Saturday, February 26, 2011
Florida Cuts Off Its Nose To Spite Its Face...
Thanks to Governor Rick Scott, Florida might soon miss out on one of the first forward-looking initiatives to come out of DC in years: modern, progressive, sustainable transportation.
Desperate Times, Drastic Measures
Desperate Times, Drastic Measures
While I don't endorse this strategy, it is heartening to see a parent that cares about this problem. Now if only the school district and local education and counseling professionals could help provide the parenting strategies that she needs in this case.
While I don't endorse this strategy, it is heartening to see a parent that cares about this problem. Now if only the school district and local education and counseling professionals could help provide the parenting strategies that she needs in this case.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Young Voter Turnout Dropped 60 Percent from 2008 to 2010, and Democrats Took the Hit
Young Voter Turnout Dropped 60 Percent from 2008 to 2010, and Democrats Took the Hit
John Nichols for The Nation
November 16, 2010
Everyone knows that young voters were less enthused about the 2010 mid-term elections than they were about the 2008 presidential election, when their votes powered Barack Obama to a landslide victory and gave Democrats big boosts in congressional contests. But detailed studies of the election reveal that the decline in voting by Americans aged 18 to 29 was actually more serious than initially imagined.
In 2008, polls showed that young people were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama and the Democrats. And they turned out in droves. According to the research group Circle: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which tracks civic engagement among young voters, 51 percent of 18 to 19 year olds voted that year.
In 2010, polls showed that young people were still supportive of Obama and the Democrats. But only 20.9 percent of them bothered to vote.
Circle director Peter Levine said that: “For liberal students, this election felt, at best, as a defensive move, protecting a Congress they don’t like that much."
That cost Democrats Senate and House seats across the country. And the down-ballot losses were even more significant, as close contests for legislative and local races tipped to the Republicans after young people failed to show.
The Circle study suggests that turnout among young voters in 2010 was down almost 10 percent from the last mid-term election year, 2006, when Obama was not even on the ballot.
Those numbers are significantly worse than initial exit polling suggested.
And the picture on ground is even darker.
In Champaign County, Illinois, home to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the ten precincts identified by local election officials as "entirely campus" turned out 7,535 votes in 2008. This year, according to a survey by the Politico, the figure fell to 2,615. That's represent's a 65 percent drop in turnout in precincts were young voters make up most of the electorate.
Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk easily won Champaign County, as he did a number of other parts of the state where campus turnout collapsed. Overall, in Illinois, 54 percent of voters over 30 cast ballots November 2, while just 23 percent of voters under 30 did so. That's no small matter when we recall that Kirk won by just 65,000 votes statewide.
John Nichols
Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Plan to Balance Budgets, Defeat Deficits and Avert Austerity (Government, Politics)
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is ready to fight for a progressive alternative to proposals to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden says: “Virtually everything that drove college kids to turn out for Obama kind of got ignored."
Democrats simply did not get campus voters excited enough to go to the polls -- even for a young Democratic Senate candidate with close ties to Obama, Alexi Giannoulias. The situation was similar across the country, and a Politico review of races across the country suggests it cost the party House seats in New York, Ohio, Virginia and other states.
What's the problem?
1. Getting young voters to the polls is about more than the candidate. Some of the youngest and most tech-savvy Democratic contenders in 2010 lost. And that's a fact that President Obama ought to note as he prepares for a difficult 2012 reelection campaign. While Obama was on the winning side of the enthusiasm gap in 2008, he may not be there in 2010.
2. Democrats have not done enough for young people. While there have been some important initiatives with regard to student loans, and while the federal stimulus bill did a lot to keep colleges open and affordable, there was never a sense that 18 to 29 year olds were a central -- or even prominent -- concern of the Obama administration or the aging Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.
3. Even where Democrats did deliver -- as on the student loan front -- they did a lousy job of communicating about their accomplishments. Imagine Democrats failing to remind seniors of their work to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and you get the picture. Democrats also failed to develop a youth agenda that would have made a case to young people for getting to the polls and giving Obama's party the majorities it needed to advance meaningful legislation.
4. There are still problems with access to the polls for young people, especially those living in campus settings where local officials are frequently accused of erecting barriers to young voters. Champaign County's Shelden, a Republican, was accused of setting up an early-voting center in an area taht was hard for students to reach. That was a common complaint around the country, and it is easier to blame physical and technical factors. But there is scant evidence that Democrats made themselves champions of youth voting. And if the Democrats won't fight for the right of young people to vote, they should not expect much in the way of 18-to-29-yeat-old turnout.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, that is precisely the vote they needed in 2010.
It is, as well, precisely the vote Barack Obama will need in 2012.
Neither the president, nor his party, can ignore the stark data from 2010 if they plan to compete in 2012.
“Since 2004, young voters have been one of the strongest Democratic constituencies,” explains CIRCLE director Levine, who says that: “Democrats need to engage them better than they did in 2010..."
Right now, young people still lean Democratic. But Republicans, Levine says, have an opening to "make inroads in a generation that continues to prefer Democrats" -- especially if Democrats continue to neglect them.
John Nichols
November 16, 2010
John Nichols for The Nation
November 16, 2010
Everyone knows that young voters were less enthused about the 2010 mid-term elections than they were about the 2008 presidential election, when their votes powered Barack Obama to a landslide victory and gave Democrats big boosts in congressional contests. But detailed studies of the election reveal that the decline in voting by Americans aged 18 to 29 was actually more serious than initially imagined.
In 2008, polls showed that young people were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama and the Democrats. And they turned out in droves. According to the research group Circle: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which tracks civic engagement among young voters, 51 percent of 18 to 19 year olds voted that year.
In 2010, polls showed that young people were still supportive of Obama and the Democrats. But only 20.9 percent of them bothered to vote.
Circle director Peter Levine said that: “For liberal students, this election felt, at best, as a defensive move, protecting a Congress they don’t like that much."
That cost Democrats Senate and House seats across the country. And the down-ballot losses were even more significant, as close contests for legislative and local races tipped to the Republicans after young people failed to show.
The Circle study suggests that turnout among young voters in 2010 was down almost 10 percent from the last mid-term election year, 2006, when Obama was not even on the ballot.
Those numbers are significantly worse than initial exit polling suggested.
And the picture on ground is even darker.
In Champaign County, Illinois, home to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the ten precincts identified by local election officials as "entirely campus" turned out 7,535 votes in 2008. This year, according to a survey by the Politico, the figure fell to 2,615. That's represent's a 65 percent drop in turnout in precincts were young voters make up most of the electorate.
Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk easily won Champaign County, as he did a number of other parts of the state where campus turnout collapsed. Overall, in Illinois, 54 percent of voters over 30 cast ballots November 2, while just 23 percent of voters under 30 did so. That's no small matter when we recall that Kirk won by just 65,000 votes statewide.
John Nichols
Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Plan to Balance Budgets, Defeat Deficits and Avert Austerity (Government, Politics)
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is ready to fight for a progressive alternative to proposals to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden says: “Virtually everything that drove college kids to turn out for Obama kind of got ignored."
Democrats simply did not get campus voters excited enough to go to the polls -- even for a young Democratic Senate candidate with close ties to Obama, Alexi Giannoulias. The situation was similar across the country, and a Politico review of races across the country suggests it cost the party House seats in New York, Ohio, Virginia and other states.
What's the problem?
1. Getting young voters to the polls is about more than the candidate. Some of the youngest and most tech-savvy Democratic contenders in 2010 lost. And that's a fact that President Obama ought to note as he prepares for a difficult 2012 reelection campaign. While Obama was on the winning side of the enthusiasm gap in 2008, he may not be there in 2010.
2. Democrats have not done enough for young people. While there have been some important initiatives with regard to student loans, and while the federal stimulus bill did a lot to keep colleges open and affordable, there was never a sense that 18 to 29 year olds were a central -- or even prominent -- concern of the Obama administration or the aging Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.
3. Even where Democrats did deliver -- as on the student loan front -- they did a lousy job of communicating about their accomplishments. Imagine Democrats failing to remind seniors of their work to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and you get the picture. Democrats also failed to develop a youth agenda that would have made a case to young people for getting to the polls and giving Obama's party the majorities it needed to advance meaningful legislation.
