KW: I cringe to say Obama’s name here. Because if I am not angry enough, I get told that I am kissing up to our duopolist President. So, I guess I will say up front: I would never vote for Obama. He is escalating the War in Afghanistan, and I cannot tolerate that.
That said. The man happens to be in the position of President of the United States. So, I guess it is of interest that he held an on-line, Town Hall meeting.
The full text is published at the LA times: here.
In scanning some of my favorite third party and alternative news sources, many have not had time to process and respond yet. One interesting happening: Obama said that he would answer the most popular questions. But, when that turned out to be a lot of questions about hemp and marijuana, he played a game. He acknowledged the questions were there, answered one briefly, and, took a joking dig at the on-line audience that would vote marijuana questions up so high. Typical way for a benevolent patriarch to act – acknowledge the concern, so people don’t explode, but mock it so that you can skip over it.
Here is a story from the UK Telegraph about the marijuana, pot, hemp, cannabis situation:
Barack Obama’s internet ‘town hall’ meeting hijacked by cannabis questions
By the way, if so many people want to explore legalizing pot, maybe someone should consider it?
I watched the Town Hall meeting briefly. I thought that it was an interesting format. And, there was some sense of inclusion. Though, I am sure the people in attendance were highly screened. Obama seems to be a lot smarter and more elqouent than President Bush, though, I do not believe that says much. Obama told those kind of sappy, meaningless stories that waste time from real questions getting answered, and he strung out each question a long time. So, he stayed very, very in control of the conversation.
I only saw a few moments of it, so I do not have opinions on most of what was discussed. I disagree on Obama’s merit pay for teachers idea. I think that it is a horrible idea that will have many unintended consequences. One effect I can think of, is that if teachers know that their pay rests on how high their students score on standardized tests, there will be great incentive for teachers to: cheat on grading tests and/or pressure the heck out of children with test prep instead of real learning.
Filed under: Barack Obama, News, president, presidential, progressive politics, rants, US Politics Tagged: | cannabis, hemp, marijuana, merit pay, Obama, pot, teachers, Town Hall
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