9/29/2009 - cultured pearl |
At one point or another, we all have to cultured pearl admit to ourselves that bikers - with their gritty leather jackets, imposing motorbikes and gothic biker jewelry - represent everything our repressed hearts secretly desire. The appeal of running loose, going anywhere you wish is universal, transcending age, race and gender.
What makes good, law-abiding, peace-loving boys and girls suddenly get the burning desire to jump on their Harley Davidsons and hit the road? Bikers are all about the S&M image, the leather and studs. Images of tough guys or Harley babes come with the territory. Perhaps it is because being a biker represents the ultimate release, the act of running wild and running free, able to pearl necklace flaunt your own style and live on your own time. Who wouldn't want to imagine themselves as kings and queens of the road, the visions of complete independence that would otherwise terrify many of us?
The imagery adopted by most bikers reflects their attitude. When they ride together, on a biker rally or biker week, they identify themselves and their group affiliations by the things they wear. Some of the pearl earrings larger groups fashion their insignia and wear them as logos on their clothing, or as pins and other forms of jewelry to place upon their person and belongings.
In general, bikers know each other by the "look" they project. And biker jewelry is a vital part of this "look." Reject convention, change for no one, never compromise - these are important mottos to bear in mind when you want to achieve the perfect biker image.
Most of the time the appropriate jewelry takes on gothic themes, like skulls, crossbones, snakes, roses with bloodied thorns... and many of us can't help but admit that these could be rather sexy. The goth look, combining themes of sex and death, comes with its own appeal. A school of the pearl strand goth style even advocates the liberal use of jewelry, such as piercings and rings, to further the death metal image. Most of the time, this jewelry is delicate and complemented with black clothing, such as black leather, which is rather staple biker wear.
But biker jewelry distinguishes itself from being strictly "goth" by being made of thick material. This gives it a definite masculine look. Often it features a combination of leather and steel, the two essentials of the "born to be wild" image, which dates as far back as James Dean and the other motorcycle-riding heartthrobs of Hollywood. The ongoing theme is "the larger the pearl beads better," which comes with the biker creed of not caring what people think as long as you know you look good.
Biker jewelry comes in different flavors. Gold is rather popular in some circles. White gold goes well with most anything, especially dark colors. Wings and stars are other popular motifs, as well as other things that speak of a truly American way of life.
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9/29/2009 - silver pearl necklace |
Custom hip hop jewelry is the ultimate expression of the hip hop style because it is really all about customization and personal style. Rap lyrics beginning from the 1980s have been customized and improvised to silver pearl necklace fit the local cultural scene so why not jewelry? In order to understand this type of custom jewelry we need to understand its origins. Because many rappers came from humble beginnings, wearing this type of jewelry was like obtaining a symbol of success. Jewelry has always been a status symbol, but with rap artists, basic jewelry just wasn't enough. The jewelry was symbolic as a reminder of how far they had come and they wanted everyone to know it.
This started the trend of large, over the top iced out jewelry and the re-emergence of jumbo dookie rope chains from the 1980s. Again, this was not about the jewelry being big and loud just for the sake of showing off. It was rather about being a symbol of the journey of hard knocks and the trials and tribulations one had to endure to reach the point of success and also to coral necklace let others know of your accomplishments. The most popular form of jewelry that symbolized this is the custom iced out pendant.
The larger than life iced out pendant is the centerpiece of any hip hop jewelry collection. It is usually a personalized piece that is a one of a kind design made specially for the person. This receives the most attention as it is usually set to dangle right at the center torso, the very center of turquoise necklace your body. Jewelers are able to make these very unique designs when it comes to pendants because they have more scale to work with. The design is made to be substantial and heavy with any design you wish with the metal and gemstones of your choice.
It can become quite a creative work of art worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many may recall an ad that aired a couple years ago where Snoop dogg is in a recording studio with many recording artists in their own private recording booths and he can't find his customized pendant so he walks around and stops by David Bowie's recording booth and motions to silver pearl necklace David through the soundproof glass asking if he's seen his pendant. David shrugs his shoulders as if he hasn't seen it. Then as Snoop walks on in his search David smiles as he slowly unzips his jacket to reveal Snoop's massive bejeweled personalized pendant resting on his torso. If this isn't an overt plug for massively personalized and customized jewelry then I don't know what is. It signifies the heights that this generational attitude has reached as a commercially important part of popular culture in all its manifestations including customized jewelry.
