the otherwhirled

Well, here I am, hosting the Carnival of the Liberals today, when I have yet to manage to get a post into one ever. There’s many reasons for this, the primary one being that I’m never really satisfied with my own prose, and another important one being that my “liberalism” has become so ingrained into my personality that I very much tend to simply live it, and not preach it.

I’ve been reading the Carnival of the Liberals for a little more than a year, I think. I’ve even gone through some of the archive links at Leo’s place and read through some of the older ones. I am always fascinated by other people’s abilities to effectively communicate their thoughts and ideals. So, my offer to host this one was driven by that as much as it was driven by a desire to pay tribute to my wife, the lovely Mrs. Other, who did, in fact, successfully bring me around from those thought processes I now refer to as “neo-conservative belly-button twiddling” and into the light of more clear-headed critical thinking.

Today marks the fourteenth year of our marriage. In another random irony, I met Mrs. Other shortly after I left the Army from Fort Bliss, where I was assigned to the 66th MI company. So, my original intent with this, the 66th installment of the Carnival of the Liberals was to focus on what caused us to convert to liberal and/or progressive politics, presuming that at least some of us, like me, came from elsewhere politically.

Alas, literally no one submitted anything along that theme, which I figure is fine. I wasn’t too uptight about it, largely because I am now possessed of this wonderfully progressive mind. The 31 submissions that I received for this edition of the Carnival were all quite interesting reads, and yes, I’m being generous. Because about half of them were right-wingers trying to convert the host, and several others were simply bizarre. After reading them, I wasn’t sure about a point being made or any argument being refuted. Luckily, that left me with exactly ten insightful, interesting, and in some cases, profound writings that are well worth sharing. So, without further ado, however, here are the ten I found to be the “best”. They are presented in the order received, not any subjective order, mind you.

First off, Holly Ord over at menstrual poetry, shows us explicitly how McCain is not a moderate. Given recent primary results and the new bandying about of the phraise “McCain Democrats”, I believe this is a very important thing to consider. Hillary-ites who express the abject refusal to vote for Obama need to seriously reconsider what they’re thinking about doing come November.

In what I found to be a quite interesting read, Greta Christina introduces us to the Harm Reduction Model, which she feels might be applicable to virtually all apsects of life. After reading her piece and continuing on to the link she provides, I find myself initially in agreement.

Ian Welsh, over at The Agonist, has an insightful take on ten issues that certainly obfuscated the Democratic primary process. And interestingly, what were predictions at the time he wrote them, have basically come true.

I found some welcome satire over at Free Cheezeburgerz. You’ve just gotta love people who spell words with z’s. Anyway, Brian Tarcy wrote up a fun little exchange between a NASCAR driver named John Q. Public and his pit-crew chief, named George. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it, unless you’re lactose intolerant. Because there’s lots of cheese.

Alonzo Fyfe, the Atheist Ethicist, provides us with some good legal information on the problem with having “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, and in “In God We Trust” on our money, through the lens of House Resolution 5872. I thought at first that this would be the same old same old on this topic, but I believe Alonso has some good points. If only someone in Congress would ever think of things this way!

Lisa Spinelli over at Greener Pastures: Personal Finance contributed this article about the Bush Administration’s bizarre tactics when it comes to environmental issues. I say bizarre, because they are ultimately self-defeating in highly personal ways. If you breathe air you might well want to read about How Politics Can Mess Up a Perfectly Good Environment.

This next one comes from Heather Johnson over at the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, where she reminds us of 20 Civil Liberties Every American Should Know. A very good, detailed read of many of the guarantees provided to us by our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and one which, in my opinion, should be predominantly references during the national presidential campaign. Because the right wing doesn’t care about this stuff at all, it seems.

Sometimes, we need a reminder that those who tend towards the extreme in either party do so from a completely understandable basis. I would even go so far as to point out that in some ways, extremism provides a perspective that is unmuddled by the vagaries of the day-to-day world. Steve Snyder, the Socratic Gadfly, points us to a fine example of such clairvoyance by Ted Rall.

Doctor Biobrain provides us with a well-written, scathing response to the premise that Barack Obama is supposedly a Marxist. Being the type of post that naturally elicits entertaining stupidity in the comments, I’m still not sure which was the better read: the post or the comments. Either way, you should read it.

This last article came in late the last night that submissions were accepted for this installment, and to be honest, I found it the most intriguing. In it, steppen wolf, the skeptical alchemist, describes some interesting goings-on over in Italy, where it appears that democracy is slowly, skillfully, and mostly silently being replaced with dictatorship. Quite profound, if true. I know I’ll be keeping tabs on Italy a little more closely in the future, and I hope you will, too.

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Issue #67 of the Carnival of the Liberals is scheduled for June 18, 2008 at Situation Awareness. Issue #68 is currently slated for July 2, 2008 on Globally Rational. Be sure to visit, and I’m even thinking of submitting something myself this time!

(my apologies for getting this out so late yesterday. thanks to several things happening at once, i wound up having to reconstruct this entire post over yesterday afternoon, which, as noted above, wasn’t exactly the best of days to spend on the computer as opposed to working on my “honey do” list. well, at least i got it done. the list never goes away.)