It is Thanksgiving Eve. From my 2008 piece from this time of year , contemplating the traditions and parts of life that don’t change, in an era when we seem to witness everything changing: When I was a child, Christmas was by far my favorite holiday, for all kinds of reasons — the presents, the tree, almost every house in the neighborhood suddenly strung with lights. Now, seeing the holiday season from the other side of the parenting coin, Thanksgiving seems like Christmas stripped down to the latter’s most essential and enjoyable parts — good food, a quick prayer, and family too long unseen around a table — and missing the parts of our overly commercialized Christmas that I can easily do without: the challenge of finding the right gift, the crush of shoppers, strings of lights emerging from the closet in a Gordian knot, and one too many choruses of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Keep reading this post . . .
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Thanksgiving Reminds Us That Not Everything Changes
At The Economist , ” It requires urgent action on a huge scale. Unless Germany rises to the challenge, disaster looms “: SO GRAVE, so menacing, so unstoppable has the euro crisis become that even rescue talk only fuels ever-rising panic. Investors have sniffed out that Europe’s leaders seem unwilling ever to do enough. Yet unless politicians act fast to persuade the world that their desire to preserve the euro is greater than the markets’ ability to bet against it, the single currency faces ruin. As credit lines gum up and outsiders plead for action, it is not just the euro that is at risk, but the future of the European Union and the health of the world economy. Keep reading . The piece keeps mentioning the “restructuring of debt,” which follows from the fact that some European states simply can’t make good on their obligations, and sovereign default would hammer commercial banks and cause even deeper economic turmoil. But the larger issue is whether EU members deal with the crisis in multilateral fashion or retreat to narrower self-interest, casting off Greece to its own misfortunes, and so forth… RELATED : At New York Times , ” Suddenly, Over There Is Over Here ” (via Memeorandum ).
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How to Save the Euro
AP – Local communities around the country are best suited to take on the challenge of combatting the kind of violent extremism that inspires people to kill, the Obama administration concludes in a new national plan to fight the threat of al-Qaida and other violent radicals at home.
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New White House strategy to hit violent extremism
(AP)
The Christian Science Monitor – Saturday’s radio addresses by President Obama and a Republican legislator offered a preview of the challenge the White House faces next week in restarting stalled talks over raising the federal debt ceiling and averting an August government shutdown.
Continued here:
Obama, GOP radio duel over government debt ceiling
(The Christian Science Monitor)
At Wall Street Journal , ” Unions Lose Their Second Challenge to Walker’s Labor Reforms .” Plus, a lot of action on the ground in Madison, and Althouse has coverage :
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Wisconsin Vindication
School budgets are being cut across the country, but in Texas, some school systems face the challenge of shedding costs while classroom sizes increase.
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Texas Schools Get More Students, Less Money
