A friend just emailed me a link to a George F. Will column, in the Washington Post, which includes this amusing description of the new animated half-hour show “The Goode Family,” now airing on American network television, of all places:

Gerald and Helen Goode, their children and dog Che (when supervised, he is a vegan; when unsupervised, squirrels disappear) live in a college town, where T-shirts and other media instruct (‘Meat is murder’), admonish (‘Don’t kill wood’) and exhort (‘Support our troops . . . and their opponents’). The college, where Gerald works, gives students tenure. And when Gerald says his department needs money to raise the percentage of minority employees, his boss cheerily replies, ‘Or we could just fire three white guys. Everybody wins!’ Helen shops at the One Earth store, where community shaming enforces social responsibility: ‘Attention One Earth shoppers, the driver of the SUV is in aisle four. He’s wearing the baseball cap.’

Ah hoo ha ha ha…

The New York Times television critic disapproves. The show ‘feels aggressively off-kilter with the current mood, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s, when it was possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed.’ That is a perfect (because perfectly complacent) sample of the grating smugness of the planet-savers, delivered by an entertainment writer: Reasonable dissent is impossible…

Less impossible now, apparently, even in the most public sphere. And that’s a good thing.

Though the recession may not be as bad in Canada as in the US, I have found the classics are the best recession for those unemployed or perhaps stressed by these difficult economic times.

…and thy will be done:

Obama’s belief in dialogue, in the winning power of friendly humility, will be tested not by the reaction to his speeches, but by the success or failure of his smiling overtures to those now hostile to our country. The results so far: Osama bin Laden has denounced him, Kim Jong-Il has mocked him by launching rockets and rattling his centrifuge, Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has defied him, and European leaders have refused his requests for more NATO troops and centrally planned economic stimulus programs.

(….)

To believe that these and other such initiatives will succeed, one has to believe that other nations and peoples are motivated primarily by a desire to get along with others, and not a desire to acquire more power, land, prestige, or influence. One has to believe that the desire for power and status stems not from human nature, but from outside factors — such as a misplaced fear of American intentions, or a misunderstanding of a rival’s point of view. Fix the outside causes of their hostility, and people will revert to their natural, peaceful state.

Got peace if you want it, eh?

Before heading to the hospital, Pettengill carried the vase onto the temple grounds to the Enlightenment Stupa, a 36-foot-tall sacred structure. He walked clockwise around the stupa with the snake for about three minutes, offering “prayers for a higher rebirth,” Pettengill recalled.
Then, in a grassy area near a marsh, he turned over the vase and let the snake slither away.

A few weeks ago Jasmine MacDonnell, an aide to Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, left behind some documents at an Ottawa television bureau. In the storm that followed opposition members howled for Raitt’s resignation, but in the end it was Jasmine MacDonnell who lost her job.
SDA commenter batb noted as an aside that Jasmine MacDonnell happens to the daughter of Ralston MacDonell, a prominent fundraiser for Michael Ignetieff, and made the sound point that “you’d think that if your father is a fundraiser for Michael Ignatieff…you might be MORE careful in the carrying out of your duties as communications secretary for a (Conservative) MP.”
You’d think. But today, there’s a new storm: Steve Maher of the Halifax Chronicle Herald apparently got his hand of a tape on which Raitt can allegedly be heard making unflattering remarks about a cabinet colleague. Seems Jasmine MacDonnell forgot to shut the tape off after an interview, and then subsequently, according to CP’s sources, “left her tape recorder in a House of Commons washroom…”
You have to feel sorry for poor forgetful Jasmine MacDonnell, who is now seeking an injunction to prevent release of the tape.

North Korea open for negotiations:

North Korea sentenced two American journalists to 12 years in prison labor camps after convicting them of illegally entering the country, a harsh penalty handed down after a closed trial and mysterious arrest that underline Pyongyang’s reputation for injustice and its hostile relationship with the U.S.

(….)

Some analysts say they believe the sentencing marks a turning point in the reporters’ situation and that North Korea will now negotiate with the U.S. to arrange their release in exchange for a payment or a diplomatic visit. Pyongyang might seek an easing of the pressure being brought on it for exploding a nuclear device two weeks ago and firing and long-range missile in early April.

The WSJ noted in an earlier story that “Mr. Obama campaigned last year on a commitment to re-engage with regimes the Bush administration had considered pariahs.”
His commitment appears to have been been duly noted in Pyongyang.

Pour yourself a martini. It’s a lengthy one, but it more or less explains why we have bad government.

Last Election Day in the U.S., three members of black supremacist group New Black Panthers, one of them wielding an nightstick, stood in front of a polling building in Philadelphia wearing black berets and military-type garb. The Justice Department “filed a complaint under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act…after months of research and acquiring a sworn affidavit attesting to the intimidation,” although they “inexplicably…did not enter the affidavit in the court case.” Here’s what civil rights activist and attorney Bartle Bull, who is a former campaign manager for Jimmy Carter and Robert Kennedy, described in said affidavit:

I watched the shorter man with the weapon point it at individuals and slap it in his hand…I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every bother to pass in close proximity to them. The weapons was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters. I watched the two uniformed men attempt to intimidate, and interfere with the work of other poll observers whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically….I heard the shorter man make a statement directed toward white poll observers that ‘you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.’

The three thugs, one of whom was a credentialed Democratic Party polling observer and “an elected member of Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee” subsequently refused to show up in court. On April 20 a federal judge ordered a default judgement against them — the usual procedure in such cases. Last week, though, political appointees in the Justice Department overruled Justice Office lawyers and dropped the case outright; the three men now walk away without any penalty whatsoever for either the intimidation at the polling station or their refusal to show up in court.
What happened on election day in Philadelphia was an isolated incident, but even if one charitably views the three men as having been merely overly-dramatic in engaging in what they may have seen as grass-roots activism, it’s important that there be some repercussions for the open intimidation of voters at polling stations, particularly, you’d think, in cases where the intimidators are credentialed election observers. And I don’t think it even needs to be said that if an elected member of a Republican Committee who was also a member of a racist organization had stood in front of a polling station on election day dressed in a paramilitary uniform and jackboots, tapping a nightstick in his palm and making racist remarks against Obama voters, and then refused to show up in court to address the matter, the current Justice Department would have treated the matter quite differently.
(NOTE: the comments function is now working — EBD)