News for February 2
February 2, 2009 by Barbara
Filed under News and Analysis
Da’wa, Maliki May Gain from Provincial Elections | Informed Comment
Early reports say that 60% of Iraqi’s electorate came out for Saturday’s election of provincial councils. The results will be announced by the end of this week, and only after “weeks” will the final tally be published. There was a lockdown of the whole country, in which US troops assisted, with no private automobiles allowed to run. Given this datum, the breathless newspaper headlines that the elections came off without any major attacks are reporting a given. Guerrillas can’t detonate a car bomb if they can’t drive a car to their target.
- Related link: A New Era in Iraq? | Slate
GOP Governors Press Congress to Pass Stimulus Bill | Truthout
Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama’s economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care. Their state treasuries drained by the financial crisis, governors would welcome the money from Capitol Hill, where GOP lawmakers are more skeptical of Obama’s spending priorities.
Recession Can Change a Way of Life | The New York Times
All recessions have cultural and social effects, but in major downturns the changes can be profound. The Great Depression, for example, may be regarded as a social and cultural era as well as an economic one. And the current crisis is also likely to enact changes in various areas, from our entertainment habits to our health.
Obama Redefines War on Terror | CSMonitor.com
President Obama’s executive orders closing the Guantánamo detention facility and outlawing torture were interpreted in some circles as closing the door on the Bush administration’s global war on terror. But Mr. Obama – who used the word “war” in his inaugural address to describe the fight with Islamic extremists who would do America harm – is not so much ending the war on terror as he is redefining it and narrowing its focus.
The End of Solitude | The Chronicle of Higher Education
Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn’t say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can. … I once asked my students about the place that solitude has in their lives. One of them admitted that she finds the prospect of being alone so unsettling that she’ll sit with a friend even when she has a paper to write. Another said, why would anyone want to be alone?
- Related link: The Sound of Silence | TextPatterns
Barbara Schwartz is the editorial director at the Xenia Institute. She lives in Oklahoma City, Okla., and currently is pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.
