For people pissed with Harry Reid (including me) ---

'Sorry for all the posts, but I came across interesting ideas (since yesterday) I wanted to share with you. Lawrence O'Donnell talks about Harry Reid's dilemma ('helped me have a little more sympathy for Reid):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#32113666

I'm still going to sign the petition on "Food Fascist's" link above, will call the White House, today, etc.,

Petition senate to stay and finish health care bill!

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/dontdelay?source=fdlemail&subsource=ns

B Roll,

Re: "When I look at the Wikipedia page I see that his films present controversial theory after controversial theory. Theories that, if true, would revolutionize our understanding of ancient history. Most professionals in the field work to find new things and expand our knowledge, but very few revolutionize the field. Jacobovici isn’t a professional in any of these fields, yet he makes films that claim to revolutionize our knowledge in one area after another. I find that hard to believe."

Sadly, I realize I should have verified the source. I will try to be more aware of that in the future. (I am sensitized to look at motivation and background in politics but not so much in science, I guess. Thanks for keeping the discussion "honest." Otherwise, what's the point?)

Question for Bernie: DFA included John Kerry in their list of Democrats to attack based on a Huff post rumor. I think this was bogus since Kerry is FOR the PUBLIC OPTION. DFA and their associates stood by their stance that it was appropriate to attack Kerry when I asked them to take his name off the attack list.

I think attacking allies for not being perfect is very destructive to the credibility of liberal/progressive activism. There are plenty of real obstructionists to go after without attacking allies.

Question for Ravi Batra: Back last winter you had suggested that Obama not be very aggressive (beyond stimulus) in proposing big economic packages because the recession/depression was going to come anyway no matter what he did. Now in July do you have an update related to the February recommendation to be cautious.

Here's a shorter video clip of just the Sally Jenkins interview on The Daily Show (see my preceeding post):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-july-23-2009/sally-jenkins

Please accept my compliments, Thom. I have long admired your dedication to teaching and I hear you now taking that commitment a step further by actually listening to your callers and allowing them to say things, sometimes somewhat imperfectly, that you have already said. People who find their voices are qualitatively different from those who have not. You help to empower them by allowing them to speak, the altruistic act of a true teacher. As a Progressive myself, I am proud you are one of us.

Quark,

I meant to write this earlier, but was sidetracked by life. I’m posting this without serious proof reading.)

Interesting! But I became skeptical about 10 seconds into the video. That was when the guy in the baseball cap turned around and I realized he was The Naked Archaeologist. I looked him up and found his name is Simcha Jacobovici.

I have seen a few things he’s done for the History Channel. Watching them, I had a gut feeling that he isn’t credible. I know one thing that bothered me was that it seemed to me that he states a questionable fact or theory, then assumes it to be true, and then uses that “fact” as the basis for a new theory.

I want to get this posted for you, although by now you might not see it until the morning, so I’m not going to watch the video a second time now.

Example: There was no Egyptian record of Hebrew slaves or a massive exodus of foreigners at the time the Jews were supposed to be there. So he suggests maybe they’re looking at the wrong time and he finds a guy who says that if you look a few hundred years later, you find a record of the Hyskos. The Hyskos invaded and colonized part of Egypt for a few hundred years, then began gaining power, ruled for a few centuries and then were expelled.

I hope you remember what Jacobovici did. He took one guy’s theory that the date was wrong and without any other verification, he said something along the lines of we have a new date for the Exodus. Then he turns the Hebrew slaves into the Hyskos rulers.

I imagine that it’s not unusual for one group to adopt and adapt the stories of another culture, but when they do that, I’d think they would take the most glorious parts. But in this case, we’re told that the Jews took a period in Hyskos history in which the Hyskos conquered and ruled one of the most glorious civilizations in history and made it into a story of Jewish slavery and oppression and put it into their holiest book. They completely leave out the part about conquering and ruling Egypt.

Then there’s the mention of the Hyskos multicolored robes, which resonates with the story of Joseph who went to Egypt and returned with a robe of many colors. Maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective, but if the story of story of the Jews in Egypt is really the story of the Hyskos in Egypt, a colored robe wouldn’t be a big enough deal to write about because it would have been very common.

But those are just logical quibbles. The greatest reason I have to doubt Jacobovici’s credibility is what I found on Wikipedia when I looked him up. Look at the page on him there after you finish this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcha_Jacobovici

What you’ll find is that he isn’t an archaeologist or even a historian. He has a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.A. in International Relations, but he basically works as a film maker.

When you look at the Wikipedia page on him, you see that it’s mostly taken up with criticisms of his work and how he does it. He’s been accused of twisting facts and research. In one case he and his partners are accused of misrepresenting the proceedings of a conference at Princeton University to the media. The way they misrepresented the conference made it look like the thesis is one films is more likely to be true than was actually the case. Around a dozen participants at the conference signed a letter criticizing him for this. One of the signers of this letter cited a leaked memo that indicated that Jacobovici and his partners actually had a plan to try to manipulate the conference to appear to support the ideas presented in their film.

