Archive for January, 2009

Draft Stormy Campaign Hits Up DC Mardi Gras

I just received this in my inbox:

Campaign to draft Baton Rouge native into the 2010 Louisiana Senate Race launches, stresses campaign is about the economy, sexy.

Washington DC—Against the backdrop of the annual Washington Mardis Gras, DraftStormy, a non-partisan grassroots movement to draft Baton Rouge native Stormy Daniels into the 2010 Louisiana Senate race, celebrated its official launch on Thursday.

To commemorate the launch, DC Mardis Gras attendees were greeted Thursday morning with a complimentary string of Mardis Gras beads featuring the soon-to-be iconic DraftStormy logo in metallic pink on a white medallion. Hours before, the official DraftStormy website went live.

Inviting Louisianans and Americans to “Join the Storm” the website features a petition page along with an extensive overview of Stormy Daniels and her qualifications to tackle some of the biggest issues facing both the Pelican State and the nation in general.

For example, a section titled, “It’s the Economy, Sexy,” examines how the current economic crisis is impacting all sectors of the economy including the adult entertainment industry.

Emphasizing the importance of protecting, as well as rewarding, individual enterprise, creativity and hard work, the section calls for protections against those who would undermine the core of a stable free market economy.

“Stormy understands the double edge sword of 21st century technology in a global market environment,” the entry reads. “Protecting individual enterprise and production in an info-tech economy is one of the biggest challenges we face in our quest to rescue the free market.

“And yet,” the entry continues, “Stormy understands the need for business to adapt to new technologies for survival and to embrace them for success.

“Whether it’s the couple in their garage inventing our next source of energy or Stormy working on her next feature, all entrepreneurs deserve to know that the results of their efforts are going to be protected. This should be the ultimate role of our government in a free market economy.

“Challenging times call for new perspectives,” the entry concludes. “Stormy Daniels will infuse Congress with the experience and inspiration needed to meet these new challenges with confidence.”

Additionally, the DraftStomy site focuses on Daniel’s commitment to promoting female entrepreneurship and protecting children from adult content on the internet, an issue Stormy has long championed.

In a statement released earlier in the day, the DraftStormy campaign sought to stress that, while much attention has been given to the contrast between Daniels and her likely opponent, the current Junior Senator from Louisiana, that this campaign is and always will be all about Stormy.

“As we make our case for Stormy and to Stormy, we seek also to honor her integrity, intellect, strength of character, wit and savvy. These are the very traits that we hope will lead Stormy to accept this unique challenge and they are the same traits we believe will inspire Louisianans to get behind her Storm into the Senate!”

DraftStormy.com

On the issue of the economy:

It’s the Economy, Sexy

Clearly the biggest challenge facing Louisiana and the rest of the nation is our faltering economy. Stormy knows first hand the effect our economy is having on working families and businesses. As a dancer, she sees it on the faces of those who come to see her for a little diversion and as a leader in a multi-billion dollar industry she feels it in the loss of revenue and jobs stemming from a dangerous encroachment on the inherent guarantees of our free market system.

With the collapse of the economy, the adult entertainment industry has seen a rise in illegally downloaded and pirated intellectual property resulting in a loss of revenue and jobs in the industry. And yet, the impact of intellectual property theft on the economy is not limited just to the adult entertainment industry. Indeed, the pervasiveness of intellectual property theft threatens to undermine a basic tenant of free market capitalism—that creativity and hard work should be rewarded and protected.

Whether it’s the couple in their garage inventing our next source of energy or Stormy working on her next feature, all entrepreneurs deserve to know that the results of their efforts are going to be protected. This is the ultimate role of our government in a free market economy. Without these protections, enterprise suffers, creativity dims and a once healthy free market system finds itself on a collision course with socialism.

Stormy understands the double edge sword of 21^st century technology in a global market environment. And she understands that protecting individual enterprise and production in an info-tech economy is one of the biggest challenges we face in our quest to rescue the free market.

Challenging times call for new perspectives. Stormy Daniels will infuse Congress with the entrepreneurial experience and inspiration needed to meet these challenges with confidence.

George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in NOLA

John Updike Dies

Remember this story from high school?

