(Aug. 30) -- As summer vacation comes to a close let me see if I can help you catch up on some of the news you might have missed in the dog days of August. For starters, if you have been lucky enough to tune it all out, you need to know Americans are barking -- loudly -- at each other.
Mosque or no mosque? That is the question as a Brooklyn-born developer who already owns the old Burlington Coat Factory, two and a half blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, says he wants to convert it into a community center with a swimming pool, gymnasium, meeting rooms and yes, prayer space for as many as 1,000 people. Many say they do not want a Muslim prayer center so close to "hallowed ground." Personally, I say if the American politicians haven't been able to get something built on the site of the tragedy in nine years, why not let American Muslims give it a try two and a half blocks away? Chances are they're not going to get it done, either.
Then there was the flap over the video out of Minnesota of the Republican hotties vs. the Democratic flabby bodies? Who cares about GOP policy, they've got hot babes on their side. Does anything else really matter?
And did you hear that the guy who ran the most homophobic presidential campaign in American history just came out of the closet? There's no hypocrisy there ... as long as he doesn't want to marry his next boyfriend.
The most interesting story you might have missed is the news that somewhere between 18 and 24 percent of Americans now believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim. That's actually up quite a bit from last year and hard to understand since there was such a flap over his choice of church and reverend during the 2008 campaign. But this shouldn't really be a surprise in a nation where so many still question out loud whether the president is really even an American?
Meanwhile, while you were away all summer, the president took a few weekends off and wrapped up his 10-day break on Martha's Vineyard. This has apparently served to inflame not only those who work by the hour, but the corporate chieftains who gathered in Aspen to deride this president as the enemy of business of every kind.
Oddly, some of these CEOs have drawn comparisons between the anti-business Obama and the the fascist Adolf Hitler. But since fascism is defined as government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, that analogy just doesn't not seem to hold up under the sniff test. Sorry guys it's a little disingenuous to be angry at the president because he wants to make sure you're not fleecing the nation back into a new financial crisis while you are earning more money personally than the bottom 123 million wage earners earn collectively.
Mosque or no mosque? That is the question as a Brooklyn-born developer who already owns the old Burlington Coat Factory, two and a half blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, says he wants to convert it into a community center with a swimming pool, gymnasium, meeting rooms and yes, prayer space for as many as 1,000 people. Many say they do not want a Muslim prayer center so close to "hallowed ground." Personally, I say if the American politicians haven't been able to get something built on the site of the tragedy in nine years, why not let American Muslims give it a try two and a half blocks away? Chances are they're not going to get it done, either.
Then there was the flap over the video out of Minnesota of the Republican hotties vs. the Democratic flabby bodies? Who cares about GOP policy, they've got hot babes on their side. Does anything else really matter?
And did you hear that the guy who ran the most homophobic presidential campaign in American history just came out of the closet? There's no hypocrisy there ... as long as he doesn't want to marry his next boyfriend.
The most interesting story you might have missed is the news that somewhere between 18 and 24 percent of Americans now believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim. That's actually up quite a bit from last year and hard to understand since there was such a flap over his choice of church and reverend during the 2008 campaign. But this shouldn't really be a surprise in a nation where so many still question out loud whether the president is really even an American?
Meanwhile, while you were away all summer, the president took a few weekends off and wrapped up his 10-day break on Martha's Vineyard. This has apparently served to inflame not only those who work by the hour, but the corporate chieftains who gathered in Aspen to deride this president as the enemy of business of every kind.
Oddly, some of these CEOs have drawn comparisons between the anti-business Obama and the the fascist Adolf Hitler. But since fascism is defined as government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, that analogy just doesn't not seem to hold up under the sniff test. Sorry guys it's a little disingenuous to be angry at the president because he wants to make sure you're not fleecing the nation back into a new financial crisis while you are earning more money personally than the bottom 123 million wage earners earn collectively.
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And then there were the white people converging on Washington, D.C., this weekend to restore America's "honor" on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech. I'm not really clear what "honor" they were talking about? Many of these same folks are identified with the policies that led to massive deficits, a war of choice started under a false premise and the recategorization of the Geneva Conventions as "quaint." Is that the stuff they're looking to reverse?
In short, the summer of 2010 has been anything but the summer of love. In fact, hate and intolerance seem to be the benchmarks by which this season will long be remembered.
And as we dive full-bore now into the midterm election season with shouts that Obama is the worst president of all time being countered with shouts that it was Bush who was the worst of all time, I look at the news and the political landscape and wonder if the real problem is that we -- the American people -- have failed to hold up our end of the bargain to stay informed and involved. If so, doesn't that make all of us the worst Americans of all time?
In short, the summer of 2010 has been anything but the summer of love. In fact, hate and intolerance seem to be the benchmarks by which this season will long be remembered.
And as we dive full-bore now into the midterm election season with shouts that Obama is the worst president of all time being countered with shouts that it was Bush who was the worst of all time, I look at the news and the political landscape and wonder if the real problem is that we -- the American people -- have failed to hold up our end of the bargain to stay informed and involved. If so, doesn't that make all of us the worst Americans of all time?