their monster vehicles for Prius, but this Prius owner has been dreaming about buying an SUV to haul around people and dogs and camping gear. Because of this (which I probably won't do, but it's fun to have a dream), I have been whiling away my lunchhours at work cruising through Craigslist for used SUVs. Just looking, you know. But every page of cars or so I notice one that that is unusually low priced, like this white 2004 Toyota 4Runner listed for $2,990 or this Mercedes SUV for $3,500.

As any frequent Craigslist visitor knows, sellers are more likely to overprice their stuff than lowball themselves. I tried to imagine what scam might be involved that wouldn't eventually be discovered in the course of a buy or check of the VIN numbers. Stolen cars? Probably not. Bad accidents? You'd find that out because it would have a salvage title. Then I remembered a story I heard on NPR a couple years ago after Hurricane Katrina about flood cars being transported to other states and sold. They look fine but their inundation in water has messed up their inner workings.

I found a fraud guide online that has to say this about suspected flood-damaged cars:

Priced Way Below Blue Book Any time you are out shopping for a vehicle and you find one that looks great but is priced far below the going rate it's time to be cautious. If the car is in good condition there is no need to sell it for so cheap because they'll eventually find someone willing to pay a fair price for it. There are certainly valid reasons for a person to sell a car below the going rate but this is something that should raise red flags and lead you to try and find the reason from the person selling the car. If you are given a particularly weak answer you should start wondering what's wrong with the vehicle.

How to spot a flood car

* Gravel or sand in the interior and especially under the dashboard
* Electrical problems
* Priced lower than fair value
* Vehicle History Reports may indicate if the car suffered previous water damage.
* Musty smell or too much air freshener
* Car is from New Orleans

I'd apologize for the poor Spanish, but what do I care? I'm an American!

Unfortunately, I'm not as American as some people. What I mean by that is that my legal name is Saquib Suhrab Asghar. That's not Jim Smith. That wouldn't work well in a political campaign.

In that sense, Barry Obama hurt himself when he embraced his heritage by becoming Barack some years ago. Of course, even if he were still Barry, he'd still lose votes for having a name that rhymes with Osama. And he's a dove, not a hawk, even though he tries to talk tough on occasion. The New Yorker cartoon saga reminds us what people in the heartland (or the more politically rabid parts of Irvine) are thinking.

Social scientists and natural scientists both puzzle over what makes us tick. There's evidence that humans and animals alike prefer being led by tall alpha males (even though this suggestion disturbs idealists, feminists and short people). Some have argued that, in the TV era, the taller candidate will usually win.

Seems that Bush has been beating guys taller than him though. My sense is that we as Americans don't always vote for the taller candidate, but we do generally prefer the "more American" candidate. Bush Jr. seemed "more American" than Kerry or Gore, which is why Americans decided that they would prefer to have a beer with him. Clinton seemed more American than Bush Sr, who at least seemed more American than Dukakis, and Reagan seemed more American than God.

In that sense, I would never wager against war hero John McCain in a contest with Obama, all policies and abilities aside. Obama has a huge challenge ahead of him in redefining what it means to "seem" American, in a manner that can serve his campaign imperatives.

The Lotus Festival this past weekend was missing a very essential element - a pond filled with the very pink-and-cream flowers that bear the festival's name. And while I'm not a regular at the annual floral celebration in Echo Park, it's pretty evident that the case of the missing lotus is a clear indication of a present-day environmental dilemma:

"Three years ago, the lotuses began to falter. Only an estimated 30 flowers bloomed last year. A handful of green leaves sprouted this spring -- only to turn yellow, shrivel and disappear. Not a single leaf remained Saturday," stated the LA Times.

Consulatants credit the lotuses' disappearance to changing temperature extremes, polluted water, pests, disease-- a whole plethora of environmental and natural disasters. Indeed, we don't need to whip out the textbook definition of global warming, or sprint for a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth ,to understand the realities of climate change and environmental harm.

