Eugene Robinson: "Even Beck can't mar King's legacy"

Even Beck can't mar King's legacy
By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post
Friday, August 27, 2010; A19

The majestic grounds of the Lincoln Memorial belong to all Americans -- even to egomaniacal talk-show hosts who profit handsomely from stoking fear, resentment and anger. So let me state clearly that Glenn Beck has every right to hold his absurdly titled "Restoring Honor" rally on Saturday.

But the rest of us have every right to call the event what it is: an exercise in self-aggrandizement on a Napoleonic scale. I half-expect Beck to appear before the crowd in a bicorn hat, with one hand tucked into the front of his jacket.

Click here to read more Eugene Robinson.

Wisdom & Humor: Cartoonist Mike Luckovich on Glenn Beck

Caption: "SOMEBODY GET GLENN BECK A BLACKBOARD!"
Mike Luckovich
8/27 cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Glenn Beck

FLORIDA: GOP insiders fear Rick Scott -- but fear Alex Sink more

Posted on Thu, Aug. 26, 2010
BY STEVE BOUSQUET, MARY ELLEN KLAS AND MARC CAPUTO, The Miami Herald
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
For powerful Tallahassee insiders accustomed to winning, Rick Scott represents their worst fears.

But they have an even bigger worry: Democrats might win in November.

Click here to read more about the Florida contest.

Charlie's Diary: I'm a Florida resident (Fort Lauderdale) and voter (Democratic, but you probably guessed that).

Wal-Mart Asks Supreme Court to Hear Bias Suit

August 25, 2010
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times Business Section
Wal-Mart Stores asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to review the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history, involving more than a million female workers, current and former, at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores.

Nine years after the suit was filed, the central issue before the Supreme Court will not be whether any discrimination occurred, but whether more than a million people can even make this joint claim through a class-action lawsuit, as opposed to filing claims individually or in smaller groups.

Click here to read more about this long-running legal case.

Exciting sculpture exhibit in metro Washington DC September 2010

Washington, DC friends...check out this September exhibit. Artist is Veronika Jenke, former Deputy Curator of Education at the Smithsonian's Museum of African Art.

Exhibition Announcement

Closed Forms

By Veronika Jenke

Arlington Public Library

1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22201


703-228-5990


Metro: Orange Line, Ballston Metro

September 1 through September 30, 2010

This exhibition explores closed forms, with emphasis on the egg-shape. Each form explores a different approach to form, surface, color and pattern.

Price list available at the library.

A letter from Omar Khadr, Guantanamo Bay detainee

Checkpoint Washington
By Peter Finn, July 27, 2010, The Washington Post
A letter from Omar Khadr, Guantanamo Bay detainee

A Canadian lawyer for Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has released one of his letters, providing a glimpse into the thinking of one of the most high-profile inmates there in advance of his August military commission trial on murder and war crimes charges.

In the correspondence, according to one of Khadr's supporters in an accompanying press release, "we see both the boy and the man; the boy in his awkward phrasing and grammar -- the man in his sophisticated assessment of his predicament and the role he appears destined to play in the Guantanamo Bay story.

" Click here to read more about this sad case.

Congress Debates Ending Bush Tax Cuts

Congress Debates Ending Bush Tax Cuts
On-Line PBS "News Hour"
Posted: August 11,2010
The tax cuts implemented during former President George W. Bush's first term in office are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, sparking a debate over whether lower tax rates are a good thing for Americans during a recession or whether they deprive the government of much needed cash.

Click here to read more about the Bush tax cuts.

Democrats, Republicans learn different lessons from mega-rich campaigns

Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010
BY ADAM C. SMITH AND BETH REINHARD, The Miami Herald
Florida voters overwhelmingly rebuffed one mega-rich newcomer running for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Jeff Greene, while another controversial self-funder, Rick Scott, pulled off a stunning upset to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination, according to an Associated Press projection late Tuesday.

Click here to read more about Florida politics.

Charlie's Diary: I am so glad Attorney General Bill McCollum has lost

Bill McCollum
I am so glad Attorney General Bill McCollum has lost the primary today for Florida governor. The guy is a moral snake.