Custom made rap pendants also referred to as dog tags incorporate various symbols of masculinity and accomplishment. As in the case of Snoop Dogg, his pendant has his name "Snoop" spelled out in diamond and gemstone studded letters. The design can be as simple as that or it can incorporate crosses, dragons, dollar signs, skulls and bones, gang symbols and other symbols into the akoya pearl necklace overall design. These symbols in various combinations and styles can be designed into one piece for a particular artist's own expression of individuality much as tattoos can be fine works of art crafted as an expression of a person's past or his/her aspirations.
Custom designed rap jewelry has come a long way with new themes and motifs introduced into classic designs but with a new twist. The skull and bones look for instance has become quite popular in rap culture as well as in the motorcycle gang world. For artists it is a symbol of their toughness in enduring the rough streets, tough childhoods and daily violence that they grew up with. It symbolizes where they came from and reminds them of who they are and so this theme regularly shows up in the different interpretations that are seen in custom designed jewelry. Custom hip hop jewelry can be seen as another important mode of hip hop artistic expression that is both wearable and conveys instant recognition to the wearer.
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9/29/2009 - cultured pearl jewlery |
Companies looking for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, invariably approach SEO companies, individuals and other entities with a solitary goal - to make their companies Number One against particular search terms that they specify to the search engine optimizers. In their quest for Numero Uno status, they fail to realize the significantly more important value of cultured pearl jewlery using the right keywords. For instance, if yours is a company that sells jewelery online, and you are Number one on the search string, "Mickey Mouse", it is highly unlikely that your Number one status on that particular search term would be of any use to you. Therefore, before you embark on a particular SEO campaign for your company, think about the goals that you wish to achieve through the entire exercise. Think way beyond just attaining Number one status on a particular set of keywords, even if they seem relevant.
For instance, pay heed to the conversion rates of the visitors, as well as their relevance to your business. To elaborate, suppose you have got the keyword sets right. Continuing the above example, you have managed to pearl necklace wholesale attain Number one status on the keyword search string "Pearl Jewelery from India", whereby you happen to be actually selling pearl jewelry from India. Are you actually analyzing the visitor pattern of your website? Perhaps, the profile of your visitors in such a case, is that they do come by your website, but eventually do not make a purchase. You need to analyze the reasons behind such unexpected and undesirable (at least from your point of view!) customer behavior. Perhaps the design or the look and feel of your website is not impressive enough for pearl earrings wholesale them to actually make a purchase. Perhaps your credibility, as perceived through your website, does not seem strong enough for visitors to fulfill their purchase plans.
There is also the possibility that your 'Privacy Policy' does not seem strong enough. Perhaps your purchase form is so long and elaborate that your prospective customers feel daunted to go through with the purchase. Last, but not the least, you may either not be providing adequate payment options to customers or the security on your website may not be strong enough for customers to feel secure with their data. As you can see, the possibilities are endless, and in pearl strand wholesale quite a few of them, SEO has simply nothing to do. Therefore, it is critical that you pay heed to all the numerous factors that may be dissuading sales on your website, and not look at SEO as the sole savior and enabler of all the online sales that you wish to make.
Yet another factor that I have observed many companies ignoring is the relevance of the search engines to the geographies where they intend to be selling. For instance, in China, being Number one on Google may not be very useful, where the 'Baidu' search engine is far more popular. Similarly, for many other non-native English speaking countries where international search engines may not be as popular as the local ones. At the same time, you must have your pulse on biwa pearl your prospective clientele completely; there could also be the possibility that visitors coming in through Baidu may not be as strongly likely to make a purchase as those coming in through Google, in China. In this case, even with a smaller gross number of visitors, visitors coming in through Google would warrant much more attention as they would be the ones with the much needed purchasing ability and willingness.
Therefore, consider all of the numerous factors surrounding visits to your site, and the ensuing sales on it, before you embark on an ambitious SEO plan.
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9/29/2009 - freshwater pearl earrings |
Companies looking for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services, invariably approach SEO companies, individuals and other entities with a solitary goal - to make their companies Number One against particular search terms that they specify to the search engine optimizers. In their quest for pearl pendant Numero Uno status, they fail to realize the significantly more important value of using the right keywords. For instance, if yours is a company that sells jewelery online, and you are Number one on the search string, "Mickey Mouse", it is highly unlikely that your Number one status on that particular search term would be of freshwater pearl earrings any use to you. Therefore, before you embark on a particular SEO campaign for your company, think about the goals that you wish to achieve through the entire exercise. Think way beyond just attaining Number one status on a particular set of keywords, even if they seem relevant.
