Quotes of the Day

Quote #1: Clinton just can't stop herself from playing the divisive race card...

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Yeah, the "pattern" that is emerging is Clinton playing the race card out of desperation. Gotta love the not-so-subtle rhetorical link between "working," "hard working" and "white Americans." You hear that dog whistle everyone???

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded to these comments, saying that in Indiana, Obama split working-class voters with Clinton and won a higher percentage of white voters than he did in Ohio last March. He said Obama will be the strongest nominee because he appeals "to Americans from every background and all walks of life. These statements from Sen. Clinton are not true and frankly disappointing."

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton's comment was a "poorly worded" variation on the way analysts have been "slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms."

However, he said her primary support doesn't prove she's more electable. Either Democrat will get "the vast majority" of the other's primary election votes in a general election, he said.

So, the Clinton camp's so-called "nuclear option" apparently includes more than trying to ram through the completely undemocratic primary tallies in MI and FL. Perhaps she won't go quietly into that good night after all. If she doesn't cut this crap out, I hope party leaders step in to end it soon...

Quote #2: And this one from Bill Moyers to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!:

"You know, Mrs. Clinton has a very serious issue to wrestle with in the next seventy-two hours. Is this race about the country, or is it about the Clintons? "

Well, I think we all know that from the Hillary side of things this race has always been about the Clintons over the country, but now, with the handwriting clearly on the wall, Hillary has the option of exiting with some grace and dignity, for which she will be handsomely rewarded with a leadership position in Congress, or as a selfish jerk, thereby jeopardizing her and her husband's political future. Ultimately, I think she'll do the right thing, but apparently Bill is counseling her to force the issue all the way to the convention in Denver... Of course, party leaders won't let that happen.

What we are seeing is a classic political moment: power is quickly moving from one place (the Clintons) to another (Obama). Thank you for your contributions Bill and Hillary. Now, step aside for the new guy. Do the right thing... if for no other reason, than for your own selfish legacy.

Can You Break the Code?

Each year the design group Pentagram issues a small holiday book as a greeting to its friends and colleagues. The partners take turns researching and designing these books, which usually contain some kind of game or activity. The most recent edition is Decipher, designed by Harry Pearce, who chose as its subject cryptography, the science of writing, or encrypting—and breaking, or decrypting—secret code.

The book features 14 cryptograms of varying methodologies and difficulty that conceal short phrases; through symbols, numbers, patterns and simple letterspacing, the cyptograms challenge the reader to decipher their meaning. “It’s astonishing how much you can hide in type,” says Pearce.

Now they have adapted the book’s content online and are pleased to present the 14 cryptograms in a minisite here. This is the introductory text from that site:

Cryptography is the science of writing in secret code. It is an ancient art, practically as old as writing itself. There is an example of an Egyptian scribe using non-standard hieroglyphs to put his inscription into code over 4,000 years ago.

The main idea of using a code is that nobody can read a message except the person or people it is intended for—and they have to know the key.

The other way of reading an encrypted message is by breaking the code. This is a bit more difficult: you just get there by using your brainpower. Basically it is a matter of working out the series of logical steps that were used to create the code, and putting them into reverse.

Some of the codes here are more difficult to break than others. But there’s a clue for each one to get you started. Answers and explanations are revealed by rolling the mouse over each cryptogram.

Can you break the code?

History in the Making!

We should all, every one of us - whether you supported Obama or one of the other candidates, or heck, even if you prefer the Republicans or another third party over the Democrats - take a moment to acknowledge and reflect on what can only be described as a MAJOR historical moment in our nation's history, a moment that is much bigger than merely the 2008 election!

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WHICH USED TO BE THE PARTY OF THE JIM CROW SOUTH, IS THE FIRST MAJOR AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTY TO NOMINATE AN AFRICAN AMERICAN CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

Seriously, let that sink in for a moment. Given our tragic history with racial injustice, this is monumental... We are witnessing history as it happens. It is a great day for the United States and a great day for the Democratic Party.

Hillary, do you hear something?

What's that music...


Or, perhaps you need Tim Russert to break it down for you...

Ok, Ok. I'm being obnoxious. Of course, this race was essentially done in February, when the wheels first came off the Clinton campaign. It has just been impossible for her to catch up...

So, this is really about the media and pundocracy catching up with the reality on the ground. The narrative does seem to have shifted against Clinton and for Obama as the "presumptive" nominee after last night...

Loving Mildred Loving...

Mildred Loving died on May 2. Along with her husband, Richard, Mrs. Loving was at the center of the historic 1967 Supreme Court decision which finally struck down laws that forbid inter-racial marriage, what was then known as "miscegenation." The Lovings are heroes of recent American history.

Thanks, Mildred and Richard. Thank you...

I hope you will take a moment and read Mildred's statement in 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the Loving decision:

Loving for All

By Mildred Loving

Prepared for Delivery on June 12, 2007,
The 40th Anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Announcement

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn’t have to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” a “basic civil right.”

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

Here is an excerpt from the Supreme Court decision:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State...

The Supreme Court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy:

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.

Despite this Supreme Court ruling, such laws rested unenforced in several states until 2000 when Alabama became the last state to remove its law against mixed-race marriage.

Here is a very good NPR story on the 40th anniversary of the Loving decision (there are also several other related stories that are linked to this audio story; check 'em out!): "Loving Decision: 40 Years of Legal Interracial Unions"

Here is a great 3 minute documentary, featuring Julian Bond - the President of the NAACP - and his wife, on the 40th anniversary of the Loving V. Virginia decision. Please check it out:


And here is my former congressional representative in Madison, Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, standing in congress to commemorate Loving v. Virginia. Tammy is an amazing woman, a fantastic representative and the first and only openly gay woman in congress. She is a pioneer and another courageous hero in our recent history. Check out what she has to say:


This decision has special meaning to Drea and I...


So, again, thank you Mildred and Richard Loving for paving the way for so many of us. You deserve your rightful place alongside Rosa Parks and all the other heroes of the modern civil rights movement...