The word ‘democratic’ has such positive emotional valence … so they politicize it to use it as a term to describe a group of political rivals.”
“Democrat Party” is not common usage in Texas, Hart said, noting that the only people he had heard use it were “sitting Republican legislators.”

– Dr. Rod Hart, Communication Studies Professor and Dean, University of Texas, Austin,
in an LA Times article on Bush’s gaffe in the State of the Union

Commondreams.org trashes Hillary for skipping town on the day of the big anti-war protest in order to launch her presidential campaign in Iowa. They suggest she would make a terrible president because she is behind the times and too centrist. And, most critically for Hillary Clinton, a desperate yearning on the part of Americans of all political stripes not for a triangulating “centrist” in the Clinton mold, but for someone who can show themselves as both attuned and responsive to the national mood and capable of authenticity and bold leadership. Hillary Clinton could not be a less appropriate candidate for 2008. Let’s recap: The LeftRead More →

Three movies I would like to see: 1. Blood and Chocolate (I’m such a geek) 2. Volver 3. I can’t really think of a third one right now. Shoutouts to three people I need to email: 1. Tammy W. 2. Lynda H. 3. Cris L. Three things I threw out from the fridge because they were spoiled: 1. Parmesan cheese 2. Eggs 3. Yogurt Three things I wish would happen to me today: 1. Win lotto 2. Have a brainstorm about interpersonal communication 3. Have something intelligent to blog about.

1. The heater in my car (brrr) 2. Louisiana School’s SEF system, which they use to inform the parents about their child’s progress. The kid didn’t turn in a lab this week (bad girl!) 3. The clothes I bought at the beginning of the semester. I really needed them. They were a good investment. ∞

Barack Obama might be running on a “move-over Boomers” campaign. He’s pitching himself as the next generation of politicians. While it’s a move that I love, being a Gen Xer myself, it’s a political mistake. Look at what happened to music when the Boomers moved over. Britney Spears! We jumped from the culture of the Boomers to the culture of the digital generation with Gen X getting the spotlight for less than a decade because we were squeezed out by the population humps on both sides of us. The digital generation isn’t old enough to vote yet, and Gen X doesn’t have a large enoughRead More →

LiberalsLikeChrist.org. This website offers a nice, if scary, treatise on what Christian Conservatives believe. Ironically, Catholics support the agenda of the Christian Coalition and the Christian Right, since most fundamentalist Christians believe that Catholicism is a cult. The article reminded me of when I was in school at the University of Texas (before I got saved and temporarily joined the God Squad) and I was protesting apartheid. The Evangelicals would heckle us, and try to get us into debates with them. Their reasoning was pretty screwy. According to these students, you can’t argue about politics until you’re “right with God.” Not only is there noRead More →

I spent part of today cleaning out my clothes of old clothes. Tomorrow I am going to go through my drawers. A sort of purging, I guess you could say. I don’t know what to do with these clothes, since most of them are good. They aren’t rags or torn or stained. They are just clothes that I don’t wear anymore for a variety of reasons. Which is just embarrassing because it’s emblematic of my crass consumption. I read on ABC an article that talks about where your clothes go when you donate them. They -don’t- go to poor families for free. Anyway, we’re spendingRead More →