LoveLifeLightLaughter's Comments (40)

“Of course they're unassailab­le... they don't exist!”

“I agree that she is speaking of Saudi women; I disagree with her premise that it is Islam that requires male guardianship. It is not Islam, but the male-centered, male-created interpretations of Islam that are particular to Saudi Arabian teachings and some others in the Middle East and western Asia. This is not Islam speaking, this is cultural, tribal. As she states, very clearly. But she is also mixing the two up because what she considers a tribal basis for oppression of women is actually rooted in these patriarchal interpretations of Islam, which have become so intertwined that she (and others like her) have not been able to see the difference between them.

I see her point, but her idea that Islam requires this is not actually true; it is the patriarchal interpretations of Islam that requires it, and the culture upon which that patriarchy is based.”

“Ooops... missed an important word in my comment... "Although Western views of women's rights are ***NOT*** the only correct ones"”

“The author states that the activists seeking to change or remove entirely the guardianship laws are "contrary to Islam, which requires a mahram for traveling women". While this may be the understanding of Islam in Saudi Arabia, it doesn't seem to be the same understanding in other Islamic countries or among other Muslim groups around the world.

Indonesia has the world's largest population of Muslims, also almost entirely Sunni, and yet they do not have a theocratic, Shari'a-based state, and they allow the open practice of other religions, which Saudi Arabia does not. Women are free to move about without male escorts, and hold major positions of power in both the public and private sector. Though far from perfect, they are an example that what is "contrary to Islam" is actually quite flexible.

So the author is apparently speaking from her own cultural subtext and understanding of Islam, which seems to be the minority view in the rest of the Muslim world. Although Western views of women's rights are the only correct ones, neither are the misinterpretations of the Qur'an perpetuated by patriarchal interpretations which depart from the Prophet's (HNBP) actual, quite liberal, teachings.

The author is arguing for these male-authored, misogynistic interpretations, rather than for the true essence of Islam. But this is also true of Christian and Jewish teachings; there is much of our individual cultures getting in the way of the truth of what we profess to believe, and how we view ourselves in society.”

“Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing this deeply personal and tragic story. I hope and pray that for you and your family, and for Shannon, that it does not become more tragic.

We DO have it all backwards; as many have pointed out, we have a "sick-care" system in this country, not a "health-care" one. What you describe..­. good food, rest, etc. are fundamental, and yet seem to be alien to the thinking of many healthcare providers.

Dr. Andrew Weil posted an excellent article here on HuffPo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/why-i-am-a-conservative-o_b_259869.htmll) that describes the increase in integrative medicine teaching and practice; oddly, this is seen as progress, when in reallity is is reaching back to the way things were before healthcare became an profit-driven industry. With some effort, we can have that kind of medical care again in this country.

Thank you again for posting this. A lot of the rest of us have been there too, and it means a lot to see it laid out so eloquently in print.

Namaste, John Cline”

“Thank you once again, Frank, for a thoughtful, and much-needed post in this time of growing defeatism and hand-wringing. It has been so frustrating to see the "spoiled brat" mentality of so many progressives, who pitch a tantrum every time they see any sign of actual POLITICS going on within the administration. It's been as if these people thought Obama would take 8 years (more like 30) worth of government bureaucracy and inertia and turn it around like a race-car, instead of the lumbering supertanker it really is, through his magical rhetorical style. I honestly believe many on the left do not have the faintest clue how politics actually works, and how difficult it is to get anything major accomplished in our government (which was designed to be that way, frustrating as it often is).

And as FDR famously said, "I agree with you. Now go out and make me do it." Blogging till your fingers bleed and nit-picking every little step of the process isn't going to have any effect. It's going to take people putting their feet on the ground and their voices in the crowds to build the kind of public outcry needed to give Obama and the Dems enough political capital to enact this enormous amount of change. And those on the left who don't see that, and actively work to attack the President and Democrats, might as well join in the Tea Parties; they're working for the other side.”

“Hale, I'd direct you to a HuffPo article which came out a day before yours, before you even tentatively pronounce "the worst is behind us". Normally, I love your posts and think you've been right on the money more often than not, but this time I think you're getting lost in your indicators and graphs. Read the following and I'd love to see a new post by you taking this news into account:

Commercial Real Estate Crash Would Cripple U.S. Banks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-filger/commercial-real-estate-cr_b_232293.html”

“I raised my first child through the late 80's-early 90's amidst the "Stranger Danger" garbage that pervaded our culture at the time, which resulted from a rash of highly-publicized child abduction and molestation cases. As other commenters here have mentioned, seemingly overnight we went from a culture of mutual parenting to one of fearing our neighbor. I did everything I could to work around this in raising my children, including teaching them proper manners when meeting someone new for the first time (instead of running away screaming "Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!" if some old man asked for directions to the nearest bus stop). Caution is all for the good; irrational fear and paranoia is destructive to our national soul.

