The confirmation hearing song and dance

By
So it has begun again. Senators are busy pontificating on judge Samuel Alito's fitness or unfitness for serving on the Supreme Court of the United States. The various interest groups are going full steam ahead as well either trying to lift him up or beat him down. It's funny how, depending on who you choose to believe, he's either a social darwinist disdainful of (or even down right hostile to) all but rich white males or a paragon of virtue well schooled in the law and the responsibilities of a judge. Who are these people all performing for anyway? Oh for an unbiased evaluation of the man and his abilities!

NPR is broadcasting the hearings live if you want to listen in. I find that to be a little more tolerable and less time consuming than watching it on television.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Rise Up In The Darkness

By
Image
The teenager who joked with me over physics and algebra homework tonight was 6 months old the morning of September 11, 2001. He spent that day like many other 6 month olds spend their days, exploring his world and being saved from his own curiosity by mom. That morning after I got tired of hauling him back from the edge of the bed he was intent on crawling over I took him downstairs to safer level terrain. I turned on the television to check the news like I did every morning back then. At first I was horrified by what I saw. One smoldering tower. Not long after, while all the reporters and newscasters were struggling to make sense of what they were seeing, one plane, another tower, and I was pissed. At that point I understood what was happening. Why did people think, and still think, that kind of wretchedness served their cause? I didn't care what the cause was. These were arrogant fools. But the news kept coming about just how wretched humanity had been to itself that day. The ...
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b...
Read more