[Chinese officials seem to be galled by the apparent hypocrisy of Americans telling them what to do while the American economy is at best stagnant. China, on the other hand, has maintained its feverish growth.
Some officials are promoting a Chinese style of economic management that they suggest serves developing countries better than the American model, in much the same way they argue that they are in no hurry to copy American-style multiparty democracy.
In the last six weeks alone, a senior banking regulator blamed Washington’s “warped conception” of market regulation for the subprime mortgage crisis that is rattling the world economy; the Chinese envoy to the World Trade Organization called on the United States to halt the dollar’s unchecked depreciation before the slide further worsens soaring oil and food prices; and Chinese agencies denounced a federal committee charged with vetting foreign investments in the United States, saying the Americans were showing “hostility” and a “discriminatory attitude,” not least toward the Chinese...
...The Chinese attitude is no doubt bolstered by the lame-duck status of the Bush administration and by the fact that the United States is widely seen as having squandered its political and military leadership during the war in Iraq, which China opposed. Likewise, Chinese officials and state news media have suggested that the relatively quick mobilization of the Chinese Army during the recent earthquake in Sichuan Province contrasts favorably with the Bush administration’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/world/asia/17china.html?sq=china%20us%20regulation&st=nyt&scp=3&pagewanted=print
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Whites only swimming hole
The map below shows Lake Bell which lies between 2 Florida cities steeped in history.
View Larger Map
Eatonville lies to the west and "was the first such town to be incorporated. Zora Neale Hurston grew up there..." and as of 2000 census",,,makeup of the town was 89.31% African American."
To the east lies Winter Park "Winter Park was founded as a resort destination by wealthy New England industrialists before the turn of the 20th century..." and as of 2000, "The racial makeup of the city was 85.90% White."
Winter Park officials want to deny Eatonville right to build boat dock on shoreline within city boundaries.
Before casting this as purely racial, let me add a caveat: Florida leads the nation in stamping out every bit of undeveloped land with concrete, asphalt, and buildings which end the natural interlations within the ecology.
So giving the lady interviewed on tv her due when she said homeowners worried about environmental concerns and not racism, if it were about the natural resources, they would seek to compromise on access rather than seek to ban access by Eatonville.
In Florida, when they say it ain't 'bout race, usually 'tis.
"Winter Park will ask Orange County for control of Eatonville's access to Lake Bell for motorboats or swimming, according to a Monday resolution by the City Commission. The Orange County Commission has held that authority since the school district gave Eatonville a piece of lakefront property in 1997. Winter Park has annexed most of the shoreline and the majority of the lake. Lake Bell homeowners have resisted Eatonville's attempts to build a boat ramp for several years. Eatonville Mayor Anthony Grant said Winter Park has no right to control his town's access."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/winterpark/orl-b3report24_308jun24,0,2598756.story
View Larger Map
Eatonville lies to the west and "was the first such town to be incorporated. Zora Neale Hurston grew up there..." and as of 2000 census",,,makeup of the town was 89.31% African American."
To the east lies Winter Park "Winter Park was founded as a resort destination by wealthy New England industrialists before the turn of the 20th century..." and as of 2000, "The racial makeup of the city was 85.90% White."
Winter Park officials want to deny Eatonville right to build boat dock on shoreline within city boundaries.
Before casting this as purely racial, let me add a caveat: Florida leads the nation in stamping out every bit of undeveloped land with concrete, asphalt, and buildings which end the natural interlations within the ecology.
So giving the lady interviewed on tv her due when she said homeowners worried about environmental concerns and not racism, if it were about the natural resources, they would seek to compromise on access rather than seek to ban access by Eatonville.
In Florida, when they say it ain't 'bout race, usually 'tis.
"Winter Park will ask Orange County for control of Eatonville's access to Lake Bell for motorboats or swimming, according to a Monday resolution by the City Commission. The Orange County Commission has held that authority since the school district gave Eatonville a piece of lakefront property in 1997. Winter Park has annexed most of the shoreline and the majority of the lake. Lake Bell homeowners have resisted Eatonville's attempts to build a boat ramp for several years. Eatonville Mayor Anthony Grant said Winter Park has no right to control his town's access."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/winterpark/orl-b3report24_308jun24,0,2598756.story
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Fuck Tim Russert the "Legend of Journalism"
With all due respect to Mr. Russert as a human being and condolences to his family and friends, the last 2 days of sycophants lauding him with hyperbole better applied to real journalists such as Edward R. Murrow or Jimmy Breslin has made my head explode.
Seriously, has anyone outside the so called So Called Mainstream Media
considered Russert an impartial journalist?
I come not to bury Mr. Russert as an incompetent hack partisan masquerading as neutral obeserver, but to praise him for helping pioneer and build a fact free journalism, which "tolerate[s]lazy, undisciplined reporting, in which careless habits of thought are routinely applied to even the simplest sorts of data."
So throughout the 90's russert insinuated that President Clinton lied but after the Cheney administration invaded Iraq on the basis of lies he failed to rouse himself from his stupour to ask Jr cogent questions during an hour long interview.
Russert served his Republican masters so well that his show, Meet the Press, served as conduit for President Cheney's propaganda and lies.
Jeepers, just search Daily Howler or Media Matters
What doth it profit a man if he gains the world of media elites but loses hi acquaintance with truth?
See you in hell, Tim.
Seriously, has anyone outside the so called So Called Mainstream Media
considered Russert an impartial journalist?I come not to bury Mr. Russert as an incompetent hack partisan masquerading as neutral obeserver, but to praise him for helping pioneer and build a fact free journalism, which "tolerate[s]lazy, undisciplined reporting, in which careless habits of thought are routinely applied to even the simplest sorts of data."
So throughout the 90's russert insinuated that President Clinton lied but after the Cheney administration invaded Iraq on the basis of lies he failed to rouse himself from his stupour to ask Jr cogent questions during an hour long interview.
Russert served his Republican masters so well that his show, Meet the Press, served as conduit for President Cheney's propaganda and lies.
Jeepers, just search Daily Howler or Media Matters
What doth it profit a man if he gains the world of media elites but loses hi acquaintance with truth?
See you in hell, Tim.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Modern Slavery: the greatest shame of Florida
Surely in June 2008, no one lives in slavery in the United $tates of America?
Tell that to thousands of workers freed by work done by Coaliton of Immolakee Workers and federal prosecutors.
[Slavery exists in America. Still. This is the shocking revelation of Nobodies, the tale of author John Bowe's investigation into active slave rings on American soil. It's a discomforting notion, since modern American society has become comfortable with the idea that slavery is an atrocity that exists only in America's past, or in countries where the rule of law hasn't been established...
Bowe exposes modern-day slavery at several U.S. companies in the States and Saipan, and reveals a chilling corporate view--that what is "an embarrassment to modern notions of human rights" is a necessary consequence of free trade. Bowe also posits that more often than not, there is an enslaved worker hunched over a sewing machine or a sun-beaten fruit picker behind every cheap good American consumers enjoy.
Bowe begins his investigation in central Florida, which one former DOJ prosecutor he interviews calls "ground zero for modern slavery." He arrives in 2002, in time for the trial of Juan and Ramiro Ramos, brothers accused of operating a slavery ring in Immokalee, Fla., an agricultural area carved out of the swamps where farm workers pick tomatoes and oranges for such companies as Taco Bell and Tropicana. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District in Florida found the Ramos brothers guilty of conspiracy to hold people in involuntary servitude...]
