As reported by Associated Press:

“Going Rogue” will receive an initial printing of 1.5 million copies, the same number as Ted Kennedy’s “True Compass.” Palin’s first book will be 400 pages long, and was completed a breezy four months after the deal was announced.

“Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project,” said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of Harper. “It’s her words, her life, and it’s all there in full and fascinating detail.”

Palin’s publisher notes that one of the benefits of Palin’s highly unexpected resignation as Alaska governor was that she freed up time to complete her book. As such, she has been able to move up the release date by approximately six months.

“It obviously bodes well that there’s so much interest and excitement,” said Tina Andreadis, spokeswoman for HarperCollins, the book’s publisher and a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.”

“Palin resigned as governor in July, a move Andreadis said gave her more time to write and contributed to the book being released before the original spring 2010 timeline.”

It appears that the first rush of pre-orders has subsided. According to Amazon.com, Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue: An American Life” has been reduced in price. Original list price was $28 (hardback). It’s now $9.00. However, considering that many have not yet begun their holiday gift buying, it may see another wave of sales in a few weeks.

It’s going to be interesting to watch the ups and downs of the sale cycles of Palin’s tome. Sarah Palin, show us what you’ve got.

Fox never disappoints. Thanks, guys, for your consistency.

Expediency asks the question – is it politic?

Vanity asks the question – is it popular?

But conscience asks the question – is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The President has won the Nobel Peace Prize because of his commitment to and acts of diplomacy.  These have each been missing in the US for the eight years.  He’s made tremendous strides in his short time as President to bring about global coexistence.  That he didn’t start at “zero” bears noting.  He started in the whole that was dug by the Bush Administration.  And, to deflate conservative posturing, this isn’t “Bush bashing.” It’s a statement of fact, not an indictment of Bush’s actions. 

Obama has said that meetings without preconditions as well as thought and analysis before throwing more people into the intractable wars we are currently engaged in are the better ways to govern.  He has said no to torture, rendition, and most things Patriot Act.  No, he’s not perfect, not infallible, but he is, as are the others who have been honored with this award, a person of brilliance, commitment and above all, conscious. 

I am hopeful that his detractors will share in this moment of international recognition and national pride.  However, I am not naïve enough to be shocked if they cannot venture out of their cocoons.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_obama_threat

Who is responsible for the post, the “child” or his/her parents?  Should charges be brought against the parents?

Also, although the article did not give the “child’s” age, he/she is obviously old enough to make a poll about assasinating the President AND give a choice of “only if he touches my healthcare.” Clearly, this is not the work of a seven-year old. 

What would be fair and balanced resolution to this incident?

Things Conservative White People Like

1.    Bashing Barack Obama

2.    Tractor pulls

3.    Distancing themselves from the K.K.K. – while thinking those “boys” did start out as a ‘social club’

4.    “Urban” as code for Black

5.    “Urban” on “Urban” crime

6.    Saying, “I told you so.”

7.    Joe Wilson

8.    Liars like Joe Wilson

9.    Orange Co., CA

10.  Misusing “socialism”

11. Bashing Barack Obama – they really like it

12. Mayo sandwiches

13. Being “real Americans”

14. Bashing immigrants (brown ones)

15. Counting their “Black friends,” as in “I have three Black friends,” as proof that they can’t be racist

16. Defining Black friends as people from work, with whom they’ve never socialized

17. Jeff Foxworthy

18. CMT

19. Arrogantly denying their arrogance

20. Ignorantly denying their ignorance

21. Not realizing the danger of being arrogantly ignorant

22. Misusing the word “racist”

23. “Mandingo” fantasy (women)

24. “Birth of a Nation” fantasy (men)

25. Being on the wrong side of the health care debate

26.  Bashing Barack Obama  – seriously, they LOVE it

27. Anne Coulter

28. Prop 8

29. The most romantic film of all time – “Gone With the Wind”

30. Town hall meetings

31. Disrupting town hall meetings

32. Guns, guns, guns

33. NRA

34. Misappropriating the Second Amendment

35. Perceived moral superiority

36. GWB

37. WMD

38. Deciding what every woman can do with her uterus

39. Using “liberal’ as a dirty word

40. Denying that Hawaii is a state

41. Talking a lot

42. Saying very little

43. Not making sense out of nonsense

44. Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh

45. “reverse discrimination”

