Sunday, February 8, 2009

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Daniel Cubias: Just Who Are All These Hispanics Anyway? Top
My last post (" A Great Lack of Latinos at the Academy Awards ") prompted many readers to slap down my observation that Hispanics haven't exactly thrived in Hollywood. Of course, there were some highly defensive, yet confrontational accusations that I was whining or calling for a quota system. I expected those rants and ignored them, but I noticed a tangential but important issue arise. Namely, who am I to say who is actually Hispanic? In the post, I was reluctant to count Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem as Latino. I said that because they are natives of Spain, they are European and not Hispanic. This rankled a few people. One reader said that Spaniards are culturally Latino, even if they are separated from Latin America by an ocean. Another said the fact that Bardem and Cruz speak Spanish as their native language was of the most importance - which as I pointed out, would mean that any Portuguese-speaking Brazilians are not Latinos. Basically, it's a sticky situation. And intelligent people can disagree on an issue that is so liquid and emotionally loaded. But I know what you're thinking. How can the U.S. government help resolve this situation? Can they offer us a kind of ethnic bailout, as it were? Well, a little research reveals that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget first defined a Hispanic to be "a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race." The U.S. Census Bureau included the term on its 1960 form, but this, the government's initial attempt at a definition, wasn't published until 1978. Apparently, nobody was Hispanic before then. Now, it's far too easy to take shots at a nameless bureaucracy that pathetically attempts to corral the messy realities of the world. But I'm going to do it anyway. The first thing we notice in this definition is the phrase "regardless of race." This is problematic, because many of us thought we were talking about race. How can it be irrelevant when it's the whole point? Well, if you've ever worked for the U.S. Census Bureau (I did, as a teenager for one horrific summer, but that's another story), you know that Hispanics are not considered a race. We are an ethnicity. That means that we can be white, like many residents of South America. Or we can be black, like many Cubans. Or we might be, as is often the case, a pleasing brown (like everyone in my family). Of course, many people consider "race" itself to be an artificial construct, a mere cultural crutch. Let's leave that argument aside for now. The point is that any attempt to define a large group of people who come from vastly different cultures is doomed to be incomplete, sketchy, vague, and possibly insulting. But we need to cut the government some slack here. They have to define Hispanics. Otherwise, we would have no way to measure how badly we're doing on the economic scale, and we would have no idea who's being acknowledged during Hispanic Heritage Month (it's in September, by the way). So do Spaniards count as Hispanics? Are Brazilians really Latino? Can Jamaicans sneak in there? Do third-generation Chicanos in interracial marriages remain part of the tribe? Ultimately, perhaps you're Hispanic if you say you are. It's not like there are ceremonies to induct you into the lodge or anything - although that would be most cool if there were. As I mentioned in one of my first posts, many people would not consider me (I'm half-Anglo) to be Hispanic. So I should feel validated because I fit the government's definition. After all, my family is originally from Central America. But slipping easily into a government-built box means nothing, of course. Independent of some red-tape organism, all of us develop our own definitions and self-images and myths and creation stories - everything we need to say, "This is me."
