Yay, Judge Thompson:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/kucinich-should-be-allowed-to-debate-judge-rules/
And Boo, MSNBC for saying they're going forward with an appeal.
As a journalist who has worked in both television and newspapers, I know something about the selection process in both televised debates and endorsement meetings. There are criteria (usually polls) that determine who comes in and who does not. However, inviting and then disinviting a candidate is simply rude and unfair.
*Presidential chicken-and-egg
Author Robert Mann writes a good column in the Boston Globe about the current controversy involving Sens. Clinton and Obama and civil rights:
What he writes brings up a modern-day metaphor about inspirational talk: Barack Obama himself. He is inspiring - both his story and his words. And that's why he's a leading presidential contender. But to win the White House, any candidate still has to have that proven track record of accomplishment in a national-caliber public forum - whether the military (Dwight Eisenhower), state government (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan) or Congress (John F. Kennedy, 14 years in Congress before his 1960 run for the White House). That is not counting, of course, those who inherited the White House on the death of a president, like Harry Truman and LBJ. Both, incidentally, also had long-standing congressional experience.
That's why I think Obama made his run at least four years too soon. He is inspiring. Whether he can translate that inspiration into the White House this year is far more open to question. I don't think so. His political resume needs to get longer.
*Where are the girls going?
Bob Herbert has a great column in today's New York Times about yet another issue raised in the campaign:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/opinion/15herbert.html?ref=opinion
To me, it seems like women have gone backwards in the last 30 years in terms of society's attitudes, even though there is now a female House speaker and a potential female president. There's also a much more basic issue that Herbert doesn't get into: The continued inequality in pay for male and female workers.
*Would you eat cloned food?
The Food and Drug Administration says it's safe (Mind you, this is George W. Bush's FDA...):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1wQUkg_c3c8&refer=home#
Some would say that various snack foods already are cloned.
*As for those ads for prescription drugs....
Reason 886 those ads should be taken off television, print and Web outlets:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011401639_pf.html
I agree with presidential candidate John Edwards: Stop advertising prescription drugs. Boo to former President Bill Clinton, whose FDA greenlighted it.
*Quaids speak of hospital crisis
Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, spoke in a Los Angeles Times interview about what their infant twins went through at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-dennis-quaid-twins,1,5260656,print.story
I've had questions, given some stories in recent years (Example: Actor John Ritter's death and the question of whether his life could have been saved) about the quality of care in hospitals that are supposed to have stellar reputaions.
The Quaids also had to endure something most patients and their families don't: Paparazzi. Are the children of celebrities private figures? That's come up with all the photographer assaults on the young children of entertainment figures. The courts will eventually have to address that issue.
*Hazelwood, 20 years later
The courts will also eventually have to readdress the issue of the rights of high school journalists:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011102775.html
Richard Just mentions the new technologies that have expanded the landscapes for high school students - and increased their responsibilities.
*Colorado lawmaker prays and kicks photographer
That's the spirit, Rep. Bruce:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/01/colo-lawmaker-k.html
Nothing like some brutality to go with a prayer for peace.....
*Congress investigates Miguel Tejada
And deeper and deeper we get into the steroids mess, as MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and players' union head Don Fehr cower before Congress today:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2008-01-15-congress-hearings_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
*Bad ring to it?
Did Alexander Graham Bell really invent the telephone?
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2008/01/15/calling_bell_on_the_invention_of_the_telephone/
Whoever did, at least they weren't responsible for voice mail.
*Blue is Golden
Happy 50th birthday to the Smurfs:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-smurfs_pjan15,1,5983601.story
They're just so darn cute.
*Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you....
Apparently, the true identity of the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" painting has been discovered. She really was a Lisa:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1179689520080114?sp=true
I'm just glad this doesn't mess up the classic Nat King Cole song. Speaking of which:
Today's trivia:
"Mona Lisa," (the song version) won an Academy Award for best song. Name the year and the film the song was in.
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