Irony alert: in 2007. my favorite slave master got 30 years after prosecution by the Department of Justice, a sentence warranted by facts: [the Evans' deducted rent, food, crack cocaine and alcohol from workers' pay, holding them "perpetually indebted" in what the DOJ called "a form of servitude morally and legally reprehensible...
...in 2003. In Florida, Ron Evans worked for grower Frank Johns (query Federal Elections Commission data). Johns was 2004 Chairman of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, the powerful lobbying arm of the Florida agricultural industry. As of 2007, he remained the Chairman of the FFVA's Budget and Finance Committee.]]
Booze, crack, food rent, throw in some hookers, and I'll sign up also.
Seriously, however, only a small percentage of Americans have stamina for the back-braking work of picking tomatoes and getting about $200 a week filling 32 lbs buckets. Show me the anti immigrant ignoramuses like Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanon trying to pick tomatoes for $10,000 to $12,500 per year., and l'll show you heart attacks in waiting. In Florida, businesses have counter attacked with fake emails, misinformation, and intransigence.
Slavery exists in the tomato fields of Florida, a U.S. Senate committee was told Tuesday.
"Today's form of slavery does not bear the overt nature of pre-Civil War society, but it is none the less heinous and reprehensible," Collier County Sheriff's Detective Charlie Frost told Democratic members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. No Republicans attending [sic] the hearing...
Eric Schlosser, an investigative reporter and author of "Fast Food Nation," testified he found it "incredible" that slavery exists in 2008, but "I find it even more incredible that the tomato growers of Florida and some of their largest customers continue to deny that such abuses exist...
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said workers would have to pick almost 3,000 tomatoes to earn $14 and would have to fill and empty their buckets every two minutes.]
West Palm Beach Post, 4/16/08]
Of course, by diking Lake Okeechobee and building "flood control" systems, the state of FL and Army Corps of Engineers created land to grow fruits and vegetetables, and sugar and overbuild in coastal flood plains--y'all paying for it, suckahs--but of course Hoover Dike like "swiss cheese."
Or as Michael Greenwald put it in Why the Everglades is Burning: "Enter my friends in the Army Corps of Engineers, the ground troops in America's war against nature. They built the massive Hoover Dike around the lake, forever cutting off the Everglades from its wellspring. Then they built America's most ambitious flood-control system, with more than 2,000 miles of levees and canals, plus pumps so powerful the engines were cannibalized from nuclear submarines. The project gave water managers power to move almost every drop of rain that fell south of Orlando, allowing them to whisk floodwaters into the lake, the Everglades, or its estuaries for the convenience of thirsty farms and communities that only wanted water when they wanted it.
These waterworks made southern Florida safe for 400,000 acres of sugar fields, as well as one of the spectacular development booms in human history. On the southeast coast, suburbs like Coral Springs, Miami Springs, Sunrise, Miramar, Weston, and Wellington began sprouting west of I-95, paving over the eastern Everglades. And on the southwest coast, Naples and Fort Myers started marching east into the western Everglades." Link found at eyeonmiami.com
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/scorched-hope-for-east-everglades-by.html
So any wonder Florida--courtesy of JEB! Bush and his development cronies--serves as
epicenter for world creit mortgage crisis. http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/search/label/Housing%20crash
Tell that to thousands of workers freed by work done by Coaliton of Immolakee Workers and federal prosecutors.
[Slavery exists in America. Still. This is the shocking revelation of Nobodies, the tale of author John Bowe's investigation into active slave rings on American soil. It's a discomforting notion, since modern American society has become comfortable with the idea that slavery is an atrocity that exists only in America's past, or in countries where the rule of law hasn't been established...
Bowe exposes modern-day slavery at several U.S. companies in the States and Saipan, and reveals a chilling corporate view--that what is "an embarrassment to modern notions of human rights" is a necessary consequence of free trade. Bowe also posits that more often than not, there is an enslaved worker hunched over a sewing machine or a sun-beaten fruit picker behind every cheap good American consumers enjoy.
Bowe begins his investigation in central Florida, which one former DOJ prosecutor he interviews calls "ground zero for modern slavery." He arrives in 2002, in time for the trial of Juan and Ramiro Ramos, brothers accused of operating a slavery ring in Immokalee, Fla., an agricultural area carved out of the swamps where farm workers pick tomatoes and oranges for such companies as Taco Bell and Tropicana. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District in Florida found the Ramos brothers guilty of conspiracy to hold people in involuntary servitude...]
Irony alert: in 2007. my favorite slave master got 30 years after prosecution by the Department of Justice, a sentence warranted by facts: [the Evans' deducted rent, food, crack cocaine and alcohol from workers' pay, holding them "perpetually indebted" in what the DOJ called "a form of servitude morally and legally reprehensible...
...in 2003. In Florida, Ron Evans worked for grower Frank Johns (query Federal Elections Commission data). Johns was 2004 Chairman of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, the powerful lobbying arm of the Florida agricultural industry. As of 2007, he remained the Chairman of the FFVA's Budget and Finance Committee.]]
Booze, crack, food rent, throw in some hookers, and I'll sign up also.
Seriously, however, only a small percentage of Americans have stamina for the back-braking work of picking tomatoes and getting about $200 a week filling 32 lbs buckets. Show me the anti immigrant ignoramuses like Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanon trying to pick tomatoes for $10,000 to $12,500 per year., and l'll show you heart attacks in waiting. In Florida, businesses have counter attacked with fake emails, misinformation, and intransigence.
Slavery exists in the tomato fields of Florida, a U.S. Senate committee was told Tuesday.
"Today's form of slavery does not bear the overt nature of pre-Civil War society, but it is none the less heinous and reprehensible," Collier County Sheriff's Detective Charlie Frost told Democratic members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. No Republicans attending [sic] the hearing...
Eric Schlosser, an investigative reporter and author of "Fast Food Nation," testified he found it "incredible" that slavery exists in 2008, but "I find it even more incredible that the tomato growers of Florida and some of their largest customers continue to deny that such abuses exist...
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said workers would have to pick almost 3,000 tomatoes to earn $14 and would have to fill and empty their buckets every two minutes.]
West Palm Beach Post, 4/16/08]
Of course, by diking Lake Okeechobee and building "flood control" systems, the state of FL and Army Corps of Engineers created land to grow fruits and vegetetables, and sugar and overbuild in coastal flood plains--y'all paying for it, suckahs--but of course Hoover Dike like "swiss cheese."
Or as Michael Greenwald put it in Why the Everglades is Burning: "Enter my friends in the Army Corps of Engineers, the ground troops in America's war against nature. They built the massive Hoover Dike around the lake, forever cutting off the Everglades from its wellspring. Then they built America's most ambitious flood-control system, with more than 2,000 miles of levees and canals, plus pumps so powerful the engines were cannibalized from nuclear submarines. The project gave water managers power to move almost every drop of rain that fell south of Orlando, allowing them to whisk floodwaters into the lake, the Everglades, or its estuaries for the convenience of thirsty farms and communities that only wanted water when they wanted it.
