ranting

Community Organizing

Columbia University will be hosting a forum on "Service and Civic Engagement" tomorrow and in attendance will be not one but two, yes, two presidential candidates right here in our very own Alfred Lerner Student Center. I'm hoping that someone will get around to asking McCain why his convention just last week was hell-bent on demonizing community organizatizers (did you see the weird, creepy mockery that was Giuliani and Palin?) and what exactly is so bad about working to help poor communities at a grassroots level.

Lipstick

I know everyone's probably sick to death of the already infamous "lipstick on a pig" brouhaha, but just listen to the actual quote. It'll take less than a minute. And it seems pretty clear to me that the pig in question consists of all of McCain's policies that are pretty much in lock step with Bush's policies --"economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove style politics" -- to be exact. So where's Palin in this? And why are McCain's people crying foul when McCain has used this expression on at least one (or two, or, could it be, possibly even three) occassions? Stupid as it is, whomever says it, clearly it's a thing that politicians say. So to turn this into a smear is ridiculous and stupid and a waste of everyone's time. Don't we have more important things to focus on?

Okay I'm done.