Blogs

Got this from an article in Friday's SF Chronicle. UC Berkeley's chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, said Thursday that Cal faces "a diversity crisis." Relevant stats:  Read More »

Demos has an interesting article series going now called "Kitchen Table Talk." The idea is that we should have more discussion with family and friends about values, priorities, public policy, and civic issues.

One of the problems that progressives and closet progressives face is that they often think that it is taboo to talk about anything that smacks of politics with friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances. This mindset causes several problems:  Read More »

I don't have a lot to say about the West Wing last night, but here goes:  Read More »

• That Santos won the nomination was no surprise, but I didn't expect him to pick Leo as VP. They'll make an interestingly balanced combo though -- young + old, Latino + Irish, rash + more careful.
• Bartlet should have come clean on the space shuttle thing, as I suggested in a previous post. Look at all the trouble he's in now.
• My bet is that the leak about the shuttle came from Toby.
  

Here's what I know about the season finale of the West Wing tonight, and the producers' plans for next season. This is based mostly on an article in the Fresno Bee by Rick Bentley.  Read More »

Luther Head's missed 3-pointer with 17 seconds left in this year's NCAA national basketball championship had me very distraught. For one, I grew up and went to high school in Illinois, thus a good majority of my friends attend the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. But beyond rooting for a sports team, the Illini loss brought an end to the remarkable streak of wins by blue states in major NCAA and professional sports.  Read More »

The Iraqi Government's choice of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the country's new president comes as a great surprise to me, as well as many people around the world. The Kurds, who suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein, now are the major force in the Iraqi government's coalition. This could be a potential sign that the Kurds will be granted more sovereignty, as well as even a state. Of course I am quite optimistic at this point, but I think this is a step in the right direction. They will most certainly gain more rights and influence in Iraq, where they comprise most of the population in the North. This could be very significant for the Middle East, as I argue that this issue of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Northern Iraq will affect the future of the geography of the middle east more significantly than any other conflict, namely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Read More »

I mentioned sightings of progressive churches in a previous post. Here's a new category that I hadn't thought of: The Progressive Farmer. Check out their website and magazine.

One theory that I've heard from several sources is that people who subscribe to conservative ideology have less capacity to deal with ambiguity. I'm not sure of the cause and effect sequence here: Are people who have less capacity to deal with ambiguity more likely to be influenced by conservative ideology? Or, if you are influenced by conservative ideology do you become less capable of dealing with ambiguity? In either case I certainly think that if we train ourselves and others to become adept at looking at multiple sides of every problem we are less likely to be swayed by conservative arguments and more likely to come up with a progressive solution.  Read More »