African Perspective on African Commission

by Rio Flores on December 31st, 2005

I thought this was an interesting point of view from a Ugandan radio journalist on the results of the African Commission. I disagree with some of his notes, but will have to write about that later. The radio broadcast can be found here (real player needed - sorry).

Paying for Boomers’ Excesses: A Pretext to Dismantle Social Security?

by Rio Flores on December 30th, 2005

I came across this interesting transcript from the BBC, discussing how Gen-Y will wind up paying for the excesses of Baby Boomers and questions how willing they will be to continue to do so.

While I believe the problem in the UK is more acute, I wonder if in the U.S. the Republicans could eventually use this as a pretext to finally dismantle the New Deal. They might try to use this issue as their “in” to the younger generation, right when the Republican base would be aging into oblivion.

I guess we’ll know in 10-20, or maybe even 30 years.

Do Blacks fault the President more for Katrina because they’re Black?

by Rio Flores on December 27th, 2005

Shortly after the Katrina disaster, a number of news organizations (including CNN) noted that African-Americans disproportionately believed race and poverty were factors in the slow response and distribution of aid. Salon even alluded to it in a recent war room post (toward the bottom). While the previously mentioned CNN polls numbers were higher*, the following Newsweek poll has results more typical of similar such polls.

These results appear quite striking, but take a look at the following:

Notice that about 48% of Democrats say race and poverty are a factor as do 53% of Non-whites? Also remember these surveys have a MOE of 3%. When we recognize that approximately 90% of African-Americans identify as Democrats, one begins to question where the cause and effect relationship lies. Are Non-whites responding as they do as a more direct result of their race or because of their political beliefs?

P.S. I’m a Democrat. This is in no way intended to question the political views of a minority population, but instead question the numerical analysis of news organization that would eagerly sensationalize information to boost ratings, even at the risk of reporting inaccuracies.