Thursday, December 31, 2009
2009
Only 60 percent of the posts I managed in 2008 (blame Facebook); a big change from occasionally meaningful school board work to entirely pointless BOCES board work; an as-yet-unknown new boss for Paul; new instruction in voice and sax for Olivia. . . A new president who seems at times oddly distant and detached; a pathetic Congress and an even worse state legislature; friends who've lost jobs while I've plodded along and survived pretty well; new book contracts for DZ; the as-yet-unknown fate of PZ's Afghan program; the last Lutwak of our generation engaged to be married. . . It's been a year of ups and downs. Thank goodness for family and friends, and may 2010 be affirmative, propitious, redemptive.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Practice Time
O's working her new instrument in Jazz Band now, so Paul has leased an alto to keep her company.
Required Reading
Krugman on how we must change Senate rules to get things done:
Remember, the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority — not supermajority — rule. So the rule of 60 can be changed. A Congressional Research Service report from 2005, when a Republican majority was threatening to abolish the filibuster so it could push through Bush judicial nominees, suggests several ways this could happen — for example, through a majority vote changing Senate rules on the first day of a new session.Under the current Republican minority, filibusters now affect 70 percent of proposed legislation. It's just nuts.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Required Reading
Gail Collins on what might happen if we scuttle health care because we're getting a terrible bill.
“People always think there will be another day,” said Jack Duncan, who was counsel for the subcommittee that handled [a vetoed 1971 bill aimed at providing high-quality early childhood education and after-school programs for any American family that wanted them] in the House. “Well, there might be another day, but not in my lifetime.”
Friday, December 18, 2009
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