What's in a drink? Everything, perhaps. On Wednesday, President Obama invited an even number of Democrats and Republicans to the White House for Happy Hour. The invitation said 7:30. Perhaps a platter of hors d'oeuvres was also hastily assembled to offset the potential giddiness of bipartisan cameraderie that alcohol consumption might fuel.

Now, when or I or you go out after work with colleagues, what happens? We discover that our co-workers are perhaps not as irritating, recalcitrant, and obnoxious as we thought. After a glass or two, we may even begin caring about their spouses and children. And we vow, in our cups, to give them the benefit of the doubt the next time friction arises during a meeting over the umpteenth rewrite of the organization's mission statement

When POTUS convenes Happy Hour, the repercussions are potentially enormous. The gesture alone reminds everyone that they are people first, opponents second.  It's awfully difficult to resist the congenial subtext that evolves when you're standing in the White House holding a libation and chatting with the President of the United States. It puts you at the center of the universe""and that enlarges one's sense of obligation and statesmanship, even if only subliminally. It's hard to be quite so petty when you're getting great strokes.

This isn't about melting differences between Democrats and Republicans. It's about building bridges, finding common ground, smoothing down the rough edges, tamping down the harsh rhetoric, and maybe, just maybe, creating a path for genuine and productive compromise.

President Obama knows that small gestures can have lasting effects. He knows that hosting Happy Hour isn't about what's poured into your glass, it's about walking the walk and talking the talk--showing that you aren't going to demonize ideological opponents, you aren't going to label people as enemies.

In politics, as in life, small gestures count. They may not mean so much in and of themselves, but as symbols of the possible, as signposts of civilized behavior, they generate waves of meaning that extend well beyond the moment.

You can cling to your bitter cynicism about the left, the right, and everything in between. But if you do, you're likely to miss out on the grace that small gestures like a bipartisan Happy Hour confer on all those who participate--a grace that extends, especially, to the individual who sponsors the gesture.

The leading lights in the political arena who expend unusual amounts of energy getting and staying elected are often Alpha males, aggressive, driven, confident, ambitious, and always pursuing more. They inspire and deflate. They tend toward autocratic and abusive behavior. They have insatiable appetites for power, food, booze, money and sex ­- often of the most innovative varieties... Just listing the sex scandals involving fast-track political types could fill the pages of an oversized book. So, it should not have surprised the prurient public that New York's governor, son of a multi millionaire who fought Wall Street, blew his career... Imagine, a rich Jewish boy caught in kinky stuff with a high priced shiksa hooker!

Those interested in Alpha male sex psychology might refer to "disorders" involving "suffering/humiliation of one's self/partner." These types suffer from "persistent fantasies/urges to either inflict or receive pain as a means to sexual arousal"... Spitzer's activities with Kristen did not involve love. Think kinky as Kinky, as Joan Rivers once described it. "My husband was having a heart attack and I was lying next to him handcuffed to the bed as was the hooker lying on the other side of him. Lucky the dog on top of her could dial 911." Some of the powerful like to get humiliated ­ pissed and shat on, whipped. They feel better and go forth with zest into their world to humiliate others. [More] . . read more

Coal power stations need to be, one at a time, closed as wastage is reduced and other generation systems are brought on line. There will be no significant carbon capture in the next twenty years, except by planting trees & biomass. Corporations that buy today’s coal power stations or build new versions of the same are going to lose most of their multi-billion dollar investment. They will be left to go broke like the builders of road tunnels that people don’t want to pay to use. Malcolm Turnbull knows the details on this but seems controlled by the UIC. A Liberal Party opposition that actually cares about business stability will not support a sell-off that will end in tragedy with the Australian public demanding coal power close down and business clinging to a costly investment.

This week Barry O’Farrell, the Liberal state leader, has the chance to rock a bad government and to prove that the “business party” can plan for a greener future. He could protect business from short-term-greed-long-term-pain and open a political front to a younger greener electorate that is so tired of Labor’s short term thinking. In just one week Barry, supported by Malcolm, could rewrite politics in Australia and reveal all the inadequacies in Labor’s response to Climate Change. It just takes one vote, Barry.  . . read more

But this seismic shift in mass consciousness was nowhere to be seen in the Democratic primaries in recent months. On the contrary, as Hillary Clinton’s quest for the Democratic nomination succumbed to the momentum of Senator Barack Obama’s, the multi-millionaire Clinton ludicrously posed as a populist spokesperson for that minority of stereotypical rural, racist whites who steadfastly refuse to vote for any black candidate... Now, as Clinton faces the inevitability of failure in her quest for the presidency, she is floating the possibility of vice president on Obama’s ticket. He should give her a middle finger, after surveying the wreckage the Clinton campaign has left behind.

U.S. politics are at a potential turning point, in which a nation founded upon slavery, with racism ingrained in its very foundation, could finally begin to correct its hideous past. This process is long overdue. But realizing it requires a candidate willing to wage a frontal assault on the minority of white Americans from all social classes who still cling to racism — who the Clintons have consciously emboldened — while championing the civil rights of African-Americans, Muslims, Latinos and Asians victimized by the system. [More] . . read more

On one hand there is a very reasonable argument that says keeping Howard out has been victory enough.