46. Family Values

47. Bashing ‘political correctness’

48. Using the terms “race card” and “crying racism” whenever their racism is pointed out to them

49. Misusing “affirmative action”

50. 2010 (Senate)

51. 2012 (White House)

52. The notion that in 2012 the White House will once again be ‘White”

53. Trailer parks

54. Anti-intellectualism, hell…any ‘fancy book learnin’”

55. NOT seeing color

56. Preemptive strikes

57. Toby Keith

58. Conspiracy theories

59. Plans to “take back their country”

60. Tea parties

61. Jerry Falwell, “bless his soul”

62. NCIS

63. Fox Network entertainment

64. Budweiser

65. Olive Garden

66. Jean Nate’

67. Smoking in restaurants

68. The terms “bless your heart,” “rest his soul,” and “I’ll pray for you”

69. Seeing the Confederate flag as a symbol of ‘heritage, not hate’

70. Sarah Palin

71. Bashing Barack Obama – they REALLY don’t like that guy

What follows is my response to her.

Actually Meolny, GWB had a record of several failures at running various businesses. If we want to gauge ones suitability to run the country on previously demonstrated leadership skills then he’d have never been elected.

Believe it or not, some Black people stopped supporting HRC when they saw the arrogance and emotionality with which she ran her campaign. Personally, HRC did not lose 100% of my support until she refused to repudiate G. Ferraro’s madness. HRC delved deep into the “Karl Rove” playbook. I was extremely displeased with her both her media and, especially, her debate performances. (Oh, yes – I watched the debates so that I could learn what all the candidates (Dem and Rep) were about.) She became the personification of ‘business as usual’. Obama did not.

My point is I turned my support to Obama, primarily because he offered a new approach. Any candidate who says (and this was VERY different from HRC) that they will engage the enemy without demanding pre-conditions is going to have a difficult time convincing me NOT to vote for him or her. Obama, more than any other candidate had worked on the ground level to help people. I gained valuable insight to his leadership style by being made aware of his work as a community organizer. Further, it didn’t hurt that he was BRILLIANT. A Harvard Law grad? AND, he wasn’t a legacy.

It is flawed to say that there were no policy differences between Clinton and Obama. There were. That flaw renders ineffective your conclusion then that “most Blacks supported Obama because he’s Black.” Additionally, the Blacks (and Whites) who rejoiced for Obama’s victory did so for any myriad of reasons. Of course there was celebration because he was Black, but (as in voiting) not simply because he is Black. Those tears were in recognition of the US’s racial history. They were for people, Black and White, who worked in the struggle to get Blacks the right to vote without fear of intimidation or even death as recently as 1964. They were for the parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles, the forefathers and foremothers, some of whom DIED, so that we can walk into a voting booth with no fear. They were in recognition of the fact that some of those foreparents didn’t live to see the day when collective works among the races and ages of US peoples would elect a Black man. They were tears of relief at the fact that eight years of Bush were over – and that while we sat on the edge of global financial collapse, we did not elect a man who felt the economy was “sound.” And, on a very personal note, while there were issues of McCain’s with which I disagreed (ie. views on the wars), I was sh*t scared at the thought of Palin being one seat away from becoming the leader of the free world. Concluding, it’s overly simplistic and cynical to say that people were celebrating Obama’s victory solely because he’s Black.

People vote for any number of reasons. As previously stated, to suggest that a group of people as vast and diverse as the African-American citizenry voted for Obama “only” because he’s Black is wrong. And no matter how many times the lie is repeated, it’s still a lie. Just ask Joe Wilson (R-SC).