But I found the lotus anecdote to be an effective one. It's something that (literally) hits close to Angelenos' homes. As parents and children swarmed Echo Park Lake, expecting to be hit with a wave of light pink and green, they were thoroughly disappointed to find, well, absolutely nothing. Just a pool of muddy water and the sound of flowing drain pipes.

It's not to say that the lotus hiatus is an omen of the natural world's doom and destruction. But it's definitely reality check for many Angelenos and park officials across the board. We need to institute a system of ecological prevention and protection - if not for the integrity of the existing ecosystem, then at least for the aesthetic.

Let's hope for a successful Lotus Festival 2009.

I, for one, think the notorious new New Yorker cover is good satire. Obama should show a little more of a sense of humor about it.

"If you would diminish something, you would first increase it," said Lao Tzu a few millennia ago. In precisely that fashion, people like Stephen Colbert and the New Yorker editors are defusing a jingoist scare tactic by amplifying it in a comical way. Obama's best tactic is to laugh along at it - while saluting Old Glory, sporting a flag lapel pin, and munching on some apple pie.

Barack Obama was having a classic, Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Week. The recent story line was his shifting towards the middle, his vote for telephonic spying, his exception to a woman's right to choose, his endorsement of Scalia's reasoning on guns and his disagreement with the court on excluding the rapists of children from the death penalty.

Hardcore supporters, and people who believed he was different from regular politicians, were in despair; some were even open revolt. How could he change the subject? How could he get his mojo back? The answer came from an unnatural alliance of Fox News and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Jackson was taped on Fox over an open mike saying that he thought Barack was talking down to black people and the he (Jackson) wanted to "cut his nuts off." Let go of the vulgarity of the good reverend but take in the level of disrespect he showed. Can you imagine what Jackson would have said if a white person had said such a thing? I can hear him charging that this is classic racism bespeaking the fear and hatred of black male sexuality and the desire to castrate strong African Americans. Coming from another black man does not, or should not, lessen the seriousness of this transgression. It is unacceptable--even if you think the mike was off. The sin was in the saying, not in the hearing.

This crude remark, however, has had some very positive, if unintended, consequences for Obama. It diminished Jesse Jackson, revealing him to be on the margins--if not completely off the playing field. It marks more than a generational shift, though it is surely that too. It marks the transition of African American political leadership from the prophetic tradition of standing outside the Tent of Meeting and thundering grave warnings to inside the Tent and asserting leadership of the whole community.

Obama was probably looking for his own Sista Souljah moment. This was the time when, then candidate, Bill Clinton proved that he was not a prisoner of radical black discontent by rejecting the soul-singing rapper's militant rage in front of a black group. Obama got to separate himself from the old civil rights establishment without showing any disrespect. In fact, by immediately accepting Jackson's apology, Obama got to distance himself from Jackson and be gracious all at the same time.

Jackson could not have been of more help if he had tried. Hmmmm. I wonder? Nah.

One college student advertises his vote for sale on eBay for $10 as an obvious joke and political state, and he's facing a felony charge. Yet our politicians "sell" their votes all the time with a wink or a nod and no one bats an eyelash. Oh, the injustice.

But now there's a fun and easy way to check pols donations with their votes with the handy data at MAPLight.org. (The MAP part is an acronym for "money" and "politics.") Check out this chart of former California Legislature Speaker Fabian Nunez's voting record crossed with this campaign contributions.

Total Campaign Contributions Received: $2,211,513 Top 10 Interests Funding

Interest Contributions Voted with this Interest

Attorneys & law firms $216,557 78% (46 out of 59 bills)

State & local government employee unions $125,500 96% (408 out of 426 bills)

Construction unions $94,250 94% (79 out of 84 bills)

Teachers unions $69,541 99% (176 out of 178 bills)

Physicians $66,045 82% (132 out of 161 bills)

Police & fire fighters unions and associations $55,700 93% (200 out of 214 bills)

Insurance companies, general $38,075 44% (23 out of 52 bills)

Casinos, racetracks & gambling $35,000 95% (42 out of 44 bills)

Native American tribes & governing units $30,700 78% (21 out of 27 bills)

Electrical workers/IBEW $27,700 96% (22 out of 23 bills)

Hmmm. Interesting.