These waterworks made southern Florida safe for 400,000 acres of sugar fields, as well as one of the spectacular development booms in human history. On the southeast coast, suburbs like Coral Springs, Miami Springs, Sunrise, Miramar, Weston, and Wellington began sprouting west of I-95, paving over the eastern Everglades. And on the southwest coast, Naples and Fort Myers started marching east into the western Everglades." Link found at eyeonmiami.com
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/05/scorched-hope-for-east-everglades-by.html
So any wonder Florida--courtesy of JEB! Bush and his development cronies--serves as
epicenter for world creit mortgage crisis. http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/search/label/Housing%20crash
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Florida Follies: Huge Confederate Flag and Shot 68 Times
Nothing to do with a black man getting nominated for President of the United States. just honoring Jefferson Davis' birthday.
Huge Confederate flag is raised early along I-75 and I-4
By Jan Wesner and Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writers
In print: Wednesday, June 4, 2008
TAMPA — Men [missing teeth and of limited mental capacity] driving pickups honked and flashed a thumbs-up sign. One yelled "Hell, yeah!" Another pumped his fist [the 1 not holding the beer] in the air.
Others, though, weren't nearly as pleased at the sight of a Confederate flag the size of a semitrailer truck flying Tuesday high above the junction of Interstates 75 and I4.
"It's huge and it's obnoxious," said Curtis Stokes, president of the Hillsborough County branch of the NAACP.
Organizers building a Civil War monument at the site said last week they hoped to fly the Confederate flag sometime next year. But they raised it shortly after sunrise Tuesday to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America...
"I love it. It's gorgeous," said Tanya Heard [whose white ancestors used to own black people], 27, who lives nearby and pulled over to look up at the flag, along U.S. 92 in the Eureka Springs neighborhood just west of I-75.
The flag, which cost $800, was lowered at sundown and organizers said it won't go up again until the site is officially dedicated...[yesirree Bob, just a damn coincidence]...
Tampa resident Marion Lambert [an ignorant redneck cracker bitch], a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, paid $7,000 for the 0.19-acre site in January 2004. In February 2005, Lambert met with six planners from Hillsborough's Planning and Growth Management Department, who advised him how to prepare an application for a variance to build a monument.
In April 2005, county records show, a land use hearing officer approved Lambert's request for a lighted park with monuments and a flagpole "to commemorate American [and lynching. Jim Crow and segregation] veterans."
But no one in county government asked Lambert which veterans he planned to honor, or how...
While the flag's outline was visible from more than a mile away at some points, it was the view from the southbound lanes of I-75 that took drivers' breath away.
It was suddenly, jarringly there as drivers rounded a bend in the road and crested the I-4 overpass, and just as they came upon the exit sign that says "Martin Luther King Blvd. 1 mile." The flag made [Florida a national laughingstock] this week on CNN and Fox News...
[In an unrelated except in a desecration of what little passes for justice these days]
LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Department of Justice says SWAT team officers didn't use excessive force when they shot the suspected killer of a sheriff's deputy 68 times during a manhunt near Lakeland in 2006.
[68 freakin' times! How dead can you make someone? No trial for this dreadlocked (pic on newscast) cop killing nigra. Why he even shot the police dog! He's lucky we didn't shoot him 168 times.]
Angilo Freeland was the man believed to have fatally shot a Polk County deputy and his police dog. Nine officers fired on the 27-year-old after finding him hiding in the woods the next morning. They say a sudden movement by the suspect caused them to fire.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Sheriff Grady Judd this week saying an investigation had concluded that Freeland's civil rights had not been violated.
Don Brown, president of the local NAACP chapter, says he still believes the number of shots fired at Freeland was excessive. He called it "profoundly disturbing."
Huge Confederate flag is raised early along I-75 and I-4
By Jan Wesner and Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writers
In print: Wednesday, June 4, 2008
TAMPA — Men [missing teeth and of limited mental capacity] driving pickups honked and flashed a thumbs-up sign. One yelled "Hell, yeah!" Another pumped his fist [the 1 not holding the beer] in the air.
Others, though, weren't nearly as pleased at the sight of a Confederate flag the size of a semitrailer truck flying Tuesday high above the junction of Interstates 75 and I4.
"It's huge and it's obnoxious," said Curtis Stokes, president of the Hillsborough County branch of the NAACP.
Organizers building a Civil War monument at the site said last week they hoped to fly the Confederate flag sometime next year. But they raised it shortly after sunrise Tuesday to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America...
"I love it. It's gorgeous," said Tanya Heard [whose white ancestors used to own black people], 27, who lives nearby and pulled over to look up at the flag, along U.S. 92 in the Eureka Springs neighborhood just west of I-75.
The flag, which cost $800, was lowered at sundown and organizers said it won't go up again until the site is officially dedicated...[yesirree Bob, just a damn coincidence]...
Tampa resident Marion Lambert [an ignorant redneck cracker bitch], a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, paid $7,000 for the 0.19-acre site in January 2004. In February 2005, Lambert met with six planners from Hillsborough's Planning and Growth Management Department, who advised him how to prepare an application for a variance to build a monument.
In April 2005, county records show, a land use hearing officer approved Lambert's request for a lighted park with monuments and a flagpole "to commemorate American [and lynching. Jim Crow and segregation] veterans."
But no one in county government asked Lambert which veterans he planned to honor, or how...
While the flag's outline was visible from more than a mile away at some points, it was the view from the southbound lanes of I-75 that took drivers' breath away.
It was suddenly, jarringly there as drivers rounded a bend in the road and crested the I-4 overpass, and just as they came upon the exit sign that says "Martin Luther King Blvd. 1 mile." The flag made [Florida a national laughingstock] this week on CNN and Fox News...
[In an unrelated except in a desecration of what little passes for justice these days]
LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Department of Justice says SWAT team officers didn't use excessive force when they shot the suspected killer of a sheriff's deputy 68 times during a manhunt near Lakeland in 2006.
[68 freakin' times! How dead can you make someone? No trial for this dreadlocked (pic on newscast) cop killing nigra. Why he even shot the police dog! He's lucky we didn't shoot him 168 times.]
Angilo Freeland was the man believed to have fatally shot a Polk County deputy and his police dog. Nine officers fired on the 27-year-old after finding him hiding in the woods the next morning. They say a sudden movement by the suspect caused them to fire.
The Justice Department sent a letter to Sheriff Grady Judd this week saying an investigation had concluded that Freeland's civil rights had not been violated.
Don Brown, president of the local NAACP chapter, says he still believes the number of shots fired at Freeland was excessive. He called it "profoundly disturbing."
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
A new dawn in America; Obama and RFK's dream
In 1968 at the tender age of 10, I saw Julian Bond nominated for office of Vice President of the United States in America.
Little did I know it would take 40 years, a biblical generation, for one of African American descent to achieve nomination for President.
While the electoral map looks favorable and all rationality lines up behind Senator Obama rather than a third President Cheney term--"This is the baseline. Democrats have the money advantage, the issues advantage, and soon, we'll be unified. When that happens, expect this map to improve significantly." (Also from Kos link)--all progressives need to work to heal wounds among factions so as to protect the Constitution and our very liberty.
If the Good Lord were willing, then we will have a President who embodies the vision of Robert F. Kennedy as described in eulogy by his brother, Ted: [ "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.
"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
"Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not."]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg
[During the 1968 Presidential election, Bond led a challenge delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Here, unexpectedly and contrary to his intention, he became the first African-American to be proposed as a major-party candidate for Vice President of the United States. While expressing gratitude for the honor, the 28-year-old Bond quickly declined, citing the constitutional requirement that one must be at least 35 years of age to serve in that office.]
