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Need a cure for those days when you have nothing to wear? Experts say the key to overcoming the situation is simplifying your closet. [CNN] How will history see President George W. Bush ten or twenty years in the future? [NY Magazine] Something else that needs recovering: students’ research skills in the age of Google. [Good Magazine] Check out this inspiring story of a Virginia painter fighting the recession to keep his business afloat. [Washington Post] The neglected and often ridiculed Los Angeles River is now open for kayaking and canoeing. Could this be a new beginning for the butt of so many L.A. jokes? [CNN] Read one reporter’s harrowing journey alongside a prisoner in Guantanamo…and their attempt to leave. [Esquire] Keep yourself posted on news about Hurricane Irene; emergency officials say the storm could be the first one to seriously threaten the U.S. in three years. [NY Times] Jaleel White, also known as Urkel, is making a comeback as the stylish star of the Cee Lo music video Cry Baby. [GQ] As we celebrate a week of 'no politics' on The Recovering Politician, let's share just what such a vacation means to us. For me, it means, switching off from the news about politicians and what they are or are not achieving. It means turning off the tv, the radio, the news websites, the computers and all the other 'connected' devices. It means walking right past the tv as the stock market plunges and talking heads gyrate on the screen. It means not allowing ourselves, for one week, to worry about retirement or our child's education. As ghastly as it sounds, it means putting despair about starving children on 'pause' for just a week and letting others, like Bono and Anderson Cooper, do the worrying.
Taking a vacation means temporarily putting aside obligations to 'keep up with the news', do community work, check on extended family members, meet responsibilities and finish 'chores' around the house. It means just kicking back with spouses and children to do a puzzle, play cards, build with blocks, paint with watercolors, visit a museum, hike a trail, have a beer in the afternoon, swim, take a nap, and to marvel at this vast country by visiting somewhere new.
And to politicians, I’d say this…”take a break!” be normal people, spend time with your family, read a novel, vegetate. For one week, don’t make a political calculation. the latter might be the single hardest thing to do. And please, when the week is over and you are recharged, please come back and think differently. Cast your gaze away from the economy, towards the environment…Fresh air and fresh water hold the key to life itself and in restoring both, we just may create enough economic activity to put the economy right again. It may even enable us to relieve the very worst suffering in this world, that of a starving child. I concluded my previous blog post pondering whether or not any superheros had ever been created that I would actually feel were worthy of kids’ admiration. After a top five list of some of the best superheroes from mainstream comic books… all of them fell way short. Are there any nonviolent superheroes outside of mainstream comic books that are worthy of acclaim and true admiration? Well, as it turns out– YES! Far more than you’ll find on the shelves of comic book stores these days. Here’s my top five list of superheroes that exist solely outside of comic books: There’s a wonderful book that my daughter loves for me to read to her. It is called Hooray for Our Heroes by Sarah Albee and Tom Brannon (ISBN: 978-0375822681). This book alone makes me love Super Grover.
4.) The Super Readers (Whyatt Beanstalk aka Super Why, Princess Pea aka Princess Presto, Red Riding Hood aka Wonder Red, and Pig aka Alpha Pig) This PBS TV series is aimed at children from ages three to six and teaches reading skills including spelling, pronunciation, the alphabet, writing, phonics, and word usage.
What better than a chance to save the world– yourself? Wildfire* is a game that gives you the power to make real change, and let’s you see what you will do with it. (If you like this idea, check out other games like it here ) Wildfire is a game about saving the world. Opponents like rampant poverty, gender inequality, inadequate education and environmental degradation cannot be defeated by marching armies, secret potions, or magic swords– but they can be defeated by YOU. Read the rest of… As Politics Free Week comes to a close tomorrow, we are already looking forward to our next venture. As promoted earlier, the week of August 22, we will dedicate the site every day to what’s wrong with politics and how it can be fixed. We’ve already received several submissions, but we still want to hear from you. Please send us your essays on how to fix the American political system — one specific part, or the whole darn thing (1500 words or less) — by Saturday night, August 20 to Staff@RecoveringPolitician.com. It’s up to you, RP Nation. Please join us! The September 11 memorial is the ultimate symbol of our nation’s recovery. [Esquire] One Pennsylvania man gives back to his community and helps himself… through his Dairy Queen franchise. [NY Times] Three Nobel Prize-winning economists share their thoughts on what went wrong and how our economy can start to rebuild. [Newsweek] Here’s a little mid-week inspiration for you; try to appreciate the simple things, like these adorable kiddos from Austin dancing in the rain. [CNN iReport]
Yes, I am excited to see the latest season of a team that finished 4-12 last year, and that has had one winning season (and two 8-8 records) since 2000. The team that last went to the playoffs during the Clinton administration—only to be robbed of victory by a heartbreaking piece of semi-legal deception known to people outside of Western New York as “Home Run Throwback.” [People in Western New York know it by a variety of other names, none of them suitable for this family website…]  Scott Norwood, wide right Yes, the same team that went to four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 90s—losing the first one on an achingly close field goal attempt (videos of which I admit to watching many times, hoping for a different result), then the next three in different but equally painful manners. But also the team that mounted the single greatest comeback in the history of the NFL, overcoming a thirty-two-point deficit in the second half of a 1993 playoff game. Read the rest of… A half-Letterman pop-culture list? That’s a very difficult assignment for me. Today I don’t have much time to absorb any mass-media entertainment streams. Though I did consider subscribing to HBO just to be able to watch the documentary “Superheroes.” (I ultimately decided against it.) When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for Saturday morning so I could watch the Super-Friends in action. Today, I am much more interested in real-life social justice, than I am in the