Saturday Morning Reading

A few things of interest this morning:

1. Did you know that Georgia still has segregated proms? Separate but equal you know, except not really. I think the quickest way to fix this would be for the black high schoolers to crash the white proms. Once white parents predictably overreact and thus demonstrate their racism to one degree another, there will be enough public pressure to change this.

2. More on Obama's "preventive detention" proposal. Thanks, but no thanks. Personally, I don't feel like living in The Minority Report. Either people are planning to commit a terrorist attack, and thus committing a crime, or they aren't.

3. Bob Herbert weighs in on Troy Davis, who is slated to be executed even though there is compelling evidence that he did not commit the crime he is convicted of. When a man can conceivably be put to death despite compelling questions regarding his guilt, it is an indictment of the death penalty in general.

4. The Pakistan Army's offensive against the Taliban in Swat is not going as terribly as was feared it might, but neither are the Taliban proving to be an easy enemy to oust.

5. Republicans are staking their electoral hopes on a desperate wish for Obama to fail, and therefore doing the best they can to avoid dealing with ever-increasing unpopularity of their proposals and any need for party reform.

6. A profile of Leah Ward Sears, the first African-American woman to be Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and potential nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

7. I had a chance to watch the streaming webcast of the Cliburn Competition, which kicked off yesterday. I was very impressed by the fact that their webcast is actually a full-fledged broadcast, complete with commentary, fillers between the performances, and backstage interviews with the competitors. Various camera angles make it easy to watch the competitors as they play, and the sound quality is impressive. The competition continues through June 7th, and you can watch it online here.