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/who-is-the-parent-me-or-mr-president-508841/;_ylt=An8fmeXwwiMQG884s0REtwR8bqU5?pg=18#comments

There is no biological basis for race. Scientifically, we are all simply human. Race as such isn’t real. It’s a social construct used to delineate people. That delineation is neither good nor bad; it’s neutral. However it’s misuse leads to bigotry and racism (two VERY different things). Bigotry and racism are as real as my grandmother’s death from Alzheimer’s. And, I’m not playing the “race card” (asinine term that it is) – because racism isn’t a game.

Barack Obama self-identifies as African-American. He has said numerous times that he is the son of a Kenyan man and a Kansas woman. True, he was raised, in part, by his grandparents (his grandmother, he reports, used the ubiquitous “N” word); however, that doesn’t make him “more white” any more than an El Salvadoran child adopted by a Caucasian family is “more white.”

My question, to those who refer to him being bi-racial, what is the advantage of pointing that out? What is the benefit of him being “more white”? What is the issue if he defines himself as African-American? What does it mean when folks override his self-definition and insist that he’s something that he chooses not to claim? Doesn’t reek of arrogance to attempt to tell someone that how he or she defines themselves is wrong?

And, lastly, to the folks who insist he’s white…or whatever…. you also have to claim rapper Ice-T, of “F*ck the Police” fame, as one of your own, as well. He too was reared by his white mother. Using your logic he’s more “white” than anything else.

They strategized and mobilized to either keep the child home for the day or to work to have the entire school system agree to not present the speech. While there were some school districts who say that they didn’t have the technologic capability (bandwidth, etc.) to show the speech, many other districts did not allow it be shown because of parental protests. They cow-towed to the vocal minority and, in doing so, taught a valuable life lesson to the young minds. If you don’t want something, to hear something, to do something, simple scream from the rafters and YOUR will will be done.

Comically, there were many comments from parents who opposed the prospective content of the President’s speech. Many said that they didn’t want their children “subjected” to whatever ‘hidden political agenda’ they felt he was going to subliminally implant into young, impressionable minds. The term “indoctrination” was bandied about with ease. I suppose they forget that for six hours a day little Johnny and Jane are held at rapt attention to the messages of their educators. And if you think those messages are neutral, you are either delusional or have not been in a classroom for 30 years. Teachers can’t achieve neutrality because we humans can’t achieve neutrality. Do you think pro- or anti- (insert issue) sentiments do not seep out in teachers’ interactions with students, both during and in between classes?

My trouble, though, in not with the parents who said they would keep their child home. While I vehemently disagree with the decision, I as stringently believe in the sanctity of parental rights. Rights that, in my opinion, while not absolute, as certainly sacrosanct. However, those parents need to realize that their parental rights are limited to their children, not to all the children in the school district. My trouble, rather, is with the school districts who bowed-down to these parents.

Schools are public institutions. They receive public monies. They are responsible to the public. It is fine if one person or group doesn’t want to participate. It is NOT okay to prevent everyone from participating. It is unbelievable that no one would be permitted to hear a message because some of the people didn’t want to hear it. It is unconscionable that superintendents did not have the back-bone to advise parents that they children who weren’t being allowed to see the speech could stay in a library or cafeteria or some other place on campus, under the direction and leadership of teaching staff. Rather they succumbed to the paranoid nonsense and allowed irrationality to prevail. That’s the troubling and sickening piece of this “controversy.”

People claim to love America, yet exhibit intolerance for American virtues. Freedom of speech in the country is held in such regard as to practically be its own religion. Rightly so. Why can’t people realize that when they attempt to abridge a fellow citizen’s speech, they have abridged the right to freedom of speech for all of us? In this case, people prevented a presidential message from being heard by any of the students in their districts. What’s next?

This country was borne from dissent and protest. People having differing opinions and being willing to scream those opinions into the faces of those with whom they disagree is as American as “Mom and apple pie.” It was borne from a struggle to prevent one group from being able to dictate to another. What are we allowing ourselves to become when we allow one group of parents to deny access to all children simply because they oppose a message they don’t want their children exposed to?