This month you can catch yours truly talking (with my hands, mostly) about charter schools on a roundtable for the city channel. (It's labeled "Rountable #43"). The talk was moderated by KCAL 9's political reporter, Dave Bryan, and included the always amusing Sandra Tsing Loh of KPPC's "The Loh Life" fame, Robin Potash a teacher and UTLA rep and Mikelle Willis, founder and director of the KIPP Academy of Opportunity in Los Angeles.

It's running through July and August on cable Channel 35. You can also see Roundtable #44, which was a discussion of the State of the L.A. Times. Fun stuff.

Just thought I'd post this story from the Raleigh News-Observer: N&O subscriber sues the paper for cutting staff.

A "clash of civilizations" could become self-fulfilling prophecy, especially as politicians and partisan pundits use anger at Muslims to redirect attention from domestic failings. Americans and the Muslim world are polarizing increasingly. Consider the manner in which Investor's Business Daily (subscription only) subtly conflates "Muslims" and "enemies" in a July 3, 2008 editorial on Pakistan and Pervez Musharraf:

Rewind to 9/11 and imagine the strongman of a Muslim country sheltering bin Laden and dictating to the White House the terms of how we can bring him to justice... If we were reliving those raw days -- back when we were still pulling bodies from Ground Zero -- we would justifiably tell this Muslim leader to stand aside while we invade the territory where our enemy's holed up. And we would withdraw not a moment before we flushed him out of hiding and put his head on a pike... Ultimately, the commander-in-chief must decide who's running this war against Muslim terrorists -- him or a Muslim general.

Imagine if the word "Muslim" were replaced above by "black" or "Jewish" -- you would find it hard to believe that the writer would escape a sharp rebuke.

This piece also shows that the newspaper's editorial board is obviously unaware that Musharraf resigned from the army more than six months ago; and the piece revealed great ignorance on many other issues too. I wish that they would all sit down to carefully read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars before they attempt to make sense of who caused what in that part of the world.

Building green has struck a chord with college students across the board. Thus, it's only natural that university campuses and officials follow suit.

The University of California system instituted a policy in 2004 mandating that all new and renovated buildings be eco-friendly, and has subsequently saved up to $5 million. The Los Angeles Community College District is currently undergoing its "Go Green LACCD" program, designed to construct 40 buildings and facilities that will employ only renewable energy. And nearby Santa Clarita University utilizes natural ventilation in one of its buildings: the floors are raised 14 inches above the ground to encourage air circulation through yarn carpet-tile floors, and the building also includes a glass "solar chimney."

Indeed, California universities and campuses throughout the nation (including University of Michigan and Warren Wilson College in North Carolina) are jumping at the opportunity to build green, eco-friendly and energy-efficient dorms and facilities. The Green Building Council has even developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system to measure their progress.

My home turf, UCLA, has been recognized for its LEED-approved science building, La Kretz Hall, and is currently in the process of renovating one of its dorm buildings along those same guidelines. Last quarter, my history professor, Scott Bartchy, discussed how he designed his sustainable and energy-efficient house in Ventura County, utilizing architecture for solar heating and natural air-circulation cooling.

It's a strange and recent phenomenon that "going green" has become such a hot topic among college students. Perhaps we're simply trying to mimic the social revolutionary fervor of our parents' generation, and we're scrambling to institute some type of lasting change - whether that change be social, political or environmental. Perhaps it's because environmental studies has now become effortlessly ingrained into our traditional education - often allowing students the option to replace their standard Biology or Chemistry classes with green education. Or perhaps this is just a sign of the modern age: we've come to the realization that the energy resources and raw materials of our parents' generation will not be readily available to us in the future, and it's simply time for us to adjust.

Whatever the reason may be, I am overwhelmingly impressed by how my generation is responding to the green movement. Recently, UCLA students passed The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) referendum, which would raise student fees by $4 every quarter to fund student-led environmental projects. And while this post may come off as extremely wide-eyed and hopeful for the future, it's comforting to know that my peers are responding to some issue - any issue - that impacts us on the global scale.

