Quote 1/28/10
Dan Choi
"America can't afford to allow [Don't ask, Don't tell] to continue one day longer."
State of the Union (Edited)
Tonight, during the State of the Union, Obama will propose a three-year spending freeze, not affecting defence, VA, homeland security, or State dept., with a start date in 2011. Opinions?
Edited to add: Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that any spending freeze should apply to domestic and defence spending, already retailiating against President Obama's not-yet-given State of the Union address.
Read more »
Edited to add: Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that any spending freeze should apply to domestic and defence spending, already retailiating against President Obama's not-yet-given State of the Union address.
Quote 1/25/10
Robert Kennedy
"Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired."
Supreme Court Rules for Corporations
Corporations can now use their overall profit to support any candidate, PAC, or special interest group publicly, giving them more lobbying power for various issues and more pull over candidates and elected officials. It is paramount to our country's future that elected officials answer to people rather than companies, and this new decision will put the opinions of corporations over constituants.
Quote 1/22/10
Paul Volker
"Wake up, gentlemen. I can only say that your response is inadequate."
Quote 1/20/10
Ted Kennedy
"Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I've seen it. I've lived it. And we can do it again."
And The Winner Is...
Yesterday, following a long and poorly run campaign to recapture Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, the Democratic Caucus lost their sixty seat super-majority. This super-majority was the Democratic key to health care reform, and potentially the only way to pass their extraordinarily ambitious agenda.
So what are the Democrat's options? The party could pass bills using the controversial method of budget reconciliation, but many Democrats don't wish to be seen as 'cheating the system' They could lower the ambitions of their agenda, but the Democratic base would react pugnaciously.
The Democrats are stuck between real reform and numbers, their agenda and an increasingly angry base. Only time will tell how the new Senate handles itself, but it's going to be a difficult ride either way. Without a filibuster-proof majority, health care reform's future seems incredibly bleak.
Read more »
So what are the Democrat's options? The party could pass bills using the controversial method of budget reconciliation, but many Democrats don't wish to be seen as 'cheating the system' They could lower the ambitions of their agenda, but the Democratic base would react pugnaciously.
The Democrats are stuck between real reform and numbers, their agenda and an increasingly angry base. Only time will tell how the new Senate handles itself, but it's going to be a difficult ride either way. Without a filibuster-proof majority, health care reform's future seems incredibly bleak.
Friday Feature: Harry Potter and Darfur
The most sucessful franchise of all time was based on a story of a boy wizard who, against all odds, was able to choose the morally correct choice and save his friends from a disturbingly evil threat. The insanely popular Harry Potter series makes allusions to worker's rights (Dobby the house elf), media bias (The Daily Prophet), corruption in government (The Ministry of Magic), minority treatment (Muggle-Born Registration Commission), and even more real-world equivalents. Some Harry Potter fans are working to promote Harry's ideals of freedom and equality in the 'Muggle' (non-magical) world. 
The Harry Potter Alliance is a group of fans who are committed to both the series and worldwide equality, and they have found a way to merge the two. The group is led by fandom leaders and well-known 'wizard rockers', and works for a variety of causes including the genocide in Darfur , restructuring of Rwanda, marriage equality, voter registration, education, media reform, and environmental causes.Jo Rowling, the series' author, is a fan of the group. “I am honoured and humbled that Harry’s name has been given to such an extraordinary campaign, which really does exemplify the values for which Dumbledore’s Army fought in the books," she said. The HPA has released several iTunes podcasts to inform people- specifically Harry Potter fans- of why they personally need to fight.
The group's Board of Directors includes Andrew Slack, Melissa Anelli, Matt Maggiacomo, and Seth Reibstien.
Arts in America's Schools
America's schools are facing a difficult dilemma: something must be cut. Some schools have already done away with elementary school music programs (including band and strings), others are cutting high school freshman sports. No matter what the decision is and where, someone's educational experience will be lessened, so what can go?
