Presidency
Archived Posts from this Category
Brooks on Barack, Krugman on Obamacare
Posted by PaulM on 12 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
NYTimes columnist David Brooks tries to set the record straight on what President Obama is doing and why he is doing it. I’m not in Brooks’ camp on most issues, but on the President he is usually a fair and reasonable commentator. I appreciate his thoughtful tone as he writes about complex political and social issues. He doesn’t go nuclear and accuse Democrats, progressives, liberals, or others of being unpatriotic, bad Americans if they hold a view different than his. Read his column here and consider subscribing to the NYT if you appreciate it.
Brooks’ colleague the economist Paul Krugman today walks us through the realities of the health care reform bill in its current version. Where have the voices of the people who really need this bill been for the past year? My sense is that most if not all of the opposition has come from people who are fighting it while on the “health-care plan clock,” so to speak… they’re covered. Read Krugman’s column here.
Dems Need to ‘Spring Ahead’ to Jobs-Jobs-Jobs
Posted by PaulM on 09 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
President Obama and company need to move the question on the health care reform bill so they can focus more energy on the joblessness and job insecurity that are gnawing at the nation’s collective confidence. Bob Herbert of the NYTimes has his “jobs” drum out again today, and he’s pounding it in hope that the Democrats in Washington will hear the message. Read his column here, and subscribe to the NYT if you appreciate it.
What War Does to Us, All of Us
Posted by PaulM on 06 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Poetry, Politics, Presidency, Technology
Poet and writer Brian Turner writes about the “hurt locker” in everyone who gets damaged by war. He wrote this essay for the NYTimes after attending a showing of the film “The Hurt Locker” in Hanoi, Vietnam. Read the essay here and subscribe to the NYT if you appreciate it.
UMass Lowell Makes the President’s Honor Roll
Posted by PaulM on 02 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Presidency
Congratulations to my colleagues at Middlesex Community College for being named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for the second year. UMass Lowell sought the designation for the first time this year and received news last week that the university had been included on the Honor Roll. Together with last year’s designation as a community-engaged university by the Carnegie Foundation for Excellence in Teaching, this Presidential-level recognition helps lift UMass Lowell’s national profile in the areas of community engagement and partnerships. As a city, Lowell is fortunate to have higher education institutions like Middlesex Community College and UMass Lowell who take seriously their responsibilities as public institutions to contribute to the public good. UMass Lowell will make its announcement about the President’s Honor Roll today, I believe, accompanied by statements from Chancellor Meehan and Provost Abdelal. The very positive synergy between MCC and UML is a powerful community asset.
Organize a Coffee Party…Fast…Suggested Reading from Frank Rich of NYT
Posted by PaulM on 28 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Civil War, Culture, Education, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
The NYTimes’ Frank Rich paints a troubling picture of what may be in store for the US if the Tea Party mindset catches on. Time to get that “Coffee Party” movement going. Read Frank Rich here and subscribe to the Times if you appreciate it.
President ‘Dave’ Cuts the Budget
Posted by PaulM on 26 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
President Obama’s health care meeting yesterday reminded me of this clip from the comedy “Dave” with Kevin Kline. Except the two sides didn’t get any results by the end of the meeting.
Clancy Sigal on Liberal Passion
Posted by PaulM on 25 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
Wow. Looking at www.realclearpolitics.com this morning, I did a double-take when I saw the name Clancy Sigal associated with an opinion piece in the Guardian in the U.K. This has to be the same Clancy Sigal who published his book “Going Away” in 1962, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in politics and American culture. Read his new essay about the need for liberals to stoke up their internal fires, and support the website if you appreciate it.
From http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4735/Sigal-Clancy.html :Going Away is subtitled “A Report, A Memoir.” It is a compendium of significant social and political observations, an “American Studies” novel answering the question, “What’s it like in America these days?” The time is 1956, the opening days of the Hungarian Revolt, and the autobiographical narrator drives from Los Angeles to New York with the manuscript of a confessional novel, experiencing a nervous breakdown as he passes through America and reviews his past. It is an “on-the-road” novel, a pursuit of lost time, a gathering of the narrator’s experiences and a diagnosis of America’s spiritual and political malaise: “For years, possibly since adolescence, I have dryly and studiously examined the indications of my own life as a clue to the country at large, as though reading a psychic thermometer.”
Empire Building and Falling
Posted by PaulM on 25 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency, Technology
Apropos Marjorie’s thoughts on Afghanistan, historian Piers Brendon, a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and author of “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire,” today weighs in at the NYTimes with an op-ed about the fates of empires. Read his view here and subscribe to the Times if you appreciate the piece.
‘The Atlantic’ Looks at Where the Jobs Went
Posted by PaulM on 22 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, Federal, Lowell, Politics, Presidency, Technology
The March issue of “The Atlantic” takes on the massive issue of joblessness in the cover story. Read the article here, and subscribe to the magazine if you appreciate the writing.
This Is Your Brain on Tea-Party, Says Lakoff
Posted by PaulM on 22 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency, Science
This is a long piece I pulled off a progressive aggregator site, but worth scanning at least. George Lakoff tries to account for the national public mind. Read the article here and support the site if you like it.
