Letters to the Editor
captainlarab
Published Letters: 541 Editor's Choice: 41
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And here's what I think is going on with Obama
[Read the article: Barack Obama: "Committed Christian -- Called to Bring Change"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not about countering the "Muslim" whispering campaign--I think he very desperately needs the African-American churchgoing vote. Polls seem to show the African-American vote being evenly split between Obama and Clinton, so he's been doing a bit of pandering to that particular segment for a while. This has, in my opinion, been the driving force behind some of Obama's missteps with the gay community.
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@ Juliebird: that "Band of Brothers" thing
[Read the article: She said, he said]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read an interesting theory years ago about why it is that Democrats tend to show so much more public discord than Republicans:
Republican politicians tend to come from the world of business (and in past years, they also tended to come from a military background). Military and business folks are all about the mission. They may disagree, but they eventually arrive at a decision, and once the decision is reached and the meeting adjourned, they go forward united.
Democratic politicians are much more likely to be lawyers. Lawyers tend to believe that the way you arrive at resolution is by publicly and vociferously arguing opposing viewpoints. From this clash of opponents, supposedly the truth emerges, but what's important is that each opponent gives it his or her all.
Make of this what you will. It's at least a partial explanation, I think.
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@chhabili: Obama went on the 700 Club
[Read the article: Will whites vote for Barack Obama? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He actually did take on white evangelical homophobia head-on while appearing on the 700 Club, saying something about how civil unions are important to same-sex couples because they need, among other things, hospital visitation rights. I'm surprised at how little press coverage this got. I learned about it through a gay news group and I believe it more or less marks the moment I became an Obama supporter. I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember thinking he had to have a serious set of brass balls to say that on the 700 Club.
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An all-natural sweetener
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just wanted to alert some of you diet soda addicts to this very natural sugar-free sweetener:
http://www.stevia.net/
This stuff is perfectly legal, but for some reason the USDA won't allow it to be sold or advertised as an artificial sweetener. I have a friend who carries a small bottle of stevia extract in her purse with her. She loves it.
Me, I'm trying my best to give up soda, but I have a weakness for diet Sunkist. Still, I'm able to sometimes satisfy that soda craving by drinking raspberry lime seltzer. At least it avoids the chemicals.
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The bar is 90% psychological
[Read the article: I'm a high-school dropout in law school and I feel like an impostor!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just a few thoughts on the bar exam itself:
(1) Having passed it myself, my feeling is that it was about 90% psychological and 10% intellectual (of course, I also felt that way about much of law school). If you take a decent bar prep course and do what they say, and study hard, the key to passing the bar is just not getting freaked out about it. I've known some very smart people who sailed through an Ivy League law school and then failed the bar. Don't even look at those statistics about who's "at risk." They mean nothing.
(2) *Everyone* feels like they're going to fail the bar. I walked out of the exam convinced I had just made wild guesses on every single question and had probably failed the bar. The advice I received from an attorney friend was, "If you feel like you just failed the bar, you probably just passed it. In fact, if you told me you had walked out feeling like you had definitely passed, I'd be worried about you." So, let the fear motivate you to study, but don't let it freak you out.
(3) MOST PEOPLE PASS THE BAR. Even in the most competitive states, like New York and California, there's a 75% pass rate. So even if you're sitting there the day of the exam feeling like all you're doing is making wild guesses, keep in mind that all you have to do is guess better than a quarter of the people in the room. Also, a lot of those people in the bottom quarter will be people who didn't bother to take a bar prep course, or who tried to hold down a full-time job while studying--I actually know a guy who failed the bar because he tried to study for it while serving as the MAYOR. So the odds are in your favor.
(4) Here's why the bar is so stressful: So far, you've spent your whole life either in or out of school. So everything has been about the future, about building up to something, about what you're going to be when you grow up. But once you pass that bar exam, you have surmounted that final barrier that currently separates you from the yawning chasm that is the rest of your life. It's a real rite of passage, and if you're still working out basic questions of identity, it is of tremendous psychological importance.
Incidentally, in that regard I must emphasize to you that the period between law school graduation and the time when the bar results actually come in is the WORST POSSIBLE TIME to make any major life decisions. This is not, I repeat, NOT the time to reassess your marriage, tell off your best friend, or finally have that conversation with your parents that you've wanted to have for the past 10 years. Just in case that temptation strikes you.
Good luck, what you're feeling is normal, and you'll get through it just fine.
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Moveon.org's website
[Read the article: MoveOn endorses Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Say what you want about Moveon.org as a political force, but man oh man, you can't beat their website. You can do phone-banking from the privacy of your own home. You log in, they give you a script, and then one after another, phone numbers of voters in swing states pop up. You dial the number, have a chat (or leave a message), make notes to the file, and then the next number pops up. For technology alone, this is a huge score (although Obama's site is actually pretty cool, too--I like the discussion groups).