TresSugar

Say What? Nancy Reagan Gets Spooky

TresSugar — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:08:46 -0700

"It sounds strange, but . . . I see Ronnie. At nighttime, if I wake up, I think Ronnie's there, and I start to talk to him. It's not important what I say. But the fact is, I do think he's there. And I see him."

- Nancy Reagan, in a Vanity Fair interview speaking about missing Ronald Reagan and seeing his ghost.

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Which Former First Lady's Memoir Piques Your Interest?

CitizenSugar — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:30:46 -0800

Yesterday news broke that First Lady Laura Bush has signed on to pen a memoir with Scribner, the house of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Laura's mother-in-law, Barbara Bush. The book is currently untitled, but scheduled for release in 2010, and it's unclear what type of secrets she will reveal. Memoirs are somewhat of a right of passage for former first ladies - Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush and Nancy Davis Reagan have each written one. Is there one you find particularly alluring?
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Front Page: GM Goes Bankrupt Owing $172 Billion

TresSugar — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:00:43 -0700

General Motors has filed for bankruptcy today. The company says it owes $172 billion.- New York Times
An Air France flight traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board vanished over the Atlantic. - Huffington Post
Twilight dominated the MTV Movie Awards last night. - PopSugar
Microsoft has launched its new search engine, Bing, earlier than expected. - PC World
In a new interview, Nancy Reagan discusses her lovely conversation with Michelle Obama. She also says that President Obama snubbed her when he didn't invite her to the White House to celebrate the reversal of Bush's stem-cell research ban. - Vanity Fair
It's official: Octomom Nadya Suleman and her children will star in a reality show. - San Francisco Chronicle

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Just Like Reagan's Kids! Obama's Girls Are Featured in People

CitizenSugar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:00:42 -0700

The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh? This week in history, waaaayyy back in 1980, then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's children were featured in People magazine - fast-forward to 2008, and while Obama is in Israel meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his plans for containing the nuclear threat from Iran and building peace in the Middle East, his daughters are getting their time in the mag.

In the Reagan kids' profile (which has a hilariously vintage feel) daughter Patti scandalously admitted to the question of whether she would vote for her dad, "gee, uh, I don't know - maybe I wouldn't vote for anybody. I'm really kind of antipolitical. I just get the newspaper and turn to the comics." Gee? Too good. In the profile, Patti, 27, was living at home "until I can find a new apartment."

Michael on the other hand was fully engaged as a campaigner for his dad, despite that his age (35) made his dad look ancient - and scandalous with his blended family. He said, "I suppose it makes Dad look old, having older children. Headquarters may feel it's embarrassing if Maureen and I are in the forefront, and the real kids [the two by Nancy] are not. Sometimes I've felt like I was fighting to volunteer."

And this! After talking about Ron's love of ballet, the piece included the quote from dad, "he's all man-we made sure of that," and the article goes on to say, "in fact, young Reagan seems thoroughly heterosexual." Oh, 1980. You're so cute!

All in all, it's kind of a shock to see how unmuzzled the kids were during the campaign - not produced in the least.

Though the Obama girls are decidedly younger than their Reagan predecessors, they gave out the goods, too. To see what they said, read more.

The magazine said that the girls have a "youthful zeal" and "manners" and though there was no talk of ballet; Sasha takes tap and gymnastics to Malia's soccer and drama.

They have to make their own beds, mom says, "doesn't have to look good, just throw the sheet over it," and the big rule, "no whining, arguing, or annoying teasing." Moooooooommm! What fun is that?

For chores, the girls get $1 a week, which dad has to pay back wages on sometimes, "I'm out of town for weeks at a time, so Malia will say, 'Hey you owe me for 10 weeks.'" All in all, Obama says the girls "have a wonderful life in Chicago. So I'm sure there's a part of them that won't be heartbroken if things don't work out."

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Fightin' Words: What's the Polite Way to Say "War on Terror"?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:30:06 -0800

"An enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism." (Wordy!) "Go after." (Bush-esque.) "Ongoing struggle." (Lacks confidence.) "Win this fight." (Aggressive?) "Twilight struggle." (Sad, geriatric.)

President Obama's national-security team has been brainstorming a more precise (or nice?) phrase to describe the war on terror. What's the problem, besides the uncomfortable word "war?" Terrorism is a tactic, not an identifiable enemy, and it's considered inaccurate because it cannot be won by military means alone. In the parlance of Nancy Reagan's war on drugs, it's like saying the "war on syringes."

The White House says there's no official ban on the mutual use of those three words, but President Obama has only uttered them once (in a speech to the State Department) since inauguration. One administration official admitted they were looking for something a little more hopeful.

Considering the phrase "war on terror" is thought to have rallied terrorists, even President Bush shied away from it in the end. To find out what alternatives Bush used, read more.

Bush turned to the "war against violent extremists" in the final years of his presidency, which surely assuaged all the "violent extremists" out there. At least he never tried to call it "My Struggle."