Any time anyone is involved in a crime, especially one as heart-rending as child molestation, abduction, or murder, has a hard time finding a balance here. If you are the victim or family of a victim, it is easy to fall into the trap of letting fear rule you. Once raped, you avoid parking garages, never go on dates alone (if ever), and you carry mace everywhere you go. Once you have a child molested, you lock them away from the world and try to protect them from all harm. These are over-reactions, though perfectly understandable. But what will be the fallout when these collective fears become so rooted that we are taught from birth to be afraid, very afraid, of everyone and everything around us?”

“Ah... Lindsey Graham is pulling the "hot-blooded Latina" and "tempermental female" argument. So classy.”

“INFO ON 2:15pm PROTESTER:

From Washington Times:
Fifth protester removed from hearings
By Tom LoBianco

http://ow.ly/hglQ”

“Back at 2:15 or so, another protester disrupted the Sotomayor proceedings during Grassley's rambling and repetitive "grilling". So far I haven't seen anything on HuffPo about this, on this live-blog or elsewhere. I was out of the room at the time and missed much of what happened. Anyone have any info on this new protester (not Roe)???

Kinda wondering about a live-blog that misses something that news-worthy. Yah, we know Grassley is a gas-bag, but um, y'know, something a bit more interesting happened besides his pounding an pretty cut-and-dried imminent domain precedent into the dust.”

“What happened with the protester? I was in the other room and heard someone screaming, but by the time I got back he'd been removed from the room and everyone was chuckling about it. Any word on who he was and what he was hollering?”

“Mr Filger, you and so many other deficit hawks fail to grasp both the long term and the short term, by worrying about debt more than income. If our country's economy operates at far less than peak efficiency (as happened in Japan in the 1990s) then our long-term bonds will be downrated anyway; if we have a strong, vibrant economy (even with a huge debt), then our long-term bonds will retain their current rating, if not grow in value. It's the total-debt­-to-income ratio, not just total debt.

If we do NOT stimulate the economy, and let it languish for a long time in productive inefficiency, then we are like any other individual, company, or nation who has a lot of debt and little income. If we stimulate the economy, and provide jobs (ie. GDP boost) then our national income will grow to be far stronger in comparison to our debt-load, and our national credit rating will be as strong as ever, perhaps stronger.

The problem is not how much debt we have, but how we spend the money. So far, it appears that many states are not spending it towards job-growing but instead are putting it towards plugging holes in their budgets.

Which leads me to your conclusion, about California. I would encourage you to avoid comparing a state government with balanced budget requirements to our national government, as the situations they face due to constitutional constraints are often completely different.”

“Thank you Marcia! I've also posted it to my FB and Twitter accounts, and will blog something tomorrow (just finished a big Econ test, and don't have the mental energy left at the moment). Speaking of Twitter, I notice the #iranelection has dropped off the Trends list... anything you can do through HuffPo or other outlets to get it back up there would be great!”

“Hi Marcia... see the comment below mine from elp37... go to her blog and read the explanatio­n... and please, please correct this picture, and spread the word so that the wrong Neda doesn't get any more publicity than she already has!”

“Isn't that the wrong Neda picture? Seems I remember the person in that picture is still alive and gave an interview stating that although she appreciated the attention and supported the cause, she was very much alive. You might see if there's a correct picture out there and repost it.”

“I've been hearing/reading a lot of reviews (I haven't had a chance to see it yet) and most of them lament the "lower than expected" debut take. Lots of them claimed the movie was over-hyped, or that it was poorly timed (the time of year, should have been a summer movie, not a winter/spring one).

Not ONE review I've read/heard so far (out of maybe 10 or 12) has mentioned that the low box office turnout could possibly have ANYTHING to do with the fact we're in a HUGE, MAJOR RECESSION and people aren't spending like they did when Dark Knight and other movies like this came out. I'd be really shocked if ANY movie comes even close to past blockbusters for at least a few years, after things have settled down again.”

“Too funny... good article!

I just finished a research paper examining WHY conservatives keep harping on "oh, it's socialism, it's communism!!!" Posted on my blog at http://lovelifelightlaughter.blogspot.com/2009/03/conservative-red-herring-socialism-in.html”

“"Propagandists"????

Perhaps if you stepped out of your lofty ivory AZ State tower and actually took a look at an actual school or three, you might not be so quick to dismiss education reformers as "propagandists".

When my boys were all in the public school system a few years ago, I had to move them to a different set of schools, incidentally in a nicer, more prosperous neighborhood, because the buildings were run down and the teachers were of low morale and often unqualified.

