Tag Archives: intent

HuffPost Review: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

It being a British film, The Disappearance of Alice Creed features characters with impeccable manners, relatively speaking.The kidnappers who snatch the title character, after all, always address her as “Miss Creed,” even when they’re holding a gun to … Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hope Is Beautiful, Unless…

Hope is beautiful unless it is fantasy, in which case it can be ugly. You and I have struggled through years of this recession with promises that keep our hopes alive. To some extent our hopes have been rewarded. To a larger extent though our hopes tie… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Oil Spill Speech: Tells Residents They ‘Are Not Alone,’ Triples Manpower

GRAND ISLE, La. (AP) — Intent on showing firm command of a deepening Gulf Coast crisis, President Barack Obama inspected a fouled beach, took in what he called “heartbreaking stories” of the catastrophe and declared “we’re going to keep at it” until the America’s largest-ever oil spill is stopped and cleaned up.

“It’s an assault on our shores, on our people, on the regional economy and on communities like this one,” said Obama, from this small barrier island town south of New Orleans that is threatened by the massive oil leak. “People are watching their livelihoods wash up on the beach.”

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Equal Opportunity Dating

While it’s easy to meet people in New York, it’s not always easy to meet people you’d want to date. During periods of my being single, in order to meet new potentials, friends have encouraged me to enter the online dating world. Some suggested JDate.

For those of you who don’t know, JDate is an online dating service with the intent of creating a romantic connection between Jews (or a handful of others who sign up who are not Jewish but who presumably have some sort of affinity for the Jewish faith/culture). Who doesn’t like a NJB (Nice Jewish Boy)? “What is there to lose,” I thought. But something inside me was always hesitant. I didn’t need to limit my search to a NJB. In fact, it’s never been my intention; I’d just like to find someone who will respect my religious and cultural traditions and, ideally, be open to learning about them and the role they play in my life.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Suicide Prevention: Can a New Technology Help?

Suicide is both disturbing and perplexing to survivors, in part because it is so unpredictable. People who are intent on killing themselves often conceal their thoughts or outright deny them, so family and friends are left puzzling over warning signs they might have missed.

Even experienced clinical judgment often misses the mark. As a result, suicide experts have long hoped and searched for a clear behavioral marker of suicide risk. Now they may have found one. Harvard University scientists are reporting that a tool widely used for probing unconscious thoughts might be used to spot suicidal intent–even if the suicidal mind is in denial–offering new hope for timely intervention to keep people alive.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Casino Jack: I Wonder Who’s Spinning Us Now

Aficionados of Washington political corruption should enjoy Alex Gibney’s new film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, the latest chapter in the unending saga of those who come to Washington intent on doing good, soon focus instead on doing well and ultimately end up doing time. The focus is on Jack Abramoff who became rich and infamous by linking clients — charged fees exceeding their sophistication — with Republican incumbents who enjoyed good times and campaign contributions and were amenable to doing favors for their new friends who met these needs.

The clients – U.S. Indian casinos and clothing factories in the Mariana Islands–were working to maintain special privileges provided by American law–offering gambling where it is otherwise barred or being allowed to import products labeled made in the USA without complying with stateside labor laws. Both businesses can be quite lucrative and are perennially near the bottom of the Congressional and public agendas, maximizing the opportunity to fiddle without detection from journalistic or reformer radar.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

News media survival requires fact-checking

FactsIn tradition, trust in news media was established by ethical behavior, like good intent backed up by checking the facts.

Distrust in the press grows when traditional journalistic values, like fact-checking, is forgotten.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Activist Judges, Class Is in Session

The professor-in-chief held an impromptu seminar in constitutional law last night on Air Force One, and he drove home a powerful lesson. In a conversation with reporters, President Obama attacked conservative judges for cloaking their activism in “legal theories” like “original intent,” and called for “judicial restraint” — which means, in the President’s book, that courts should give greater deference to the actions of legislatures, state and federal, “as long as core constitutional values are observed.”

Whether he knew it or not, Mr. Obama was echoing what Bushrod Washington — the nephew of George Washington and a justice of the Supreme Court — said in 1827: “It is but a decent respect due to the wisdom, the integrity, and the patriotism of the legislative body, by which any law is passed, to presume in favor of its validity, until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond all reasonable doubt.” This was one of Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite quotations, and he repeated it often during his battle with the conservative judicial activists of the 1930s.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Financial Crisis Investigations Then And Now

2009, The Intent: Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“What I want to initiate is the equivalent of what happened in the 30′s. They had something that was called the Pecora Commission. This was the commission that was formed when Franklin Roosevelt took office and they investigated what happened with the markets … We need to know. Some people can tell you one piece of it. Others can tell you another piece of it. But really it’s very hard – do you understand it? — for the American people and the rest of us as we try to make policy as we go forward to see the ramifications of any of the changes we’re being asked to make.”

THEN: Robert Kuttner:

In 1932 through 1934 the Senate Banking Committee, led by its Chief Counsel Ferdinand Pecora, ferreted out the deeper fraud and corruption that led to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. The Pecora Committee’s findings helped change the political mood, and laid the groundwork for the sweeping financial reforms of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Roosevelt himself often conferred with Pecora, encouraged him, and depended on Pecora’s work to build the public support for reform. He appointed Pecora to one of the newly created results of his handiwork, the Securities and Exchange Commission, though Pecora was disappointed not to be its chairman.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rachel Maddow Berates Scott Brown Over Fictitious Senate Run (VIDEO)

Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) seems intent on using MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to solicit funds for his 2012 re-election race.

For more than a week, the Senate’s newest member has claimed that the MSNBC host is planning to run for his Senate seat when his term expires in 2012. And at every turn, Maddow has adamantly denied that she was ever recruited to run, has any plans to run, or ever considered a run.

More… Continue reading

Posted in News, Original Content | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment