About The Browntable
Smart, up to the minute takes on politics--from the state house to the White House. Pull up a chair.
2009All APRIL POSTS (41)
Right Flu, Wrong Swine
Let me be among the first to say that the move by some to rename ‘swine flu’ to ‘Mexican flu’ is offensive on its face and in its roots. It does everything to fuel unfounded fears, and it politicizes a serious health crisis in a thinly veiled effort to stoke hatred toward an already-vulnerable group. Worst of all, it doesn’t even blame the right people! ...
Got Credit? You Might Just Have a "Bill of Rights"
A new law being touted as the "Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights" passed the House today. Sponsored by Reps. Barney Frank, Carolyn Maloney and Luis Guttierez, the bill would provide protections against the type of ugly predations that countless famlies and individuals have been subject to in the age of easy money from which the whole nation is now reeling....
CNN's "Swagga" Story is More Bad News for America
Pace Jon's post: CNN's "swagga" video is a must-watch. Anchor Kyra Phillips hosts a segment on president Barack Obama’s “swagga” (going to basketball games, eating dinner) featuring correspondent T.J. Holmes after which Holmes entreats Phillips to "hug it out" and then Phillips insists that she "gotta get that bump" (read: terrorist fist-jab) before wrapping the segment. Check it out...
Cover Your Eyes: Obama "Swagga" Segment Not Fit for TV
Congrats CNN, on your "swagga" segment FAIL. We all know that mainstream news can be stiff by nature and necessity, but that's a reality that exists because, more often than not, attempts to be 'hip' and relevant tend to fall flat on their face. It's pretty clear by his on camera demeanor that correspondent T.J. Holmes was talking about this by the watercooler one day and a producer walking by thought it'd be a *great* segment idea. So, F minus to T.J. for not putting the kibosh on this trainwreck...
Chantelle Biya of Cameroon Gives Michelle Obama a Run for Her Money
Now that the first lady of the United States is past her first 100 days in "office," a host of profiles and tributes and pop theses on her appeal have started to appear: The NEW YORK TIMES wrote about how Obama's staff has maintained tight-fisted control over her public image; while the WASHINGTON POST describes her transformation "from a potential campaign liability into America's newest sweetheart and No. 1 cover girl, every bit as popular as her husband."...
We Pick Our Health Battles—Unfortunately
The hubbub around the swine flu is entirely appropriate: It’s a fast moving, unknown virus that is proving to be deadly when untreated. That said, it also reinforces a frustrating truth: A whole lot of other public health problems persist only because we don’t care enough to stop them....
100 Days, 10,000 Snaps—White House Photographers Get Busy
The official White House photostream on the website Flickr boasts hundreds of extraordinary photographs of president Barack Obama's first 100 days in office. The candids--of the Obama girls playing on the swingset with their mother, the president rocking out at his Super Bowl party, and relaxing with some birthday cake at an Oval Office birthday party--paint a picture of a first family getting used to doing *everything* in the spotlight....
Sojourner Truth Gets Her Day in Congress
The United States officially enshrined the legacy of barrier-breaking lecturer and civil rights activist Sojourner Truth today, unveiling a memorial that will sit, like those of so many other famous men and women of American history, in Emancipation Hall of the US Capitol Visitors' Center. Truth was the first black person, male or female, to successfully bring suit in US court—for the return of her son. Truth gained notoriety as an early abolitionist and a forceful advocate for equality and women's rights, she embarked on speaking tours around the United States and over the years counted Ulysses S. Grant, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass among her acquaintances....
Joe Biden Stands Up to Domestic Abuse
This afternoon—between Specter defections, Clinton-Obama joint appearances and a rare Tony Bennett sighting, one of the strangest I’ve spent on Capitol Hill—it’s worth looking miles from the Beltway, to Austin, TX, where Vice President Joe Biden toured the National Domestic Violence Hotline Center. Joined by Austin Mayor Will Wynn, Biden surveyed the complex that hosts the hotline and other programs designed to help women, especially those suffering from emotional and physical abuse, help themselves....
Who Knew MLK Was so Green?
A coda to this phenomenal Earth Week at THE ROOT: On Earth Day itself, Attorney General Eric Holder took time out from pointed questions about torture memos and prosecutions of Bush administration officials, and celebrated like an increasing number of black Americans: By getting down with nature. After digging and raking (a bit awkwardly) alongside volunteers and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, Holder dedicated a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington’s Marvin Gaye Park—where King once spoke in the 1960s, where THE ROOT held its very own “MLK Day of Service” on January 19, 2009....
Barack Obama Wants "Plain Vanilla" Credit Cards
President Barack Obama met with executives at about a dozen major credit card companies today at the White House. The meeting, with heads of VISA, Mastercard, Capital One, American Express, JP Morgan Chase and others, was intended to push the issue of consumer credit card debt into the same larger conversation as bank collapses, mortgage defaults, individual bankruptcy and the TARP-fest now taking place on Wall Street....
College-Educated Blacks Lose More Jobs than Peers
Our college degrees aren’t saving us, after all. Here’s a whopper from March unemployment data: College educated blacks have lost jobs at twice the rate of their white counterparts during the recession. According to the Economic Policy Institute, joblessness among the black educated class shot up 4.5 percent in the past two years, reaching 7.2 percent in March....
The New Four Rs: Reduce Reuse, Recycle—Recession
Reduce, reuse, recycle. That's the phrase. But what most of us forget is that it's an ordered list. In fact, most of us do it in exactly the wrong order. We gobble up our plastic water bottles and toss them into the recycle bin and call it green. But why are we buying packaged water in a country with universal access to clean drinking water? We've finally reached a point where going green feels both smart and cool—and I'm a late adapter myself, to be sure. But we haven't yet grasped the central point: we must consume less needless crap....
Taking Green Global: Tougher than You Think
This Earth Day, supporters of political action on energy policy are trying to keep pace with the threat of devastating climate change. Back from recess, a handful of congressional committees are holding hearings as I type, about the scale of American response to the threat, and just what we’ll have to show for ourselves at the United Nations conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark this December....