 
Richard Z. Chesnoff: SEPHARDIC CINEMA SHINES Top
There's an old Borsht Belt joke about a shipwrecked Jew found alone after 10 years on a desert island. He shows his rescuers the crude shelter he built from driftwood and palms, then points to two other shacks. "Those are the synagogues" he says. " But you're the only one here! Why two synagogues?", they ask in astonishment. "Such a question!," he says. "One I pray in, the other I wouldn't be caught dead in!" Maybe that explains why some American cities have at least two if not three different - Jewish film festivals - some even at the same time. Here in New York, it's even worse - we've got four! There's the classic "Jewish Film Festival" organized each year by Fifth Avenue's prestigious Jewish Museum. Then there's "The Israel Film Festival" sponsored by Israel itself. Not to be outdone, the Upper Westside's steadfast liberals sponsor the so-called "Other Israel Film Festival" devoted to films by and about Israel's increasingly schizophrenic Arab population. Last, but decidedly not least, there's the Sephardic Federation's "Sephardic Jewish Film Festival" which treats us to a week of documentaries and features zooming in on the world's more exotic Jews - not only Jews of pre-inquisition Spanish origin, but Yemenites, Ethiopians, Indians and the like. Some critics say that this plethora of Jewish film festivals merely means one competes with the other. But, the fact is, each festival has its own individual merits. And perhaps, the more the merrier. Still, for my money, The Sephardic Film Festival - which opened at East 16th Street's Jewish Historic Center on February 5th and continues till February 12th - is the one that focuses best on that most basic of all Jewish traits; the will to survive as Jews against all odds. Take young Boston director Sadia Shepard's "In Search of Bene Israel" , a personalized look at the now tiny community of Jews from the area of Bombay who believe they are descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel, shipwrecked in India more than 2000 years ago. Once numbering 25,000 (among them Shepard's own grandmother), Bombay's Children of Israel now number less than 5000; most having emigrated to Israel and elsewhere. Those who've remained in what is now correctly called Mumbai are steadfast in their customs and identity - they look like Indians, but study in Hebrew, praying and marrying among themselves and maintaining their unique Indian/Jewish culture. Among them, the man called "Uncle David", an elderly peasant who still lives in a small primitive Maharashtra village near Bombay, where Bombay's Jews first settled. There he and his immediate clan follow the ancient Bene Israel tradition of hand-making and selling cooking oil. "I will not leave," he says. "People return and want to see how we once lived, that we are still here." There are even greater odds to overcome. Two other documentaries featured this year, " The Fire Within: Jews in the Amazonian Rainforest" and "About Sugarcane and Homecoming" tells the tales of Jews with actual ancestral roots in Spain who settled in South America and fight to maintain their Jewishness. One group - the Judios Mestizos of the Amazon are the children of Jewish colonist fathers and native mothers. The other, in Northeastern Brazil, believes it is descended from Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in the 15th century, but who still still follow traditional Jewish religion and rites even though it is not recognized by the Jewish establishment. Ethiopian Jewish director, Shmuel Beru, now settled in Israel, offers us "Zrubavel", which pits the Ethiopian Jewish traditions of the older generation of black African immigrants against those of their grandchildren who will certainly remain Jews but want to assimilate with Israeli culture. Moroccan born director Hassan Benjalloun offers a delightful sometimes funny, sometimes sad feature about the early 1960s exodus of Jews to Israel from a small Moroccan village. For the manager of the only bar in town it is time for panic. In Muslim Morocco, non-Muslims are the only ones he can legally sell to! Yet ultimately many attempts to remain Jewish and remain in a native country fail. The most decisive is shown in Canadian Joe Balass's "Baghdad Twist" - a very personal compilation of archival film , home movies, family photos and a faceless interview with his mother who now lives in Montreal where she's never adjusted to the snow. Most of Iraq's 150,000 Jews, descendants of one of the oldest and most important Jewish communities in the Diaspora, left soon after Israel was established in 1948. Balass's parents were among the 14,000 or so who decided to remain - that is until 1967 when the Arabs lost the Six Day War and the Iraqi government began hanging Jews in the street. Still Mother Balass insists "We were Iraqi and we were Jews. We were Iraqi Jews." (The 13th NY Sephardic Jewish Festival runs till February 12th at Sephardic House, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011, tel 212 294-8350, www.americansephardicfederation.org . Some films are being simultaneously shown at the JCC, 344 Amsterdam Avenue, NY and at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, at the Sunrise Cinema at 3701 NE 163rd Street, North Miami Beach, FL 33160)
 