For instance, pay heed to the conversion rates of the visitors, as well as their relevance to your business. To elaborate, suppose you have got the keyword sets right. Continuing the above example, you have managed to attain Number one status on the keyword search string "Pearl Jewelery from India", whereby you happen to be actually selling pearl jewelry from India. Are you actually analyzing the visitor pattern of your website? Perhaps, the profile of akoya pearl necklace your visitors in such a case, is that they do come by your website, but eventually do not make a purchase. You need to analyze the reasons behind such unexpected and undesirable (at least from your point of view!) customer behavior. Perhaps the design or the look and feel of your website is not impressive enough for them to actually make a purchase. Perhaps your credibility, as perceived through your website, does not seem strong enough for visitors to fulfill their purchase plans.
There is also the possibility that your 'Privacy Policy' does not seem strong enough. Perhaps your purchase form is so long and elaborate that your prospective customers feel daunted to go through with the purchase. Last, but not the least, you may either not be providing adequate payment options to customers or the security on your website may not be strong enough for customers to pearl strand feel secure with their data. As you can see, the possibilities are endless, and in quite a few of them, SEO has simply nothing to do. Therefore, it is critical that you pay heed to all the numerous factors that may be dissuading sales on your website, and not look at SEO as the sole savior and enabler of all the online sales that you wish to make.
Yet another factor that I have observed many companies ignoring is the relevance of the search engines to the geographies where they intend to be selling. For instance, in China, being Number one on Google may not be very useful, where the 'Baidu' search engine is far more popular. Similarly, for many other non-native English speaking countries where international search engines may not be as popular as the local ones. At the same time, you must have your pulse on pearl beads your prospective clientele completely; there could also be the possibility that visitors coming in through Baidu may not be as strongly likely to make a purchase as those coming in through Google, in China. In this case, even with a smaller gross number of visitors, visitors coming in through Google would warrant much more attention as they would be the ones with the much needed purchasing ability and willingness.
Therefore, consider all of the numerous factors surrounding visits to your site, and the ensuing sales on it, before you embark on an ambitious SEO plan.
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9/20/2009 - An Anglo-Balkan moment |
NOTHING of global importance has happened in the straggling mountain village of Brezna, in northern Montenegro, except once. On a single day in August 1944, this neglected and scruffy place won a place in the annals of world conflict. It was the centre of shell pearl jewelry a great moment of synergy between Britain and Yugoslavia¡¯s communist-led partisans.
Imagine the scene: wave after wave of Dakota aircraft swooping through a canyon to land at an improvised airstrip, fashioned from a stony field only days earlier by local women, children and old folk. With Nazi forces advancing rapidly on the shell jewelry valley and British Spitfires desperately trying to draw German fire, the transport planes evacuated about 1,000 wounded partisans in a matter of hours. Each aircraft took 25 minutes to wish pearl load, and carried some 35 passengers. The whole thing required seamless co-ordination between Britain (or, more precisely, the multinational ¡°Balkan Air Force¡± which British officers had formed a couple of coral jewelry months earlier) and the resistance forces under the command of Josip Broz Tito.
This month a group of British diplomats and military officers went back to Brezna to commemorate the event along with their new friends in the government of Montenegro, which has been an independent country since 2006. Philip Lawson, a Suffolk farmer now in his late eighties, returned to turquoise jewelry the place where, as a young flight lieutenant on a secret mission, he had spied out a potential airstrip and encouraged the local people to scythe the fields and remove the rocks. ¡°Just doing my job,¡± he recalled, as grizzled partisans of a similar vintage warmly embraced him.
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And in a display of contemporary co-ordination, there were parachute drops, aerial aerobatics and folk dancing. A monument to the landings, hewn out of local rock, was unveiled by Boro Vucinic, Montenegro¡¯s defence minister. It was, some said, the least he could do: the recent creation of a civilian-led defence ministry (a new concept for post-communist states) was also thanks to some quiet British help.
Yet some recall the Brezna landings less fondly. Survivors of the rival resistance movement, the royalist Chetniks, still seethe over Churchill¡¯s preference for the more effective communist partisans. (A pragmatic choice, the Brits said, though royalists blamed a secret Kremlin hand in British policy.) And the roughly one-third of Montenegrins who mourn the demise of Yugoslavia mainly remember Britain¡¯s role in bombing them during the Kosovo war in 1999.