In my opinion though this point of view does little to offer new ideas, instead it tells us that what's happening now isn't as bad as it could be.

Not particularly constructive.

Finally though, one line which encapsulates Rudd appeared in the Letters section of the Sydney Morning Herald months ago, the letter read:

'Watch out, if you keep walking down the middle of the road you'll eventually get run over'

A perfect description of the fate that will befall this middle of the road warrior.  . . read more

There is little question that the majority of people on the planet - those who suffered under both the corporate globalization of the Clinton years and the imperial globalization of George W. Bush - deserve something better. However, it is far from certain that social justice advocates who want to encourage a more democratic approach to world affairs and global economic well-being will be able to sway a new administration. On the other hand, the damage inflicted by eight years of neocon rule and the challenges of an increasingly daunting geopolitical scene present a conundrum to the corporate globalizers: Is it even possible to go back to the way things were?...

Battered by losing wars and economic crisis, the USA is now a superpower visibly on the skids. And yet, there is no guarantee that the coming era will produce a change for the better. In a world in which the value of the dollar is plummeting, oil is growing ever more scarce relative to demand, and foreign states are rising as rivals to American power, the possibility of either going ahead with Bush/Cheney style unilateralism or successfully returning to the "enduring and effective" multilateral corporatism of the 1990s may no longer exist. But the failure of these options will undoubtedly not be for lack of trying. Even with corporate globalization on the decline, multinational businesses will attempt to consolidate or expand their power. And even with the imperial model of globalization discredited, an overextended U.S. military may still try to hold on with violence. [More] . . read more

As a pedigree, the McCain family's stature rests on the status and prestige of its achievements in the military: rank, medals, and most importantly to John McCain's presidential campaign, the image of warrior masculinity: the straight talking maverick of the Republican Party, the 21st century rendering of Teddy Roosevelt.

Not exactly. In his current presidential campaign, he's cozying up to the hate-mongering Christian right he once criticized. He's reversed positions on so many issues that his Democratic rivals have assembled his contrasting statements into "The Great McCain Versus McCain Debates". Underlying the Jekyll-Hyde reversals is McCain's hidden past of collaboration. Somewhere in the unplumbed human part of John Sidney McCain III, he knows his POW experience contradicts the war hero image he projects. This essential dishonesty, this lie of the soul, is a sign of a larger lack of character...

McCain is not some principled leader, not a maverick cowboy fighting the powerful. He's a sycophant. He believes in nothing but power and will do anything to attain it. He explodes in anger when challenged because, when a criticism hits too close to home, it goes to straight his deep-seeded shame. [More] . . read more

This is all the more heinous now given the interrelationships between universities, corporations, and capital. The precipitous fall in university endowments is linked not only to the contemporaneous use of business models in the governance of universities, but also on the transplantation of corporate fund managers to highly-paid positions in the university hierarchy. This is an invasive transplantation, as fund managers more accustomed to the risk profiles of hedge funds are ill-equipped to managing much more conservative portfolios such as those of a university, an institution that is predicated on continued existence without the possibility of being “sold” or “broken up” in any type of “bankruptcy” proceedings. Indeed, it has been reported that Harvard University’s endowment was, at one point recently, leveraged 105 percent… meaning that it had invested more than it actually had on hand. While this may be a common tactic of those who come from a corporate finance background, it becomes downright distasteful in the context of an institution such as a university. Yet the University jumped on the bandwagon of hedge funds, real estate speculation, and investment in private equity, enticed by the thought of big returns. However, as soon as the investments went down, the endowments tanked as well.

While the day-to-day functioning of the University in the United States is vested in the oLces of the President, Provost, and various Vice-Presidents, the overall strategic direction is governed by a Board of Trustees or, in the case of public universities, Regents. Private colleges and universities are actually chartered as non-profit corporations and, as such, legally require these Boards in order to exist. These Boards function quite similarly to their counterparts in the corporate world, the Board of Directors: trustees have final say on all tenure decisions, they set fund-raising goals, decide on capital projects, and help set the direction of endowment investment. Thus, they are also implicated in the horrible decline in endowment monies experienced by many schools in the last year. However, their activities and deliberations are done almost entirely in secret: while there is a token movement towards transparency in the convening of public “forums” during regular trustee meetings, most proceedings are done behind closed doors. Such lack of transparency has been one of the most prominent issues raised by the recent protesters at NYU and the New School.

Indeed, the links between schools, corporations, governments, military
activities around the world become rather frightening once you start
putting it all together-which is of course why there is a lack of
transparency in the first place. 

Read more at http://maicgregator.org/ - MAICgregator searches government funding databases, private news sources, private press releases, and public information about trustees to try and produce a radical cartography of the modern university via the replacement or overlay of this information on academic websites. . . read more

A stroke of diabolical genius. It could work. Howard might convince enough swinging voters that he is answering the call of his heart to heal Australia. Further, that he is the only person in the land who could pull it off. Thus anyone who cast a vote against him, would also be casting a vote against a reconciled, re-born Oz. On last night's TV news, an aboriginal elder offered this comment: "Howard's got a new skin, but he's the same old snake". Exactly. This initiative is driven by desperation, even fear. Something else is going on in Howard's mind, apart from the ignominy of losing office. I think I know what it is — but let it wait until tomorrow's 100 Words. . . read more