John V. Santore: Obama Isn't Who I Didn't Think He Was. But He Might Be. Top
Recently, I' ve been forced to deal with my own rank hypocrisy concerning the Obama administration. I find myself flying off the handle in all directions, attacking the new team in Washington one minute and defending it the next, praising its critics and then assaulting them for being unreasonable and expecting too much, too soon. The end result is that I'm far more confused about the future of Barack Obama's presidency than I was with Bush's. When George was in office, it was clear that things were bad and going to get worse. It was simply matter of holding on for dear life until the wretched, dark days were over. But with Obama, I find myself hopefully disappointed, waiting for Barack to prove to me that he isn 't the man I didn 't think he was during the campaign, but now think he might be (maybe). Today provided a perfect forum for the muddled analysis that such a frame of mind produces. Frank Rich, who I believe to be the most eyes-wide-open political commentator around, had this to say about the Tom Daschle fiasco: In reality, Daschle 's tax shortfall, an apparently honest mistake, was only a red flag for the larger syndrome that much of Washington still doesn 't get. It was the source, not the amount, of his unreported income that did him in. The car and driver advertised his post-Senate immersion in the greedy bipartisan culture of entitlement and crony capitalism that both helped create our economic meltdown (on Wall Street) and failed to police it (in Washington ). Daschle might well have been the best choice to lead health-care reform. But his honorable public record was instantly vaporized by tales of his cozy, lucrative relationships with the very companies he'd have to adjudicate as health czar. I ended up agreeing with Rich's point and then immediately attacking him. "I don't know why everyone is acting surprised," I said. "We all knew who Obama was before he took office." I was, in essence, mad at Rich for writing an article I agreed with because it criticized an aspect of the President I thought everybody should be familiar with, even though Obama did whatever he could to present an opposing image during the campaign. It's always an interesting feeling to recognize the degree to which your current sentence is contradicting your last one even before you finish saying it. It's rather unnerving, to say the least. While I was on the campaign, I basically held two opposing visions of who Barack Obama was. When talking to a voter, I argued using the same language I now put forth - we know who this guy really is - but to opposite effect: he's with us. I argued that because I believed it. And I believed it for two reasons. The first was that there were indeed some genuine differences between what Obama's policies called for and what other candidates had put forth. The Iraq war was the major one, with Obama being the only candidate who could honestly say that he had opposed the war from the start. I thought that was reflective of a different world view at a time when a new vision of US foreign policy was critical. There was also an entire component of Obama's "power-to-the-people" message, an idea perpetually heard from both Democratic and Republican candidates alike, that simply appeared more honest. On that score, he seemed to be the first mainstream American politician who was systematically linking rhetoric with infrastructure. His campaign was holding training sessions led by actual community organizers - people far too blunt to be political professionals - that featured lessons that nearly knocked me out of my chair. I remember sitting in a Chicago classroom in September of 2007 at "Camp Obama" while life-long organizer Mike Kruglic , who had known the then-candidate decades before he was a blip on the radar screen, spoke about how mad it made him when the poor and bedraggled masses passively accepted their fate, unable to even imagine taking action to change their lives for the better. "Power is good," he said as if speaking to these men and women alone. "Powerlessness is evil." I was shocked. I had gotten behind Obama because I thought he was the most likely candidate to promote progressive policies from the top down. But now, I thought something else entirely was at work. "So that's what this campaign is about," I remember saying to myself. I don't write this flippantly. It was a paradigm-shifting moment that stuck with me every day I was on the campaign, and which always quelled any emerging fears that Obama was a wolf in the people's clothing. But ultimately, my true faith was in the man himself. He is different, I thought. He's had a unique upbringing. He's worldly and uncharacteristically educated. And I simply could not imaging that a black man in America would ever be able to fall in with the same old group of white Washington insiders that every other Democratic nominee seemed to covet once the cameras were turned off. In its own way, that was a prejudiced viewpoint to have - Alan Keys and Michael Steele don't seem to mind that club at all - but it's