From the New York Times obituary:

“My subject is the American Protestant small town middle class,” Mr. Updike told Jane Howard in a 1966 interview for Life magazine. “I like middles,” he continued. “It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.”

What is The Town Talk Trying to Say?

I came across this unintentionally funny headline today on The Town Talk:

In fairness, they were referring to this graphic:

And the main event:

Best part:

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them— that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works….

The New York Times also picked up on this line:

Mr. Obama also seemed to take issue with Ronald Reagan, who declared when he took office in 1981 that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Mr. Clinton rebutted that in 1997, saying, “government is not the problem and government is not the solution.”

Mr. Obama offered a new formulation (repeating): “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”

Second best:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Third best:

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence— the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

Think about this language for a moment. Typically, when the words “God” and “destiny” are in the same sentence in a national political speech, it is a statement attempting to affirm a hope or belief in the idea that America is inherently fulfilling God’s will.

I prefer Obama’s perspective. The future is “uncertain,” not something predestined or preordained. And there’s no implication that God somehow endorses Obama’s vision; his understanding is that God calls on “us” (all of us) to “shape” our collective future.

Remember when George W. Bush said:

“I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it”?

Back to Obama:

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

II.

I also was amused by the caption to this photograph affixed to an article on how Obama donors somehow got great seats to the Inauguration:

How, exactly, does Gannett or the AP definitely know that the ONLY reason Denzel Washington got great seats was because he maxed out his donations to Obama?

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Denzel Washington was the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Actor since Sidney Portier (and that the Inauguration was, among other things, a seminal and important moment in African-American contemporary history) or perhaps it is because of the roles he played as a presenter at the Inaugural Concert and a host of the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.

In other words: Don’t make it seem like Denzel Washington didn’t deserve his seat at the event or that he simply paid for his seat in campaign donations. It’s not like he is some fat cat lobbyist trying to buy influence for a nefarious special interest. He’s an actor.

Surely, Gannett has better evidence of a pay-to-sit conspiracy.

It’s a Celebration

On a personal note, on Saturday night, my brother Mark and I walked our little sister down the aisle. For nearly nine years, I had anticipated that exact moment, knowing, after my father had died, my brother and I would likely have to perform his role whenever she got married. And I had feared that our presence would underscore his absence, that it would somehow be bittersweet and awkward.

When a member of a young family suddenly dies (and dies at a young age), it can take several years before you don’t sense their absence during every birthday party, every graduation ceremony, every family reunion, every Thanksgiving, and every Christmas. For nearly a year after my father died, when my family went out to eat, we’d sometimes instinctively ask the hostess for a table for five, before remembering that now there were only four of us.

Over time, of course, we have adjusted to our new math. After all, in any and every family in the world, numbers inevitably change.

I’ve always admired the tradition of jazz funerals– an audacious, engaging celebration, a purposeful juxtaposition. I wish we had such a tradition in Alexandria.

On Saturday night, my family had to adjust its math once again, but it wasn’t bittersweet or awkward. It was jazz.

Thank you to my father’s friends (who are also friends of this blog), many of whom (Kevin, Ron, Chip, Bill, Joe, Greg, and Lee) traveled hundreds of miles just to be there. I know you weren’t there just to cheer on my sister and her husband, you were also there to celebrate for my father. Thank you, thank you.

***

Tomorrow, we will all celebrate the Inauguration of Barack Obama. If you recall, Mr. Obama first rose to prominence after his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He spoke about a united America, an America that does not view itself as a collection of disparate groups but as an amalgamation, a country that embraces diversity as necessity.

I steadfastly supported Mr. Obama’s candidacy because I believed in his vision and appreciated his perspective. But from the moment he takes the Oath of Office, he must be able to turn his rhetoric into reality. It will not be easy. There will always be a contigency of people who earn their living by constantly criticizing him, regardless. And he will inherit an incredible burden.

But if Mr. Obama is to enact the change he seeks, then he must understand that America cannot be united nationally if we are not united locally. For far too many, it is much easier to selfishly and simplistically divide a community (through political theater) than it is to actually work on creating solutions for ensuring equity and fairness (through daily, active work). Newspapers prefer theatrics over substance. Theatrics may be a good strategy for a campaign, but once the campaign ends, the real work begins.