When I look at the Wikipedia page I see that his films present controversial theory after controversial theory. Theories that, if true, would revolutionize our understanding of ancient history. Most professionals in the field work to find new things and expand our knowledge, but very few revolutionize the field. Jacobovici isn’t a professional in any of these fields, yet he makes films that claim to revolutionize our knowledge in one area after another. I find that hard to believe.

I have a feeling that Jacobovici and his work falls into the categories of pseudo-history and pseudo-archaeology. I’ve seen it so many times, along with pseudo-science. They put together the most compelling cases for revolutionary discoveries and theories, but people familiar with the field find these theories to be full of holes. I could give you a zillion stories

I’ll say one thing in his possible defense. No matter what the field, members of the establishment will defend the accepted knowledge. In doing so, they’ll often be very vicious. So, it’s possible that he has raised the hackles of the establishment. But I find it unlikely that Jacobivici could have found reliable revolutionary information about so many topics. Like I said earlier, most professional’s in a field hope to find one or two major new pieces of information.

I recall some years ago that former Cincinnati Reds star and baseball analyst Joe Morgan was arrested while walking through an airport to catch a flight. Apparently, the police thought a black man wearing a tailored suit must be a drug-smuggler. When Morgan told them who he was, the police were unimpressed. Later, after Morgan was released after being held on a bogus “contempt of cop” charge, the police chief bewailed the fact that it was always “articulate” minorities who gave them “trouble.” This is obviously applies to the recent incident involving Henry Louis Gates, arrested for not showing the proper “respect” to a white police officer who invaded his home, acting on report from an undoubtedly fearful white person.

Most police officers do frankly operated on the principle of racial stereotypes, or profiling. The “job” of police is to protect white people and their property against potential “predations” of minorities, although crime statistics do generally indicate that whites are more likely to be the victim of another white person. Profiling and stereotypes are so ingrained in the minds of most cops that they see every minority as “the enemy.” Even, apparently, educated, law-abiding—“articulate”—minorities. Why? Because their very existence exposes the underlying racism inherent in policing and society in general. I know, for example, that every time a police officer wants to “talk” to me, he or she is expecting a Spanish speaker or someone otherwise inarticulate that they assume they can bully. It doesn’t take long for them to discover the error in their thinking, but as other minorities like Morgan and Gates discovered, police have this inability to admit their errors—rather choosing to escalate matters in an effort to “excuse” their actions.

I might be too small a fry to detain for “contempt of cop,” but minorities (particularly male) who directly contradict the received stereotypes and in fact are deserving society’s respect (like a Harvard professor) are troublesome for police. They are “troublesome” because police simply do not know how to show respect to a minority they instinctually assume is a potential criminal. Not knowing how to show respect, they nevertheless demand “respect,” and this is where the “trouble” begins. Police who do not show respect do not deserve it themselves.

Shag,

As I'm sure you know, many years ago, a white John Howard Griffin, wrote the book Black Like Me, publicizing journals he kept when he changed his skin and hair color and travelled thru the South as a "black" man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me

I have thought, since then, that living in this country must be a Kafka-esque experience. I can't imagine maintaining the inner strength it would take to endure here. I think I might choose to live in Paris, like Josephine Baker in the 1920s.

Please help me to understand what it takes to live and stay here in spite of everything you must endure. (If my request is presumptuous, please don't hesitate to let me know.)

I certainly do agree with you that an unexamined life is not living up to its potential.

btw, my uncle is a now-retired Episcopal priest who marched with Dr. King. It's too bad there isn't some way we all could "virtually" walk with Dr. King.

Republicans aren't even real humans any more, but are now corporations. It doesn't surprise that in everything they do, they strive to externalize costs and internalize profits. The pathetic thing is they feel good inside when they can get one over on their fellow man.

I see this firsthand in my strongly Republican town in the San Joaquin Valley in California, and I walk around shocked and disgusted most of the time. I'll be moving up your way when I can, Thom. I've had it with the heartlessness.

The fella from the Ayn Rand Institute suggested that people have the choice not to purchase products that are known to be harmful to our health. The only problem is that these harmful chemicals don't simply accumulate in our bodies and stay there. The production process as well as the disposal of these products are also not regulated, and so these harmful substances leech into our environment and into other places, say, such as into our tap water, as is the case with pharmaceutical drugs. Therefore, an individual has less and less choice as to what chemicals we take into our bodies. His argument simply is not correct. We simply do not have the choices he asserts we indeed do.

Richard Adlof ,

Re: "Reid does not like confrontation with Republicans . . . With Republicans, he rols over and presents his soft under-belly."

I can just hear him saying, "rub my tummy, rub my tummy!"