what I thought. At the same time, I felt as though Obama was basically pushing the same mainstream Democratic platform that I agreed with sometimes - making universal healthcare coverage a priority, for example - and disagreed with at other times - unquestioning military and political support for Israel being one such issue. My concerns were confirmed at different times on the campaign trail. At that same September 2007 meeting, I asked a visiting foreign policy staffer if Obama would rethink the idea of using the "war on terrorism" language and intellectual framework that equated terrorists groups with monolithic armies massing at the border. "Well, we are at war," he said. When Obama had spoken earlier that year about the suffering of the Palestinian people - an objective reality that any honest person should be able to admit without being accused of bias against Israel - he was criticized, and quickly blamed Hamas for that suffering. In the fall, I listened to him justify not supporting a single-payer healthcare system because it wouldn 't be practical to implement right now, and heard him say that calling for an elimination of coal power plants would be a "fight that we would loose politically." He supported increasing the size of the military, not shrinking it. He wouldn 't support gay marriage, arguing for civil unions instead. But through it all, I didn 't have any doubts that the country needed him. The fundamental issue in my mind was that he himself was a different kind of politician, and as a result, his policies couldn 't help but produce real change, which was what the campaign was supposed to be all about. If he wasn 't always pushing the envelope, it was because he was savvy, not spineless. He had a plan to get us to the mountaintop. We just needed to believe, both in ourselves and in our leader. Matt Taibbi is a journalist for Rolling Stone . His obscenity-laced, vitriolic language has always had the sad effect of marginalizing both him and his insights. But it has also freed him from the confines of conventional publications, and hence conventional thought. Covering Obama's campaign, he found himself unimpressed by the message, but having a hard time not believing the messenger. Here is what he wrote about Obama in July of 2008: We've become trained to look for the man behind the mask...But I'm not sure there is a mask when it comes to Barack Obama. It sounds crazy, but he might actually be this guy, this couldn't-possibly-exist guy, inside and out. I heard Joe Lieberman talk about his middle-class dad, I heard Hillary plaster every corner of Pennsylvania with talk about her grandfather's sojourn in the lace factory, I heard John Edwards tell everyone who would listen, and even some who wouldn't, about what being the son of a millworker meant to him, and in every case I could feel the cold hand of political calculation crawling up my shirt as they spoke. Then I hear Obama tell audiences about his grandmother and her time working on a bomber assembly line during World War II. Intellectually I know it's the same thing -- but when you actually watch him in person, you get this crazy sense that these schlock ready-for-paperback patriotic tales really are a big part of his emotional makeup. You listen to him talking about his grandfather waving a little American flag on the Hawaiian beach as he watched the astronauts come in to shore, and you can almost see that these moments actually have some kind of poetic meaning for him, and that he views his own already-historic run as a continuation of that pat-but-inspirational childhood story -- putting a man on the moon then, putting a black man in the White House now... ... When those other guys took this act on the campaign trail, it was obvious they were just reading lines in a bad script. But maybe it sounds different coming from Obama because he actually means what he says, as weird as that would be. The American Dream, after all, is dying. We do need something new. That much is painfully obvious. What's confusing about Obama is that he's so successful at projecting an air of genuineness and honesty, even as he navigates the veritable Mount Everest of fakery ... that is our modern electoral system. And the reason it's confusing is that we've grown so used to presidential candidates who fall short of the images they present in public, we don't even know anymore what a man worth the office would look like. Is this him? Or is this just a guy with a gift for concealing the ugliness of the system he represents? As I watch Obama on the campaign trail, I know I'm listening to the Same Old [Stuff], delivered by a candidate who could cross the Atlantic on a bridge constructed entirely from Wall Street cash culled for him by party hacks and insiders. But I suddenly don't care. It's not just that the alternative is four years of the madman John McCain. It's that, if Obama wins, it will be interesting to find out, at long last, if there really can be something truly different about someone who sounds so much the same. Now, here is Taibbi again writing just over two months ago, reacting to the nomination of Tom Daschle to head HHS and get right what the Clintons tried to do 16 years ago, before