4. There are still problems with access to the polls for young people, especially those living in campus settings where local officials are frequently accused of erecting barriers to young voters. Champaign County's Shelden, a Republican, was accused of setting up an early-voting center in an area taht was hard for students to reach. That was a common complaint around the country, and it is easier to blame physical and technical factors. But there is scant evidence that Democrats made themselves champions of youth voting. And if the Democrats won't fight for the right of young people to vote, they should not expect much in the way of 18-to-29-yeat-old turnout.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, that is precisely the vote they needed in 2010.
It is, as well, precisely the vote Barack Obama will need in 2012.
Neither the president, nor his party, can ignore the stark data from 2010 if they plan to compete in 2012.
“Since 2004, young voters have been one of the strongest Democratic constituencies,” explains CIRCLE director Levine, who says that: “Democrats need to engage them better than they did in 2010..."
Right now, young people still lean Democratic. But Republicans, Levine says, have an opening to "make inroads in a generation that continues to prefer Democrats" -- especially if Democrats continue to neglect them.
John Nichols
November 16, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Lebron's Charge of Racism Rings True
See the article in its original context HERE:
The Nation: Lebron's Charge Of Racism Rings True
by DAVE ZIRIN
LeBron James of the Miami Heat poses for photos. James has said that he thinks the public backlash against his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers was based in part on racism.
October 5, 2010
Dave Zirin is the sports editor for The Nation. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love.
You can't say Lebron James didn't warn us. Three years ago, the then-22-year-old James said he had two goals in his professional life: to be a "global icon like Muhammad Ali" and to become "the richest athlete in the world." This seemed like one whopper of a contradiction. Agree or disagree with his stances against war and racism, the fact is that Muhammad Ali remains a global icon because of what he sacrificed — professionally, personally, financially — in the name of political principle. To take such action in the world of sports, as Ali learned, is to make powerful enemies, and to make powerful enemies is not exactly the way to become Richie Rich.
The Ali way is to tell the truth as you see it, consequences be damned. Last week, Lebron dipped his pinky-toe into his Muhammad Ali persona during an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien and set the sportsworld on its ear. O'Brien asked Lebron about the fury he provoked when he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers this past summer. She wanted to know if he felt issues of race and racism might be connected to both the rage in Cleveland and the fact that Lebron has seen his popularity plummet, according to the advertising industry's annual Q-rating score.
Lebron answered, "I think so at times. It's always, you know, a race factor." That's all. Just twelve words where a 25-year-old athlete dared say that news footage of people burning his jersey in the streets of Cleveland might have something to do with racism, and even then, as he was careful to say, it was just a factor.
It's hardly Ali saying, "Damn America! Damn the white man's money!" But given the response, you would think that Lebron had changed his name to Farrakhan bin Laden. Sports Illustrated's Peter King, a self-described liberal, tweeted that Lebron's affirmation of racism was "garbage." Jason Whitlock, a man who says he "never leaves home without his race card" said, "Give me a &*%$ing break." He then, with his typical lyricism, praised America for "taking a dump on Lebron" (It's like Grantland Rice still walks among us!).
Charles Barkley also piled on, saying, "It's like watching a movie. Just when you think it couldn't get any stupider, it gets more stupid." The only thing getting "stupider" is how we discuss these issues in America and in the world of sports.
I was neither a fan of Lebron's move to Miami nor his egomaniacal ESPN infomercial, "The Decision," where he revealed that he would be "taking [his] talents to South Beach. But to say that racism doesn't shape our perceptions of controversial, narcissistic or outspoken athletes is to deny that the sky is blue or that most sportswriters could stand to bathe. Just look at the aforementioned Q ratings. The six least popular athletes in America are Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant and Lebron. Yes, Vick, Woods and Bryant have had their share of off-field scandal, but so has Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre, and even Tom Brady. To say that racism doesn't shape the volume of the anger at black athletes is to say that sports somehow exists in a magical, hermetically sealed universe where the sewage of our society never manages to seep.
It also shapes the near-lockstep hostility Lebron provoked from the sports media. There is a valuable lesson for the King to learn: if you really want to walk in the footsteps of Ali, especially in the age of 24-hour news media, Twitter and Whitlock, you had better develop a serious backbone. If your goal is to "be revolutionary," then going on ESPN the next day to complain that people are making such a big deal over your comments is like wearing red to a bullfight. You had better be prepared to handle the backlash, and like Ali, punch back.