Interesting links:

Go Green LACCD

California Energy Commission

UC Ranked Top Green Public System

The Green Initiative Fund

My professor's eco-friendly house

I don't know why I get letters like these, but alas, I do. From today's inbox:

Chris, I am an 88 year old man and I am trying to write a book relating to global warming but I have not been able to find out what the height and position of the pollution belt is. I am very concerned about the effect the pollution is having on the Earth. I need that information because of the two possible solutions I have for eliminating the pollution belt. The first is to fly space ships through the belt with collecter devises that would pick up the pollution. I need that information because I am not sure if the space ships could fly at that elevation. My second idea is to explode an atomic bomb in the pollution and the chain reaction would destroy the pollution. BUT I do not know the height of the belt and do not know if the radiation fall out from the bomb would contaminate the Earth. I would appreciate it if you could help me in any way to find that information.

--Name withheld to protect the well-meaning but frighteningly delusional

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year -- now."
Senator Barack Obama said that on December 12, 2007 in a speech in Clinton, Iowa. At the time he was still one of the pack of Democratic presidential candidates jostling and elbowing trying to get a knock out edge over the others for the Democratic presidential nomination. That included first and foremost Hillary Clinton. He mercilessly pounded her then and afterwards in speeches for backing the war and dutifully voting for war appropriations.

Nine months later things had radically changed. Obama was no longer jostling with Hillary and the others for the top Democratic presidential nominee spot. He was now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and he said this: "I have always said I would listen to the commanders on the ground. I have always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed.

His very public record of his very public pledge to end the war NOW in stump speeches the year before he said that had changed, and his words and voting record on the war had changed too. This has caused much grief, anguish and disappointment among fervent Obama backers. The war was the single biggest reason why many of them bought his sale that as president he would do what no other Democrat or Republican in the White House would do and that was to immediately end the war. That was more than enough for them to flock to his banner, lustily cheer him on, and furiously hector anyone who dared poke at his twists, turns, shifts, and deep knee bends on Iraq.

But even the most cursory look at Obama's words, votes, and campaign pirouettes on Iraq paint a far different picture of a candidate for which Iraq was never the clear cut issue that many believed, or maybe wanted to believe. The Iraq flips started long before his Iowa pledge to get out now. It started even before he was in the Senate. At a Democratic forum outside Chicago during his Senate campaign in 2003 and 2004, Obama lambasted Bush for waging the war. He flatly said that if he had been in the Senate he would not have voted for $87 billion more to bankroll the war. Or, as he put it in an earlier speech, we have to say 'no' to George Bush." Once in the Senate that no quickly became yes.

He promptly voted for four separate war appropriations that totaled more than $300 billion. A year before he pledged in Iowa to get the troops out now, he opposed a proposal by Senator John F. Kerry to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by July 2007. Obama didn't just cast a quiet vote against Kerry's troop removal proposal he added the veiled chastisement that an "arbitrary deadline" could "compound" the Bush administration's mistake. A year later he joined with Republicans and backed their resolution that the Senate would not cut off funding for troops in Iraq.

But money and votes aren't the only issue in which Obama sent a different message then the impassioned get out of Iraq now speeches he still thundered before audiences. The other issue was when to withdraw. Obama backed up his end the war now rhetoric with another public demand that a firm timetable be set for withdrawal. In fact, a timetable with a specific withdrawal date was set by a Democratic senator. But that senator wasn't Obama. It was Kerry. His bill set the goal of withdrawing combat troops from Iraq by the end of March 2008. In contrast, Obama's withdrawal plan did not set firm deadlines and would keep troops in Iraq if the Bush administration and the Iraqi government met a laundry list of benchmarks.

March has long since passed, the troops are still there and big buck spending with the Senate's approval continues with no visible end in sight to it.

Meanwhile Obama has added yet another wrinkle to his Iraq drama and that's that he'll go to Iraq and listen to what the commanders on the ground and military brass there have to say about where we need to go with the war.