Little did I know it would take 40 years, a biblical generation, for one of African American descent to achieve nomination for President.
While the electoral map looks favorable and all rationality lines up behind Senator Obama rather than a third President Cheney term--"This is the baseline. Democrats have the money advantage, the issues advantage, and soon, we'll be unified. When that happens, expect this map to improve significantly." (Also from Kos link)--all progressives need to work to heal wounds among factions so as to protect the Constitution and our very liberty.
If the Good Lord were willing, then we will have a President who embodies the vision of Robert F. Kennedy as described in eulogy by his brother, Ted: [ "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.
"Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:
"Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not."]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg
[During the 1968 Presidential election, Bond led a challenge delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Here, unexpectedly and contrary to his intention, he became the first African-American to be proposed as a major-party candidate for Vice President of the United States. While expressing gratitude for the honor, the 28-year-old Bond quickly declined, citing the constitutional requirement that one must be at least 35 years of age to serve in that office.]
Thursday, May 29, 2008
ABC spiked stories that conflicted with pro-war propaganda
[On Wednesday night, CNN's Jessica Yellin talked to Anderson Cooper about Scott McClellan's tell-all memoir and agreed with the former press secretary that White House reporters "dropped the ball" during the run-up to war.
But Yellin went much further, revealing that news executives — presumably at ABC News, where she'd worked from July 2003 to August 2007 — actively pushed her not do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration. [See update]
"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.
"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...."
But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?"
"Not in that exact.... They wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces," Yellin said. "They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience."]
WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? THE TRUTH ABOUT BIAS AND THE NEWS
But Yellin went much further, revealing that news executives — presumably at ABC News, where she'd worked from July 2003 to August 2007 — actively pushed her not do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration. [See update]
"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," Yellin said.
"And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time...."
But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?"
"Not in that exact.... They wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces," Yellin said. "They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience."]
WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? THE TRUTH ABOUT BIAS AND THE NEWS
Monday, May 26, 2008
Why hysterical Hillary hate?
Reading political blogs lately, even progressive ones, reveals an extraordinary amount of bile poured out on the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton, akin to what normally describes President Cheney.
Without dog in this fight-perhaps a poor choice of metaphor but I will work for whomever the Democratic party selects--the depth of rhetoric shocks even my jaded sensibilities, coming as it does from bloggers I read regularly like Americablog, sorry Mr. Aravois.
Wih the recent ginned up controversy over HRC's metion of Bobby Kennedy, otherwise normally rational people rushed to claim she should not even use the word "assasination" and equated it to sme racist comment when the selfsame bloggers used it detailing security breakdowns at Senator Obama's campaign appearances.
For the sake of the US constitution in mortal peril under a McCain/Cheney administration, seems to me we ought to tone down the rhetoric, get a beer or other libation of choice, and watch a sunset with no laptop, ipod, 'net connections or other tools of the devil to hand for it occurs instaneous communication breeds excessive vitriol on all sides.
The inimitable Paul Krugman agres with me in his column today, "So what should Mr. Obama and his supporters do?
Most immediately, they should realize that the continuing demonization of Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Also with 2 talented nieces, both of whom I'd like to become US President someday, the conundrum facing succesful women--a take charge female boss gets perceived as a "bitch" while identical actions by a male manager evoke descriptions as strongwilled--makes me fear them someday bumping up against a glass ceiling.
This has a historical context also, perhaps starting with literal witch hunts in Middle Ages when some reports exist of female populations nearly wiped out in some areas.
Please read the Chicago Tribune column in entirety at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-fempower-0518may18,0,4333714.column
[...Revealed in the coverage of Clinton's campaign is the persistence of an ancient and distasteful cultural theme: the powerful, ambitious woman as cackling fiend, as fantastically terrifying ghoul threatening civilization. And because this creature (or "she-devil," as MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called Clinton) is not human, the only solution is to kill it. Not just derail its career—obliterate it. Smash it to smithereens. Vaporize it. Leave not a trace of the foul beast behind.
Hence the appalling preponderance of violent, death-infused imagery in conversations about Clinton, smuggled into otherwise ordinary political discourse like a knife taped on the bottom of a cake plate: On CNN, pundit Alex Castellanos said democrats must realize that "it's time to take the family dog to the vet." Matthews' MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann expressed the hope that "somebody will take her into a room—and only he comes out." CNN's Jack Cafferty gleefully floated the specter of Clinton being run over by a flatbed truck. A recent Tribune editorial compared Clinton to a euthanized Kentucky Derby contender...
One of the most barbaric medical procedures ever performed legally in this country was the lobotomy, and a look at its early history is chilling. As Jack El-Hai recounts in his book, "The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness" (2005), the frightening operation that could leave patients catatonic or dead often was employed as a way to deal with "difficult" women, with wives and mothers who had minds of their own, with willful daughters and headstrong sisters. The message was clear: Do whatever you have to do—but shut her up.
The notion of a powerful, driven, influential woman as a hideous threat—a threat that can be curtailed only with her death—ripples through literature, from the D.H. Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers" (1913), with its protagonist's conviction that he must escape the clutches of his looming, clingy mother if he is ever to realize his destiny, to the 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, with its way-scary female character: the loathsome, larger-than-life Nurse Ratched. The joyless, hulking harridan who wants to keep her patients drugged and miserable so she can control them. From the Furies in Greek literature onward, the women-as-mythical-monsters theme has shrieked, flapped and lurched its way through the arts.
These observations, by the way, have nothing to do with the issue of Clinton's or Obama's continued candidacies. That's a subject to be debated on the editorial pages, not here. This corner is reserved for cultural imagery, for a spirited exploration of the way a shared belief or preoccupation ultimately manifests itself in our entertainment products. Such an idea is like a splinter driven so deep, resting undisturbed for so long, that for a time you may not even be aware of it. Then slowly, slowly, it begins to work its way to the surface. One day, the sharp tip breaks the skin, and you see what's been down there all along, spreading its poison.] emphasis added
So please give my hope for my nieces a chance.
Without dog in this fight-perhaps a poor choice of metaphor but I will work for whomever the Democratic party selects--the depth of rhetoric shocks even my jaded sensibilities, coming as it does from bloggers I read regularly like Americablog, sorry Mr. Aravois.
Wih the recent ginned up controversy over HRC's metion of Bobby Kennedy, otherwise normally rational people rushed to claim she should not even use the word "assasination" and equated it to sme racist comment when the selfsame bloggers used it detailing security breakdowns at Senator Obama's campaign appearances.
For the sake of the US constitution in mortal peril under a McCain/Cheney administration, seems to me we ought to tone down the rhetoric, get a beer or other libation of choice, and watch a sunset with no laptop, ipod, 'net connections or other tools of the devil to hand for it occurs instaneous communication breeds excessive vitriol on all sides.
The inimitable Paul Krugman agres with me in his column today, "So what should Mr. Obama and his supporters do?
Most immediately, they should realize that the continuing demonization of Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Also with 2 talented nieces, both of whom I'd like to become US President someday, the conundrum facing succesful women--a take charge female boss gets perceived as a "bitch" while identical actions by a male manager evoke descriptions as strongwilled--makes me fear them someday bumping up against a glass ceiling.
This has a historical context also, perhaps starting with literal witch hunts in Middle Ages when some reports exist of female populations nearly wiped out in some areas.
