Laura Curtis

I’m increasingly discouraged by political developments, and then I remind myself: God is not sitting up in heaven thinking, “Oh crap – the GOP doesn’t have a decent candidate to pit against the worst president in recent history. Whatever will I do?!” In the larger picture, things – even in Obama’s inflationary, debt-ridden, crony-capitalist joke of a budgetless economy – are okay. You know who’s got problems? Somalians have problems.

It’s discouraging, but not really surprising, to have yet another confirmation that Romney’s not going to go to the mat on getting rid of Obamacare.

Is Newt working from the Saul Alinsky playbook?  It’s hypocritical for him to run against the establishment given his longtime establishment credentials, and I do not support class warfare. But the Alinsky techniques work.  My main problem with the Alinsky rules is that the left has routinely used them against us, for decades, and we never respond in kind and have never formulated an effective defense. So I’m heartily enjoying seeing someone on the right “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” And it’s high time we make the left live up to it’s own book of rules.  So if Newt wants to go Alinsky, that’s fine with me – as long as he does so against the left and not people on his own side.

Jon Stewart throws the right a bone from time to time, but he’s also abundantly clear about which side he really works for. Ace sums up Stewart’s clown-nose-on mugging about Romney’s outrageously outrageous income: Straight-Shooter Jon Stewart: I Can’t Believe Mitt Romney Makes $57,000 Per Day That’s So Much More Unbelievable Than My Own $41,000 Per Day

Yes, that certainly is shocking – I can see why Stewart has his panties in a wad over the sheer decadence of it.  Even more shocking is how many people watch his show as a substitute for the news. Oh wait – it’s really not any more biased than network news, is it?

Everyone’s (and by everyone, I mean the left) is shocked to pieces about Romney’s 15% tax rate. I think 15% is ample – in fact it’s 5% more than we give to the church – but now everyone who’s stressed about it can stand down.  The WSJ calculated Romney’s actual rate, and it’s 44.75%.  There. Feel better now?

Here’s an interesting career track for you: Megadeath bassist –> Lutheran pastor.  This is old news, but along those lines, Queen guitarist Brian May branched out into astrophysics.

More on the Megaupload story – and of course, it’s political.  If Ayn Rand were alive, she’d be laughing hysterically right about now.

And in alt-universe news of the day, Obama corroborated Breitbart’s claims about Nancy Pelosi’s insider trading.  Evidently he is so determined to run against Congress he is willing to throw his own people under the bus.

Okay, break’s over, back on my head…

Someone asked me,  ”What do you think about the recent GOP political twists?”

I replied, “I think about binge drinking.”

So I’m ignoring it all for the time being and taking a Star Trek break – watching The Captains on Netflix.

[NOTE: This has been drastically edited from the original post. I left to go to a wedding and instead of hitting save I hit Publish. Doh!  But as an antidote to all the distressing, depressing political news, here - have a positive, inspiring story about a kid who is doing something remarkable.]

I’ve posted a couple of times about “Windmill Guy” William Kamkwamba.  His new children’s book is out!  The book looks great – nice art, and of course Kamkwamba’s story is incredible for readers at any age. From his blog:

After my primary education, I was accepted at and began secondary education in Malawi. I began first form (equivalent to a high school freshman in America) and took two trimesters out of three. After the second trimester, I was forced to drop out of school because my family and I did not have enough money to pay the school fees.

I was out of school for five years.

Our family is poor like many families in Malawi and Africa, and as a result, we have no electricity in our village or my home. For many years we had only paraffin candles to light my home at night. They are expensive, smoky, smelly and have to be purchased about 8 km from home.

During that time I decided to try to get as much education as possible by reading as many books as I could find. An organization called the Malawian Teacher Training Activity (MTTA), a project of USAID contributed a large quantity of books to the primary school library near my home. I read many of them.  One of the books I read was called Using Energy, a primary school textbook about how energy is made. Inside the book there were plans for a windmill. I decided to build a windmill to provide power for my family.

(Here’s his book for adults.)  So at 15 years old, he built a windmill out of scrap parts, including a bicycle frame. Then another, larger one.  People started talking, journalists came out and did a story on him, and funds were raised so he was eventually able to go back and finish high school.  These days Kamkwamba is here in the United States. He is a sophomore at Dartmouth and has an NGO called Moving Windmills which is improving the lives of many people in Malawi.  Here’s a short film, which is being expanded into a full documentary, about William.

I just love his story – how he overcame adversity, worked hard and creatively and made something that is generating wealth for himself, his family, and his town… it just keeps spreading.

(And for more positive info on Africa, don’t forget the documentary, Africa – Open for Business, which powerfully illustrates that the continent houses, in addition to thatched huts and starving babies with distended bellies, modern cities with high rise buildings and thriving stock exchanges.)