Justice League. Today, through my aging eyes, super heroes just seem like fascist bullies (who must have never watched The People’s Court). The best arguments by Karl Marx aside– I really don’t want a bunch of violent vigilantes to be the role models for my children. Worse, still– the genre typically depicts women in a sexist manner, all scantily clad and inhumanly proportioned. So are there any supers left in the world that I can still respect and admire? Maybe about a Rob Fleming list full: 5.) The Original Superman, Kal-L The hospitality that Mary and Pa Kent (later rewritten as Martha and Jonathan Kent) showed to this undocumented immigrant is worthy of admiration alone. In Action Comics #1, Lois Lane also sets a good example for challenging the status quo and Superman tackles corrupt politicians. With SupermanÔøΩs second appearance in Action Comics #2, the hero confronts a munitions manufacturer hoping to profit on the war in Europe. In the next issue, he corrects a heartless mine owner who won’t give a crippled miner a pension after he was caught in a cave-in. In a 1975 press release, Superman creator Jerry Siegel wrote, “What led me into creating Superman in the early thirties? Listening to President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, being unemployed and worried during the depression, knowing homelessness and fear, hearing and reading of the oppression and slaughter of helpless oppressed Jews in Nazi Germany, and seeing movies depicting the horrors of privation suffered, I had the great urge to help the downtrodden masses, somehow. How could I help them when I could barely help myself? Superman was the answer.” The only thing keeping the 1930s Superman from a higher spot in the countdown would be the fact that his treatment of the baddies could sometimes make water-boarding look a little tame by comparison. Of course, this was all changed by the comics code of the 1950s– but by that point, Superman was already shying away from changing the system, taking down the KKK, demolishing slums, correcting exploitative business leaders, etc…. and was already evolving into the more jingoistic big blue boyscout that he would remain thereafter. I briefly entertained the idea of putting Batman on the list after reading this, though, unfortunately, he was just flat wrong when he said that Batman doesn’t kill: 4.) Coming in at number four in the countdown: A tie… Had any of these comics seen a larger mainstream run, they would be at the very top of the list. Because most of these titles are no longer in print, the number four spot is a 3-way tie between: 4.c.) Cyberella, Sunny Winston and ‘Lil Ella Unfortunately this series lasted only 12 issues. So few graphic novels deal with systemic classism, but this was one that empowered us with the message that even in a society where those who have the gold make the rules, the human soul cannot be bought.
Created by Barbara Kesel, Amazing Grace first appeared in Comics’ Greatest World: Golden City in 1993. Grace was a smart, powerful character who used her super powers to better the world in practical ways. She ran Golden City and defended it from many threats; the main one came from the United States.
Winged Victory is an independent heroine and champion of women’s rights. The hero established and maintained a number of women’s centers (originally shelters) and clinics, and is a vocal and passionate spokeswoman for the political, legal, and social emancipation of women. (Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is actually still being published, but Winged Victory is so rarely seen that the highest that she can go on our list is fourth place.)
In 1969 Denny OÔøΩNeil miraculously transformed the Green Arrow from a cheap Batman/Robin Hood hybrid knock-off into an outspoken advocate of the underprivileged and oppressed. In the early 1970’s Oliver Queen became a heroic voice against racism and corruption. Writer O’Neil and illustrator Neal Adams paired Green Lantern and Green Arrow and sent them on an “easy rider” tour of the nation. The brief series dealt with pollution, overpopulation, drug addictions, and more. While Green Lantern was the straight-laced law-and-order type, Green Arrow was the indignant advocate of true social change. Unfortunately, though, a comic book character is only as good as the author and artist du-jour: While everything with this character before 1969 is really bad, everything about Green Arrow between 1987 and 2001 is even worse– the hero was rewritten as merely a cold-blooded, violent vigilante during the entire 1990s. Read the rest of…
Last weekend, on my last day in St. Louis before moving to NYC, I co-hosted a free 3-on-3 basketball tournament and community fair in North St. Louis. The event is in its sixth year; I started it during my first state Senate campaign in 2006, and it eventually attracted several thousand people each year. Dozens of businesses sponsor the event, which features a traveling health clinic, free school supplies, and brand-new bicycles and iPods for the winning teams in each age group. North St. Louis is struggling. It’s about 95% black, and unemployment among men in their 20s approaches 50% in many neighborhoods. Parts of it resemble the Detroit that you see on the news or the Baltimore on The Wire, but people forget that families live there. It’s a community fighting to regain its lost glory – ironically, the days of segregation, when black doctors, lawyers, teachers, principals, and morticians lived among the laborers and housekeepers, in larger homes but in close proximity.
The first couple years of the tournament, people weren’t sure about me. Who is this white guy coming up in our neighborhood? Just another politician sniffing around for votes, making more promises? Using us for a photo-op? Well, he can dribble…but we’ve been fooled before. Remember that Schoemehl boy, when he first ran for Mayor…then turned around and closed City Hospital? The next few years, people began to see that my commitment was genuine. As the group of city charter schools I’d co-founded a decade earlier grew to 3000 students, people noted my involvement. Others saw the legislative work I did on behalf of incarcerated fathers struggling to pay child support. Read the rest of… The NATO hospital at Kandahar Airfield is among the most advanced treatment facilities to ever operate in a war zone. Its job is to save the war’s worst casualties. [Virginian Pilot] It’s a recession for everyone.. including the Tooth Fairy. [CNN] Listen up, ladies. Gloria Steinem, a major pioneer in the fight for women’s rights, says there is still work to be done. [The Daily Beast] Here’s hoping the economy starts recovering fast- today, one citizen expressed their discontent with Wall Street in a very unconventional way. [Huffington Post] London is burning… and here’s what British citizens are reporting about the riots on Twitter. [Time] |
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