Media On Alito

The Supreme Court balance will absolutely change once Judge Samuel Alito becomes an associate justice. And, unfortunately, he will win the nomination, Democratic opposition notwithstanding.
Throughout these hearings things are not always what they have seemed to be. Kathy Kiely, writing for USA Today, wrote a very middle of the road, "just the facts ma'am" style of story about the hearing. Interestingly, it was through a connection with this reporter that Senator Specter, in an unprecedented move, invited the panel of Judge Alito's fellow judges from the Third Circuit Appellate Court yesterday afternoon. This sets up the possibility of conflicts of interest with later cases coming before the Supreme Court.

The mainstream media has not served us very well in reporting the actual implications of Judge Alito going on to the Supreme Court. The following stories are possible exception. A survey of the remaining stories in my news aggregator, written about the Judiciary Committee Alito confirmation hearings, fall into roughly three categories: "The Direction is to the Right," "His Real Position Is . . . ," and "Things Got Hot."
Direction will be to the Right: Characteristically, the two most respected newspapers in the U.S., The New York Times and the Washington Post, did rather thorough analyses of Judge Alito's views. NYT reporter Adam Liptak did a rather thorough analysis of just how conservative Judge Alito could be, concluding that he is most closely aligned with Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas. Charles Becker, of the Washington Post, concludes in his excellent analytical piece that the confirmation of Judge Alito will definitely tilt the Supreme Court to the right. He concluded that relatively conservative Justice Kennedy would then become the swing voter on the court.
Real Position Is: Because Judge Alito has answered so carefully and vaguely, it has been difficult to assess how he would actually rule when he goes on to the nation's highest court. But a few writers have tackled the task. Their articles suggest rather strongly that Alito will be extremely conservative in his decisions. Slate Magazine's Dahlia Lithwick writes with considerable insight about the real issues masquerading behind the nominee's questions and testimony at the hearings. Another Slate writer, Emily Bazelon, did an opinion piece on whether Judge Alito ever "rules for the little guy." Michael Barone, writing in the US News and World Report, focuses on the cultural differences between conservatives and liberals in the late 1960's and early 1970's, a key issue with Judge Alito, who put himself in the former group from the very beginning.
Things Got Hot: The following stories were far more typical of how the media covered the hearings. Many of yesterday' stories thought that the biggest news was the fight between Senator Kennedy and Senator Specter on Wednesday or Mrs. Alito's tears because her husband was attacked so cruelly by Democrats on the committee. This week's Reuters news story, by Thomas Ferraro and Joanne Kenen, focused on how tough Democrats have been on Judge Alito during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Bill Mears, writing for CNN, also focused on the contentiousness of Wednesday's hearing, this time reporting on the conflict between Senators Ted Kennedy and Chairman Arlen Specter over boxes of requested Princeton alumni organization's papers.
It is unfortunate that the general public has no idea what they are in for with the appointment of this man. It is a watershed time for the nation. We are about to lose many of our rights. The potential negative results for the majority of us are truly incalculable.

Tags: SCOTUS Bush Administration media Alito politics Senate hearings

My "creative" post today at Southwest Blogger is about how hard it is to predict the future.