Mr. Obama once said, “We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant.”

It is my earnest hope, for the sake of this country, that he, once again, proves those cynics wrong. But to do so, he must get to work, and he must stand up to those who seek to divide us along racial or religious lines in order to profit off of those divisions. Again, for them, government is never serious work, and politics is just theater, not a serious profession.

That said, I look forward to an historic moment in American political theater when Barack Hussein Obama officially becomes the 44th President of the United States.

The Obama Jacket

With all due respect to the fine men and women who serve on the Rapides Parish School Board,  I have always believed that the school uniform policy is, in a word, stupid.

When I was a senior in high school, I wrote (and The Town Talk published) a 2,500 word missive on the subject of uniforms. Hilariously, instead of crediting me as the author, the paper credited Lamar Alexander, the Republican politician from Tennessee who believes in eliminating the Department of Education. I thought the paper’s mistake was awesomely ironic.

Regardless, the policy is still stupid. It was implemented because of a misbegotten, ignorant fear– fear of non-existent gangs wielding their non-existent supremacy by dressing in non-existing gang colors. It was implemented, believe it or not, because of the reaction against the massacre at Columbine High School, which had nothing to do with uniforms and everything to do with alienation. And it was implemented because a handful of elected officials, completely removed from the real lives of students, believed they could dictate culture by controlling the dress code.

If our leaders on the School Board intend to lead, then they should immediately eliminate the school uniform code. Let students express themselves. What is the harm?

We know one thing for certain: In the nine years since the Rapides Parish School Board implemented a uniform dress policy, nothing has substantially changed. It’s an ineffectual policy that hurts more than it helps.

Take, for instance, the case of the Obama jacket.

Apparently, Columbus Goodman, the Principal of Pineville Junior High and an African-American, somehow allowed himself to believe that a student wearing a jacket with an over-sized picture of the next President of the United States, Barack Obama, violated the dress code. The Town Talk reports on the School Board’s policy:

According to the policy, “Printing, emblems and/or insignia that discredit the country or its institutions, that are disruptive or vulgar, or whose interpretations by school officials are considered to be disruptive, that are disruptive or vulgar or to have double meaning will not be worn.”

Again, with all due respect to the School Board, how is this even an issue? Why is this frontpage news? More importantly, how could any principal, regardless of their race or their personal political philosophy, believe that the image of the President-elect is either disruptive or vulgar?

Ironically, the policy specifically provides that students cannot wear anything that discredits “the country or its institutions,” yet Mr. Goodman would have us believe that a jacket recognizing and honoring the institution of the American Presidency is somehow vulgar and disruptive.

Weak, weak, weak.

Yet there is a simple solution: Eliminate the ridiculously backwards uniform policy and allow students to express their beliefs. Otherwise, the School Board will forever be engrossed in arguments about political expressions.

Restore a student’s freedom of expression. Grow up.

PS: As a side note, I want to make it clear that I have nothing to praise or commend about Mr. John Allen, a School Board member, who ostensibly (and according to the paper) took a similar stance on this issue. Although I respect his opinion, I do not respect or understand his prerogative. Last year, during an event with Senator Landrieu, I introduced myself to Mr. Allen, and after doing so, he immediately remarked, “Lamar White is dead.” My father, with whom I share the same name, died eight years ago, and there is absolutely no way anyone could mistake me for my father. Mr. Allen, who serves on the same board of which my grandfather was once President, is either ignorant or, worse, feigns ignorance.

A Bushism in Alexandria

From the Huffington Post’s “Bushisms Over the Years.“  As of today, the final, historic Bushism happened right here in Alexandria:

“This thaw _ took a while to thaw, it’s going to take a while to unthaw.” Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, La., as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.

See, the frozen credit markets are just like frozen meats. Problem is: The word thaw means basically the same thing as unthaw.

Unfortunately, most people in Alexandria were too distracted watching Air Force One and the Presidential motorcade to actually pay any attention to what the President said while he was here. Turns out, he said something baffling and historic.