The main driver here was when my (then) 9-year-old came home to tell me that he'd tried to correct his teacher, who said during a science segment that the atmosphere was made of oxygen. My son, coming from a science-geek family, piped up that it included nitrogen and carbon dioxide too. The teacher, with a BACHELOR'S DEGREE, insisted that only oxygen was in the atmosphere, that those other gases weren't part of it. When my son insisted, she got angry and sent him to the principal. When I told the principal that my son was correct, she told me that the TEACHER has the final word on what is taught in the classroom, and she couldn't interfere. Within a month, I had my kids moved out of that school.

But I shouldn't have HAD to do that.

This is my personal experience, but I know that thousands of other schools across the country are just as bad. So how is this "propaganda", exactly????”

“These statistics are nothing new. Your attempt to disembowel "A Nation At Risk" isn't the first and won't be the last, but despite the over-fawningness towards Japan, the 1983 report findings haven't improved one iota; if anything, they've gotten worse.

I recommend a video to you and everyone else who reads this post. Very enlightening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjKBsfk_O8c
(originator website at http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/)

Although I appreciate your effort to debunk the "China graduates 600,000 engineers to our 70,000" myth http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19//AR2006051901760.html), you really seem to be missing the point here with your apparently broadbrush dismissal of Obama's education talk. The point here is that we DO have schools (thousands of them) that are substandard, that produce high school graduates with barely legible handwriting and reading skills at 3rd grade levels, and colleges and even vo-tech schools that are so far out of reach of their financial means, much less educational level, that we as a nation are falling far behind.

To scoff at Obama's call for education reform because other countries track their students into specialized programs and offer free college educations is non-sensical and borderline reactionary. How about offering some real answers and potential solutions instead of poo-pooing the whole idea of reform? For someone who does educational research, it might be nice to hear some alternatives, if you don't like what Obama had to say.”

“OK, somebody totally missed the point here just to score a comment. Sheesh.”

“There is ample evidence that dolphins and other cetacean species, as well as some other mammals, are actually quite intelligent. Debate rages, of course, as to sentience, but over the last few years a number of studies have shown that dolphins exhibit behaviors that had previously only been attributed to sentience. If true, these cease to be "animals" and enter the realm of "people".

In other words, your original argument that eating a dolphin is no different than eating a cow would cease to be valid. It would instead be no diffferent eating a dolphin as eating your Uncle Charlie or your neighbor across the street.

Hence the problem. Japan and other cetacean-hunting nations refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of sentience in these species, and in fact actively argue against the evidence. This is entirely political and economic, not "cultural" as the Embassy office claims; if firm evidence that dolphins were intelligent and sentient were presented to the Japanese people, the vast majority would dump "culture" in a heartbeat and never allow the hunting of dolphins.”

“Joe, I too am put off by the extremism, on BOTH sides. I'm unabashedly liberal from both a social and a market perspective, and yet there are folks here who post things that sound like they won't be happy until we live in a Marxist utopia, while others cry foul at anything that doesn't hew completely to their view of instantaneous conversion to a green economy, including the complete shutdown of the meat industry and a return to everyone growing their own organic food.

In this day and age, having ANYONE who is willing to sit down and share their thoughts, and reciprocate in kind, is a thing to be cherished. For the last 30 years or more, our social discourse has been growing more and more strident and extreme, with seemingly no shared ground. It's time we all put down our ideologies, step back slowly, and re-establish the basic essence of shared humanity we all share. Reframing the dialogue is the first step. How about "social programs and business regulation are not the same as communism" for one? Or "fiscal conservatism is not the same as social darwinism" for another? Might be a good start...

Though I might disagree with you (such as Obama's bipartisanship outreach or the benefits of spending vs. tax cuts to stimulate the economy), I think you need to be heard as much as I do. Those who seek to out-shout their opponents only create emnity, not cooperation.”

“Dropped a decimal... furlough the legislature, you get $14 million. Much nicer. Maybe keep a few of the other state employees on the job. Or enough to send nearly 500 kids to Arnold's school for a year.

Maybe it's time to get that 2/3 majority thingie fixed down there in Cali-furn-aye-ay.”

“I was shocked, as many were, by the Gupta possibility. Sure, he's a famous face, but long before he came to mind I was thinking of Dr. Deepak Chopra. Here's a famous, accomplished doctor with books, TV shows, and international credibility. Plus, he's 180 degrees away from Gupta on all of the issues you mentioned. Some people have tried to tuck him in with the "New Age Crazy" crowd (not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, except in the closed minds of the stodgy medical community), but he's more mainstream than anything and his core values are wellness and preventative care, not sick-care as Harkin and others so often call our current "health"care system. Besides, he's got a wicked sense of humor and is genuinely nice, while Gupta comes off as a snake oil salesman who's always got his own agenda.”