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Last week’s Politics Monday post announced a short series looking at the information ecology of Tampa. To accomplish this I’m going to use The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy as a guide. The first step in this project is reading through “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the [...] How do you discover and share information about your community? Regardless of how you define your community information plays an important role. If you have a little league baseball team you need to know who plays whom and when. You need to know the rules of the game and how to find them [...] Last week I actually wrote THREE different posts for Politics Monday, but ended up not running any of them. I wrote about the amateurish reporting at the St. Pete Times (I started to call it embarrassing, but they don’t seem embarrassed by their work), the cowardice of Mayor Bob Buckhorn, and the stunning willingness [...] There’s no such thing as “the police,” in that one heterogeneous group does not share a single belief system. Some police officers dislike the Occupiers on principle. Some support the ideas, but not the strategy. Some wish they could be out there. *** Police officers are also the 99%. They are blue collar [...] We adopted tenure to avoid the tin-pot tyranny of would-be totalitarians. [...] What do they want? A government of the people, by the people, for the people. And a definition of people that doesn’t include corporations. While corporations may be composed of people, it should be clear that a corporation cannot bear the same responsibilities as a person. As the recent Internet joke ran: “I’ll believe [...] Here’s an interview with a Christian man, a man who served in the US military, a man who lives in small-town America and has been married to the same woman for 65 years; a man who has been working for global peace for the last 30+ years, a life-long public servant, and a self-made [...] Today, just a recommendation. Check out USF history professor David Johnson’s book The Lavender Scare AND watch the documentary by Josh Howard. Excellent stuff. “The Lavender Scare refers to the fear and persecution of homosexuals in the 1950s in the United States, which paralleled the anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism. “Because the psychiatric community [...] A rare breed, hounded out of the party after the rise of Goldwater, thought to be extinct by the time of the Reagan presidency, apparently the progressive Republican still exists. Here are the 18 key issues for one progressive Republican: a proposed package of issues for progressive Republicans – Eighteen issues that include the [...] I got nothing. Check out this thought-provoking post over at Breakthrough Journal. DANIEL BELL’S PROPHECY “Historians identify the 1970s as the critical turning point in contemporary US history. That decade was the hinge between the liberal hegemony that prevailed between 1933 and 1968 and the ascendance of political conservatism, which lasted from 1981 until [...] Here’s why I’m interested in politics: I think government has an important role to play in creating, maintaining, and furthering a civilized society. In my less cynical moments I also believe that I live in a nation that expects its citizens to have a role in their own governance. However, when I read about [...] For some reason the following exchange between senators Sanders, Franken, and Paul stuck in my mind for a long time. For those who don’t want to watch the video, I’ll describe the exchange. Sanders says we should spend $2 billion to help at-risk seniors. Spending this money up front on nutrition and preventive health [...] The U. S. Constitution clearly states that it is the role of Congress to declare war. Article 1, section 8: “The Congress shall have power… To declare war….” So (and I’m sure all of you know this, but it bears repeating) when was the last time Congress declared war? When we went into Iraq? [...] I just finished reading 10 Big Issues Facing Our Generation by Michael Haridopolos and Amy E. Hendricks. This isn’t the $152,000 book that’s recently caused so much controversy. 10 Issues was published in 1998. In this book Haridopolos takes ten issues, presents the liberal perspective, the conservative perspective, and then recommends a common-sense middle-ground [...] A bit of a potpourri today as I’m just linking to some relevant information about the upcoming runoff election. At the end of this post I link to the candidate websites and provide the R/CT endorsements. ELECTION DATES: Early voting is March 12 – March 19 (but not on Sunday, March 13). March 22 [...] A “cap and trade” on carbon emissions will work. How do I know this? Because the United States has used a cap and trade market-based system on sulfur and nitrogen emissions for the last twenty years and it has been tremendously successful. When was the last time you heard or read about acid rain [...] Last week I looked over the various mayoral platforms and found them all somewhat lacking. Turanchik and Buckhorn came out on top, but neither got me particularly excited. So, I decided to conjure up my own. My fellow citizens, I present here, Dave’s Imaginary Mayoral Platform. JOBS Everyone says they plan to improve [...] Today I’m reviewing each mayoral candidate’s online vision/platform. The following list is ranked by substance, from most substantial to least. Along with Ed Turanchik, Bob Buckhorn has the most substantive plan posted online. You can read the .pdf here. Bob Buckhorn wants to create a new position, the Deputy Mayor for Economic Opportunity. He [...] I am half libertarian. All that stuff about individual liberty? I’m on board. All that stuff about the awesomeness of the free market? Not so much. I’m probably more than half green, but there’s plenty of muddle-headed thinking among green activists to dislike. I have a strong distaste for the Democratic party and its [...] Not feeling very political today, so just a few links about Florida redistricting. The industrious Peter Schorsch has launched a new blog covering Florida’s redistricting process: Inside the Lines. “‘Inside the Lines’ offers the latest news, commentary and information on Florida’s reapportionment process, which is in the initial stage of a two-year process, culminating [...] UPDATE: There is an updated version of this post here. Here’s the schedule for the upcoming city elections: January 31, 2011 — Last day to register for election (register to vote, not register to run) February 19, 2011 — Early Voting Begins (Early Voting will not be available on Sunday, February 20, 2010) February [...] Sarah Palin is not responsible for the recent massacre in Tucson. Nor is Glenn Beck, Ayn Rand, or Adolph Hitler. There should be no laws against hate speech, or even incitements to violence. The first amendment is crystal clear on this point. Congress shall make “no law” abridging freedom of speech. Every restriction of [...] Some of the key dates to keep in mind for 2011: January 5, 2011 – 112th Congress starts at noon; March 1 – Tampa mayoral and city council elections; March 8 – Florida Legislature convenes. (It ends after the first week of May.) The 112th Congress should provide bucket loads of political entertainment, but [...] I was struck recently by two notable metaphors floating around our electronic noosphere. These metaphors, and the underlying philosophies they represent, are notable because they are embraced by ideological opposites, aren’t generally discussed, and appear to be in nearly binary opposition: wall building and bridge building. At its most literal, wall building represents the [...] I’ve been spending all of my spare time reading the responses to WikiLeaks and learning more about Julian Assange. The media response, and following the arguments both pro and con, has been fascinating. My knee-jerk reaction is to support WikiLeaks and Assange, but I’ve been taking arguments opposing the leaks seriously. People I like [...] The Spencerian recently pointed to Ghost in the Machine as his “political ‘blogfather.’” I’m also a big fan of GitM, and read Ghost (aka Kevin Murphy) frequently when we were both doing graduate work in history. I haven’t visited GitM recently, so I followed Ben’s link and spent some time reading through Kevin’s [...] This week’s post is is a collection of random thoughts about the post-mortems I’ve been reading since Tuesday’s debacle. First, the loss was my fault. I take full and total responsibility. There’s been a lot of finger-pointing, excuse-making, and calls for heads to be removed from necks, but very little shouldering of responsibility. I’m [...] Nothing new today. My prediction is that nationwide, tomorrow will be a mixed bag. Dems, Reps, and Tea Partiers will all claim victory, and all will accuse the other of not living up to the hype. While I enjoy politics, this is really my least favorite time of the political cycle. I like policy [...] |
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2012 Re/Creating Tampa |
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