Arts programs, including art, music, drama, chorus, strings, and band, seem to be the first to go in time of budget crisis. These classes aren't considered 'essential' like core classes (math, English, science, and history), or popular fundraisers for districts, like varsity sports. If elementary school music is cut, the first opportunity that students will have to learn an instrument will be seventh grade band or strings, and will never have the chance to take a general music class. Programs like elementary school music add so much to the learning environment, and not having them would be severely detrimental to children's self confidence, grades in 'core' classes, and social health.
Arts programs provide unique outlets for creativity for young students, and allow students who cannot or do not take outside of school lessons in music to explore and expand upon his or her talents. The problem, then, is what does get cut in the place of the arts? PE could be downscaled, but America's high childhood obesity rate makes a very convincing argument to leave PE be. Sports could be cut on the high school level, but sports programs do assist students in developing their personal abilities.
The truth is, there are no easy decisions. Budgets need to met and students need a fulfilling education experience. However, I believe it is imperative at all costs to save our school's arts programs.
Read more »
Arts programs, including art, music, drama, chorus, strings, and band, seem to be the first to go in time of budget crisis. These classes aren't considered 'essential' like core classes (math, English, science, and history), or popular fundraisers for districts, like varsity sports. If elementary school music is cut, the first opportunity that students will have to learn an instrument will be seventh grade band or strings, and will never have the chance to take a general music class. Programs like elementary school music add so much to the learning environment, and not having them would be severely detrimental to children's self confidence, grades in 'core' classes, and social health.
Arts programs provide unique outlets for creativity for young students, and allow students who cannot or do not take outside of school lessons in music to explore and expand upon his or her talents. The problem, then, is what does get cut in the place of the arts? PE could be downscaled, but America's high childhood obesity rate makes a very convincing argument to leave PE be. Sports could be cut on the high school level, but sports programs do assist students in developing their personal abilities.
The truth is, there are no easy decisions. Budgets need to met and students need a fulfilling education experience. However, I believe it is imperative at all costs to save our school's arts programs.
Quote 1/13/10
Rachel Maddow
“Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war. Sometimes in elected office. And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic. It’s also a service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools. A country without an expectation of minimal artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as great as it could be. And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country. It is a service to our country, and sometimes it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness.”
Quote 1/8/10
Alec Baldwin
"Sometimes, you know, the president is a father-like figure in American society, to most Americans, even today, no matter how cynical we've become. And people don't want to think that daddy's a bum all the time. They don't want to think that Daddy's a liar, a cheat and a fraud."
Green Roofs
By senior environmental correspondent Devon Maloney
Reduce, reuse, recycle. What happens when that’s just not cutting it anymore? Most of us don’t even follow the ‘Three Rs’ as much as we may intend to. Humans need to cut emissions by 80% to slow down polar ice cap melting. We have to convert from gas and other fossil fuels to renewable energy.
So, what are you going to do? Plant trees? Donate a couple bucks to saving the rainforest? Get those ugly compact fluorescent lights? Does that make you think you’re saving the world? Not yet.
Believe me, it’s great when you do that one little thing for the environment every day, like turning off the lights in your room or turning down the heat a notch. It’s good, but not good enough when you walk by a dripping faucet and a hundred other little things every day.
Fortunately, [my school] is the perfect place for green innovations. Green roofs are energy saving, effective, a huge filter for air pollutants and a sponge for noise pollution and storm water runoff. The Europeans have been using them for thousands of years, and yet it is still a relatively new innovation for the general market here in the United States.
The concept is pretty straightforward: hot air rises to the roof where much of it escapes. This is both a huge waste of money and energy because the building loses the heating and cooling that makes up about 70% of its energy bill.