Please read the Chicago Tribune column in entirety at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-fempower-0518may18,0,4333714.column
[...Revealed in the coverage of Clinton's campaign is the persistence of an ancient and distasteful cultural theme: the powerful, ambitious woman as cackling fiend, as fantastically terrifying ghoul threatening civilization. And because this creature (or "she-devil," as MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called Clinton) is not human, the only solution is to kill it. Not just derail its career—obliterate it. Smash it to smithereens. Vaporize it. Leave not a trace of the foul beast behind.
Hence the appalling preponderance of violent, death-infused imagery in conversations about Clinton, smuggled into otherwise ordinary political discourse like a knife taped on the bottom of a cake plate: On CNN, pundit Alex Castellanos said democrats must realize that "it's time to take the family dog to the vet." Matthews' MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann expressed the hope that "somebody will take her into a room—and only he comes out." CNN's Jack Cafferty gleefully floated the specter of Clinton being run over by a flatbed truck. A recent Tribune editorial compared Clinton to a euthanized Kentucky Derby contender...
One of the most barbaric medical procedures ever performed legally in this country was the lobotomy, and a look at its early history is chilling. As Jack El-Hai recounts in his book, "The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness" (2005), the frightening operation that could leave patients catatonic or dead often was employed as a way to deal with "difficult" women, with wives and mothers who had minds of their own, with willful daughters and headstrong sisters. The message was clear: Do whatever you have to do—but shut her up.
The notion of a powerful, driven, influential woman as a hideous threat—a threat that can be curtailed only with her death—ripples through literature, from the D.H. Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers" (1913), with its protagonist's conviction that he must escape the clutches of his looming, clingy mother if he is ever to realize his destiny, to the 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, with its way-scary female character: the loathsome, larger-than-life Nurse Ratched. The joyless, hulking harridan who wants to keep her patients drugged and miserable so she can control them. From the Furies in Greek literature onward, the women-as-mythical-monsters theme has shrieked, flapped and lurched its way through the arts.
These observations, by the way, have nothing to do with the issue of Clinton's or Obama's continued candidacies. That's a subject to be debated on the editorial pages, not here. This corner is reserved for cultural imagery, for a spirited exploration of the way a shared belief or preoccupation ultimately manifests itself in our entertainment products. Such an idea is like a splinter driven so deep, resting undisturbed for so long, that for a time you may not even be aware of it. Then slowly, slowly, it begins to work its way to the surface. One day, the sharp tip breaks the skin, and you see what's been down there all along, spreading its poison.] emphasis added
So please give my hope for my nieces a chance.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obma, Woody Guthrie, and "Is this land made for you and me?"
Above quoted from Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land."
["This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 on an existing melody, in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," which Guthrie considered unrealistic and complacent. Tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, he wrote a response originally called "God Blessed America for Me"]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land
When Barack Obama's pastor's sermons got the soundbite treatment from the So Called Liberal Media, they made him look like a raving racist.
Nevertheless, reading and considering excerpts in the historical context he used shows a man concerned with the worth and dignity of all human beings as interpreted through the Bible.
Consider: [...the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on the reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of the racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'?
"No, no, no, not 'God Bless America,' 'God Damn America.' That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human, God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent."]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-wright-transcripts-webmar29,1,5385864.story?page=2
Seriously, can we expect a man named after the prophet Jeremiah to pretend the history of the USA has no moral stains upon it?
i think not. So please at least read the Tribune article before condemning Wright's words.
[The book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, a prophet struggling with and often overwhelmed by the role into which he has been thrust. Jeremiah interspersed efforts to warn the people with pleas for mercy until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people" -- and then sneaks in a few extra pleas between the lines. He engages in what may seem like strange behaviour, but which we might describe as 'acted parables', such as walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention....He was often bitter about his experience, and expresses the anger and frustration he feels.]
["This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 on an existing melody, in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," which Guthrie considered unrealistic and complacent. Tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, he wrote a response originally called "God Blessed America for Me"]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land
When Barack Obama's pastor's sermons got the soundbite treatment from the So Called Liberal Media, they made him look like a raving racist.
Nevertheless, reading and considering excerpts in the historical context he used shows a man concerned with the worth and dignity of all human beings as interpreted through the Bible.
Consider: [...the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on the reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of the racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'?
"No, no, no, not 'God Bless America,' 'God Damn America.' That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human, God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent."]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-wright-transcripts-webmar29,1,5385864.story?page=2
Seriously, can we expect a man named after the prophet Jeremiah to pretend the history of the USA has no moral stains upon it?
i think not. So please at least read the Tribune article before condemning Wright's words.
[The book of Jeremiah depicts a remarkably introspective prophet, a prophet struggling with and often overwhelmed by the role into which he has been thrust. Jeremiah interspersed efforts to warn the people with pleas for mercy until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people" -- and then sneaks in a few extra pleas between the lines. He engages in what may seem like strange behaviour, but which we might describe as 'acted parables', such as walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention....He was often bitter about his experience, and expresses the anger and frustration he feels.]
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Jesus Action Figures
A recent editorial in the West Palm Beach Post by Jac Versteeg alerted me to the existence of Jesus action figures.
My reaction came instantly: visceral and gut wrenching, made me want to picket Wal Mart with a sign reading, "Don't toy with Jesus!"
Nevertheless with a log in my own eye and a judgmental streak a mile or more wide,
it behooved me to step back a bit and consider things in the light of the Lutheran church I grew up in, now gone with a shopping mall on the site, closed in part because members got older and their children left Satellite Beach, Fl because the beach side town has little professional work to offer.
Sure, you can open your own medical practice, but carpenters and mechanics can't afford to live in beach towns.
My church of over 20 years, Trinity Lutheran Downtown in Orlando , FL has a pre-school and a school with grades 1-6 and, perhaps because my father worked and retired as an educator in the pubic school system, has irked me at times trumpeting value of a private education.
Nevertheless if having a parochial school gets kids connected to the Gospel as preached there, if their kids and grandkids keep coming back—like the family of the founding pastor, 4 or 5 generations now, I've lost count—then the school serves a vital purpose: providing lifeblood for the future of the congregation.
So whatever any parent chooses to do to bring up children in the Way ought not bother me, even Jesus action figures.
Yet last year days before Christmas in front of a Orlando Public Library branch in a strip mall on Colonial Drive, a man reached into a garbage can to get a McDonald's wrapper out and ate what remained. The strip mall has Bennigan's and Friday's. To the west lies restaurant row with Barney's Steak House, Chan's Chinese with dim sum on Sat. and Sun and where ethnic Chinese people go to eat, and little further you'll find Little Viet Nam, all to say Orlando abounds with abundance.
Yet this man, not shabbily dressed nor dirty, had to eat garbage because of hunger.
Misconceptions abound about the homeless: all alcoholics, addicts, derelicts, or lazy. Even the term "the homeless" robs human life of dignity, so much so that beating homeless people to death becomes sport around the country, not just Orlando. Presumably these young men, maybe raised in churches, imbued with an all to common view and began to see homeless people as dregs or even subhuman.
Yet every homeless person has a story, a mother and father, a whole life that you cannot divine just seeing present circumstance. Many circumstances cause homelessness, such as the political economy which limits affordable housing and actively works to demolish such sites in the name of development: the Lammar hotel in Orlando (which you can see in the movie Ulee's Gold) and the Orange Court Motor Lodge downtown for example. The working poor, even intact families with 2 wage earners cannot afford 1st and last month rent and security.
