The other day I came across a piece in Bloomberg by an Economist named Kathleen Camilli entitled: "Bush's New Deal Needs Economic Literacy."  I have been feeling down about it ever since.
Camilli loves Bush's bold new ideas, including social security etc, but she says he's going to have to reeducate the public in order to sell it.

Here's how she describes bush's new deal:

more specifically, here's the new deal:

If the MSM won't let go of Dean's scream, maybe we should make the most of it.  

How about if we all start screaming to show our solidarity?  

Collective screaming has had great force in history and cutlure.

There's the rebel yell, which was the war cry of the Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. It scared the bejesus out of union troops, and let them know the rebels were itching for a fight. According to one online dictionary "the Rebel Yell, along with the mystique of the invincible rebel soldier, aided the Confederate armies greatly. . . . . Union soldiers described it as a sort of swirling discordant scream that grew louder and more horrible as the attackers approached. " Kind of fits here....

Last monday, I wrote a diary questioning the role of fundamentalism in the recent rash of grusome child killings.  

An AP story out today suggests the family of Dena Schlosser is raising similar concerns.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Severed-Arms.html.

Schlosser's step father is mental health professional, who summed it up nicely:
 ``I don't think there's any question that what we saw happen here is postpartum psychosis.  But that doesn't mean there aren't dynamics in force to push the person toward the psychotic break.''

Salon has a story today about the Alabama desegregation vote.  http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/30/alabama
It reports some disagreement about whether the vote shows white citizens of that state are racist, or dumb, or anti-tax or all of the above.

Wouldn't it be great if Michael Moore (or someone else) could get in there like Moore did in Bowling for Columbine and say "what went on here?"  Someone who's willing to pull loose threads like Moore did and not look for easy answers.  Use the question as a stepping stone for a broader analysis of whether the white south has shed its racist past.  I bet the answer is (like in columbine) nuanced and not that simple.

On November 22, 2004, Dena Schlosser of Plano Texas cut the arms of her eleven month-old daughter.  When police arrived they found baby Margaret dying in her crib.  Margaret's blood soaked mother sat listening to the hymn "He Touched Me."  In a conversation with her husband the night before, Dena Schlosser quoted scripture and said she wanted to "give her children to God."

Earlier this year, Deanna Laney from New Chapel Hill Texas, killed her eight and six year old sons by bashing their skulls in with rocks.  She said that God told her to kill her children.