Blue Funk Productions

Averel Wilson 

The Bush Administration has just revamped the citizenship test to promote “assimilation and patriotism”, creating, in fact, a higher hurdle for those who want to become citizens.  Starting on October 1, 2008, immigrants taking the test will be asked what the “rule of law” is and to outline one constitutional amendment concerning the right to vote.  (You try that.) And take a look at Question # 67: “The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution.  Name one of the writers.”  Although I might have guessed at one of the “usual suspects” tinkering with our Constitution in the 1880’s, I had to look this up.  (The authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.  I would never have gotten John Jay.)
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Sam Smith

The childish, petulant, hypocritically self-righteous and jingoistic
attacks on Iran’s president by politicians and members of the media
provides a useful insight into why America is such a hated place in the
world these days.

The reality of the world is that there are places where the Holocaust is
denied, women are badly mistreated and gays abused and then there are
other places that have been responsible for the deaths of over a million
Iraqi civilians and have caused much of the global ecological damage
that threaten the lives of millions of other humans.

The rational approach to ameliorating the damage done by both such
places does not rest on the unilateral assessment of blame, unilateral
admission of guilt or on military action that increases the number of
victims. It depends rather on incremental acceptance of new ways agreed
upon because they work well for all parties. As Benjamin Franklin said
of happiness, peace does not depend on great strokes of good fortune but
on the little felicities of every day.

Because the American elite, from the president of Columbia University to
the Columbia Broadcasting System commentator, is so absorbed in a
fantasy of its own perfection, it is constitutionally unable - save in
rare moments - to step down from a self constructed altar and make the
successive small adjustments necessary for peace, progress and
cooperation.
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