"1 in 4 homeless people in the United States are veterans (while veterans make up only 11 percent of the general adult population)."
With the current collapsing of the housing bubble and interest rates resetting on adjustable rate mortgages, the CEO of Freddie Mac, one of 2 government sponsored mortgage finance companies, envisions [ "pictures of people standing with furniture on the lawn " after being forcibly evicted from their homes, Syron said. "As that begins to happen, and it will happen, I am afraid of the impact that this has."](link broken) So soon "the homeless could include humans you know: neighbors, family, friends, maybe even people who've sat next to you in your church.
My great aunt, Helen, the youngest of 8 children all born in Pilot Mountain, NC—yes, a real place you can find on Google Earth and printed maps—told a story of the Great Depression when 2 men came to the door and asked for chores to do in exchange for food. My great great grandmother, Lillie B, went to get a chicken from the ward to slaughter for dinner—in those days that meant lunch and supper meant the evening meal—and told Helen to fetch the good china.
In those days for people of modest means, the good china served as objects of veneration rather than for use eating. Aunt Helen, who may never have touched the good china before then and aghast at using it to serve strangers, exclaimed, "but Momma, you want to use the good china!?"
"Chile, I have 2 boys out on the road now and want them treated as I treat these boys."
So by all means, buy a Jesus action figure to teach your children if you must.
Nevertheless since few would welcome strangers into their house in the 21st century, consider instead donating $20 to your local homeless shelter, maybe give Subway coupons and God's blessings to a homeless person, or even buy food for your local food pantries as they have shortages all over the US.
Please consider what the Lord actually said rather than words of the action figure: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…" (Matthew 25: 35, 36)
Permission granted to disseminate freely as long as author's email, empireofdirt77@gmail.com, and place of publication included.
My reaction came instantly: visceral and gut wrenching, made me want to picket Wal Mart with a sign reading, "Don't toy with Jesus!"
Nevertheless with a log in my own eye and a judgmental streak a mile or more wide,
it behooved me to step back a bit and consider things in the light of the Lutheran church I grew up in, now gone with a shopping mall on the site, closed in part because members got older and their children left Satellite Beach, Fl because the beach side town has little professional work to offer.
Sure, you can open your own medical practice, but carpenters and mechanics can't afford to live in beach towns.
My church of over 20 years, Trinity Lutheran Downtown in Orlando , FL has a pre-school and a school with grades 1-6 and, perhaps because my father worked and retired as an educator in the pubic school system, has irked me at times trumpeting value of a private education.
Nevertheless if having a parochial school gets kids connected to the Gospel as preached there, if their kids and grandkids keep coming back—like the family of the founding pastor, 4 or 5 generations now, I've lost count—then the school serves a vital purpose: providing lifeblood for the future of the congregation.
So whatever any parent chooses to do to bring up children in the Way ought not bother me, even Jesus action figures.
Yet last year days before Christmas in front of a Orlando Public Library branch in a strip mall on Colonial Drive, a man reached into a garbage can to get a McDonald's wrapper out and ate what remained. The strip mall has Bennigan's and Friday's. To the west lies restaurant row with Barney's Steak House, Chan's Chinese with dim sum on Sat. and Sun and where ethnic Chinese people go to eat, and little further you'll find Little Viet Nam, all to say Orlando abounds with abundance.
Yet this man, not shabbily dressed nor dirty, had to eat garbage because of hunger.
Misconceptions abound about the homeless: all alcoholics, addicts, derelicts, or lazy. Even the term "the homeless" robs human life of dignity, so much so that beating homeless people to death becomes sport around the country, not just Orlando. Presumably these young men, maybe raised in churches, imbued with an all to common view and began to see homeless people as dregs or even subhuman.
Yet every homeless person has a story, a mother and father, a whole life that you cannot divine just seeing present circumstance. Many circumstances cause homelessness, such as the political economy which limits affordable housing and actively works to demolish such sites in the name of development: the Lammar hotel in Orlando (which you can see in the movie Ulee's Gold) and the Orange Court Motor Lodge downtown for example. The working poor, even intact families with 2 wage earners cannot afford 1st and last month rent and security.
"1 in 4 homeless people in the United States are veterans (while veterans make up only 11 percent of the general adult population)."
With the current collapsing of the housing bubble and interest rates resetting on adjustable rate mortgages, the CEO of Freddie Mac, one of 2 government sponsored mortgage finance companies, envisions [ "pictures of people standing with furniture on the lawn " after being forcibly evicted from their homes, Syron said. "As that begins to happen, and it will happen, I am afraid of the impact that this has."](link broken) So soon "the homeless could include humans you know: neighbors, family, friends, maybe even people who've sat next to you in your church.
My great aunt, Helen, the youngest of 8 children all born in Pilot Mountain, NC—yes, a real place you can find on Google Earth and printed maps—told a story of the Great Depression when 2 men came to the door and asked for chores to do in exchange for food. My great great grandmother, Lillie B, went to get a chicken from the ward to slaughter for dinner—in those days that meant lunch and supper meant the evening meal—and told Helen to fetch the good china.
In those days for people of modest means, the good china served as objects of veneration rather than for use eating. Aunt Helen, who may never have touched the good china before then and aghast at using it to serve strangers, exclaimed, "but Momma, you want to use the good china!?"
"Chile, I have 2 boys out on the road now and want them treated as I treat these boys."
So by all means, buy a Jesus action figure to teach your children if you must.
Nevertheless since few would welcome strangers into their house in the 21st century, consider instead donating $20 to your local homeless shelter, maybe give Subway coupons and God's blessings to a homeless person, or even buy food for your local food pantries as they have shortages all over the US.
Please consider what the Lord actually said rather than words of the action figure: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…" (Matthew 25: 35, 36)
Permission granted to disseminate freely as long as author's email, empireofdirt77@gmail.com, and place of publication included.
Monday, February 25, 2008
What Krugman wrote
"I’d like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents and would support them in the general election."
[quotes out of order from that in original]
[What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.
During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King...
...I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.
For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.
For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.
For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do. ]
(emphasis added)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html
[quotes out of order from that in original]
[What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.
During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King...
...I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.
For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.
For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.
For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do. ]
(emphasis added)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
"Can't we all get along?"
Subtitled: "Let's pit the wimmens agin the Nigras."
As the Democratic party stands at the treshhold of US history, ready to proclaim either a woman or African/American as candidate for President, one wonders if we stand at the edge of a precipice of internecine party warfare leading to 4 more years of misbegotten misrule by idiots led by John McCain.
Democrats looking to avoid campaign rift.
"The issues party leaders are grappling with, they said, include how to avoid the perception of a back-room deal that thwarts the will of millions of voters who have cast ballots in primaries and caucuses. That perception could cripple the eventual Democratic nominee’s chances of winning the presidency in November, they said."
See, if primary political parnoia hadn't posioned the well, a moderately intellgent kindergartener could probably work out this squabble: Whomever loses the primaries or at the convention becomes Vice President.
Simple, case closed.
Instead you have Douglas Wilder, former governor of Virgina saying on Face the Nation, "...If the super delegates intervene and get in the way of it and say oh, no, there will be chaos at the convention. It does nothing to help the Democrats. And if you think 1968 was bad, you watch; in 2008, it will be worse." page 12 of 15 in the transcript.