Essentials on Writing

On a roll . . .
When someone is totally engaged and every aspect of the self is working well, it is a natural high. In more general terms, when writers' bodies, minds, spirits and hearts are all working together, they lose track of where they are, lose track of time, feel like they are "cooking," or "lost" in their work. Some of my most favorite writers, whom I cite in the following paragraphs, surely must have this experience occasionally.
And I have known this feeling once in a while when one of my poems is "writing itself." And, since I have converted from paper and pencil to computer writing, I became aware that I was feeling a bit bereft while my computer was down a few days ago. There is a reason for this feeling of loss when not writing for a writer.
My favorite literary blogger, Maud Newton, sometimes alludes to this author's phenomena in her posts. I speculate that Molly Ivins and Maureen Dowd may experience this feeling as they write. They must know when some really good writing is happening. All aspects of the Self - body, mind and spirit - are engaged.
Writing, from body point of view, is like walking. And it is a way to get from here to there, mentally, as well. Parenthetically, a benefit of computer writing, as opposed to paper and pencil, is that I edit much more thoroughly and quickly. I am not so wedded to saving the words, (resisting editing) as when I had the paper with all those hard won, precious words in my hands. My product is better as a result. Writing, in the manner of working with my hands, produces something of value that is useful.
James Lileks is writer as worker and devoted father, freely expressing his love for his little girl. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Daily Kos is perhaps one of the premier bloggers in the blogosphere, and is a good but not great writer, in my opinion. His "product" has significant standing in the blogosphere, a model for success.
For my mind, writing is an essential part of "ordering" my day. Self expression, a manifestation of the creative impulse, is a central to the human experience. Our minds are fertile fields from which flowers or weeds grow. We just have to "get it out." Very often sanity comes in the speaking of it. Saying it makes sense of nonsense.
Rosie O'Donnell uses her mind (and her heart) for her very creative style of blogging, which makes her site a very popular one. Steve Clemons has an excellent mind which he uses to advantage to write The Washington Note, one of my essential political blogs.
Writing from the spirit is the hardest part. Self-censoring and lack of confidence sometimes prevent me from writing spontaneously. Much of the time the first raw draft has the freshest seeds of creativity. Editing can help; over-editing is the enemy of creativity. Each of us who writes for fun or profit knows when it is good and when it is barely adequate. Listening to the spirit is our best guide.
"Lorianne," Dr. Lorianne DiSabato, is an English professor. She calls herself a place blogger; she writes from her spirit (a Zen spirit, incidentally). One of my favorite contributors to the TPM Cafe site calls himself cscs; he has a fierce political spirit that he uses with great effectiveness in making his openly partisan points. He does a wonderful job of reinforcing my own biases. I suspect we all love it when that happens.
From the heart, I try to write in such a way that I honor my authentic self. Being authentic is risky, but it gets easier as I have gotten older. The decades provide me with a win/loss record that increases my level of courage to be honest. Feelings, emotions, hunches, honesty and soul inform those writings that we intuit are good work. That kind of writing grabs us as readers and keeps us engaged.
"Bobby Farouk" writes from his heart, expressing his authentic self in unique and powerful ways. Wil Wheaton writes from his heart, freely expressing sentiment, and has been a popular blogger because of that. Author Damian McNichols bloggs honestly and heartfully, and is currently stretching himself as an author from novelist to playwright.
Body, mind, spirit and heart coming together is what makes a piece of writing wildly successful. I love to read, and I think I must have recognized the power of the printed word from early on. My maternal grandmother, Mollie, herself a writer, must have known that about me. For my 7th birthday, she gave me a child's dictionary. It was a thick 8"x 10" book, with the medium size Times New Roman font, and I just loved it. I wonder what ever happened to it.
At this moment I have in my sight a Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, Webster's Compact Rhyming Dictionary, and The Wordbook (for misspellers). Printed words, all, the nuts and bolts of it, still at my fingertips. It is good to get back to writing.

Tags: blogs diary journal literature writing

Boundaries "102"

In a recent post, (linked to this post's title) I talked about "boundaries." When a person has psychological boundaries that have been damaged, there can be bad consequences for those around them. This is particularly true of national leaders. Our current president has damaged boundaries, and so does, I believe, his current nominee for the Supreme Court. Both of them exhibit thick/thin boundaries.

This is what I mean: Judge Alito has offered a set of strange explanations for his previous behaviors. He said he doesn't remember joining an organization that wanted to keep his alma mater Princeton as it was - with a student body comprised of white males. He says he did not think about a conflict of interest when the Vanguard case first came up, after originally promising the Judiciary Committee to recuse himself if any such cases ever arose. But his brain somehow comes as he cites obscure reasons to side with big corporations or the government in his judicial rulings. His boundary problems here center on undue rigidity. He is unable to "get it" that real people are deeply affected by his legalistic parsing of the law in serving his ultra right wing conservative agenda. Notice his answers, make no mistakes, about what he admits and what he does not agree to. He will, in effect, serve at the pleasure of the president as he turns the court in a different direction. Our current president also has boundary rigidity problems. They are as alike as peas in a pod.

