Friday, August 28, 2009

Ted Kennedy Tributes

An American Greek by Bernard-Henri Levy (via Amitava Kumar)
From Silliman's Blog (via a comment from Accidental Blogger)
"In my job at the Committee for Prisoner Humanity & Justice, I managed to arrange an out-of-state parole plan for Lovedahl through the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco, but I still had to persuade the North Carolina political establishment, and especially that pol, that putting Lovedahl on the streets 2,500 miles from home wasn’t going to come back to haunt him. There was only one person I knew who might be able to accomplish this, so I called Ted Kennedy’s office in Massachusetts. Without even once asking “What’s in it for me?” Kennedy made the call, and Lovedahl got his parole. That might have been the end of the story but Lovedahl broke parole – after 20 years in prison, he found Delancey Street’s restrictions hard to take – & headed to Nevada, where he was arrested as a parole violator. An extradition hearing was held, but it was easy for the Wabash County public defender to show that Lovedahl should never have been convicted in the first place. Free so long as he remained in Nevada, Lovedahl stayed there the rest of his life.

I’ve always wondered just how many times over 46 years in the U.S. Senate Kennedy made those kinds of phone calls. He was not only the one senator in 1973 who might have made that gesture, he was also the only one who could have gotten that result. I fear that the same may have been true as recently as last week."

The many sides of Ted Kennedy (from Salon.com):
" Newt Gingrich, Congressman and Speaker of the House (1995-1999). "Clever tactician"

Every conservative should take a lesson from the liberals in the uses of deliberate, sustained, permanent offense. Ever since they became a majority in 1930, the liberals have learned to keep taking as much as they can get in the way of legislation every day. A model for this is Ted Kennedy. Truth to tell, I have grown to respect the way he handles the process. You may not like him or his politics, but it is hard not to take your hat off to the steady, tough-minded, straightforward way he pushes for what he wants. As soon as we Republicans became the majority in the Senate, Kennedy realized he needed allies on the Republican side and began reaching out to them. He never quits looking for new opportunities to expand the government, and he is remarkably skilled at getting Republicans to sign on to bills with him. We on our side are as yet not nearly as tenacious, as firm, as clear about our ends, nor as clever in our tactics as the good senator; and any would-be conservative legislative leader could learn a lot about permanently being on offense by studying his ability to get hit, attacked, dismissed, and smilingly keep moving forward. (Washington, D.C., early 1990s)"

3 comments:

whitecollargreenspaceguy said...

Our hearts and prayers are with the Kennedy family. They and our nation has suffered a great loss.

I have contacted the Waterkeeper Alliance to forward the following policy proposal to Robert F. Kennedy. This policy change could help seal the legacy for both Robert and Ted Kennedy as it could cover the uninsured and also cut the governments carbon footprint by 20% to 50%.
The Government already has the funds to pay for Universal Health Care. It is time to stop the madness and violence at the health care reform meetings.
Using shift work for white collar jobs could cut the cost of the 500 million square feet of office space currently in used by the federal government by up to 50%. This would save enough money to provide universal health care. It could also reduce the carbon footprint by 50%. For details go to:
http://whitecollargreenspace.blogspot.com/


Now featured on http://www.buzzflash.com/ under the heading:
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I believe that when this policy change is adopted by the federal government and the sates, it could have the greatest impact on our society, the economy, and the environment of any other event of Obama's first term. We are looking for a national spokesperson. If adopted by private industry, it would be like finding vast new reserves of oil and metals in the USA, enough to construct as many buildings as we have in the last 150 years. Almost all buildngs can be retro-fitted for the white collar work of the 21st century. It would also stop the giant sucking sound and make American workers competetive again in the global economy. Outsourcing and the movement of our jobs overseas could be reversed. I am working with the unions and environmental goups in Michigan to arrange a meeting with the governor to push this policy change and end the furloughs of state and local government employees.

-It is time to stop the madness at the town hall meetings. The federal government already has the money to pay for universal health care. I have presented my proposal to Michigan congressman, Senators, and governor. Also the Whitehouse, CBO and several environmental groups, unions, and health care advocate groups. I am trying to put together a consortium as the plan will save jobs, save the environment, save money, and provide health insurance. It could have a greater positive impact on the environment than if we could snap our fingers and instantly change every car in the united States into a hybrid

The fact that 50 million of our friends, neighbors, and relatives do not have health coverage is a human tragedy. See www.whitecollargreenspace.blogspot.com for an immediate solution. The government has the money right now to pay for it.
Please post a comment if you do not think this will work or send me an email @ whitecollargreenspaceguy@hotmail.com, if you have questions. Please share this with everybody.

NitinCR said...

Dear Prof Gadde,
I was one of your undergraduate students in algebraic topology in 2003, at UniMelb. What a pleasant surprise to find out that you've been writing a blog! How are you?
Best regards,
Nitin

gaddeswarup said...

Dear Nitin,
Thanks for remembering. I retired in 2005, but still do a bit of mathematics. I felt very ignorant and this blog is a kind of log book and is my way of learning. Pl. let me know your progress; my email:
anandaswarupg@gmail.com