Room Eight is closed to new posts. The existing archive will remain up for the immediate future.
If you were a Room Eight writer and would like access to an export of your content, please contact the editor.
This site is not affiliated with or collaborating with any other news or opinion site.
Border Crossings
By Michael Boyajian
All this anti immigrant sentiment spawned by Arizona’s draconian immigration law has nothing to do with illegal aliens but is just fodder for opportunist politicians who want to appeal to the growing base of ignorant American bigots, while providing cover for corporate political donors.
HUGO CHAVEZ (in 2005): “The World has enough for everybody, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ, and of those that expelled Bolívar from here and in their own way crucified him, have taken ownership of the riches of the world, a minority has taken ownership of the gold of the world, the silver, the minerals, water, the good lands, petrol, well, the riches, and they have concentrated the riches in a small number of hands.”
Nevada GOP Senate front runner Sue Lowden takes the idea that chicken soup is penicillin a bridge too far and the chickens come home to roost, and low and behold, the cure is worse than the disease. Sharron Angle And Party Suicide | The New Republic www.tnr.com
I'd vote for a yellow dog or even Lindsay Graham against Jim DeMint, but this guy I'm not so sure about S.C. Dem winner faces felony charge – Jessica Taylor – POLITICO.com www.politico.com
The City of Baltimore, heading for bankruptcy, is trying to retroactively reduce the pensions of police and firefighters with 15 or fewer years on the job. Their unions have fought back with a lawsuit that claims "officials 'knowingly underfunded' their pension plan over the past decade."
"Knowingly." Now there is a word that could be used more often as we head for an institutional collapse. After all, public employee unions knowingly lied about the future consequences of all the retroactive pension enhancements they got in backroom deals with their pols over the past 15 years. They often approved underfunding the pensions as part of the same deals. Those pols also knowingly ran up debts that would obviously lead to a combination of massive tax cuts and service cuts in the future. They knowingly ran up off the books debts by not setting aside any money for the retire health care benefits they had promised, and made those promises unlimited, since they themselves would benefit. And they knowingly failed to reinvest in the public infrastucture enough to keep it from declining, while borrowing a lot for it by overpaying for the work that was done.
Embracing reform is the first refuge of a scoundrel; part one. Skelos On The Coupniversary: They Wanted Power; We Wanted Reform capitaltonight.com
Embracing reform is the first refuge of a scoundrel: game, set and match point. Espada: Coup Sparked ‘Quantum Leap’ in Reform; More Needed | The New York Observer www.observer.com
If he sees an “opening”, Mayor Michael Bloomberg may decide to run for President.
Bloomberg flirted with running as an independent in the 2008 race, and to me, it has become increasingly clear that Bloomberg is itching for a new challenge.
Sure enough, my thoughts were confirmed over lunch recently with a top NY political consultant on Team Bloomberg who said “Bloomberg wants to run.”
Of course under normal circumstances an independent candidacy wouldn’t have much of a chance at all, but these are not normal times, and you already know the rest of the sentence, Bloomberg is not a normal politician.
A Game of Who Is Going To Put the Bell on the Cat
By Michael Boyajian
The New York Times reports that Russia and Turkey met with Iran days before scheduled U.S. led sanction debates at the United Nations. A void has been created in world affairs by the shift in U.S. foreign policy away from militaristic action towards diplomatic solutions.
The Cruelty of the Bonsai
By Michael Boyajian
My wife Jeri and I were at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden many years ago with friends who introduced us to a woman who appeared to be a matriarch of sorts to the gardens. She inquired of all those present if whether we agreed that the practice of Bonsai upon trees was a form of cruelty.
Just in case you didn't know how I felt The First Cousin of Holocaust Denial – International – The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com
As the years have gone by I have come to a simple conclusion: people blog for different reasons; some of which aren’t healthy. This conclusion in itself isn’t profound, but it has been arrived at in some very hard ways, with some inner pain and through a lot of disappointing revelations.
Recently, many people have called me to reiterate something(s) said to me years ago: “Ignore the fools who perpetually attack you on the blogs”. And in my last column I really felt I had finally gotten some kinda closure of sorts; but I was wrong: so let me try one more time.
When I was invited to be one of the original members of Room Eight’s writer’s colony, I was apprehensive. This was primarily because I saw the way the “silly people” (I don’t want to go profane here /as yet) had behaved, on the blog then called “Politicker”.