This sounds less like the hard line one time verbal antiwar advocate named Obama speaking then a certain Republican presidential rival named McCain speaking. But then again Obama has been consistent from the start on one thing on Iraq and that's political expediency.

Incidentally, some things at least rhetorically don't change. An excerpt of Obama's Iraq antiwar speech (cleansed of his Iraq war removal now call) is still on his official website. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

Bored already this holiday weekend? Make it a point to see Wall-E, Pixar's latest neo-animation instant classic. Wall-E is a quasi-Luddite affair, an ironic but skillful use of groundbreaking cinematic technology to warn us about the dangers of this very technology. Indeed, it uses technology to caution us about technology better than any less technological vehicle could have done.

The movie observes how we "inhabit" a world in which we can customize our environment exactly to our liking, to the point that we neglect our actual environment and our actual community of human beings.

I saw that lesson displayed before even the opening previews, as the man ahead of me in line yammered on the phone, oblivious to most everything beyond his phone call. He initially requested two tickets for Hancock. When informed by the cashier that the movie hadn't opened yet, he and his date slowly scanned the list of movies as though they were the only people in line. All the while, the man focused mainly on carrying on his conversation with the disembodied voice brought to him by Verizon; the movie cashier may as well have been Wall-E the robot.

Once inside, the movie proceeded to reveal what happens when you take such a technological development to its not-so-natural conclusion. Watch it and think anew about our new virtual world, in which it is so easy to shut out the real world, thanks to iPhones, iPods and a growing willingness to treat the people around us as though they were machines.

Sorry Bridget, the media hasn't been fair to anything but profit and sensationalism since Congress went along with Reagan's dump of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Since then the public, and yes voters, have been fed a steady diet of Britney, Lohan, Paris, celebrity chit chat, murder, rapes, fires, floods, disasters, car chases, brain dead, unfunny sitcoms, anything but reality shows, miles of blaring commercials and endless heated debate over political fluff (Hillary's hemline, Obama-Michelle's fist bump, Edwards $400 hair cuts, McCain's hot temper). This is what purports to pass as intelligent, reasoned, discussion of the issues.

Don't kid yourself Obama is only getting the overkill media attention because he's a political oddity. He's a young, black, hip-hop looking presidential candidate who can play basketball and dance. In short, he's tailor made copy for the stuff that the media has feasted off of since the dump of the FD. McCain has one chance to equalize things with Obama. Do a rap duet with Shaq.

It's true, as Mariel notes, that there's no conspiracy among MSM types, but that doesn't mean there isn't a bias -- shared attitudes and values among a class that's rather politically and culturally homogenous. That bias has come out in some of the breathless pro-Obama coverage we've seen this year.

While Jonathan's right that some pundits have griped about Obama's shifting positions, that's different from the reporting about him, which has bordered on hagiography.

No, Bridget, McCain won't get fair treatment from the MSM. But then, presidential candidates who whine about the media -- see Clinton, Bill and Hillary -- remind me of sad-sap sports fans who complain about the referees. Life's not fair, get over it.

Presidential campaigns have an army of consultants and millions of dollars to get out their message. If McCain proves unable to do that, it will be nobody's fault but his own.

Bridget raises a valid point about how we tend to focus too much on the wrong things. But I disagree with her diagnosis and prescription.

Most journalists are indeed liberal, as surveys indicate. But the media's tilt in its coverage is not toward liberal orthodoxy, it is toward trivia and titillation. Fixations on Rev. Wright and flag pins hardly signify an unfair tilt to Obama. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business has proven, 23 years after its publication, to still be the best analysis yet of how politics, religion and education all now worship at the altar of entertainment.

I also doubt that Americans want constant policy comparisons and endless debates. They claim to care rather about testing a candidate's general character and vision -- while actually paying attention only to scandal and gossip. This, not an ideological unfairness, is what fuels the media engine in our day.

The press is unfair? True. They love Obama and ignore or criticize McCain? Unsurprisingly, I see the coverage skewed in exactly the opposite way from Bridget.

