Calling the Question

1. Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast wants to know:  Why does no one in the Democratic Party admit that Alan Grayson was right all along?
   
   Several of the people I read would point out that the Democratic Party, or at least the upper-echelon policy people are in collusion with the plutocrats oligarchs the ruling class Peter O'Toole conservatives to destroy democracy in this country.  It does look like that.  The demonstrated fecklessness and occasional snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory that irritates the parts of Blogtopia (thanks, skippy!) that I visit might encourage belief in the sort of shadowy conspiracy that gladdens the heart of Dan Brown's readers.
   
   However, I don't believe in conspiracy theories.
   
   Look at it this way:  the set of "Democrats" (encompassing people, their beliefs, their voting records, and their stated positions on Issues of the Day) and the set of "liberals" (ditto) overlap.  Overlap largely, even.  But not perfectly.  The sets of "liberals" and "leftists" don't overlap perfectly, any more than the sets of "conservatives" and "fascists," although the differences may not be evident without study.
   
   Large political parties have institutional history and entrenchment working mostly in their favor but also weighing them down.  (This is actually reflected in the symbols; Thomas Nast was pretty smart.  Elephant ponderous; donkey stubborn.  What?)  And a large part of the problem with entrenchment is that any changes -- any changes at all -- are going to be firmly and violently resisted, refused, rejected, and rebuked, if necessary.
   
   (Which sortakinda explains 2008 in that there was enough desperation to get somebody to head the party who actually was interested in winning elections, but also enough negative entropy to dismiss him as soon after the 2008 elections as could be construed as decent.  Strictly my take on it.  Have a saltcellar.)
   
   Some of the entrenched are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, the folks who are nominally members of the Democratic Party who vote with Republicans, like relief pitchers who load the bases with walks when their team is ahead by three runs.  Some of the entrenched have simply been there since -- all right, not since the dinosaurs -- the '70s, which means that they've endured more Republican administrations than Democratic.  Some of them may well be in denial about where the [political] party is.
   
   Ugh.  The conspiracy theory is beginning to look logical.
2. Via skippy, we get a look at Christian fundamentalist homeschooling and how it may be failing children.
3. Also via skippy:  Media consolidation in graphic form.