Illinois Governor Ron Blagojevich just held a press conference introducing Roland Burris as Illinois’ next Senator. All 50 Democratic Senators, however, issued a statement beforehand urging Blago-Jabo-Do not to appoint a Senator himself. Majority Leader Harry Reid stands by his statement, saying Burris will not be seated.

However, Burris is black, so there are some who think it would be racist not to seat him. One of those is Illinois Representative Bobby Rush who took some time at the end of the press conference to say how important it is to have a black Senator and urged the Congress and the media not to “lynch” Roland Burris.

Rush challenged Reid: “But that raises the dicey political question: would the Senate really want to expel a qualified, experienced political veteran who has never been tainted with any scandal? And who, by the way, would be the only African-American in that body?”

I say, yes, the Senate should expel the only African-American in their body. Reid had decided before he knew who was appointed that he wouldn’t seat that person. He decided regardless of race that he wouldn’t seat the appointment. For Rush to base his outrage over Reid not seating someone on race is –dare I say it?– racist. I don’t dispute that Burris is qualified and probably not involved in the scandal, but Reid had made a decision to play damage control for his party, and he shouldn’t change it based on race.

It’s amazing how far Blago will go to take down his own party along with himself. If the Democrats fails to seat Burris, some, like Rush, will play the race card. If they do seat him, they will have broken their word and perpetuate the cycle of bad media coverage towards their party. If they stand up behind their word and don’t get bullied by Bobby Rush, I applaud them.

The easiest way to handle this would be for Obama to issue a statement saying he doesn’t think Burris should be seated. I wonder what Jesse Jackson, Sr. would think of that?

UPDATE: Obama has released a statement stating his opposition to Burris being seated. For the time being, there are no blacks in Senate, and Obama doesn’t want to change that at the present. In the words of Bobby Rush, Obama has “lynched” Burris.

However, it may be hard to keep Burris out of Senate. Some legal scholars say that the Democrats have no power to do so.

UPDATE 2: Bobby Rush compares Reid and Obama to George Wallace. Great, now both presidential candidates were George Wallace.

Rush himself endorsed a white Democrat over Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate primary, so we can only assume he is racist against his own race.

UPDATE 3: Democratic sources say Burris may try to enter the Senate floor on Tuesday, the first day of the new term, but they are prepared to use the police to bar him. I’m sure Bobby Rush will have a lot to say if that happens.

Given the horrific violence in the Middle East right now, it doesn’t seem surprising that news of Samuel Huntington’s death last week barely made a ripple in media coverage. Most people (including me) first learnt of Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard, through his seminal work The Clash of Civilizations. The book posits a “clash” between Western and Eastern civilization due to a difference in, among other things, values and identity. A very short summary of the book can be found here. Since the book was published in 1996, several academics including Edward Said came forward with compelling rebuttals- that the differences between the West and East are exaggerated, thereby advancing the us vs them narrative. Personally, I’m more in agreement with the notion that the major conflict that will define our future is the clash within Islam, not outside of it. Two excellent books, No God but God and The Shia Revival are good resources for this subject.

Such a view becomes especially relevant when we consider what’s happening in Palestine right now. Often, the conflict between Israel and Palestine is depicted as a clash of civilizations, a fight over religious values. While religion was initially the fuel for such violence, it’s difficult to say that this is the case now. At the risk of simplifying a timeless conflict, it seems that less abstract things like repressive political and economic structures within Palestine (and other Middle Eastern societies) are contributing to the chaos.

In any event, no post about Huntington is complete without a discussion of this piece titled the Hispanic Challenge. As you can guess, Huntington viewed the wave of Hispanic immigration as a threat to American values. He argued that very soon, it is possible that America will resemble Miami, where national heritage and the notion of cultural assimilation are virtually non-existent. He may have a point. I’m home in Florida for winter break now and I’m mildly amused to see Mexican flags flying right next to American ones. There are certain commercial entities here that operate only in Spanish and I’m not sure what to make of it. While I’m certainly not espousing Huntington’s nativist views, there is something to be said about assimilation. As with many of his theories, only time will tell if Huntington was right in this respect.

The organization that still bans atheists and gays from serving as scout leaders has agreed that its mostly white and decrepit membership will no longer be enough to keep its membership numbers afloat in the 21st Century.