Obama moves to the middle on Faith Based initiatives, FISA and endorses the Supreme Court's decision throwing out gun ban in DC. These are covered in detail and with some hysterical concern that he is "diluting his brand" and could lose his core supporters--the true believers. (Okay I'm one hysterical core supporter).

McCain gets a pass on reversing positions on torture of prisoners, off-shore drilling, warrantless wiretaps, Veteran benefits and the eponymous McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill--that he introduced before he was against it.

The press, in general, like McCain and his accessibility. Obama has the energy, but his people tightly control access. This, the press doesn't like.

Substance? Never, when gotchas and gaffs grab more eyes.

I think Bridget brings up a good point about journalistic equity and integrity when covering the 2008 elections. In theory, there would be equal news coverage for both Obama and McCain, but the reality is that the way we get the news today is leaning more toward Obama's direction. And by "we" I'm referring to my generation--the one with the short attention span, and the detrimental ability to feverishly multitask.

But that's not to say it's all good press. Most of my peers and I get our news from campus newspapers or news search engines like Google. And those sources tend to highlight the news with the greatest hits (i.e. the greatest drama). Lately, the buzz about Barack Obama involves his wife, Michelle.

Michelle Obama has become the Jane Fonda of the '08 Elections - she says what she thinks in order to create the greatest shock value. Everything from her comments on American patriotism, her wardrobe choices (gossip websites predict her to be "the next Jackie O"), and her appearance on The View have added to the entire political frenzy surrounding her husband - the biggest draw is that these stories usually have absolutely nothing to do with politics, and are sometimes completely unrelated to Barack Obama.

I see the bias, and hopefully it will calm down now that Obama is the definite Democratic candidate for '08. But, until then, the media frenzy could work to Obama's career advantage, especially among the teenage-to-mid-twenties demographic.

Hey, it worked for Paris Hilton.

Bridget wonders if there will be fair coverage in the Obama-McCain race. I say, it depends on your definition of "fair."

I'm always amused when people see vast conspiracies is media coverage, as if there's some daily memo from "them" that goes out to all the mainstream media people saying what we're going to write about. As if we could be that organized!

The truth is that what so many people chalk up to institutional bias is more about institutional laziness and fickleness. So many of the stories are the ones that are easy and sexy (politically speaking). And if Obama is doing/saying something sexy enough to write an easy Page 1 story, he gets the coverage. Same goes for McCain. We journalists are a fairly simple people.

Does this all translate to fair coverage? Not in the sense of same amount of words or news play every day. But it's fair in the sense that we don't discriminate against anyone who wants to make sexy news that's easy to write and get us good play. Honestly, it's not all that different from reality TV programs like "American Idol." Who gets the best press? The weirdos, the loudmouths and the winners -- not the talented.

For the past few months, the news from the campaign trail has been focused on the photo finish in the Democratic Party. But now that it's just down to Barack Obama and John McCain, will the media coverage even out as it should?

Don't count on it. Obama's every move still grabs enthusiastic top billing. When McCain does make the headlines, it's usually hinged to Obama's latest move, like Obama responding to a McCain policy point or statement that didn't make page one in the first place.

We're past the point of gushing about sunny hope, inspired youths and vague promises of undefined change. We need a stark comparison of the candidates' platforms. Voters might see a clearer picture if Obama had agreed to the nine other town-hall meetings proposed by McCain, but in an ethical world the media should be bringing to the people the equitable coverage and unbiased reporting that would truly aid in making an educated ballot decision.

On the way into work this morning, I heard reports on the radio that Bill Clinton had said Barack Obama would have to "kiss my ass" if he wanted the former president's help in the campaign. And immediately, all I could think of was Bill taking the place of Shaq up at the microphone in that infamous rap ...

"Hillary can't do it without me; Hillary can't do it without me; Hillary can't do it without me. Hey Barack, tell me how my @$$ tastes ... "

Still, the also anonymously sourced Clinton denial of the story has some comedic value. Bill's defense, reportedly, is that he doesn't talk that way.

Funny, that's not how Paula Jones remembers things ...