anybody knew about the tax problem and the chauffeured limousine: But in picking Daschle -- who as an adviser to the K Street law firm Alston and Bird has spent the last four years burning up the sheets with the nation's fattest insurance and pharmaceutical interests -- Obama is essentially announcing that he has no intention of seriously reforming the health care industry. And I know that lots of public policy people are hailing this pick, saying Daschle is perfect for the job ("His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009," Ron Pollack, the director of Families USA, told reporters), but when they say that I think they mean the following: "Out of all the bought-off Washington whores who could have been given this job, Daschle is the best one. His fake reform will go the farthest in its approximation of actual action than the fake reform of any other possible whore-candidate." Actually that probably sums up the ideological profile of Obama quite well generally -- but that's another story. Here was my reaction to that pick: silence. I knew absolutely nothing about Daschle , except for two unrelated pieces of information. The first was that he was a Senate Majority Leader who lost his seat. This seemed to indicate a lack of fortitude. On the other hand, I had watched him at a campaign stop talking to some local Obama supporters, and he seemed to be a really nice guy. He's probably too nice for Congress, I thought to myself. Honestly. That was what I thought. It turns out that I was 180 degrees off. Tom Daschle loved Congress, and Congress loved him back - or at least, the business of Congress did. Would he have promoted healthcare legislation that was better for America than what George Bush would give us? Almost certainly. Would it have fixed the problem from the bottom up? Well, on second thought, probably not. But why was I so angry at Frank Rich this morning? I was accusing him of being behind the
 
Our Best Days Are Not Behind Us: Daniel Gross Top
The dumb, willfully blind optimists who dominated the late boom have been evicted--and the ardent declinists, the bears and the prophetic historians have moved in. They've come armed with copies of Gibbon and Malthus, and with data. If this is the typical financial-crisis-induced recession, economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff conclude, unemployment could spike to double digits through 2011, and the housing and stock markets won't rebound until the end of 2010. More on Economy
 
Add More Bacon To Your Website (SLIDESHOW) Top
The good folks behind http://bacolicio.us/ have created a way to add bacon to any Website you desire. Just put their url in front of an address to add a crispy strip to its front page. For example click here for Bacon Huffington Post: http://bacolicio.us/http://www.huffingtonpost.com . This has been a strong year for bacon, with the rise of the heart-attack-tempting Bacon Explosion , iheartbacon.com , the bacon man , bacon Hitler , bacon bras , bacon cocktails , and now bacon Websites. Fortunately, the latter will not add to America's obesity epidemic. Enjoy our slideshow below of our favorite sites to add bacon too and please comment with your own! More on Slideshows
 
Senate Stimulus Bill (Full Text) Top
Updated on February 8 The compromise Senate stimulus bill has been entered into the congressional record. It's not available yet as a pdf because it's still being printed and bound. But by reading through the record, you can get an early look at it. Follow this link and find the bill about midway through the page, under section SA 570. (The congressional record doesn't open so well in Firefox -- try Internet Explorer or Safari.) This bill goes on for several hundred pages. When a pdf becomes available, we'll post it here. In the meantime, the Senate Appropriations Committee has released a summary of the new legislation. Here's the link , and we've embedded the document below. Now, we're asking for your help to dig through the new 'compromise' stimulus. Can you spot any significant differences between the original Senate bill -- available here -- and the compromise? Can you find any examples of wasteful pork-barrel spending or corporate giveaways? Tell us about anything that stands out by emailing submissions@huffingtonpost.com , and we'll publish the best finds. SenateStimSummary - Free Legal Forms
 
Katie Couric Interview On CNN: "It's Not A Lot Of Fun Being Pummeled In The Press" (VIDEO) Top
