But Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to unite the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill. ThinkProgress has compiled a list of the top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan [mjh: follow the link for supporting documentation for each item]:
1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser.
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit.
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts.
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously.
5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose.
6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”
7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants.
8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran.
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act.
10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
Conservatives seem to be in such denial about the less flattering aspects of Reagan; it sometimes appears as if they genuinely don’t know the truth of his legacy.
I wish I could recommend this movie, at least to die hard Joseph Gordon-Levitt fans (looking towards MR, and AE, if I remember correctly), but I can’t, really. There are a lot of interesting things about this movie, but not so much the movie itself. Take any of the film noir movies involving tough guys and shady dames and update the time to current day high school. Let JGL play the Bogey role. Sounds more interesting that it turns out – not that it turns out bad, this is no stinker. The dialog is amazingly true to its inspiration / conceit. I don’t think there was one obscenity. The violence involves serious beatings / fights and one too-well-done execution. Still, Lucas Haas as the kingpin – excellent – as inspired as Sidney Greenstreet. There were a few moments where the teen underworld brushed the middle-class suburban context, where mom dotes over a visiting boy or a thug talks about a book, that make me think they played it too straight; a little more of that (“There’s the Boss, and his mom.”) might have made this too camp, but more enjoyable.
It was on this day in 2004 that 19-year-old student Mark Zuckerburg launched the website Facebook out of his Harvard dorm room. One year earlier, he had been disciplined by the school for creating a site called Facemash, which hacked into online dorm sites and paired ID photos of two Harvard students at a time, asking viewers to rate which of them was more attractive. Facemash didn’t go over well with most of the campus. He had to dismantle the site, but he wasn’t expelled. A year later, he picked up on an idea that a few other students had, to create an online social site, and he ran with it. Facebook was a hit from the beginning.
Facebook began as a social network for Harvard only, and then expanded to other Ivy League schools, then slowly to college campuses across the country. In 2005 it started opening networks in high schools, and by a year later, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address was allowed to join. As of now, there are more than 500 million users worldwide, and the company is valued at more than $43 billion.
Last year Facebook became the subject of a film, The Social Network (2010).
Once again, Merri and I attended the dress rehearsal of the Chinese Cultural Center’s Chinese New Year Celebration. Performances include the community dancing and fighting with swords, sticks, and fans. It’s fun and colorful and the culmination of years of preparation and practice. Bring a chair and a hat – it’s outside the center on Saturday, February 5, 2011, at 1pm.
Photos include 17 from 2011, 30 from 2010, and 10 from 2007.
