Profits & Prophets

Wearing your heart on your sleeve (or wrist)

It used to be colored ribbons on your shirt or lapel.  Nowadays, everyone wears colored wristbands to indicate their support for various causes.

Though I don't tend to go for such things, I recently jumped on the bandwagon and donned a green wristband to draw attention to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.  These wristbands aren't as widely distributed as Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG wristbands or the ONE wristbands so I had to order them myself.

Well, long story short, they only come in bags of 10 or more.  Though several people in my office have already claimed some of the extras, I still have four left.  If you would like me to send you one (no cost - but a donation to one of the organizations working in Darfur would be nice), just e-mail me and if you are one of the first four to respond, I will pop one in the mail to you.

Say it ain't so, Rove

I've always thought Karl Rove is a genius.  As I watched the way he masterfully orchestrated the last election for President Bush, I commented a number of times that Rove could get the American public to elect a cinder block if he wrapped it in the American flag and set it on a Bible (extra points if he could somehow work in that it was the cornerstone of the World Trade Center).  So as more and more evidence comes to light that Rove was the source who leaked Valerie Plame's identity, I am quite literally shocked that someone as brilliant as Rove could have been so impolitic.

Equally as shocking is the hypocrisy of the conservative Republicans who have yet to call for Rove's head after such a breach of national security.  If this was a member of President Clinton's administration, the angry roar of conservatives would have echoed throughout the land.  Heck, members of my own family argued that the fact that President Clinton lied under oath about having sex with Monica Lewinsky indicated that he had no compunction about lying in general and that he was a threat to national security.

Not only are conservative pundits not calling for Rove's head, some are actually defending him.

This is just the latest example of the fact that our nation's political parties and the polarized factions they have created/been created by care more about their own agendas than the good of America.  In this case, it is the conservative Republicans who are willing to sweep a national security breach under the rug since it was committed by one of their heroes but both ends of the political spectrum are guilty of allowing their agendas to override their morals and the good of our country.

How much longer will we as a country settle for political agendas masquerading as morals?

UPDATE (7/13/05): The Republican National Committee has issued a "talking points" memo for the Party's defense of Rove.

G8 does good (but not great)

It's hard to know how much the terrorist attacks yesterday in London caused the G8 leaders to take their eyes off the ball, but as the G8 Summit wound down today, it's apparent that Tony Blair and many of us are a little disappointed with what was ultimately accomplished.  Some of the more concrete and/or higher profile results in a nutshell:

• G8 leaders agreed to double aid to Africa from $25B to $50B, but didn't go the next step to match Blair's challenge to commit 0.7 percent of their nations' incomes to foreign aid by 2015.  The EU agreed to that level of support but the U.S. balked - the U.S. is currently giving 0.16 percent of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G8 nations.
• The leaders agreed on a deal to cancel the debt of the world's 18 poorest nations, 14 of which are in Africa.
• The G8 members agreed to work toward freer trade with poor nations, including ending farm subsidies that make it very difficult for poorer nations to export their agricultural goods to richer nations (the details will be worked out at the WTO meeting in December) - this may be more important to Africa's future than the debt relief.
• G8 leaders tried to reach a consensus on reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, but again, Bush balked at a firm number.  On the plus side, Bush admitted that global warming is an issue and that human activity is partly to blame for climate change; positions he has previously resisted.
• The leaders committed $3-9B aid to the Palestinians which may have a positive effect on the Israeli/Palestinian peace process.

It's a shame that the G8 did not achieve the full scale of the goals that they had set out to accomplish, and an even bigger shame that the U.S., the richest of the G8 nations, was the roadblock to two of the more important goals (aid to Africa as a percentage of GNP and greenhouse gas emission reduction), but the aid and trade deals, combined with the concomitant better governance from African leaders, is a big step in the right direction for Africa.  It will be interesting to watch what happens over the next few years as a result of this G8 Summit.

The Heart of Darkness

As everyone knows by now, London was hit by terrorist bombings this morning and the most recent death toll is somewhere between 30-40 people.  I'm finding it difficult to offer any reflections on the event as I'm still in a state of shock, grief, numbness, anger, etc.  I just don't understand how anyone can commit such horrendous acts of misanthropy and evil in the name of anything, let alone in the name of God.

The July 4 issue of Time has an interesting, if frightening, interview [subscription required] with a future suicide bomber that gives a glimpse into how a terrorist justifies his actions. [Thank you, Josh, for the heads up on the article]

To the terrorists who committed this morning's bombings and to terrorists everywhere, I echo Tony Blair's comment this morning:

“It is important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people . . .”

Land of the Free?

Sorry it has been so long since I posted - it has been crazy busy around here.  Anyway, enough excuses, let's post.

Since it has been so long since I posted, I could comment on any number of recent events:

• Cheney's comments on the tropical vacation that is Guantanamo (thank you, Akemi, for the suggestion)
• The Supreme Court's decision expanding the powers of eminent domain (thank you, Andy, for the suggestion)
• The fact that Congress won't get anything else done this Summer/year since Sandra Day O'Connor, who coincidentally was a dissenter in the eminent domain case, decided to retire
• The Deep Impact probe's rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1
• The G8 Summit
• Live 8
• Etc.

But I decided to choose a topic that's been on my mind on this day after Independence Day.

Around the 4th of July every year, we hear about how the U.S. is the "land of the free and home of the brave."  We wrap ourselves in warm thoughts of living in the most free nation on Earth.  And yet, as our nation continues to adjust to a post-9/11 world, often choosing conservative thinking and easy security over open-mindedness and the challenges of freedom, I can't help but wonder if we aren't all living some nostalgic memory of a time that has past - especially since it isn't difficult to look around the world and find societies that are equally or more free than the U.S. (e.g., Western Europe, Canada, Australia, etc.).

Benjamin Franklin's words come to mind as I think about Congress debating the Patriot Act and the likelihood of President Bush nominating an ultra-conservative candidate to the Supreme Court (in the interest of a little conservative "judicial activism"):

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

It is interesting to me that during Bush's presidency, I have felt the most patriotic I have ever felt (in the days and weeks after 9/11) as well as the least patriotic I have ever felt (pretty much since the 2004 election).  I know it has been said before, but the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by the 9/11 terrorists made America stronger.  It was our subsequent, small-minded reaction to that destruction that made America weaker.  To quote another great American, Pogo:

"We have met the enemy and he is us."