Bloggy Monday | Going Mainstream

Our past Bloggy Mondays have started a grand tradition of bringing high quality suggestions to add to your RSS feed readers that come from outside the mainstream media establishment.  This is a grand tradition that I will unceremoniously buck. I don’t have any insights to quote or even anything nice to say about the mainstream media – too many times I feel they are missing the boat – but on occasion, there is a outlet within the establishment that provides some really useful and poignant material.  So without any further unwarranted delay, I present you the “mainstream” edition of Bloggy Monday.  And of course, if you’re following a blog that is really worth the read, please let us know.  Email suggestions to barbara@xeniainstitute.org, and be sure to put “Bloggy Monday” in the subject line.

On the Ground :: NY Times

This week’s first recommendation is about as mainstream as it gets, since Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times.  He writes his blog as a supplement to his twice weekly columns, but his posts read just as profoundly on their own as they do when read in conjunction with his “official” work.  Aside from a list of educational and travel experiences that I will only be able to jealously admire, Kristof qualifies himself as a must read through his provoking choice of topics and the fact that the is just downright ethical.

A fine example of this trait is a post he made concerning the plight of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman who has turned the horrific experience of her rape into a positive for all the women of Pakistan by raising funds to establish schools and shelters.  Naturally, her work bucks the patriarchal culture of much of rural Pakistan, which has made her many enemies.  Kristof lifts up her most recent plight:

In particular, one local feudal lord who has a minister’s seat in the federal government has been trying hard to undermine Mukhtar. In the latest front, the electrical company raided Mukhtar’s home, school and shelter, accused her of not paying electrical bills, and cut off electricity to thousands of people. I’m not there, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that Mukhtar has paid her bills and that this is just one more way of harassing her and threatening her.

What is so impressive about Kristof’s work is not only the fact that he raises awareness about important people like Mukhtar, but even provides links to other websites and agencies through which one can offer financial support or even engage in activism on her behalf.  This combination of journalism and activism marks his writings and is worthy of being on your “to read” list.

Danger Room :: Wired.com

As a self-professed technophile, it may come as little surprise that I avidly read my subscription to Wired Magazine throughout high school.  Yes, I just flew my geek flag loud and proud.  I found it fascinating at the time, and frankly, I’m not carrying my subscription now for reasons of price and time.  However, Wired.com offers the next best thing.  In sharing the Danger Room blog, I’m really lifting up the entire site, since I subscribe to the majority of them.  However, I chose Danger Room for its unique perspectives on the national security complex.

One of the interesting behind-the-scenes battles going down on the beltway between Capitol Hill and Arlington, VA is the military budget battle.  An incredible portion of our national budget is devoted to defense spending and for the time being, war supplemental bills.  Why we should be concerned is that the face of warfare is changing, and in spite of calls by both current and former defense secretaries to change priorities to meet this evolving need, Congress continues to insist on funding more Cold War-style military projects.  Unfortunately, programs like the vaunted F-22 Raptor have moved from the realm of desired national defense priorities to hometown pork barrel initiatives.  This post notes that the Democratic congress managed to tow the line on Secretary Gates’ budget requests until this last week:

Yesterday, however, things changed. Republicans managed to peel off just enough Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee to add $369 million to keep up production of the Air Force’s prized F-22 Raptor stealth jet. That means 12 more fighters built next year — 12 fighters Gates has made clear he doesn’t want or need. If the Raptor increase is approved by the other relevant congressional committees, that could open up the flood gates of opposition, with other ad hoc coalitions forming to keep funds for the Airborne Laser missile-zapping boondoggle, or the Navy’s massive (and massively overbudget) DDG-1000 destroyer. “[The Pentagon] needs to learn who’s in charge, and the Congress is,” House Armed Services Committee Democrat Neil Abercrombie told the Christian Science Monitor.

Although $369 million sounds like a drop of water in a very large bucket, when we consider that DOD recommendations are sometimes regularly ignored so that some U.S. Representative can bring home the bacon to the hometown defense industry, then we might come to the conclusion that Congress continues to nickel-and-dime us to death.  And this is just a glimpse of the content that shows up on Danger Room.  If you’re interested in issues of national security and the defense establishment, this blog is worth the read.

Democracy in America :: The Economist

The Economist also falls into the category of another print magazine that I would read if I had both the time and the money, so I instead turn to the online alternative.  Democracy in America offers insights from the snide to the sublime, and is perhaps all the more interesting because its team of writers blog anonymously.  However, it’s content that makes it a worthwhile read.  Aside from their analysis, they also include the results of the weekly Economist/You Gov polls which are enlightening in their own right.

A recent post takes a look at the Republican push to discredit President Obama for not taking a public stand on the disputed Iranian elections.  Democracy in America takes on their negative comparisons between Obama’s alleged inaction and Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy proclamations and puts them into historical and sadly, painful perspective:

This is all very amusing, but Republicans are losing sight of Mr. Reagan’s actual foreign policy. His approach toward Iran was brutal realism that resulted in the sale of missiles to the mullahs’ regime. His approach towards South Africa was also pure strategy—support for a racist regime as a way of hurting the Soviets. Many of the anti-communist forces backed by his administration (in Asia, Africa and Latin America) were also hostile to their own people. In other words, he rarely exhibited the woolly-headed, we-support-you idealism that his party is now advocating.

The debate in Washington is often controlled by politicians and pundits who have little vested interested having an open and honest discussion.  To be frank, they often have a strong interest in controlling the debate through selectively ignoring history or declining to provide information in its entirety.  It’s refreshing to have a blog coming out of the mainstream challenging the half truths and outright false assertions of Washington establishment.