In 1968, I watched along with the rest of the world as the 1968 Democratic convention became forever marred by violence, which mayhaps played into Nixon's law and order campaign, playing on visceral fears of isurrection fomented by those dirty hippy communists as well as part of his southern strategy of coded appeals to white southerners.
While governor Wilder's words my constitute a flight of rhetorical flair since his candidate, Mr. Obama, has given $700,000 to campaign coffers of the super delegates, presumably just because they amount o such nice people, the words illustrate a very real possibility of Democrats self destructing in an election year vital to preserving our very Constitution.
Trying to write so that my teenage nieces and pastor can read this (no profanity and few vulgarities) without diasapprobation towards my "Empire," words fail me at this almost literal doomsday scenario.
Maybe paraphrasing FDR works: the only things Democrats have to fear is Democrats themselves.
For God's sake people, Pollyanna aside, practical politics demands comprmise; in Orlando, FL, WESH reported a poll that 31% of Fl Democrats would vote for McCain, presumably the condo commandos from Broward who already feel marginalized by their party.
Bloggers for once have got to quit grinding their axes and promote compromise if no clear winner results from the primaries.
[The Chicago police department responded in a way that could only be characterized as sanctioned mayhem. With billy clubs, tear gas and Mace, the blue-shirted, blue-helmeted cops violated the civil rights of countless innocent citizens and contravened every accepted code of professional police discipline.
No one could accuse the Chicago cops of discrimination. They savagely attacked hippies, yippies, New Leftists, revolutionaries, dissident Democrats, newsmen, photographers, passers-by, clergymen and at least one cripple. Winston Churchill's journalist grandson got roughed up. Playboy's Hugh Hefner took a whack on the backside. The police even victimized a member of the British Parliament, Mrs. Anne Kerr, a vacationing Laborite who was Maced outside the Conrad Hilton and hustled off to the lockup.]http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9609/06/
As the Democratic party stands at the treshhold of US history, ready to proclaim either a woman or African/American as candidate for President, one wonders if we stand at the edge of a precipice of internecine party warfare leading to 4 more years of misbegotten misrule by idiots led by John McCain.
Democrats looking to avoid campaign rift.
"The issues party leaders are grappling with, they said, include how to avoid the perception of a back-room deal that thwarts the will of millions of voters who have cast ballots in primaries and caucuses. That perception could cripple the eventual Democratic nominee’s chances of winning the presidency in November, they said."
See, if primary political parnoia hadn't posioned the well, a moderately intellgent kindergartener could probably work out this squabble: Whomever loses the primaries or at the convention becomes Vice President.
Simple, case closed.
Instead you have Douglas Wilder, former governor of Virgina saying on Face the Nation, "...If the super delegates intervene and get in the way of it and say oh, no, there will be chaos at the convention. It does nothing to help the Democrats. And if you think 1968 was bad, you watch; in 2008, it will be worse." page 12 of 15 in the transcript.
In 1968, I watched along with the rest of the world as the 1968 Democratic convention became forever marred by violence, which mayhaps played into Nixon's law and order campaign, playing on visceral fears of isurrection fomented by those dirty hippy communists as well as part of his southern strategy of coded appeals to white southerners.
While governor Wilder's words my constitute a flight of rhetorical flair since his candidate, Mr. Obama, has given $700,000 to campaign coffers of the super delegates, presumably just because they amount o such nice people, the words illustrate a very real possibility of Democrats self destructing in an election year vital to preserving our very Constitution.
Trying to write so that my teenage nieces and pastor can read this (no profanity and few vulgarities) without diasapprobation towards my "Empire," words fail me at this almost literal doomsday scenario.
Maybe paraphrasing FDR works: the only things Democrats have to fear is Democrats themselves.
For God's sake people, Pollyanna aside, practical politics demands comprmise; in Orlando, FL, WESH reported a poll that 31% of Fl Democrats would vote for McCain, presumably the condo commandos from Broward who already feel marginalized by their party.
Bloggers for once have got to quit grinding their axes and promote compromise if no clear winner results from the primaries.
[The Chicago police department responded in a way that could only be characterized as sanctioned mayhem. With billy clubs, tear gas and Mace, the blue-shirted, blue-helmeted cops violated the civil rights of countless innocent citizens and contravened every accepted code of professional police discipline.
No one could accuse the Chicago cops of discrimination. They savagely attacked hippies, yippies, New Leftists, revolutionaries, dissident Democrats, newsmen, photographers, passers-by, clergymen and at least one cripple. Winston Churchill's journalist grandson got roughed up. Playboy's Hugh Hefner took a whack on the backside. The police even victimized a member of the British Parliament, Mrs. Anne Kerr, a vacationing Laborite who was Maced outside the Conrad Hilton and hustled off to the lockup.]http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9609/06/
Thursday, January 31, 2008
McCain the fabulist and Reagan the liar
McCain campaign ad irony alert: narrator, "Only 1 man didn't play politics with the truth," as video plays of St. John walking and talking with Pres. Raygunz.
If 1 spoke truth, then Ronnie must have lied through his teeth when he told the American people he would not negotiate with terrorists while at the same time his administration personally delivered a birthday cake and a Bible to Ayatollah Khomeini as we illegally sold Iran weapons.
If Ronnie Raygunz ever did meet the truth, he raped, sodomized, decapitated it and then kept the torso for future necrophilia.
But the American people voted for him anyway even after he said in first debate against Mondale that only opposition to dictator Marcos in Philippines and against apartheid in S Africa came from communists, an absurd, fantastical statement.
Nevertheless the media—led by George Will ‘s supposedly neutral commenting on ABC after working as Reagan debate coach—focused on Raygunz “performance”—“there you go again”—rather than the falsehoods he uttered.
That explains how otherwise logical people can vote vote for fact free McCain; they become seduced by emotional impact of words they hear rather than analyze them for factual content.
If 1 spoke truth, then Ronnie must have lied through his teeth when he told the American people he would not negotiate with terrorists while at the same time his administration personally delivered a birthday cake and a Bible to Ayatollah Khomeini as we illegally sold Iran weapons.
If Ronnie Raygunz ever did meet the truth, he raped, sodomized, decapitated it and then kept the torso for future necrophilia.
But the American people voted for him anyway even after he said in first debate against Mondale that only opposition to dictator Marcos in Philippines and against apartheid in S Africa came from communists, an absurd, fantastical statement.
Nevertheless the media—led by George Will ‘s supposedly neutral commenting on ABC after working as Reagan debate coach—focused on Raygunz “performance”—“there you go again”—rather than the falsehoods he uttered.
That explains how otherwise logical people can vote vote for fact free McCain; they become seduced by emotional impact of words they hear rather than analyze them for factual content.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Shame of the Union Speech; St Jr., the dragon slayer
Jon Carrol commenting on Shame of the Union Speech
[(I)n his 2002 State of the Union address that President Bush defined the purpose to which he has been dedicated ever since. "Evil" was his constant point of reference, and he claimed the mantle of one who would end it. America's enemies were an "axis of evil," while America's friend was God, who, Bush told us, was "near."
In such a cosmic moral struggle, normal standards of restraint did not apply. That you could not imagine yet the wreckage of law and decency - torture, wiretapping, concentration camps, treaty betrayals - that would follow from this course does not detract from your obligation to acknowledge that it was openly set by Bush's first statement of purpose. Your bus was being driven by St. George, the dragon slayer. And why should mere rules of the road apply to him?]