Remaining staunch as ever that it must uphold “traditional” values, the Boy Scouts of America is therefore turning to Hispanics to revitalize its ranks. Although one in five American children is Hispanic, they account for a mere three percent of Boy Scout membership.

While it is touching that the Boy Scouts have finally recognized that their organization must change if it is to remain an thriving institution, it’s unfortunate that they’ve merely recruited a demographic they believe will support much of the problematic Boy Scout dogma.  2010 – the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts – would be the perfect time to instead unveil an organization retooled to help children succeed in the 21st Century.

Alas, it seems all the centenial will bring is more of the same.

On Ed Schultz’s radio show on Tuesday, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter laid down her list of gripes with the American auto industry:

-”When I was in the state legislature in the ’80s, we passed a seat belt law in New York. And they fought us tooth and nail.”

-”They fought every thing in the world that we ever tried to do, always at the same time that the foreign automakers were doing it and cleaning their clock.”

-”No! No, I don’t even think they’ve started [to turn the corner].”

-”In Europe they build efficient cars with good mileage there but they don’t, they can’t manage, somehow it’s impossible, it’s beyond them to do it here.”

-Quotes

Then she went on to say, “But, we can’t let ‘em fail, I’ll say that. I mean, we just simply cannot.”

Or we could let them fail, then purchase foreign cars that have better fuel-efficiency and better overall value.

Slaughter insisted that letting them fail would hurt the economy and increase unemployment. Toyota and Honda and other foreign companies have outsourced jobs to America (Uh oh, we should send those jobs back!), though, and I’m sure they would love to increase their market share.

That said, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are never going to fail even if they go bankrupt. The laws are such that they would just renegotiate deals then get back in business, learning a lesson that is long past due.

The CEOs insist that Americans wouldn’t want to buy cars from a company that just went bankrupt. Yeah, well, we wouldn’t want to buy cars from a company that makes crappy cars, anyway.

Opposition leaders in South Korea aren’t letting politesse get in the way of their agenda.  CLICK here to see some amazing pictures of what happens when Legislators get out of control.  Apparently the opposition began using sledge hammers and fire hoses to break down a barricade to the committee room where other lawmakers were holed up intending to pass a trade agreement favorable to the United States.  Beware, the pictures get messy.

They also make our staff ed “State representatives gone wild” seem meek and mild.  Korean lawmakers need more than a brethalyze: they need a chill pill.

Al Gore said recently that the entire North Pole will disappear within five years. I just want to put that on the record so we can see in five years if he’s right.

Barack Obama sure isn’t going to be able to do anything about what he views as a shocking trend in global warming. He campaigned on the promise of installing a carbon tax which he said would cause energy prices to skyrocket.

But, he’s a pragmatist. On Iraq, he picked Hillary as Secretary of State and Gates as Secretary of Defense, and he endorses a similar plan as that of Bush: withdrawing combat troops by the summer of 2010 and leaving a residual force there for an amount of time. (Barack’s Issues)

While global warming might destroy the North Pole and kill Santa in five years (I’ll be waiting), there are more pressing issues like the economy. The economy is why he got elected, and the American people seem to be just a tad more concerned about it than they are about global warming. If Obama goes along with his cap and trade and makes energy prices skyrocket, thus skyrocketing the price of every product that needs to be transported on planes or trucks using energy, then it may have a negative effect on the economy. The American people won’t be too pleased with him if that is the case.

What he will do is focus on green jobs because those serve the purpose of creating jobs and creating alternative energy sources. It won’t be possible for him to install any successful form of carbon regulation, though, if he wants to get reelected.

This is incredibly disturbing. Evangelical pastor Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. I don’t know what’s worse about Warren- that he’s anti-gay, anti-choice or anti-peace. Or all three. While we’re on the subject, what is the deal with Obama’s spiritual leaders? First, there was Donnie McClurkin and his “cures” for gayness, Rev. Wright (who needs no introduction), Rev. Pfelger and his generous use of the race card against Hillary Clinton and now, this.

And please, please spare me the grief about how this isn’t Obama’s choice to make. It’s true that a bipartisan Congressional committee makes the final arrangements regarding Inauguration Day but I have a hard time believing that as the President, you have no say over who gets to attend.

