What do you think of John Edwards?

I have always been skeptical of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. There's something of a 'fly-by-night' quality of him that has always turned me off. Something that makes him come across as being as artificial as Mitt Romney. I've also always been suspicious of angry populists who pander to people's emotions because while that's great for getting votes, it's a poor way to actually make change happen... something that Edwards isn't actually famous for.

Yet Ralph Nader and a few other people whose opinions I respect have spoken well of him, or at least his campaign. Nader doesn't speak well of prominent Democrats very often so it caught my attention.

I think the fact that Edwards is actually talking about poverty and economic concerns (instead of the "bipartisan" approach of pretending these things don't exist and pandering only to the middle class) can be useful for advancing the debate, regardless of whether it's a campaign stunt or not.

But I just doubts about whether he's the man to make the change that he very eloquently says needs to be made.

So instead of giving my opinion, I'll ask for yours. I know some progressives read this blog. What are your thoughts about John Edwards?

The illusion of media choice

US News and World Report has a good article on media consolidation.

It's commonly believed that the explosion in news outlets (primarily via cable TV and the Internet) has increased the diversity of product choice.

However, the magazine points out that although the number of news outlets has exploded, the number of journalists has remained static.

Says Tom Goldstein, director of mass communications at the University of California-Berkeley: "Resources are in the distribution rather than the collection of news."

The weekly added: Today, about a dozen media corporations—the largest is Gannett Co., followed by the Tribune Co.—own roughly one third of the country's more than 1,400 daily newspapers.

In other words, the change is not in being able to see a wider variety of opinions or deeper news coverage. The change is that now, you can see the same people's opinions and the same superficial infotainment in many different place.

It's not choice, but the illusion of choice.

20 percent of Army recruiters under investigation for dishonesty

In a 'dog bites man' story, the British Ministry of Defence is apparently under fire for glamorizing war.

I'll pause a moment to allow the shock to wear off.

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust says recruits are unable to make informed choices about enlisting and children are being targeted, reports the BBC.

This is exactly when you get savvy adults whose career it is to prey upon vulnerable 16 year olds because the military needs to feed the war machine's insatiable appetite. A war machine that's so transparent that even people only a little bit older can see through it.

But don't get too smug. It's hardly just a British thing.

According the New York Times, nearly one of five United States Army recruiters was under investigation in 2004 for offenses varying from "threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would not be sent to Iraq." One veteran recruiter told a reporter for the Albany Times Union, "I've been recruiting for years, and I don't know one recruiter who wasn't dishonest about it. I did it myself."

See the world. Get money for college. Visit different cultures. The military sounds like a paradise!

I wonder if the recruiters mention destroying other people's countries for no reason, dodging bullets in a place where you have no idea who's enemy and who isn't, putting your life in the hands of whatever nitwit happens to be elected (or not) president and surviving (hopefully) roadside bombs.



Recommended reading: Top military recruitment lies.

And that's just those who've been caught

Ever wonder why New York state government was so messed up? Why Albany was the home of the most dysfunctional state legislature in the nation?

The Albany Times-Union offers a clue. An investigation by the daily and Columbia University's investigative reporting center revealed as many as one-fifth of state lawmakers have... broken the law.

"You would like nothing better than to hold grudges"

In my local paper, I caught a version of this article about the debate over casino gambling in Massachussetts. The piece talked about how religious folks that had previously been on opposite sides of the argument over gay marriage are now uniting to oppose casinos. It was supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy about how ideologically different people can get along. And then I read this snipet:

"You would like nothing better than to hold grudges. But in government you can't do that," said Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a leading anti-gay marriage lobbying group whose mission statement says it's committed to affirming Judeo-Christian values.

Just think about that comment for a second: "You would like nothing better than to hold grudges."

This so-called Christian should be absolutely ashamed of herself.

This is exactly what's wrong with America. You have a group claiming to represent core Judeo-Christian values talking about the joy of holding grudges.

The only reason this "Judeo-Christian" group reluctantly chose to drop its grudge is only because it became politically expedient to do so.

I was raised a Catholic. The Catholicism I learned might be derided as "bleeding heart" or "cafeteria" in some quarters. But in contrast to Ms. Mineau, the version of Christianity I was raised with did not preach about how there is "nothing better" than holding grudges.

America is filled with so many people who are angry and nasty and who view those with differing political opinions as enemies, as dishonest, as evil. What America needs is more emphasis on honest dialogue and less emphasis on holding grudges.

Even if it doesn't fit some people's idea of Judeo-Christian values.

Yacking drivers to blame for traffic congestion too

It's fairly well known that people who yack away on their cell phones (or worse yet, text message) while driving are extremely hazardous not only to other drivers, but especially to pedestrians and bicyclists. Some studies have equated the practice to being as dangerous as driving drunk. Whether this is strictly true or not, the practice is clearly distracting and unsafe.

Such people (here in New York state, we call them criminals) are now being blamed for another ill: traffic congestion.

U.S. researchers said on Wednesday that people who use cell phones while behind the wheel impede the flow of traffic, clog highways and extend commute times, reported Reuters.

Things fall apart

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

There's one thing that's become eminently clear during the last few days: neither Mwai Kibaki nor Raila Odinga deserved to serve as dogcatcher, let alone president of the Republic of Kenya.

Over 300 people have been killed in post-election violence. And the toll mounts daily.

Odinga and his party accused Kibaki, the incumbent, of stealing the election. Kibaki's light-speed inauguration to pre-empt legal challenges only gave further credence to the accusations that his 'victory' was a fraud.

Odinga and his followers were little better. Odinga chose to inflame the already volatile situation by comparing the election to the rape of Kenyans. Meanwhile, his supporters did something far worse: they torched a church where dozens of suspected Kibaki supporters had taken shelter. 30 people were killed in the blaze.

The massacre brought back eerie memories of the genocide in nearby Rwanda, where such atrocities were frequent.

The two parties traded charges of genocide.

Certainly, the election should be re-run. As National Public Radio noted:

The head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, said he had been pressured by both sides to announce the results quickly - and perhaps wrongly. The country's oldest newspaper, The Standard, on Wednesday quoted Kivuitu as saying, "I do not know whether Kibaki won the election."

But that is no excuse for plunging the country toward the abyss.

The ethnic communities have lived in peace with each other for decades. Intermarriages are common. The only time there's ever been any problems have been during elections. They've been repeatedly betrayed by their misleaders.

Nearly every country that borders Kenya (Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia) has suffered through brutal civil war and/or genocide in the last quarter century. Despite these cautionary lessons, Kibaki and Odinga seem far too eager to risk this horror in order to get/keep the intoxicating drug called power.

And sadly, far too many of their fellow citizens seem willing to kill and die for these 'men' who have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that they are traitors to the Kenyan nation.

Top Adirondack stories of the year

True to its local focus, Adirondack Almanack blog offers its top ten Adirondack stories of the year.