But that wasn't the first attempt the Bush administration made on the war on terror's livelihood. The State and Defense Departments tried to rename it the "Struggle Against Violent Extremism," otherwise known as SAVE. And Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department officially adopted the acronym GWOT for the "Global War on Terror." Not surprisingly, the media never latched onto any of these, and until it does the "war on terror" it is.

What a struggle! (Which, BTW, I nominate.)

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Laura Bush's Rumored Advance Looks Small Next to Hillary's

CitizenSugar — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:00:58 -0800

Outgoing First Lady Laura Bush is said to have received an advance of $1.6 million for her memoir, which is scheduled for release in 2010, though sources say it could be more. Though it seems like a large number, the sum is far below the rumored $8 million that Hillary Clinton received from Simon & Schuster for her eventual bestseller, Living History. The check is in line, however, with the $2 million Nancy Reagan and Laura's mother-in-law Barbara Bush were said to have received for their memoirs.

Yesterday 32 percent of CitizenSugar readers said they were interested in Laura's story, while 44 percent said they were more interested in Hillary's. Could it be no one expects Laura has a dirty story to tell, or is she simply perceived as less of a public figure and political powerhouse than Hillary?

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Who? Guess the New Secret Service Names

CitizenSugar — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:37:23 -0800

Nancy Reagan was Rainbow. Ronald was Unicorn. Joking! He was Rawhide. Hillary was Evergreen, and Bill was Eagle. And now the first and second families have their very own not-so-secret names. Why so transparent? Electronic communication now encrypts data so they're really just a throwback to another time. But as fun as ever! See if you can match the Secret Service name with the person in my quiz.

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Is the War on Drugs Being Waged From the Wrong Battlefront?

CitizenSugar — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:51:03 -0700

Just consider me Mary Poppins this morning: a little sweet Prince William to help the War on Drugs go down. The Prince is on the front lines of the battle - the warship the Prince is serving on just seized $80 million worth (almost two tons) of cocaine from a speedboat just north of Barbados.

William's ship is patrolling the waters of the West Indies looking for drug runners, and this score came early on in their mission. The ship's commanding officer said, "to have had a direct impact on the flow of cocaine into Europe just four days after we arrived in theatre shows the benefit the Royal Navy can have in the area of maritime security and counter drug operations."

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Sounds like Prince William is saving the world from drugs, right? Well, the war is a little more complicated than that - and we may be focusing efforts at the wrong stage of drug production to make any difference. To see what I mean, read more.

Though Prince William's seizure, and the White House both tout big coke scores as evidence the war is being won, other numbers paint a different picture.

A more expanded look at the data shows that cocaine use in the US isn't falling: the same percentage of Americans used coke in 2006 as they did in 2002, the number of high-school seniors using is growing, and drug shipments are up. Shipments have grown 39 percent from 2006 - that's enough to film a scene in Scarface for sure. Not to mention that drug related violence is sweeping through Mexico and Latin America; drug cartels are not scared of this "seize the powder" battle plan.

How could the war be fought more effectively? With less focus on the product (sorry William) and more focus on who's making it, and who's consuming it.

Spending more money on programs to wean coca farmers from the crop and while improving their lives is a start. By shelling out less money for security and policing, and more for economic development and a strengthening Mexico's judicial system, we could turn off the faucet at the tap, instead of bailing out the bathtub.

Where else? Focusing on the people in the tub. By expending more effort into curbing demand, emphasizing the treatment portion of the punishment for offenders, increasing education, and treating drug addiction more of public health problem than a law enforcement problem the customer base can be curbed.

Hey, I've seen The Wire and Nancy Reagan's guest appearance on Diff'rent Strokes - this War on Drugs thing is complicated. But focusing with a laser-intensity on the beginning of the supply, and the end user of the demand - we could make that giant pile of coke in the middle, just disappear.

What do you think? Is this war winnable?

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Should Stations Be Required to Present Diverse Viewpoints?

LibertySugar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:00:47 -0700

The House of Representatives will most likely not debate a Republican proposed bill to outlaw the "Fairness Doctrine." The FCC stopped using the Fairness Doctrine, which attempted to ensure equal airtime for different perspectives on controversial issues, during the Reagan Administration. Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Tuesday that Democrats would rather revive the federal policy of forced evenhandedness.

Critics of the Fairness Doctrine argue that it violates the First Amendment. Instead of facilitating complex debates, equal opportunity resulted in no opportunity for controversial discussions. Some of Speaker Pelosi's opponents worry that if the doctrine is revived, this chilling effect would extend to commentators like Rush Limbaugh. Small stations, which cannot afford a counter to Rush, would simply not talk about tough issues.

Should the Fairness Doctrine be put to rest, as there surely is no lack of space in the radio and cable television sphere? Can we rely on the viewers to judge a station's bias - and how bias is too bias?

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