In case the Democratic party is wondering how to capitalize on the weakness of the Bush administration's poll numbers, this list of great idea-makers (and ideas) is a great place to start. How about a platform based on "Renewing America"?

The environment is the new innovation frontier, and using government to subsidize and incentivize for innovation would fuel economic growth in a way that doesn't leave people scared about housing bubbles and tech stock busts. The environment allows the Democrats to take the high road on encouraging science and education in a way that isn't the Republican wedge approach to evolution/intelligent design (i.e., it unites instead of divides). Helping the environment is also a good tack on improving the health care crisis -- if fewer kids have asthma and radical allergies, fewer health care costs. Neither point was mentioned in the article, but each would resonate with the public. The environment is the real key to national security, both at home and abroad, and in the wake of Katrina and 9/11 America needs a strategy to defuse threats based on nature's reaction to fossil fuels as well as Islamic radical scapegoating based on oil-exploitation-focused policy. Using the environment as a national security issue also exposes the incompetence, inaction and crony capture weaknesses of the Bush adminstration. They have no record to hide behind, and their insistence on secrecy about the Cheney energy task force meetings shows that they won't even be able to try.

So, here's the message: (1) It is time to renew America. (2) The Democratic party will counter the crony politics that left this nation's government sitting idly by as the levees failed and our country became more dependent on foreign oil. (3) The Democratic party has real policy initiatives, not sound bytes, to devote America's promise to improving its future -- its educational future, its security from threats of nature and terrorism, its economic growth, and its position as the world's leader in innovation.

It runs through everything, and it has the potential to be the "Bridge to the 21st Century" of the mid-term elections and the 2008 presidential race, the anchor that lets people know what the Democratic party stands for in a proactive way. Plus, it will bring the Greens back into the fold if the actions match the words. It's a ripe message that works with the current realpolitik -- and it also happens to be the right thing to do.

Once again the alarm bells ring for boys in school. What I wonder is why men refuse to do anything about it by, say, becoming elementary school teachers. If women teachers are stifling the sons of tomorrow by, as one poster noted, making boy behavior "illegal," why not have more men take up the cause of teaching and re-legalize it? If this is such a crucial issue, certainly it's more valuable to take some time off from the more highly compensated professions in which men continue to dominate and take up some of those poorly-paid elementary school teaching positions if it will mean a generation of boys who can grow up to be educated men...right? That the only real action on this issue is complaining about feminization and women teachers is telling; it betrays not only lack of commitment to solving the problem as well as, at least, our understanding of the problem (if not the degree of the problem itself, although I'm disinclined to minimize it).

I also find it nutty that conservatives allege that young men don't want to go to college because it has been "feminized." Even taking the allegation at face value, whose fault is it that such feminization has taken place? College faculty positions are still overwhelmingly male! (High school faculties are also similarly male-dominated, so it's the same story there.) Of course, I should know by now that it's still women's fault, as any scintilla of our presence in any field automatically feminizes the entire thing, because men are prevented from being themselves (and "being themselves" is of value despite it not being a safe or appropriate mode of being in mixed company). It could never be the fault of a majority-male faculty, since we feminists "control" everything...such are the inevitable lies underneath these political games.

It appears rather obvious that educators can't explain the statistical changes fully. What that lack of understanding should mean is more study of the problem and more experiments to get kids to stay in school. However, because conservatives don't care about the future of children (Why educate all of the children? It costs money better spent by corporations. Plus, we'll need lots of cheap labor to work in the factories that China builds here after they start pinching us about all the debt the U.S. owes them...), they're just using this issue as a cheap political whipping post against which they think they can tie feminism and women. It's sad in two respects -- it does nothing to help actual boys, and it is yet another example of the hateful, anti-woman stance of the all-too-powerful far right. Unfortunately, everyone's falling for their crap again and losing sight of the ball.

So, in this CNN article, reprinted from the AP, the three women are backed by "pro-abortion" groups? Nice work, genius -- way to conflate EC with abortion. Of course, the author conveniently refers to how using EC is considered an abortion by pro-life groups because it prevents "the fertilized egg" from implanting in the uterus. No notice of how, for example, a woman who takes EC may not have ovulated (potentially because of EC) and her egg may not have been fertilized (also, potentially because of EC) -- nah, that would resemble the reality of EC too much! Better to simply portray every example of EC as being anti-implantation-oriented to a definitely fertilized egg and the groups that support women getting equal access to as being "pro-abortion." Bias, much? Ugh!