If you really want to be the richest athlete on earth, then speaking about how race and racism affect your life is not exactly torn from the Michael Jordan playbook. But if you are going to "go there," you had better be able to take the heat. Whether or not the self-proclaimed King James can, or even if he wants to, is an open question. Right now Lebron is walking on the fence between being a rebel and just another creature of commercialism. The problem with walking that narrow fence though, is that eventually you slip. Then comes the pain.
Related NPR Stories
The Nation: Lebron's Charge Of Racism Rings True
by DAVE ZIRIN
LeBron James of the Miami Heat poses for photos. James has said that he thinks the public backlash against his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers was based in part on racism.
October 5, 2010
Dave Zirin is the sports editor for The Nation. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love.
You can't say Lebron James didn't warn us. Three years ago, the then-22-year-old James said he had two goals in his professional life: to be a "global icon like Muhammad Ali" and to become "the richest athlete in the world." This seemed like one whopper of a contradiction. Agree or disagree with his stances against war and racism, the fact is that Muhammad Ali remains a global icon because of what he sacrificed — professionally, personally, financially — in the name of political principle. To take such action in the world of sports, as Ali learned, is to make powerful enemies, and to make powerful enemies is not exactly the way to become Richie Rich.
The Ali way is to tell the truth as you see it, consequences be damned. Last week, Lebron dipped his pinky-toe into his Muhammad Ali persona during an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien and set the sportsworld on its ear. O'Brien asked Lebron about the fury he provoked when he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers this past summer. She wanted to know if he felt issues of race and racism might be connected to both the rage in Cleveland and the fact that Lebron has seen his popularity plummet, according to the advertising industry's annual Q-rating score.
Lebron answered, "I think so at times. It's always, you know, a race factor." That's all. Just twelve words where a 25-year-old athlete dared say that news footage of people burning his jersey in the streets of Cleveland might have something to do with racism, and even then, as he was careful to say, it was just a factor.
It's hardly Ali saying, "Damn America! Damn the white man's money!" But given the response, you would think that Lebron had changed his name to Farrakhan bin Laden. Sports Illustrated's Peter King, a self-described liberal, tweeted that Lebron's affirmation of racism was "garbage." Jason Whitlock, a man who says he "never leaves home without his race card" said, "Give me a &*%$ing break." He then, with his typical lyricism, praised America for "taking a dump on Lebron" (It's like Grantland Rice still walks among us!).
Charles Barkley also piled on, saying, "It's like watching a movie. Just when you think it couldn't get any stupider, it gets more stupid." The only thing getting "stupider" is how we discuss these issues in America and in the world of sports.
I was neither a fan of Lebron's move to Miami nor his egomaniacal ESPN infomercial, "The Decision," where he revealed that he would be "taking [his] talents to South Beach. But to say that racism doesn't shape our perceptions of controversial, narcissistic or outspoken athletes is to deny that the sky is blue or that most sportswriters could stand to bathe. Just look at the aforementioned Q ratings. The six least popular athletes in America are Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant and Lebron. Yes, Vick, Woods and Bryant have had their share of off-field scandal, but so has Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre, and even Tom Brady. To say that racism doesn't shape the volume of the anger at black athletes is to say that sports somehow exists in a magical, hermetically sealed universe where the sewage of our society never manages to seep.
It also shapes the near-lockstep hostility Lebron provoked from the sports media. There is a valuable lesson for the King to learn: if you really want to walk in the footsteps of Ali, especially in the age of 24-hour news media, Twitter and Whitlock, you had better develop a serious backbone. If your goal is to "be revolutionary," then going on ESPN the next day to complain that people are making such a big deal over your comments is like wearing red to a bullfight. You had better be prepared to handle the backlash, and like Ali, punch back.
If you really want to be the richest athlete on earth, then speaking about how race and racism affect your life is not exactly torn from the Michael Jordan playbook. But if you are going to "go there," you had better be able to take the heat. Whether or not the self-proclaimed King James can, or even if he wants to, is an open question. Right now Lebron is walking on the fence between being a rebel and just another creature of commercialism. The problem with walking that narrow fence though, is that eventually you slip. Then comes the pain.
Related NPR Stories
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