But the part that really kills me about Warren’s choice is that it overshadows the fact that civil rights leader (and one of my personal heroes) Rev. Joseph Lowery will deliver the benediction. Lowery is a devout Christian and supports both equal marriage and reproductive rights, a wonderful rejoinder to Warren’s hate-filled messages. But now, we have this huge distraction and people are (rightfully) upset about this.

For the past few weeks, some prominent liberals have been urging others to temper their criticism of Obama over his administration picks- the choice of Tim Geithner as Treasury Sec. comes to mind here. But, this is precisely the sort of thing we criticize Republicans for- mind numbing adherence to leaders and authority and here we are, doing it again. Why shouldn’t we hold ourselves to the same standards? I understand that Obama campaigned on an agenda of unity and change but let’s be clear here- bipartisanship does not mean providing a national platform for bigotry and religious extremism. Episodes like this demonstrate that Democrats are going to have to figure out if it’s worth burning old bridges in order to build new (dangerous) ones.

For some people it’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” For others, it’s not really Christmas until they’ve seen the Garfield and Peanuts specials. Others prefer the old classics like “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” But the Red State Update Christmas party is quickly becoming my favorite holiday tradition:

(Mild content warning for both)

You can tell it’s old because Jackie still hadn’t quite settled into the role he plays now. Best Jackie Broyles line evah: “These here are for my blood pressure… and these aren’t really mine, but, but they done me some good.”

And while I’m something of a traditionalist that loves the old classics, here’s a new video that the Red State boys put together for this year:

In an intensely comical moment, a 29-year-old Iraqi journalist – Muntader al-Zaidi, chucked his shoes at George W. Bush during the President’s final visit to Iraq.

It made me glad I chose to study Arabic:

It seems Mr. al-Zaidi was yelling “Ibn al-hooza,” what international news organizations have translated as “son of a shoe.” It is one of the worst insults in Iraq.

When the firey journalist was finally floored by a posse of security guards, he continued screaming, in the midst of which I believe I can make out the words “dog” – kalb – and “forty” – arbiyoon.

I’m dissappointed in major American news organizations.  So many reported only that Mr. Bush had been called a dog, completely missing on the opportunity to highlight the “son of a shoe” line for their audiences. Then again, what can you expect from the country whose linguistically inept president has to giggle to himself when he hears himself speaking one of them “fo-rine” languages two seconds before the shoes are chucked?

Americans missed out on much of the humor of the incident thanks to the lack of contextualizing their news did for them.  It was a funny scene. Projectiles and a lot of international anger were heaved at Mr. Bush even as he managed to escape unharmed.  If anything worse had happened to the President, the incident would hardly have been funny.

The lesson of the day seems to be that until Americans learn to speak the languages of the world, we won’t share in laughter – the international language – as much either.

As she sat on a park bench one day in Tehran, Ameneh Bahrami was approached by a stalker and had a bucket of acid dumped on her head. The attack left her blinded and severely disfigured and is but a single incident in a broader trend of violent abuse against women.

Are the men who have begun using acid against women some sort of psychopaths?  Has something gotten in the water that makes them crave the horror of a woman’s burning flesh and horrible screams?  No.

Scarily enough, throwing acid on a woman who rejects you for marriage – as in Ameneh’s case – or on a wife who files for divorce has become an acceptable response for men from Pakistan to Morocco.  It is unimaginable that women can be turned into such a disposable commodity.

SO IRAN HAS STRUCK BACK.

In a twist only the contradictory strictures of Islamic Law could have wrought, the country was forced to forgo exacting cash payment from Ameneh’s attacker.  Instead, as she legally demanded, a judge ordered that he will have five drops of acid dripped in each of his eyes… effectively blinding him.

It is a poetic response to the utter cruelty this woman has suffered.  But it is not a poetic justice.  Perhaps dripping acid in this one man’s eyes will serve as a disincentive to those men who would otherwise like to acid attack the women who inconvenience them.

However, I worry that Iran’s acid attacking of even the worst offender only continues the trend of bodily mutiliation as an acceptable outlet for anger.

Iran and other nations should work to reform their judicial systems to minimize such violent behavior rather than continuing its perpetuation through state-sanctioned punishment.