Steve In Ink: The Sorry State of Apologies (Phila Inquirer 5/26/11)
May 26, 2011 (Disclaimer: For nearly one month I ran against Arnold
Schwarzenegger in his first gubernatorial race. Admittedly I had very
little chance of winning. Number one, my entire campaign was based on
taking the California’s budget deficit and transferring it into Beverly
Hills. Number two, I was never able to get my housekeeper pregnant…and I
was married to her.)
From the moment he announced his decision to run on The Tonight Show,
Arnold was able to fend off the claims of womanizing, groping,
Kindergarten Cop and other embarrassing behavior for eight years and two
successful elections. Now, the revelation of an out of wedlock child has
set up what will surely become another in a long line of high-profile
apology tours - Edwards, Ensign, Clinton, Woods, Read more
That Rumble You Heard Was O’Reilly Turning Over In His Grave: How The Far Right Elected Al Franken
“I don’t know if we’ve ever had an opponent who is so disliked by Republicans as Al Franken,” said Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Carey. “It’s one thing to lose to an honorable opponent, but Al Franken is not considered an honorable opponent by Minnesota Republicans.”
If Mr. Carey and the rest of the Republicans would like to see how they’ve come to realize their - as well as Bill O’Reilly’s worst nightmare - they need only look in the mirror.
When I sat down in 2002 to speak with Franken about how seemingly adversarial conditions played a positive part in his life for my book, “Great Failures of the Extremely Successful,” he had no idea that some of his greatest adversaries would help him to become a member of one of America’s most exclusive clubs…the U.S. Senate.
Back then I brought up the possibility of Franken going in to talk radio, but he Read more
Hypocrisy Getting A Bad Rap
Hypocrisy: The act of pretending that one has beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities or standards that they do not actually have; this is usually done in order to mask their actual motives or feelings; falseness.
Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Elliot Spitzer, Rush Limbaugh, et al. Spouting one view, living another. Telling you how you should act, while all the time acting out the role they so publicly despised. And for that the blame is affixed to their hypocrisy.
I have a real problem with Mark Sanford outsourcing his desires to another country when hardworking American women of easy virtue, especially in this economy, are out of work. That, along with his public pronouncements of morality and calls for President Clinton to resign when he Read more
There’s A Little Susan Boyle in All of Us
Around every American kitchen table and office water cooler, Susan Boyle, the Scottish Youtube sensation from the TV show, Britains Got Talent, was being discussed, and not in normally dispassionate terms. Stored up tears found their way down cheeks and usually stoic husbands spoke with a sensitivity that their wives have hoped for, for years.
The prejudgment that the audience and judges made as Boyle marched onto the stage was turned into a rousing standing ovation milliseconds after the Blackburn, Scotland choir singer caroled out the first bars of “I Dreamed a Dream,” from the musical “Les Miserables.” A halcyon smile that astonishingly did not pull a face muscle due to inactivity was plastered across the face the master of mockery, judge Simon Cowell.
As with many of the millions around the globe I teared up as she Read more
Education Stimulus Needs to Stimulate Students
The Stimulus Package provides $5 billion for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to back new approaches to modernize our educational infrastructure. But while schools, especially in urban areas, are in dire need of modernization (wouldn’t hurt to start with clean and safe bathrooms), spending billions upgrading the physical environment without also fixing the broken kids who end up dropping out (a report by America’s Promise Alliance concluded that nationwide over 50% of our students drop out of school every year) just applies an expensive, albeit cosmetic-only face on a half empty future for both the students and society as a whole.
To be sure the Stimulus Package is a spending bill, but we must spend smartly in education. Keeping kids engaged and in school is a cost-cutting measure that positively impacts a child’s emotional and physical health as well as their effect on the not-so-far-in-the-future worlds of business, art and culture. The savings to institutional and governmental support systems, based on those who will stay in Read more
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