Middle Aged, Middle Class and Just as Mad

I've been thinking a lot about the Occupy Wall Street protests lately. I believe they represent the frustrations of a clear majority of Americans. However, their youth, appearance and some of their antics are undoubtedly off putting to a lot of people. In addition, these kinds of protests tend to get diluted when different people start to come in with all their different concerns. People on the left tend to place a high value on diversity and right of everyone to have a voice. However, this leads to a dilution in message, momentum and focus.

This all leads me to 2 ideas. The first is that unthreatening looking people like me should participate in the protest. We should be clad in the business casual clothes or soccer mom outfits that we wear in our blandly middle class lives. We could carry signs that say things like "Middle Aged, Middle Class and Just as Mad". And we could rally around a single demand. Steve Pearlstein had a great column in this morning's Washington Post mentioning the "financial-transaction tax". This old idea would reduce the volume of the dangerous speculative trading which is really just a form of gambling that has done so much damage to the economy and many of our hopes for the future. It would also pay for a lot of that damage as well.

does the constitution need to be changed?

http://www.pculpa.com/component/content/article/54-breaking/283-measure-to-strip-corporations-of-constitutional-rights-gains-steam-in-wisconsin.html

brain size - liberal versus conservative

http://www.good.is/post/liberal-brains-bigger-in-areas-of-complexity-conservative-brains-bigger-in-areas-of-fear/?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+good%2Flbvp+%28GOOD+Main+RSS+Feed%29&utm_content=FaceBook

Don't know how good the science is, but interesting none the less.

Free screening and discussion

We will soon have a new 45 minutes special screening version of Feud. We will show itas part of the:


“We Are Takoma” Spring Speakers Series

March 10, 2011, 7:30 - 9:30 pm

Takoma Park Community Center Auditorium

7500 Maple Ave.

Takoma Park, MD 20910

Hope that folks come out, and if not, help spread the word.

Civic Education

From the Maryland League of Women Voters.

How sad.

Proposed discontinuation of the Maryland High School Assessment for Government

The Governor and State Department of Education have proposed that the budget for the next fiscal year include discontinuation of the Maryland High School Assessment for Government. When LWVMD studied the high school assessment issue in 2005, no consensus was reached on whether passage of statewide, course-related testing should be required to determine eligibility for high school graduation. Nonetheless, knowledge of government is certainly part of the League mission, and individual members have expressed strong interest in this topic. We wanted to alert you of this proposed cut and the opportunity to express your personal opinion about the issue to the Governor, the State Superintendent and Board of Education, and members of the General Assembly.

Many within the social studies field believe elimination of the assessment test would lead to less emphasis on "civics" in our public schools. For more information on the proposed cuts and the position of the Maryland Council for the Social Studies in opposition to this action, please check out the MCSS website: www.mdcss.org.

Barbara Sanders,
LWVMD VP, Voter Services and
League representative on the Maryland Commission on Civic Literacy

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Some outtakes from our interview with Professor Zinn

The more I reflect on the passing of this man, the more I realize what a loss it is. One of the many things our documentary made me realize is that there are so many people with inconsistent (if not downright incoherent) political beliefs. Howard Zinn was definitely not one of them. He knew what he believed and fought steadily for it until the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy1ZJYimyHo