The Year Having Kids Became a Frivolous Luxury, Jessica Grose, Slate, December 22, 2014
There have been many prominent pregnancy and child care–related issues in 2014, from the UPS pregnancy discrimination case that was recently argued in front of the Supreme Court to the publicity around the scheduling software that makes child care arrangements impossible for working-class parents. In reading and writing about these issues, I’ve noticed a depressing sentiment: Having children is now often framed as a frivolous lifestyle choice, as if it’s a decision that’s no different from moving to San Francisco or buying a motorcycle. If you choose to buy that Harley or have that baby, it’s on you, lady.
When I’ve written about middle- and upper-middle-class parents wanting benefits like paid parental leave, this is the typical sort of comment people make: “I see no reason to subsidize women’s fantasies of ‘having it all.’ ” As if raising children is just about pinning another badge to a Girl Scout sash. When I write about working-class parents just trying to make ends meet and find safe child care for their offspring, the comments are even crueler: “If you can’t afford a dog, don’t get a dog. If you can’t afford a kid, don’t get a kid.”
I got slimed by Rush: The real story of how Stephen Colbert schooled Limbaugh on U.S. history, patriotism, Sophia A. McClennen, Salon, December 24, 2014
There seems little doubt that nuance, subtle thinking and critical insight are well beyond the grasp of Rush Limbaugh. So this piece is not directed at him. But the power of his arguments is real and the force they have in shaping public debate can’t be overlooked. So for that reason alone it seems worthwhile to debunk some of the arguments he made when he attacked the piece I wrote for Salon last week.
The core argument of my piece was that Stephen Colbert’s character from “The Colbert Report” had offered the U.S. public a refreshing alternative to the partisan spin of patriotism so often in play today. As I explained — referring to the research of Geoffrey Nunberg — in past decades, the right has dominated the discourse of what it means to care about this nation. And they have suggested that any questioning of the right is equal to treason. Colbert, I argued, exposed the fallacies of this view and reclaimed patriotism for his fans. A key part of the Colbert persona was his hyper-patriotism, and I pointed out that, as the character was put to rest, it was time to speculate on what this would mean for the future of left-leaning nationalism.
It is perfect irony that Limbaugh does, in fact, accuse me of attacking America. As he puts it, “I can’t escape these professors and these lies and all this crap that’s in the media about everything that’s so-called wrong with America.” This was his response to a piece that indicated that Colbert had encouraged a large fan base to enthusiastically pursue their own version of what it means to be patriotic — one that we might argue has as much, if not more, affinity with the founding principles of our nation than the version offered by the right.
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One of Colbert’s greatest gifts was his ability to expose logical fallacies and faulty reasoning. His second book, “America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t,” epitomized one of the primary flaws in logic to conservative patriotism: How can the United States be the greatest nation ever and also be on the verge of total collapse? Or, as Limbaugh put it in his attack on me: “Meanwhile, we’re losing everything this country’s known for. The culture is rotting away, the culture is corrupting itself away, being perverted away, and all of that’s being celebrated.”
Again and again, Colbert showed us that the right had created an almost devotional quality to their version of American exceptionalism, one that could not account for practical realities and one that could not handle any sort of questioning. If you asked about the treatment of Native Americans, then you hated freedom. If you thought that the U.S. should not practice unilateral foreign policy, you were weak. Any time anyone had a different view on these issues they were immediately attacked for “hating” their country.
Texas Regulators Get Fired for Doing Their Jobs, Libby Shaw, DailyKos, December 13, 2014
There is no doubt that Houston and Texas have changed a lot since we arrived in this former oil boom town.
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But some things have not changed. Individuals are pretty much on their own because of the lax oversight of the chemical industry.
What is good for business is good for Texas businesses and the politicians that are business friendly. Sometimes at the expense of Texas residents and the environment.
And so I was not surprised to learn, in this Republican anti-regulation state of Texas, that two oil and gas regulators were recently fired for doing their jobs.
The reason?
They had the nerve to enforce the the rules.