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/28/our_one_way_trip_to_disaster/
[(I)n his 2002 State of the Union address that President Bush defined the purpose to which he has been dedicated ever since. "Evil" was his constant point of reference, and he claimed the mantle of one who would end it. America's enemies were an "axis of evil," while America's friend was God, who, Bush told us, was "near."
In such a cosmic moral struggle, normal standards of restraint did not apply. That you could not imagine yet the wreckage of law and decency - torture, wiretapping, concentration camps, treaty betrayals - that would follow from this course does not detract from your obligation to acknowledge that it was openly set by Bush's first statement of purpose. Your bus was being driven by St. George, the dragon slayer. And why should mere rules of the road apply to him?]
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/28/our_one_way_trip_to_disaster/
Monday, January 28, 2008
Krugman agrees with me
[...Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.
This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.
For those who are reaching for their smelling salts because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of what dirty politics really looks like.
No accusation was considered too outlandish: a group supported by Jerry Falwell put out a film suggesting that the Clintons had arranged for the murder of an associate, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page repeatedly hinted that Bill Clinton might have been in cahoots with a drug smuggler...
Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1)...
What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing.]emphasis added
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.
For those who are reaching for their smelling salts because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of what dirty politics really looks like.
No accusation was considered too outlandish: a group supported by Jerry Falwell put out a film suggesting that the Clintons had arranged for the murder of an associate, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page repeatedly hinted that Bill Clinton might have been in cahoots with a drug smuggler...
Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1)...
What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing.]emphasis added
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Guerilla war in Iraq
These ain’t good. First indicates insurgents–can’t we find better description than insurgents,say anti-American forces--in Mosul have started platoon size ambushes of our troops. In a city, they could upgrade to company size: small enough to evade US air strikes but large enough force to inflict casualties.
Second indicates looming failure of strategy unless our Sunni “allies--in quotes because tribal militias will fight in their own perceived interests—can assume some role in police or army.
A revote for parliament give more political influence to Sunni areas.
Roadside bomb kills five U.S. soldiers in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb and then came under small arms fire in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, the U.S. military said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080128/ts_nm/iraq_soldiers_dc_1
By Patrick Cockburn in Fallujah
Monday, 28 January 2008
A crucial Iraqi ally of the United States in its recent successes in the country is threatening to withdraw his support and allow al-Qa'ida to return if his fighters are not incorporated into the Iraqi army and police.
"If there is no change in three months there will be war again," said Abu Marouf, the commander of 13,000 fighters who formerly fought the Americans. He and his men switched sides last year to battle al-Qa'ida and defeated it in its main stronghold in and around Fallujah.
"If the Americans think they can use us to crush al-Qa'ida and then push us to one side, they are mistaken," Abu Marouf told The Independent in an interview in a scantily furnished villa beside an abandoned cemetery near the village of Khandari outside Fallujah. He said that all he and his tribal following had to do was stand aside and al-Qa'ida's fighters would automatically come back. If they did so he might have to ally himself to a resurgent al-Qa'ida in order to "protect myself and my men".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/if-there-is-no-change-in-three-months-there-will-be-war-again-774847.html
Second indicates looming failure of strategy unless our Sunni “allies--in quotes because tribal militias will fight in their own perceived interests—can assume some role in police or army.
A revote for parliament give more political influence to Sunni areas.
Roadside bomb kills five U.S. soldiers in Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb and then came under small arms fire in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, the U.S. military said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080128/ts_nm/iraq_soldiers_dc_1
By Patrick Cockburn in Fallujah
Monday, 28 January 2008
A crucial Iraqi ally of the United States in its recent successes in the country is threatening to withdraw his support and allow al-Qa'ida to return if his fighters are not incorporated into the Iraqi army and police.
"If there is no change in three months there will be war again," said Abu Marouf, the commander of 13,000 fighters who formerly fought the Americans. He and his men switched sides last year to battle al-Qa'ida and defeated it in its main stronghold in and around Fallujah.
"If the Americans think they can use us to crush al-Qa'ida and then push us to one side, they are mistaken," Abu Marouf told The Independent in an interview in a scantily furnished villa beside an abandoned cemetery near the village of Khandari outside Fallujah. He said that all he and his tribal following had to do was stand aside and al-Qa'ida's fighters would automatically come back. If they did so he might have to ally himself to a resurgent al-Qa'ida in order to "protect myself and my men".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/if-there-is-no-change-in-three-months-there-will-be-war-again-774847.html
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Knife fight to save US Constitution
Tie the top three Democratic candidates for president together wrist to wrist to wrist, give each a knife, and let 'em fight 'til last person standing, not necessarily to death like in a spaghetti western
Though an an immodest proposal,
this provides an analogy to the general election where every wingnut, Repuklikkkan, mouthbreathing misanthrope and swiftboating bastard crawls from cesspools of ignorance spewing vile lies, calumnies, and slanders towards the Democratic nominee.
If Democrats and progressives and office seekers all get in a tizzy by media decontruction of candidate's every phrase--"it took a President" and "Reagan's party of ideas"--we distract ourselves from the war to come.
We should agree now on common principles.
I'd suggest 4.
!. Rollback the police state of GWB and consider the Constitution as supreme law of the land by recognizing it includes the Geneva Conventions as duly ratified under Article Six.
2. Reproductive rights.
3. Health care for all.
4. Sunset the Cheney's administation tax cuts for the rich.
We the people must prepare for all out war to preserve our very Constitution.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Though an an immodest proposal,
this provides an analogy to the general election where every wingnut, Repuklikkkan, mouthbreathing misanthrope and swiftboating bastard crawls from cesspools of ignorance spewing vile lies, calumnies, and slanders towards the Democratic nominee.
If Democrats and progressives and office seekers all get in a tizzy by media decontruction of candidate's every phrase--"it took a President" and "Reagan's party of ideas"--we distract ourselves from the war to come.
We should agree now on common principles.
I'd suggest 4.
!. Rollback the police state of GWB and consider the Constitution as supreme law of the land by recognizing it includes the Geneva Conventions as duly ratified under Article Six.
2. Reproductive rights.
3. Health care for all.
4. Sunset the Cheney's administation tax cuts for the rich.
We the people must prepare for all out war to preserve our very Constitution.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Election polls had Dewey winning
Just another reason to hate primary season: breathless reports on polls purporting to place candidates in horce race fashion without mentioning the accuracy margin.
"Obama’s edge on Clinton slipped by two points overnight but remained in double digits, 38 percent to 25 percent, in the rolling poll, with John Edwards gaining two points to climb to 21 percent and inch closer to second place.
Having seen error rates between 3 and 7%, let's use reported number at 5 and look at the place and show possitions in the race,2nd and 3rd: Clinton at 21.4 and Edwards 24.4
How'd they calculate exactly 3.4?
Link from suburbanguerillaand original at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/24/AR2008012401601.html
"Obama’s edge on Clinton slipped by two points overnight but remained in double digits, 38 percent to 25 percent, in the rolling poll, with John Edwards gaining two points to climb to 21 percent and inch closer to second place.
Having seen error rates between 3 and 7%, let's use reported number at 5 and look at the place and show possitions in the race,2nd and 3rd: Clinton at 21.4 and Edwards 24.4
How'd they calculate exactly 3.4?
Link from suburbanguerillaand original at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/24/AR2008012401601.html
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Quote of the day daily double
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
Will Rogers
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Will_Rogers/
Will Rogers
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Will_Rogers/
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