Boundaries that are too thick, people who are too rigid have one set of problems. Equally problematic are boundaries that are too thin. "Boundaries," by Joel Mobius, is an excellent little short piece about this psychological state, claifiying the bad outcomes for those around such people. This boundaries are exhibited when people are too intrusive towards others, not having respect for others' boundaries. Judge Alito exhibited thin boundaries when he ruled that it was correct for police to be able to strip-search a 10-year old girl. Another example is his thinking on requiring spouses to be notified about a decision to get an abortion. Our current president has thick/thin boundaries as does his SCOTUS nominee.

The International Women's Media Foundation posted a short training article about boundary problems with leaders. It is very instructive when it comes to the leaders about whom I have been talking. These leaders cause constant conflict by their leadership style. Would that they could undergo this kind of leadership training: IWMF: Leadership Development SeriesModule 3 - Conflict Resolution for Leaders: Defining Boundaries

An episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show discussed boundaries in a much less lofty way-focusing on practical solutions for women in particular:

Do you have a hard time standing up for yourself? Do you keep agreeing to do
things that you really don't want to do? Do you tolerate rude comments or pushy
people because you can't handle conflict? Do you take things personally?
Thousands of you told us in an online poll that the quality you most want to
develop in your lives setting boundaries. Lifestyle Makeover expert Cheryl
Richardson says that creating stronger boundaries is the number one way for most
women to improve their lives. Today she shows you how to stand up for yourself!
Set personal boundaries and free yourself from the "disease to please" with
these three steps!

References to the idea of boundaries in a couple my past posts include: "Taking stock" and "Two"

Tags: Bush Alito politics leadership

bad hardware - good outcome

hank you, Shawn, from India!
We live in a flat world, as Tom Friedman says. And I was able to persevere despite of that reality.
Sorry about the interruption. My notebook's AC adapter went out, the computer was inoperable, and I went into withdrawal. Just got the thing back up a few minutes ago, as I heave a sigh of relief. Spoken like a true addict, huh?
My saga, (my that was a strong word for a relatively short interruption in service) is probably a familiar one for every reader. All of you have computers that go "on the blink" at various times, so you know the feelings. They are frustration, anxiety, confusion, irritation, etc. Those negative emotions then change to relief, excitement, pride of accomplishment, and anticipation about what's next.
Kudos to Dell Support, and "Shawn, probably from Bangalore" who was decisive, thorough, patient, helpful, courteous, and very prompt. I had called for support yesterday morning, my new adapter was delivered to me just a few minutes ago (overnight!). I am pleased and amazed by what seems like a magical turn of events, because I think back to when I was a child living on a western farm. We ordered from the Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue and usually felt pleased that the package came in a couple of weeks.
The other reflection I have is about my own resourcefulness. These are the creative (or mundane) strategies I used, that many of you may take for granted because you are so much more computer-savvy than I am: I got out a new power strip from strorage to use as part of my electrical power trouble shooting, befor I called for service. While I was on hold for about a half an hour (it was Monday, you know), I clipped my nails and restacked my piles nearby. I used my portable phone to talk to the Dell service guy, since my land line phone jack was a bit far from where my notebook is set up. Shawn said I had a bad AC adapter, that he would send me a free one (overnight!) because my machine is still under warranty. Yesterday afternoon, I went to the local library to use their free computers to check e-mail and my blogs. This morning I balanced my checkbook, did some filing, and watched the Alito hearings on C-Span, rather that be online as is my normal morning routine. After my replacement part arrived (overnight!), I started my computer in "safe" mode, and that didn't work, I went to "system restore," my regular savior. Voila!
It is amazing what a computer addict will do to "get a fix," and calm herself in the interim.

Tags: diary daily life blogs global economy