from the front page of today's online NYT: the MTB catchphrase has cachet and gains currency

I noticed this phrasing on the front page of the online New York TIMES this morning. Too bad they mentioned that KOS character in the same context, along with the word "liberal." We bloggers get tarred, or smeared, with the same brush all the time by the mainstream media, and it really isn't fair, or accurate. But what the heck, isn't that what they're all about lately? Forget reporting--they'll form public opinion so "those people," the public at large, don't have to strain themselves. Here's the snippet:

The Caucus Blog
The Democrats Meet the Bloggers
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE 11:02 PM ET
At the second annual YearlyKos convention, liberal bloggers are being courted by almost all the Democratic presidential candidates.
Also in The Caucus:

MTB did this two years ago

Alliance Pushes NBC To Open Presidential Debate To Bloggers, Internet -- Presidential Debates -- Interesting developments for copyrights, MeetTheBloggers, and so forth. Around here, we've been sharing the community dialogues for a good while, on our way back to democracy That Kos character, quoted later in the article, makes us remember that he has more to do with being shrill and keeping people at odds than he does with uniting a community for a common purpose, attaining its own best interests. He likes to emphasize the differences, not the commonalities; he's paid best when he harps on the differences and crafts exaggerated distinctions.

CNN has promised to free its footage of sanctioned presidential debates for Internet use and distribution. But an alliance of voters and technology leaders haven't persuaded NBC to do the same.
The Democratic National Committee sanctioned six debates Wednesday. A group of organizers wants the debates licensed as Creative Commons or placed in the public domain so they can be aired legally on YouTube and used in blogs.

The group -- which includes members of both major political parties, as well as Craig Newmark and Jimmy Wales, the founders of Cragislist and Wikipedia -- used the occasion to renew demands that the material be made available without restrictions. The alliance has sent letters asking both parties' national committees to use their power to press for free and open airing of the debates.

Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society, is spearheading the effort. Lessig also chairs the Creative Commons project.
"I am very hopeful that both the Republicans and the Democrats will help encourage the extraordinary public discussion around the election that the Internet has enabled, by removing any uncertainty about the right of the people to comment upon the speech of presidential candidates," Lessig said in a statement.

CNN announced last week that its footage would be open.

"Due to the historical nature of presidential debates and the significance of these forums to the American public, CNN believes strongly that the debates should be accessible to the public," the division of Turner Broadcasting Company said in a news release.

"The candidates need to be held accountable for what they say throughout the election process. The presidential debates are an integral part of our system of government, in which the American people have the opportunity to make informed choices about who will serve them. Therefore, CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate. We believe this is good for the country and good for the electoral process." (more)

a new tax, because universal coverage isn't free

Insurers slice rates on health premiums - The Boston Globe--Interesting story in the Boston GLOBE about Deval Patrick tuning up Mitt Romney's mandatory health coverage. There is no magic here; there are no miracles. From the pricing I see in the article, this is pretty much a market rate, and it feels a bit on the high side. I see no subsidy or benefit of volume pricing. I wonder if this is more of a welfare plan designed to support the Massachusetts health industry than it is universal coverage to spread risk fairly and bring about an improvement in public health.

Also, I would like to know from the journalist (Jeffrey Krasner can be reached at krasner@globe.com) the cost of opting out, in dollars, for the same hypothetical people for whom they quote the premiums. That would be balanced reporting. These paid writers need to start earning their keep and not leaving it up to the public dialogues of the blogosphere to extract the facts and frame the issues as they should be framed.

We need to start talking about truly catastrophic insurance coverage to cover the big bills, cash-only fee-for-service care with uniform price schedules for most other procedures, and public-health-clinics for maintenance and wellness programs. If we want to have a health tax, then instead of putting it off soley on the people, we can also put it off on anybody who sells things that make us fat or sick or crippled--vendors of soft drinks, stores that sell cheap plastic shoes, smoking supplies (again), fast-food emporiums, publicly traded corporations who load foodstuffs up with preservatives to prolong shelf life or stretch things out with high fructose corn syrup to maximize profits, dealers who sell raggedy used cars--in short, anybody who now profits from selling a product whose health benefits to the buyers have been reduced to increase the bottom line.

I don't quite get it

The Chris Matthews Show--I got up early this Saturday morning, 0630, zero dark thirty, to watch the Chris Matthews show; I've been watching Chris perform since I arrived at Holy Cross in the fall of 1964, finding him a year ahead of me and holding forth daily in raucous and impassioned discussions in what we called "the caf." The 1967 Purple Patcher tells me that--

"Caf" is an abbreviation for

a) a place to sit and watch other people sitting and watching,

b) a room where you can hear lunch-room theologians, boasting casanovas, budding leftists, and "Caf rats" discuss the importance of Polynesian Frog Worship,

c) an enameled chamber designed by the architect of Madison Square Garden's washrooms,

d) all or none or some or any of these

Most don't know that Chris owes much of his style to dead Jesuits. But, I've digressed. But, what the heck, it's Saturday. Anyway, what struck me as I listened to this week's gathered pundits extrapolate political data in order to game the primaries in February of 2008, a full year away, was that we were focusing on something that's a mere whistle stop on the way to the main event in November of 2008, and that's a very long time to be talking about these same aspirants, and a long time for them to be playing to the audience of potential voters. Can't we talk about something else for a while, like what is do-able and achievable here and now, and not after somebody gets elected in 2008 and into office in 2009?

The other, more pernicious aspect of these campaign-horse-race shows is that the candidates, whom we've not yet elected and may never elect, have more ability to form the public dialogue and to sway public opinion than the people we've elected already. Are we being fair to ourselves to take ourselves out of the present and focus on a hypothetical future? Let's get some work done for a change, and stop talking about what might happen, if only somebody gets a chance to implement their ideas, and if only they work out as advertised. Let the aspirants be known by their deeds, not by their promises. Let them be known by their works.

Which begs the question: Does any real work ever get done by people in the political arenas, or do we all just talk about it, as we slide into an abyss we refuse to talk about?