Katie Couric called into CNN's "Reliable Sources" for an interview with Howard Kurtz. They discussed a wide range of topics, including her scoop of a first interview with US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger, her interview with President Obama, and her recent uptick in ratings after more than two years in the anchor chair. Couric, addressing her ratings, said that she doesn't necessarily think that two years is such a long time to get comfortable behind the desk and that she worries less about ratings than the quality of the work. She admitted "it's not a lot of fun being pummeled in the press," but that she does not take it personally: "I think that there are a lot of unhappy, sort of insecure, vitriolic people out there, and I always sort of feel bad for them, that this is how they spend their time." Watch a clip of Couric's interview below. Transcript is below the video. KURTZ: And Katie Couric joins me now by phone from New York. And Katie, we appreciate you calling in. You were so anxious to be on the program that you called in early. We had to call you back. COURIC: Well, I didn't want to be late, Howie. I got nervous, because I've been on the receiving end of late calls, so I didn't want to do that to you. KURTZ: Yes. COURIC: But it's nice to talk to you. KURTZ: Same here. When you sat down with Sully, he seems like such a self-effacing guy. Was he reluctant to take a lot of credit for what he had done? COURIC: Yes, very much so. You know, he is -- I mean, I think you look up "self-effacing" in the dictionary, and it has a picture of Sully Sullenberger. He is extremely humble, extraordinarily modest, and he is very quick to point out that there were five crew members on that plane that day. And in fact, when I asked him about the label of "hero," he said he thought the first responders were the heroes because they were at the ready in about four minutes, all surrounding that plane as it floated in a very surreal fashion on the Hudson River. And he said if they hadn't been there as quickly as they were, it would have been complete disaster. I said, "Yes, but you're the one that landed the plane, and the plane was intact." And, of course, that was an extremely part of the story. But he is extremely understated and humble about the whole thing. KURTZ: And you were careful to include the entire crew, so the program is not just about Sullenberger. COURIC: No. Well, you know, his co-pilot played an important role as well, Jeff Skiles. He had just trained, by the way, Howie, to fly the Airbus 320. And I think that was actually fortuitous, because he was very familiar with sort of the procedures, so as Sully Sullenberger took over the controls -- because it was Jeff's turn. They alternate who flies the plane at any given time when they are on a four-day trip like this. And when he said, "My aircraft," Jeff Skiles said, "Your aircraft," and then proceeded to help kind of go down the checklist for an emergency landing of this kind. And by the way, the flight attendants are fascinating, too, because it's almost as if there were two situations or two separate accidents on that plane. In the back of the plane, it was a much more violent landing. The water was coming through and into the plane. KURTZ: Right. COURIC: And at one point, the flight attendant in the back thought it was over for her. So I think you'll really be interested in the sort of dual accounts inside that cabin. KURTZ: Right, everybody having a different perspective on those horrendous moments. COURIC: Right. KURTZ: Was it difficult to get Sully to talk about the emotions he felt during those pressure-packed moments? COURIC: Yes. You know, I mean, I think he is the consummate professional. He's been an Air Force fighter pilot, he's been flying commercially for 30 years. And I think, you know, he didn't allow himself -- quite frankly, he didn't have the time to indulge himself into any feelings of panic. I think what he said in that clip you ran, and the fact that it was first a feeling of feeling incredulous that this was happening. After that he realized, you know, he had a lot to do. He had to figure out where they were going to land, you know, knowing that LaGuardia and Teterboro eventually would not be possibilities, and then prepare for a landing, a water landing, which is extremely difficult to do. So, you know, he did -- I think he wasn't all that emotional during the process. In fact, at one point I said, "Did you pray at any moment?" And he said, "There were a lot of people in the cabin doing that for me. I had to fly the airplane." KURTZ: Right. You know, even in normal circumstances, I guess, to be a successful pilot, you have to be able to tune out just about every distraction and focus on the job at hand. COURIC: Yes. He said it took enormous concentration and focus to kind of remove those feelings of fear, and obviously he did what he needed to do to get the job done. KURTZ: Right. Right. Now your former partner, Matt Lauer, had announced that "The Today Show" was going to do the first interview with Sully. I don't want to use the word "steal," but how did you lure Sully over to do the interview with you in "60 Minutes?" COURIC: Well, you know, in fairness, I think they might have jumped the gun a bit, because this whole interview -- really, I think maybe Matt was told by one person, but it was really a lot of people involved in the decision-making process, including the entire crew, Sully and his family, the Airline Pilots Association, the flight attendants. There were a couple of people helping them out from a PR perspective. And so we did it like anybody else does these things. We talked to them, we told them we thought that "60 Minutes" was a good venue for them, it was more controlled. And we thought we could craft and produce a really excellent piece. And, you know, I think ultimately they all got together and they made that decision, and that's what happened. KURTZ: Earlier