Retelling the Reality

The subject came up, as so many of these things do, while trying to explain things to my daughter.  She understands that ordinary people banding together made great history happen.  But there are so many holes that don’t entirely make sense until we get into it a bit deeper, such as Women’s Suffrage.  A bunch of women organized, marched, made a lot of fuss, and eventually embarrassed the establishment into giving in.  Great.  But then the bigger issue comes up – why are the details of this story not very well known?

The stories of history are one thing.  The stories that are hard to find have stories of their own.

All Politics is Local

Tuesday is Election Day here in Saint Paul.  It hasn’t been an exciting election, but that only figures.  As the economic situation continues, there’s little for local governments all across the nation to do but settle in for a long siege.  There’s a good reason for this.

Helical Waves

I’ve been thinking about waves lately.  Waves as a concept, waves as a constant, waves as the continuity that ties so many things that don’t seem related together.  This is one of those columns that might not make a lot of sense, but I hope you can bear with me.  It’s a dark fall day outside, deep under the clouds that sprinkle a little bit of rain down on us.  Our hemisphere is tilting away from the sun and we all know from experience what’s coming.  It’s one of those daze.

Social Networks

Everything we do is influenced by social networks.  That’s what Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler argue in their book, “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives“.  While it might seem obvious that if people you meet on a daily basis are upbeat and happy you’re more likely to be happy, it turns out that friends who live far away can influence a lot of behaviors such as smoking, political views, and a host of other things.  In fact, their friends, by influencing them, might have an influence on you that you’re not even aware of.

Keep Fighting

The world of political blogs is a world where people often zing each other and make small rhetorical points for the simple reason that this is how the game is played.  If you read Barataria often, you’ll know that I have little time for this.  I was called to task by a friend in e-mail recently, who stated the case for standard blog MO blankly:

We have to answer the right.  This is what they’ve been doing to us for a long time, and we’re just giving it back.  You can’t be asking us to leave their hate machine unanswered, are you?

The short answer is “No, I’m not”.  But I still think that using the tactics of the right is ultimately very counter-productive for the left.  This is why.