Remember the rent-a-boy scandal involving one Dr. George Rekers whom McCollum hired as an expert witness to speak in favor of the ban in Florida against adoption by same-sex couples? Here's a story from May 2010:

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican candidate for governor, paid George Rekers at least $60,900 to be an expert witness in 2008 while defending Florida's ban against gay couple adopting children. When a judge called Rekers' testimony neither "credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy," McCollum explicitly defended him in following briefs.

Rekers is currently embroiled in a scandal for hiring a male escort to accompany him on a trip to Europe. But he's also a leader in the ex-gay movement. He co-founded the Family Research Council and sits on the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. He has, by all accounts, dedicated his life to protecting children from the "harmful" influence of gay people.

In his testimony for the state of Florida, Rekers testified that homosexual people have a higher incidence of depression, substance abuse and break-ups than heterosexual people. This, he testified, made homosexual partners incapable of "providing a safe and secure and emotionally stable environment for the child."

Rekers also testified that he once adopted a child.

Court records show that Rekers was paid a $60,900 retainer by the state. They indicate that Rekers said he would also bill the state for his time.

Charlie's Diary: Hosting grandson Kahlil (June 2010)

Charlie's Diary....

My report to friends on Wednesday, June 23, 2010:

Hello All, Hosting Kahlil in Portland for third day. A quick review: breakfast at 8AM then off to the gym (him childcare, me personal trainer), grocery shopping and Chinese lunch at home. A wonderful 10-minute Skype with Caroline (lots of waving and "I miss you" and "I love you"). Followed by a LONG nap (2 3/4 hrs!) then walk to downtown, played ball in the next-door park on the Willamette River, home for dinner, bath, and bedtime (8:30PM).

He loves dogs, airplanes, "big trucks" and trains. He devoured some pellet-like dried blueberries, loads of strawberries, and apple slices (skinless please). He makes me laugh. I scolded him for playing with the blinds and he lay on the rug and sobbed...I let him be. He came around after ten minutes. Ice cream helped.

Charlie's Diary: Good Advice

Charlie's Diary. From a Facebook discussion of the California Appeal Court extending the marriage ban until a December hearing. This is what a black woman, a respiratory therapist in Detroit wrote as a comment:

"I know people that are fighting for Marriage Equality are dismayed with the 9th Circuit stay but keep believing, working towards the goal and remember..."There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails." ~Richard Rybolt

Yeah, given the stresses we have all been feeling - jobs, moves, careers, health, transitions, loves, children - whatever, I hope the words are helpful.

xoxo, Charlie (glass-is-half-full) Jewett

Obituary: Harrison Price, a Planner of Disney Parks, Dies at 89

August 21, 2010
Harrison Price, a Planner of Disney Parks, Dies at 89
By MARGALIT FOX, The New York Times

Harrison Price, an internationally known research economist who told the developers of the world’s most famous theme parks where to situate them — in the process putting Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. — died on Aug. 15 in Pomona, Calif. He was 89.

Click here to read the rest of the obit.

Florida: Puzzle of election polls: Who's in the lead?

The Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Aug. 23, 2010
BY ALEX LEARY
St. Petersburg Times
A day before two of the most-watched primary elections in Florida's gripping political history, the question at work, lunch or the gym may be, ``Who's going to win?''

Kendrick Meek will defeat Jeff Greene in the Democratic U.S. Senate race, you say. And Bill McCollum will beat Rick Scott in the GOP gubernatorial primary.

But wait, this is the year of the outsider. Greene and Scott will prevail.

Click here to read more about Florida's primary.

Mosque Controversy: "How Fox Betrayed Petraeus"

August 21, 2010
By FRANK RICH, Op Ed, The New York Times
THE “ground zero mosque,” as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room. It’s not going to determine President Obama’s political future or the elections of 2010 or 2012. Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan — on the “hallowed ground” of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club — will prove eventful all the same. And the consequences will be far more profound than any midterm election results or any of the grand debates now raging 24/7 over the parameters of tolerance, religious freedom, and the real estate gospel of location, location, location.

Here’s what’s been lost in all the screaming. The prime movers in the campaign against the “ground zero mosque” just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America’s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they’re wielding is not merely pounding Park51, as the project is known, but is demolishing America’s already frail support for that war, which is dedicated to nation-building in a nation whose most conspicuous asset besides opium is actual mosques.

Click here to read more Rich.