Our Picks for 10/21 – 10/29: Art For India, Warren Miller’s Dynasty, Larry and His Flask

With reference to right-winger Kenneth Swipies piece of Oct. 15, he apparently thinks his denigration of the “left-wing” shouldn't be challenged, but the left-wings denigration of the right-wing is verboten! A double standard? He doesn't accept the 1st Amendment to our Constitution by denying the separation of church and state. He makes a mockery of it even though it's supported by the U.S. Supreme Court. He's unaware that the separation of church and state was already well established at the time of the Constitutional Convention. Abortion has also been legalized by the Court. He makes an erroneous statement about God and the Bible in public schools. The teaching of evolution is there, God and the Bible are not! I'm not familiar with the left-wing attempt to get faith-based organizations to help promote “Universal Healthcare.” But anything's possible.

I'd like to address the people who are fond of putting out food for the in-town deer population. Please don't be surprised when you emerge some chilly morning and find one dead in your yard with a bloody trail leading into the street.

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama has caused consternation on both sides of the aisle and amongst our perennially uninspiring TV pundits. They ask, “How can a president who has only been in power for 9 months and who is prosecuting two wars, get the Nobel Prize… for Peace?” The hoards of the perpetually perplexed to whom we seem to spend half our lives patiently explaining the simple things of life … are, as expected, confused, nonplussed, indignant and angry. Here, again, Obama's detractors miss the point – they fail to grasp the meaning of this particular Nobel Prize, a prize that cannot be understood from the perspective of American politics.

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize recently and your paper managed to run a couple (tidbits) on the event, including banter from a guy who didn't even know it happened and a piece in Upfront that was just an off-the-dome blurb. I'm not sure if that really counts as journalism. The Internet is rife with people spouting off uneducated opinions about various topics and you're killing trees to put more of it in print. To Mr. McMenaminuses (whoever that actually is) I would say, why don't you listen to the Nobel committee chair explain the decision before you feel the need to go on about it. There were specific reasons that they cited (“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”) that make a lot of sense. And to those people who say that Obama hasn't “done” anything, I would say that you're completely not paying attention. In short, Obama has fundamentally changed the way the United States government operates.

The New York Times' Sunday edition has an article featuring Oregon's Earl Blumenauer and the difficulties he finds himself in regarding the progressive agenda he worked so hard for. It is similar to the frustration so many of us Obama supporters are feeling at the President's seeming inability to shift gears from his intense desire to compromise and find by partisanship in just about everything he does.
No question that Barack Obama was dealt an unprecedented set of difficult disasters when he entered the White House. The economy in shambles, the health care debate raging out of control while millions of Americans were left without the simplest of care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claiming billions of dollars and countless human American lives (aside from the locals, caught in the crossfire) and the list goes on.