Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/stephen-b-young/page/2/)
Steve Young, 3/14/08 • Iran is electing members of a new parliament today, March 14. But it is not exactly a free and open election. The Guardian Council, an unelected body of clerics and jurists created by the constitution to protect the regime from ideological deviation, disqualified some 1,700 potential candidates.
1/19/08 – Competitive elections are like strong sunlight – shining into dark recesses and bringing out the truth. Given enough competitive pressure even the best of spin comes unstuck and spins off into irrelevance.
New Hampshire primaries in particular have given us good examples of this exposure process. Ed Muskie’s presidential hopes vanished when he cried in public on a snowy New Hampshire evening over a nasty smear of his wife; Ronald Reagan endeared himself to many when during a primary debate he grabbed the mike away from a competitor saying: “It’s mine; I paid for it”
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Something is getting under my skin about racial references to Barack Obama. He is being called the “Black” candidate for President.
My question is: is he really black? Why is he called “Black” and not “White”?
He is as much his white mother’s offspring as he is the child of a man from Kenya.
Why one label over the other?
The heritage of racism I suppose.
The American experiment in free constitutionalism is not yet over. I never thought I would have good grounds to thank the people of Iowa but now I do. Their caucus support for Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee has given new life to dying republican traditions (the kind standing behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution).
American now has a chance not to go the way of the Roman Republic – taken over by self-serving elites.
I think that what Americans should conclude from the assassination of Pakistani leader Benezir Bhutto is the firm conclusion that the Bush/Cheney War on Terror has failed.
After 6 years – 6 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, of captures and renditions, of “persuasive” interrogations, of massive electronic global eves-dropping – Jihadists can still with impunity easily kill an American protégée in a Muslim country.
Jim Ragsdale of the Pioneer Press editorial board is right. He wrote an insightful Op-Ed essay on Dec 11th saying that American politics have changed since the Kennedy/Nixon election of 1960 and for the worse.
I agree.
Well, Minneapolis police officer Duy Ngo finally has his compensation for being shot in the line of duty – $4.5 million paid by the City.
Duy was the undercover agent shot some 6 to 8 times several years ago by a fellow officer who opened-up with a sub-machine gun when Duy was kneeling in an alley asking for help.
So what did Minneapolis’ finest and its city leaders do then?
The problem with Saint Paul is not streets laid out by “drunken Irishmen” (actually good public works is one of the best things about the City) – it is that there is less and less “there” there.
I drove back from Minneapolis on Wednesday night to see illuminated the new “Travelers” sign with the red umbrella where the building used to mark the presence of The St Paul.
The New York money men have done away with a company as old and as good as old Saint Paul. The shell of a company is here, but its heart beats out east. We are now flyover land.
The University of St Thomas first took no stand, then it denied permission for Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak on campus, then it revoked its denial and invited him to be part of its intellectual community.
In its embarrassment, the University’s reversal of course was an important acknowledgment of the need for free speech and free thought at least in academia if not in our lives. And so I applaud the University and its President for doing the right thing in the end.
Well, now it’s public!
Tom Powers, writing October 10 in the Pioneer Press about new Gopher Nation Coach Tim Brewster with his 1 and 4 record so far said it in print: “Around here, the goal has been to wind up somewhere in between respectability and mediocrity.”
When I first came to Minnesota to be Dean of the Hamline Law School, an older, cynical wag from a Summit Hill family in Saint Paul (some called him an effete snob) asked me bluntly: “You know what’s wrong with Hamline don’t you?”