nytimes

Racism is still rampant in America. The latest Rasmussen polls say 53% of Americans think Obama’s “dollar bill” remarks were racist while 22% think McCain’s Paris Hilton ad is racist. What a travesty! This disgusts me! It really should be the other way around. Clearly McCain’s ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears has the subtext message, “Watch out! This uppity Negro is gonna steal our white women.” Good old middle of the road David Gergen really hit the nail on the head today with this statement: ““When McCain’s camp calls Obama “The Messiah” and “The One”, he’s really calling him “upitty.” I’m from the South, and we understand what that means. That’s code.” Here’s the video, thanks to Talking Points Memo:

So, is McCain going to become our next president by playing the race card? That’s what he’s doing and it may work.

UPDATE: Bob Herbert in the NYT on Saturday explains why the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears ad is racist: Running While Black.

Paul Krugman has a thought provoking op-ed today on whether Obama is more like Bill Clinton, triangulation and all, rather than a left-wing Ronald Reagan. What change will he really deliver? He supports the wimpy wiretap bill that essentially grants immunity to the telecom companies. He supports the mad four on the Supreme Court — Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito — along with Justice Kennedy on the death sentence for child rapists. He supports that group again on the gun legalization in the District of Columbia. He keeps talking about rising above both the right and the left and uniting the country, same as Bill Clinton did. And look what Bill Clinton did once he got into office: massive triangulation. Is this what we have in store for us. Many if not most Obama supporters expect him to deliver real change. But I’m worried that he’s simply a centrist in disguise.

In spite of what I’m saying, we’re now stuck with him. Protest votes for Kucinich, Nader, Gravel, Ventura, or None-of-the-Above will simply help elect John McCain. Sheeesh! I is pissed, and frustrated.

UPDATE:
Eric Alterman believes Obama must play to win, which entails compromise. See, Is Obama a conservative or a progressive realist?. Eric’s answer is that Obama is a political realist, a consensus politician who understands that he must compromise in order to be electable. Let’s hope Eric is right. But Arianna doesn’t think so, here.

As a youngster growing up in the little town of Westford, Mass., with a mother who had Parkinson’s Disease but who could function pretty well because she was young, I was afraid of death and told my mother I would invent a magic pill that would keep me alive forever. So I decided to major in chemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. But after a couple months of frustrations in my Quantitative Analysis class — I just didn’t have the patience to carry out the measurements plus the instructor was horrible — I said “To heck with this!” and switched to physics. After all, physics had been getting a lot of media play, what with the atom bomb and all, and might satisfy another craving I had which was to understand the universe. ha ha Well, I actually ended up as a physicist back in the 1950’s but as the years went on I gradually switched over to more mundane engineering work such as computer simulations of solid state transistors. My childhood dream of a pill to extend life forever had become a long forgotten and silly youthful fantasy.

But wait! Just recently I read where red wine can extend the lifespan of mice dosed with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. In fact the report states that some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form. The report also states that serious scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs. However, quoting from the report, “the door may now have been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging”.

OK, is there still hope for me? And I didn’t even have to work on the magic pill project! ha ha

Hey, is it becoming a fad, or a useful tool in psychotherapy, or both? Perhaps both. That may be the conclusion of the article, Lotus Therapy, linked from the front page of the NYT this morning. Mindfulness Meditation is catching on in a big way all over the planet, so why not shorten it to MindfulMed?

I keep trying it from time to time but that’s probably not enough. Oh, if I only had a brain! But that’s the idea: don’t have one, get rid of that left brain. Easier said than done, and how can I get anything done if I do? Well, again, that’s the idea: stop DOING things. Naw, that’s not it either. Too much analysis and not enough doing IT. OK, ten minutes a day for a start? If I can remember…..

Here’s Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, giving a recent TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk on her experience with half a brain. Her left brain was erased in a stroke, which she eventually recovered from. (Minds Erased, take note!) What’s amazing is her out-of-body experience of Nirvana when her left brain is shut down and her right brain alone experiences the world. Great and profound talk.

The New York Times has an article on her by Leslie Kaufman, the most popular article today, called A Superhighway to Bliss.

Here’s a fine op-ed by Bob Herbert in the NYT on the phenomenon of Ralph Nader, how great he has been, and how he could yet, however unlikely, make a difference in the upcoming presidential race. That he will take more votes from the Democratic candidate than the Republican one — John McCain — goes without saying.

While expecting, or at least hoping for, no threat of the Nader candidacy to the Democrats, Brian Donohue creates some vivid metaphors casting in relief the effect of the Nader candidacy on anyone who has an anti-corporate message.