This ceremonial remembrance of silver pearl jewelry heroic derring-do more than half a century old says something about Britain¡¯s search for Balkan allies today but perhaps more about Britain¡¯s view of itself as a fighting nation. If there is one thing at which its diplomats and soldiers instinctively excel, it is celebrating its own great military feats. They know what to remember and what to airbrush out.
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9/20/2009 - Ready for his close-up? |
EVERY good student of politics knows what happened in the American presidential race of pearl necklace 1960. An experienced and formidable vice-president, Richard Nixon, was expected to defeat the young Democratic contender, John F. Kennedy. That is, until their televised debate, in which JFK looked calm and sweetly reasonable, Nixon sweaty and shifty. People who listened to the debate on the radio scored it for Nixon; but television viewers went for pearl jewelry wholesale Kennedy, and he won the election.
Gordon Brown is an excellent student of politics (the American kind in particular); and that precedent may partly explain why he has hesitated to agree to the sort of trial by television that Tricky Dick flunked. Yet Britain looks increasingly likely to hold its first televised debates among prime ministerial candidates during the general-election campaign due to wholesale pearl jewlery start shortly. Sky News has said that it will stage one with or without Mr Brown. If he fails to turn up, he risks being represented by an empty chair.
The idea has been mooted before. William Hague, then leader of the Conservative Party, was keen to debate Tony Blair in 2001. The prime minister refused. Despite Mr Hague¡¯s quick wit, Mr Blair might have come off well; but since he was heading for a landslide victory anyway, he saw no reason to gemstone jewelry take the risk. The situation now is, in a way, the reverse: David Cameron, the current Tory leader and odds-on favourite to win the next election, has agreed to the debate, as has Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats. Only Mr Brown, perhaps concerned about his younger opponents¡¯ telegenic advantage, has sounded sceptical (though his position has now softened into something like ¡°we¡¯ll talk about it later¡±).
It is amazing that, in 2009, Britain is still debating debates. They are rarely quite so transformative as the Nixon/Kennedy clash. But a live showdown might help to excite a worryingly apathetic electorate. And the arguments trotted out against debates are weak. One is that Britons technically vote not for pearl jewelry party leaders but for individual MPs (though lots of people can¡¯t name their representative). Another is that the main contestants already face each other every week in Parliament at prime minister¡¯s questions (which is usually rowdy and infantile).
Mr Brown¡¯s stance is part of a broader reticence to engage with the public that helps to explain why his ratings have sunk so low. His experiments with new media, such as a famously absurd appearance on YouTube, have not always been successful. Yet taking on Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg might soften his aloof image. So as well as being good for the country, the debate, if and perhaps when it happens, might even be moderately good for Mr Brown.
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9/20/2009 - Nowhere to hide(two) |
All this fed suspicions that the British government had struck a deal with Muammar Qaddafi¡¯s regime, agreeing to put pressure on the Scots to pearl earrings release Mr Megrahi in return for continued good relations with the oil-rich and strategically important country. Correspondence between London and Edinburgh offered further grounds for freshwater pearl jewelry doubt. Jack Straw, the British justice secretary, who initially supported Scottish ministers in wanting to pearl jewelry wholesale exclude Mr Megrahi specifically from any prisoner-transfer deal with Libya, failed to secure the exception. He reminded Mr MacAskill in December 2007 of the ¡°overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom¡± in concluding negotiations on the prisoner-transfer agreement (PTA). In February 2008 he pointed out to Mr Salmond that Libya was ¡°one of only two countries to pearl jewelry have ever voluntarily and transparently dismantled its weapons of mass destruction¡±.
There is no proof of explicit lobbying from London, however (and in the event Mr Megrahi was not transferred under the PTA). On September 2nd Mr Brown emphatically denied that he and his colleagues had either twisted Scottish arms or struck a tacit bargain with Mr Qaddafi. And though it would be a brave government that made the cultured pearl case publicly, raison d¡¯¨¦tat may have justified the release in a way that compassion did not. After all, British lives would have been risked had Libya reverted to backing anti-Western terrorists. And Libya has reportedly provided much useful intelligence.
Less forgivable would be abusing the trust of an ally, as some suspect the government has. In 1998 Britain agreed with America, which lost 189 citizens over Lockerbie, that anyone convicted of the atrocity would serve his sentence in Scotland. The Americans had argued this year to freshwater pearl London and Edinburgh that shipping Mr Megrahi back to Libya under the PTA, signed in April, would breach that commitment, which the British had come to regard as a mere ¡°political understanding¡±. Some also wonder whether British ministers, while indicating to the Libyans that they did not wish to see Mr Megrahi die in Scotland, were saying something else to the Americans. Mr Miliband denies this.