While many layers of insulators may help, a green roof does the same with some added benefits. The vegetation on the roof uses photosynthesis to clean the air from pollutants and acts as another layer to quiet the rooms in the building from outside noise. Any water the plants need is provided by rain, whereas the water would run off a normal roof, taking any chemicals from the roof with it into a nearby watershed. For us, this would eventually add to contamination of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
Conventional roofs like the school building’s current one also require periodic renovation every 15 to 20 years, depending on damage from hail or heavy storms. A green roof is not just an insulator, a filter and a natural habitat, it also protects the normal roof under it from "human activity and wind-blown debris; shielding from UV radiation and buffering temperature extremes, thereby minimizing damage from daily expansion and contraction," according to the website of a green roof company, Roofscapes Inc.
Another less quantifiable result of green roofs is the urban heat island effect. [My school] is in the center of the gradually urbanizing area of Tysons Corner and Falls Church making the vicinity more and more of a sea of black, burning asphalt. A single spot of green, as Wolfgang Ansel said, would provide nature with space to cool the weather down and eliminate pollutants.
This happens through a process of evapotranspiration, which "reduces temperatures of the roof surface and the surrounding air," according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. "On hot summer days, the surface temperature of a green roof can be cooler than the air temperature, whereas the surface of a conventional rooftop can be up to 90 degrees and warmer."
Of course, there are certain roadblocks to constructing a green roof on any building. Architecturally, not every structure can support the weight of the plants and growing medium. The greenery weighs down on the roof, and reinforcements are often very costly. While there are light weight options, the average green roof weighs about "15 to 25 pounds per square foot when saturated" says Scientific American. Considering the weight added by snow during winter months, getting the roof would be worth the cost.
On the subject of money, there is a price tag. While conservative estimates put a green roof at about $10 per square foot, others range as high as $20 per square foot. [My school] is getting more than $100 million for our upcoming extensive renovation. The scope of this renovation gives us a unique opportunity to make a difference in our school. If we rebuild, let’s rebuild it green.
With any project, there are the nay-sayers. Resistance to change is often the biggest obstacle for any initiative involving major change. Understanding the challenges that the administration faces to stay on budget and please all of their constituents is the first step. The second is to help convince them that a green innovation of this magnitude is worth the risk and that we, as the student body, would stand by this project for the likely many years it will take.
There is a lot of room for tweaking and editing and even time to go back to the drawing board. I understand this plan is far from the only option, but one thing I would love to say more than "this is my plan to make my school greener," is, "this is the student body’s plan to make our school greener."
Read more »
Reduce, reuse, recycle. What happens when that’s just not cutting it anymore? Most of us don’t even follow the ‘Three Rs’ as much as we may intend to. Humans need to cut emissions by 80% to slow down polar ice cap melting. We have to convert from gas and other fossil fuels to renewable energy.
So, what are you going to do? Plant trees? Donate a couple bucks to saving the rainforest? Get those ugly compact fluorescent lights? Does that make you think you’re saving the world? Not yet.
Believe me, it’s great when you do that one little thing for the environment every day, like turning off the lights in your room or turning down the heat a notch. It’s good, but not good enough when you walk by a dripping faucet and a hundred other little things every day.
Fortunately, [my school] is the perfect place for green innovations. Green roofs are energy saving, effective, a huge filter for air pollutants and a sponge for noise pollution and storm water runoff. The Europeans have been using them for thousands of years, and yet it is still a relatively new innovation for the general market here in the United States.
While many layers of insulators may help, a green roof does the same with some added benefits. The vegetation on the roof uses photosynthesis to clean the air from pollutants and acts as another layer to quiet the rooms in the building from outside noise. Any water the plants need is provided by rain, whereas the water would run off a normal roof, taking any chemicals from the roof with it into a nearby watershed. For us, this would eventually add to contamination of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
Conventional roofs like the school building’s current one also require periodic renovation every 15 to 20 years, depending on damage from hail or heavy storms. A green roof is not just an insulator, a filter and a natural habitat, it also protects the normal roof under it from "human activity and wind-blown debris; shielding from UV radiation and buffering temperature extremes, thereby minimizing damage from daily expansion and contraction," according to the website of a green roof company, Roofscapes Inc.
