A Round-Up of Recent Millennials News-Sightings

• From Andrew Sullivan comes a haunting piece about a fundamentalist Christian preacher whose son is gay. The original piece highlights the growing conflict between Millennials and conservative Christianity.  Here's where it gets into a discussion of Millennials and religion.
  
• Policymic has a good post up about Newark Mayor Cory Booker's foray into Millennial media with his project #waywire (see what he did there with the hashtag? He soooo knows us.)  The problem?  Booker's no Millennial.
  
• In the Meta Department, blogger Sierra from the phoenix and olive branch, has a lovely little piece on Thing I Love About Being a Millennial.  My favorite: "I’m so happy to be part of the generation that fights back against street harassment, rape and domestic violence." Me too.  Do yourself a favor and go check it out.
  
• Are Millennials anti-capitalist?  (Mobilize.org)
  
• Will college students/Millennials throw off the chains of oppression, and take to the streets at the major party conventions this summer?  Will they overthrow their superiors in the august halls of the university?  Somehow I doubt it, but as James Howard Kunstler says, "weird things happen."  (Dissident Voice)
  
• Finally, Forbes has another profile of Millennials.  When will the business community stop treating Millennials like a strange anomaly to be understood, commodified and put in a box? (Forbes)

A Song for Sunday

In honor of his benefit show for WMMT/Appalshop last night in Lexington, here's Bonnie "Prince" Billy with a reworking of his song "I See a Darkness":

The Daily Read

• Bye Bye Blackberry: Forbes magazine takes a look at the dwindling fortunes of Research In Motion (RIM), the company responsible for giving the world the Blackberry smartphone. (Forbes)
  
  
• Don't Just Pressure ALEC's Sponsors, Name and Shame ALEC Legislators: Hot on the heels of Kraft, Coke and Pepsi pulling their membership from the right-wing mess that is the American Legislative Exchange Council, John Nichols of the Nation Magazine calls on individuals to pressure legislators with ties to ALEC.  Guess how many Kentucky has? (The Nation)
  
  
• Derbyshire canned: "Mild and tolerant racist" John Derbyshire of the National Review magazine has officially been fired for his now infamous racist tirade in that magazine, an article in which he cautioned his children to avoid large concentrations of "blacks" and stay away from public places on days where said locations are likely to attract a large number of "blacks."  Disgusting. (The Atlantic)
  
  
• Seymour Hersh on getting scooped by Mike Wallace (The New Yorker)
  
  
• Truthout also remembers the irascible newsman Mike Wallace (Truthout)

Obama's Gambit to the Left

Fresh off a speech on jobs before a joint session of Congress, President Obama has just announced his intention to make law what is being called the "Buffet Rule."  The so-called Buffet Rule would essentially bring parity to our (progressive) tax system by making the rich and corporations pay their fair share.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Obama will propose an array of tax increases on the highest earners: limiting deductions for families earning more than $250,000, levying minimum taxes on those earning more than $1 million, and taxing the “carried interest” at some investment partnerships as personal income rather than at lower capital gains rates. Mr. Obama said he would use the extra revenue to finance a short-term economic stimulus and long-term deficit reduction.

The question is, is this a line in the sand to recalcitrant Republicans who have repeatedly threatened to torpedo this latest jobs proposal by the president?  Is it an olive branch to the left who have for some time felt betrayed by this president?  Or is it both?

For my part, I have been encouraged by President Obama's apparent rediscovery of his populist roots.  I know that many on the left still see him as feckless at best, and I can understand that position. But right now, we're at war with a right-wing that is at its worst in a long decade of worst moments.  The question for the left is, which side are you on?

California or Bust?

The New York Times is reporting that California's budget crisis is only getting worse:

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

Remember what drove Arnold Schwarzenegger to victory in the recall election in 2003? Yeah, that's right.

Phelps Finale

Jacob Sullum over at Reason has the finale in the Phelps pot-smoking farce. How regrettable that whole affair was.