Mr Brown has inherited the British-Libyan rapprochement engineered by Tony Blair. Even if he was happy for Mr Megrahi to be transferred, that is not the same as actively working for his release. And though they talk a good game, it is hard to be sure that the Conservatives would really have put principle over Libya¡¯s immense commercial and strategic value. In short, there is a reasonable case in defence of Mr Brown. If only he had made it earlier.
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9/20/2009 - Nowhere to hide(one) |
GORDON BROWN has disappeared at moments of political crisis before, but rarely has crisis been so determined to pearl jewelry wholesale find him. The controversial decision last month to release from prison on compassionate grounds the cancer-stricken Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the Lockerbie airline bombing of 1988, was initially a problem for pearl jewelry Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill. The first minister and justice secretary, respectively, of the devolved Scottish government that let the Libyan terrorist go remain embroiled in its aftermath (see article). But attention has inexorably crept south and settled on the question of pearl jewelry wholesale just how and how much the British government was involved in the case.
Mr Brown¡¯s five-day silence on Mr Megrahi¡¯s release was broken on August 25th when he deplored the rapture in Tripoli that greeted the killer of 270 people. To the astonishment of freshwater pearl jewelry those opposed to the release, including the main opposition parties in Westminster and the American government, he did not say whether Mr Megrahi should, in fact, have been set free, noting that such matters were exclusively the business of Edinburgh.
But events have filled the gap. On September 1st Edinburgh and London released hundreds of documents pertaining to Mr Megrahi. Libyan officials, seeking Mr Megrahi¡¯s transfer to a prison in their country, claimed to have warned their British counterparts that bilateral relations would suffer were he to die in a Scottish jail. By way of reply, a British minister told the Libyans that neither Mr Brown nor David Miliband, the foreign secretary, wanted such a death but that the matter was for the Scottish authorities to freshwater pearl decide. On September 2nd Mr Miliband confirmed that this had been the message. Later that day Mr Brown grudgingly let it be known that he respected the decision to release Mr Megrahi.
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9/20/2009 - Back in the saddle again |
GUIDED by tabloid headlines, the British reserve a special contempt for ¡°barmy Brussels bureaucrats¡±. If a new Whitehall plan works out, more of those Eurocrats will be British in the pearl jewelry future (and thus, with luck, less barmy). Later this month, the civil service will begin accepting applications for a resurrected ¡°European fast stream¡±, a special career track designed to pearl pendant plant bright young Britons throughout the European Union¡¯s administrative machinery.
Candidates with good French or German will be trained in government departments with a strong EU bent, from the Foreign Office to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They will be given EU-related postings and a six-month internship at the pearl necklace European Commission. Their training will include coaching for the EU institutions¡¯ fearsome concours (recruitment tests). Ten graduates will be chosen each year.
This decision ends a disastrous period during which Whitehall gave the impression of hoping the EU would go away, if it were ignored long enough. The original European fast stream was founded under a Conservative government in 1991. In its heyday it recruited 30 high-flyers a year. In 2007 it took in just three graduates before being suspended. At the time, its closure was described as ¡°insane¡± by one top Eurocrat, and as ¡°great news for the rest of pearl earrings us¡± by a diplomat from another country. The problem was lack of interest back home. Whitehall departments discouraged their best people from applying for stints in Brussels, it was said, seeing the EU as a nuisance at best.
Britons currently fill almost one in ten top commission jobs: not bad for a country with 12% of the EU¡¯s population. But many of those Euro-mandarins are nearing retirement. Lower down the career ladder, the British vanish from view. In July Britain¡¯s permanent representation to the EU compared the nationality of all commission officials with the population of their home countries to wholesale pearl jewelry see who was over- or under-represented. With 837 out of nearly 13,000 posts analysed, Britain came 26th out of 27 member countries. Only Romania was worse off. France was marginally under-represented, but did almost twice as well as Britain.
The rewards are subtle, insiders say. British officials are less quick to regulate, and can give advance warning of tricky proposals. In negotiations, they are understanding of quirks. Diplomats in Brussels recall an occasion when Britain was seeking to ease emissions rules for tractors that haul lifeboats up British beaches. Buoyancy aids leave no room for fitting catalytic converters, and there are only 30 tractors, Britain¡¯s man at the table pleaded. The commission representative opposite him was also a Briton¡ªthe exemption went through.