Another less quantifiable result of green roofs is the urban heat island effect. [My school] is in the center of the gradually urbanizing area of Tysons Corner and Falls Church making the vicinity more and more of a sea of black, burning asphalt. A single spot of green, as Wolfgang Ansel said, would provide nature with space to cool the weather down and eliminate pollutants.
This happens through a process of evapotranspiration, which "reduces temperatures of the roof surface and the surrounding air," according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. "On hot summer days, the surface temperature of a green roof can be cooler than the air temperature, whereas the surface of a conventional rooftop can be up to 90 degrees and warmer."
Of course, there are certain roadblocks to constructing a green roof on any building. Architecturally, not every structure can support the weight of the plants and growing medium. The greenery weighs down on the roof, and reinforcements are often very costly. While there are light weight options, the average green roof weighs about "15 to 25 pounds per square foot when saturated" says Scientific American. Considering the weight added by snow during winter months, getting the roof would be worth the cost.
On the subject of money, there is a price tag. While conservative estimates put a green roof at about $10 per square foot, others range as high as $20 per square foot. [My school] is getting more than $100 million for our upcoming extensive renovation. The scope of this renovation gives us a unique opportunity to make a difference in our school. If we rebuild, let’s rebuild it green.
With any project, there are the nay-sayers. Resistance to change is often the biggest obstacle for any initiative involving major change. Understanding the challenges that the administration faces to stay on budget and please all of their constituents is the first step. The second is to help convince them that a green innovation of this magnitude is worth the risk and that we, as the student body, would stand by this project for the likely many years it will take.
There is a lot of room for tweaking and editing and even time to go back to the drawing board. I understand this plan is far from the only option, but one thing I would love to say more than "this is my plan to make my school greener," is, "this is the student body’s plan to make our school greener."
The War On...
Yesterday, Politico's Arena asked its contributors whether or not the phrase 'war on terror' mattered. The phrase was frequently used by President Bush and recently by President Obama. Could a simple choice of words have ramifications at home and abroad?
Internationally, the phrasing may, unintentionally, having an unwanted effect upon those to whom the words are directed. Joseph Nye Jr, professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, noted that "[w]hen British MI 5 interrogated arrested terrorists, they found that the words “war on terror” were heard as “war against Islam” and that helped terrorist recruiters."
Yousef Munayyer of The Jerusalem Fund argues that the term creates political consequences within the US. "The problem with declaring a war on anything ( other than states ) is that if the war is not clearly won, you have failed. Terrorism is not going away and has been around for millennia, so declaring a war on it is political disaster."
Beyond our allies or enemy's feelings internationally, and even beyond our own countries opinion, using the phrase 'the war on terror' allows the American Government to make an excuse. An excuse for still being in Iraq, an excuse for weak Afganistan policy, but mostly an excuse to house long-term detainees at Guantanamo Bay and perform possibly illegal interrogation techniques upon them. If by eliminating 'the war on terror' from our national vocabulary, we eliminate on more fasade for the government to hide behind when dealing with detainees, it needs to go.
Quote 12/4/10
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
"...when we expand that by using vague abstractions like “war on terror” we do our enemies a favor."
2010
2009 was filled with accomplishments and failures by Congress, but America's work is far from over. In 2009, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed individual health care reform bills. In 2010, Congress needs to find consensus in a bill that will provide affordable healthcare to ALL Americans.
Last year, President Obama made plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and Attorney General Eric Holder took preliminary steps towards prosecution of war crimes committed during the previous administration. This year, the President must follow through and truly work for human rights. In 2010, we as a country need to work for a healthy economy, and a healthy ecosystem.
There is so much left to do to fix our country's problems. We are nowhere near where we need to be, but if we focus on bipartisanship and results, we can get there.
There is so much left to do to fix our country's problems. We are nowhere near where we need to be, but if we focus on bipartisanship and results, we can get there.
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