Opinion Forum

The Newseum

January 31st, 2009

A friend just tipped me to The Newseum, a museum in Washington, D.C. that’s devoted to, well, the news.  As stated on the website, The Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. … The Newseum features seven [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: press
Categories: Media, News | Comments (5) | Home

The Centrist Coalition

January 30th, 2009

The Centrist Coalition is a group of blogs oriented toward centrist politics and centrist points of view.  Centerfield is the blog of the Centrist Coalition. I consider Opinion Forum to be centrist.  Of course, we sometimes take positions that are distinctly to the left or right because our authors express their views freely.  I hope [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: centrist, conservative, liberal
Categories: Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Super Powers

January 29th, 2009

I would love to have a super power. But there are lots if them. So which one? There’s invisibility, which would be awesome to have. You could sneak a cookie without anyone knowing, or you could scare someone by pretending you’re a ghost. I like the first option though. (If my mom is reading this, [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: super powers, Twilight
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (2) | Home

Auschwitz and the Holocaust

January 28th, 2009

The Auschwitz complex consisted of three camps. One was mostly administrative, another was a slave labor camp supporting an I.G. Farben industrial enterprise, and Auschwitz-Birkenau was the death camp. Well over a million people were murdered at Auschwitz, about 90 percent of them Jews. Some Nazi victims at Auschwitz were from Poland, but many were deported to Auschwitz from [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Auschwitz, Holocaust, Israel, Jews
Categories: History, Life, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Remembering the Holocaust

January 27th, 2009

The Auschwitz concentration camp was formally liberated by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945. In the 64 years since, Auschwitz has come to symbolize the Holocaust. However, Auschwitz (where about 1,200,000 people died) was only one, albeit the most efficient, of six specialized “death camps,” all of them in Poland. The other five were Treblinka [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Auschwitz, Holocaust, Israel, Jews
Categories: History, Life, Politics | Comments (8) | Home

Generals for Human Rights

January 26th, 2009

They didn’t look the part of tough-as-nails military commanders-just another group of smiley faces in business suits clustered behind a president and politely clapping as he signed some documents. Yet a big page in the history of human rights was turned last week, when 16 retired generals and admirals flanked President Obama while he signed [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: human rights, Law, torture
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Friends

January 26th, 2009

I have three best friends that I’m so close to. We are always spending the night together and texting a lot. Their names are Jamie, Kourtney, and Caitlin. So what really makes a friend? For me, friends don’t just happen in a day. It takes awhile to gain trust and friendship. I can talk to [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: friends
Categories: Life | Comments (3) | Home

Presidential Pardons Redux

January 26th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin posted an article at Preemptive Karma on the pardon powers of U.S. presidents and state governors.  He made the point that …a pardon effectively skirts the entirety of state/federal criminal law, including the provisions for righting a wrongful conviction. And the citizenry have absolutely no recourse…other than a constitutional amendment. [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Law
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

Thoreau’s Journal

January 25th, 2009

There’s a great site called The Blog of Henry David Thoreau. It’s nice to go there now and then to read Thoreau’s thoughts for a given day from his journal.

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: literature, Thoreau
Categories: Arts, History, Life | Comments (4) | Home

Obama Snubs Heroes

January 24th, 2009

President Obama made a serious mistake on the day of his inauguration.  He found time to attend ten inaugural balls, but he didn’t show up at the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Banquet & Ball.  He was invited, of course, but Vice President Biden went instead and was warmly received.  Among those who welcomed him were about [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Obama, veterans
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (11) | Home

The NYT and Qaddafi

January 23rd, 2009

The New York Times doesn’t have much respect left, but they just lost some more. On January 21 they published a column attributed to Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator with a history of supporting terrorism.  Qaddafi proposes a “one-state” solution for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Beneath a thin veneer of moderate statements [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Israel, Palestine, terrorism
Categories: History, Media, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Spice, Sausage, and Bats

January 22nd, 2009

I’ve been reading weird news stories from 2008, and I came across these:

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: weird stories
Categories: Humor, Life, News | Comments (2) | Home

Poetry and Great Events

January 21st, 2009

Poets are seldom put on the spot to speak on national television next to a popular president, as Elizabeth Alexander did on Tuesday, abruptly standing in front of a crowd of millions. Before I took poetry seriously, I once addressed a large crowd on the Mall in Washington protesting the war in Vietnam. I was [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Elizabeth Alexander, poetry
Categories: Arts, History, Life | Comments (2) | Home

The Wii

January 21st, 2009

I got a Wii for Christmas and have been playing it non-stop. It’s so much fun! We have lots of Wii games. We have Sing-it, Guitar Hero, Play-it, Sports, High School Musical Dance, and Dance Revolution. My favorite Wii game is probably Guitar Hero. I play that game the most. On Guitar Hero you can [...]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: games, music, Wii
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (3) | Home

Memories of the Mall

January 20th, 2009

The Mall in Washington, where the inauguration ceremonies are underway, is officially the National Mall and Memorial Parks.  It runs from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, a distance of about two miles.  Right now, they’re guessing that there are two million or more people on the Mall.  As I watch the Obama inauguration on CNN, [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: inauguration, mall, Obama
Categories: History, Life | Comments (4) | Home

Hudson River Crash

January 19th, 2009

The crash of US Airways 1549 into the Hudson River in New York City a few days ago makes an important point.  Despite what people may think, ditching an aircraft of any kind in water is extremely difficult and dangerous.  For large aircraft, like an airliner, it’s almost impossible to ditch without the aircraft breaking up and people [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Air Force, aviation, pilots
Categories: Life, News | Comments (7) | Home

The BBC on Bush

January 18th, 2009

The BBC can never be accused of objectivity where President Bush is concerned.  That’s why I was a bit surprised to see a recent BBC webpage that contains several links to articles about Bush that aren’t entirely negative.  The first part deals with Bushisms–funny things the President has said along the way.  Such as: For [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Bush
Categories: History, Media, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

If Only Israel Had a Partner

January 17th, 2009

Before I begin, let’s all agree on this: the current conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is stupid. As with all wars, this conflict could have and should have been avoided. We should not be seeing terrible images of blown up buildings, mangled bodies and the up to the minute counts of Palestinians killed. [...]

Articles written by Trevor Dane
Tags: Gaza, Israel, Palestinians
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

The Legacy of Bush 43

January 17th, 2009

I’ve been reflecting on how history will judge President George W. Bush.  This is a difficult topic.  There are those who actually hate him, viscerally and with no sense of fairness or proportion.  There are also those who like him and strongly support him, despite everything.  I fall somewhere in the middle, and I suspect [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Bush
Categories: History, Media, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Terminally Stupid Parents

January 16th, 2009

I’ve heard lots of weird names that stupid parents give their children. Johnny Cash sang about it in “A Boy Named Sue.”  Seems his father wanted to make him tough, so he gave him a name that would attract ridicule and fistfights.  I guess that would work, if it doesn’t get the kid killed. I just read [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: celebrities, names, sports
Categories: Humor, Life, News | Comments (8) | Home

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