in the show, Katie, we played clips of interviews with the network anchors that President Obama did. You were at the White House this week, talked to the president. Did he seem ready to just admit that he had screwed up on the Daschle nomination? In other words, that it didn't take much prodding on your part? COURIC: Oh, yes. I mean, I think that the administration definitely decided before we even, you know, arrived in Washington that this was going to be a mea culpa moment. I don't think -- when they arranged for these interviews to take place, I think it was designed to really focus on the stimulus package. But then Tom Daschle withdrew at about noon, I believe. KURTZ: Right. COURIC: And the woman from OMB, the deputy director who is going to be head of performance review, she pulled out because of tax issues. And so I think they realized that the focal point of the interviews had changed pretty radically from when they had invited us down to the Oval Office. So, yes, he was very, very quick to say that. The one question I wish I had followed up with -- you know, sometimes you think about these a half an hour later... KURTZ: Of course. COURIC: ... is, when you say, "I'm sorry, I screwed up, I made a mistake," was it a mistake that you actually chose Tom Daschle knowing he had tax issues and you underestimated the impact it would have, or was it a mistake that he hadn't about as thoroughly vetted as he might have been? KURTZ: Right. What is the nature of the mistake. COURIC: So I still think that's a bit of a question mark. KURTZ: I think that's something we need to explore further. You've been getting some pretty good press lately for your work on the "CBS Evening News." You're still in third place, but the ratings have ticked up a little bit. After two and a half years in the anchor chair, why do you think it's taken so long? COURIC: Well, I think by many people's standards, that wouldn't be taking so long at all. I think these things move glacially, actually, and viewer habits are pretty firmly entrenched. KURTZ: Right. COURIC: You know, I know it's been taking you a while for you to get a big audience on CNN. KURTZ: It's taken a little while. (LAUGHTER) COURIC: So I just think it's one of those things that I think, first of all, people had to get used to me in the job. You know, a face that had not been familiar to CBS viewers. And then I also think that, you know, I had to get used to the job, and we had to sort of find the right balance of me getting out in the field and doing interviews, which is what I really enjoy doing, and reporting. And I just think it took a while to sort of be operating on all four cylinders. But Rick Kaplan is doing a fantastic job. I think the show has been really high quality. I was really proud of the show from the get-go... KURTZ: Right. COURIC: ... but I think these things just take time. And that's OK. And, you know, I don't really look at the ratings. I look at the quality of the work. And I really think our newscast is as good or better than any of our competitors, and I'm really proud of the work that all of the correspondents and producers do on a nightly basis. KURTZ: Right. Some of the early criticism, you know, turned kind of personal, and is a woman really right for evening news anchor? And I just wonder whether that was a painful period for you at all? COURIC: I mean, you know, listen, it's not a lot of fun being pummeled in the press. But on the other hand, I've always had enough confidence in my abilities and my work to know that sometimes there are larger issues at work here about the role of women in society and, you know, sort of -- I didn't really take it that personally. I think that there are a lot of unhappy, sort of insecure, vitriolic people out there, and I always sort of feel bad for them, that this is how they spend their time. KURTZ: Right. We're going to put up some pictures of you over the years, and I'm going to ask you whether the you think at all a factor in your recent success could be this new hairstyle. COURIC: I don't know. You know, you should ask Charlie Gibson about how he's changed his part a little bit, or how Brian looks more tan on the air. I really don't know, Howie. KURTZ: While we have you, we're seeing you on "The Today Show." Oh, that's an interesting one. You'll have to see a tape of this. COURIC: I was pregnant. I actually am watching these. KURTZ: OK. You've got the TV on. COURIC: Yes. I kind of like the John King shot of me feeding him grapes the best. KURTZ: Yes. Do you have an explanation for that before we go? COURIC: I don't really remember, but I do remember being over there with John. And he's a great reporter, and I'm so happy for his success. KURTZ: Well, it was so nice of you to treat him royally the way you did. Katie Couric, thanks so much for calling in. COURIC: OK, Howie. Good to talk to you. Bye. KURTZ: Nice to talk to you this morning. More on Video On HuffPost
 
Limbaugh 'Unofficial Leader Of Politically Wounded Republican Party': LA Times Top
As Republicans grapple with their fall from power, not all are comfortable with the talk radio king's suggestion that he, by default, has become the politically wounded party's unofficial leader.