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9/19/2009 - Health-insurance reform and race |
THIS post is guaranteed to playground equipment provoke a lot of rejectionist comments and to get us absolutely nowhere in the substantive debate over health-insurance reform. On the other hand, it's definitely not a horserace post. But let me just toss this out there: It seems to me that if America gets universal health insurance passed under its first black president, that will not be entirely coincidental.
Welfare state institutions are, in general, weaker and less generous in America than in other liberal democracies, particularly European ones. A common analysis of the weaker formation of welfare state institutions in America ascribes it to the division of working-class political coalitions by race. One way of phrasing this is that racial antagonism in America made it harder to adopt welfare-state programmes. Another way of phrasing it is that in the age of inflatable bouncers European imperialism, racial solidarity on the part of the home-state citizens against their subjects in the colonised territories made it easier to adopt welfare-state programmes.
It's certainly impossible to examine the history of the New Deal or Great Society without looking at the effects of racial politics, particularly in the South. And that has been true of national health insurance as well. Harry Truman's integration policies helped quash his efforts to pass national health insurance in the late 1940s: "Truman's linking of civil rights and health insurance in his 1947 State of the Nation address and his appointment of a high profile integrationist to lead his administration's health care reform exacerbated southern fears that a national program would challenge the racial segregation of health services in the naughty castles South," writes Gerard Boychuk in his paper on why health insurance, which was pretty similar in Canada and America in the 1940s, took such a different path afterwards. In the 1960s, legislative battles raged over the 1964 Civil Rights Act's desegregation requirements and the new Medicare and Medicaid programmes. In 1966 John Stennis, a racist Democratic senator from Mississippi, came close to getting an amendment passed that would have allowed states to give Medicare funds to segregated hospitals. (Tensions over the Medicare integration battle ran high enough that Dr Jean Cowsert was assassinated in 1967 for trying to enforce race-neutral hospital admissions in Mobile, Alabama.) Looking ahead to the 1990s, Bill Clinton had a game machines pretty easy time putting together a coalition to end welfare. Putting together a coalition for universal health insurance... not so much.
This is not to say "opposition to universal health insurance is racist." That's not at all true. But in debates over social welfare questions, people's attention and sentiment is drawn very quickly to the question of who is part of our community (and thus eligible for benefits), and who isn't (and is thus freeloading). This is true in Europe too, where political consensus over national welfare policies is eroding as immigrant populations increase. And in America, you can see it in the centrality of the issue of illegal immigrants to opposition to health-care reform. You can see it in the impromptu discussion Al Franken had with constituents at the Minnesota State Fair a few weeks back, where a middle-aged white man leaps to swing machines an irrelevant question about immigrants, and Mr Franken becomes visibly annoyed. Or in Joe Wilson's strange outburst during Barack Obama's speech last week: a white politician from South Carolina yelling at a black president that he was lying when he said his universal health-insurance plan would not benefit illegal immigrants.
What is encouraging here is that Joe Wilson did not accuse Mr Obama of wanting to provide universal health insurance for drug dealers, pimps, welfare queens, or some other euphemism for blacks. There has been a distinct absence, in this debate, of the kind of coded black-white racial tension that was used to defeat welfare-state initiatives as recently as the early 1990s. (Remember "midnight basketball"?) It seems likely that this is because those tensions have ebbed. There are fewer and fewer white Americans who define their imaginary community as exclusive of blacks. There are still a few whack jobs running around with signs depicting Barack Obama as an African witch doctor. But for the most part, the same trends that allowed Mr Obama to get elected last year have sucked the black-white (if not the anglo-hispanic) racial angle out of the health-insurance reform debate. Whether or not a universal-health-insurance bill passes this year, that is a sign of hope.
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9/16/2009 - The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners |
For a distinguished example of pearl jewelry local reporting of breaking news, with special emphasis on the speed and accuracy of the initial coverage, presented in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to The New York Times Staff for its swift and sweeping coverage of a sex scandal that resulted in the resignation of freshwater pearl beads Gov. Eliot Spitzer, breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports.
nytimeslogo.jpg
New York Times Staff
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University (left), presents the 2009 Breaking News Reporting prize to (l-r) Danny Hakim, William Rashbaum and Joe Sexton of The New York Times.
Finalists
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: the Houston Chronicle Staff for taking full advantage of online technology and its newsroom expertise to white pearl become a lifeline to the city when Hurricane Ike struck, providing vital minute-by-minute updates on the storm, its flood surge and its aftermath; and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Staff for its creative and aggressive coverage, both online and in print, of a city hall shooting that left six people dead, displaying an exemplary blend of speed and rigor in its reporting.
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