 
Byron Williams: Some of Our Lifestyle Changes Should Have Come Long Ago Top
I was recently forced to purchase a new car. Well, new for me. I also made a personal commitment to drive only when necessary. That said, twice this week I had meetings in downtown Oakland. I rode my bike to the BART station only to find that I was not alone in my new approach; the train was filled with commuting cyclists. Beyond the exercise, not paying for parking lots, or searching for a parking space, which creates the added pressure not to receive a parking ticket, it's simply the right thing for me to do. This seems to be the mode of thinking for many, be it individuals or government. There's nothing like challenging economic times to do what should already be done. We are moving away from a roaring '20s mentality to one that is, dare I say it, European in nature -- Scandinavian at that. I suspect the cause for universal health care has gained some new converts as cascading layoffs have hit those who once had the luxury of opposing "socialized medicine." I'm also certain those in position to do so will save at a much higher rate than in years past. In tough economic times, more restaurants will undoubtedly go the extra mile for customer service. That 5-year-old car in need of repairs now means a person must decide whether it's worth getting a few more years out of that car. Gone are the days of people using their home as an ATM to simply purchase a new one. In a year that credit cards will be used more judiciously, credit card companies are now rewarding those who pay on time for six consecutive months. As we collectively tighten our economic belts, going out to dinner will not be the default it once was when one doesn't feel like cooking at home. The proposed stimulus package, if passed, would put billions into infrastructure projects nationwide. This leads me to conclude when the economy is flush, it's fine to drive through gaping potholes at 65 mph or delay the creation of green jobs. We are seeing a bipartisan coalition of governors from red states and blues states singing in a harmonious key that their state is in dire need of federal stimulus. All of this points to the federal government once again being back in vogue. Heck, it's possible that one can self-identify as a liberal and mention raising taxes without the possibility of paying a political price. The California Legislature may be finally poised to do what voters sent them to Sacramento to do. The possibility of a $42 billion budget deficit means no more fuzzy math to tout a balanced budget; no more passing tough decisions on to the voters under the guise of direct democracy; and no more standing on ideology for ideology sake, tough decisions and compromise is now the order of the day. Many changes that are now happening should have already occurred. The emphasis that many of us now place on reorienting our lifestyles as individuals, and collectively as government, should not have required an economic downturn. Persuaded by fear and uncertainty, we are once again reminded that the economy is a cyclic process. The January employment report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the U.S. economy has shed nearly 3.5 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007, with 2.8 million jobs lost in the last five months. Those who lived through the Great Depression never forgot it. They came out of it having developed careful saving habits and frugality based on never wanting to return to those difficult days. Time will tell if this generation will do likewise. Or will we view an economic recovery as a sign to return to many of those bad habits that felt so good but proved harmful in the long-term? But there are some habits that we have been forced to embrace due to the current economic challenges that we should try to maintain regardless of the economy. Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his website: byronspeaks.com More on Economy
 
Richard Z. Chesnoff: SEPARDIC CINEMA SHINES Top
 

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