Quote of the Day: AFL-CIO champions equality for gays

Commenting on today's One Nation rally, Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, said: "It's about jobs and the fact that we need jobs now. At the same time, we do not ever back away from being a part of a broader coalition that supports the rights of all people, no matter their race or sex or gender or sexual orientation, to be treated fairly."

Awesome Woman: Gerda Lerner

Today's AWESOME WOMAN is GERDA LERNER (b. 1920), a founding pioneer of the fields of Women's History and African-American History. She is currently a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. She wrote the screenplay for Carl Lerner’s film Black Like Me in 1966.

Prior to her work, women figured in history books and courses only for their ritual status as defined by a patriarchal society (wives of Presidents), as spoilers (witches of Salem), or for their sacrifices and caregiving (Florence Nightingale). Even when portraying women who had contributed tremendously to society's advancement and consciousness-raising (Sojourner Truth, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt), the radical substance of their work was routinely ignored.

At graduate school at Columbia University in 1963, Lerner defied her mentor's objections and chose to write her dissertation on the Grimké sisters, 19-century Quaker educators and social activists. She taught what is considered to be the first women’s history course at the New School for Social Research in 1963, and helped to develop Women's History programs at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University and other institutes of higher learning.

Beyond developing the critically important fields of study of Women's and African-American History, Lerner also contributed a new, rich paradigm for researching history by organizing her work around principles that would illuminate the lives of her subjects, focussing on the experience of people as opposed to using the patriarchal historical framework of military actions, alliances, wars, and territorial domination. For example, for her 1972 book "Black Women in White America," Lerner traveled throughout the South, visiting churches, schools and families.

Gerda Lerner was born in Vienna, Austria and was forced by the Nazis to leave her country of birth for the United States. She had to learn English and held a series of "typical women's jobs" before moving along into her life of political and intellectual trail-blazing, and also of creativity. She married Carl Lerner, a Communist theater director, and in addition to her activism and scholarship she also collaborate with Eve Merriam a musical called "Singing of Women", and she wrote the screenplay for the important film "Black Like Me".

Lerner not only made an immediate difference in communities and politics, and not only established and legitimized the study of women's and blacks' experience, but she improved forever the way we look at history and raised the bar for authors and teachers who have come after her.

[My Awesome Woman posts were first written for and published to a closed Facebook group, and are republished here.]

D'oh of the Day

Foreign profits of U.S. firms could help at home, economists say: "As policymakers desperately search for ways to give the sputtering economy a jolt without deepening the nation's budget deficit, some economists say an answer lies with the more than $1 trillion in U.S. corporate profits that reside overseas."

Feel-Good Friday: The Dog and the Orangutan

[Thanks to my friend Nina who shared this vid on her FB Wall!]

I'm hoping to start a tradition of finding something to warm my heart every Friday morning ... apologies in advance if this idea, like so many, gets swept away in the headlong rush of life.

NY Republican Lemmings

I understand disgust with Albany, I really do. But my biggest issue is with voters who are impressed by multi-millionaires who come on with lots of fiery rhetoric but who, if one takes even two minutes to research (and — gosh — THINK) for oneself, are clearly despicable candidates.

So you vote for someone because you heard them say they will take a baseball bat to Albany. I can see how this violent allegorical threat to shake up the entrenched legislature has its appeal. But you make zero effort to really look into the guy.

Well, this is who you just nominated, NYS Republicans:

[Carl P. Paladino's win over Rick Lazio] was a potentially destabilizing blow for New York Republicans. It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”

Paladino's victory speech is one of the funniest things I've ever read. He poured his own money into his campaign, outspending Lazio 3 to 2. Yet this guy who had a cool $3 million with which to buy this election portrays himself as someone ready to lead the "people" against "the ruling class."

“We are mad as hell,” Mr. Paladino said in a halting but exuberant victory speech in Buffalo shortly after 11 p.m. “New Yorkers are fed up. Tonight the ruling class knows. They have seen it now. There is a people’s revolution. The people have had enough.”

Congratulations, 'Pubs. I cannot wait to fill in the little dot next to Cuomo's name, knowing that I will get my wish while you all follow Paladino off the cliff.

Has the G.O.P. gone socialist?!

No, but it looks like that boner Boehner has finally seen that the vast majority of Americans are on the lower fringes of what we still call the "middle" class and seriously need money more than the folks who take bonuses (paid for with bailout money) while everyone else eats white rice and beans six nights a week. Maybe someone finally explained to him that the median income in this country is only 29% of his own $174,000 per annum Congressional salary.

Or, more likely, his new willingness to allow the tax cuts for the rich to expire is more about the self-interest of Republican Congressional reps to hang onto their power. I can just see Boehner slapping his forehead. "Oh, right. We're elected by majority vote, and the huge majority will never make $200,000. D'oh." Thanks to Obama for bringing this up now that we're fast approaching midterm elections. On the other hand, now it becomes harder to paint the GOP as the obstructionists and elitists that they are. But, then again, Obama finally gets some cred as someone who can achieve results across the chasm we call "the aisle."

Dog Training

In his new NYT column "Time for This Big Dog to Bite Back" Frank Rich recommends that Obama forcefully illustrate the class warfare that has been waged for decades in the U.S. You know, the redistribution of wealth that has resulted in the decimation of the middle class and the concentration of 25% of the nation's wealth into the hands of 1% of its people.

Though F.D.R. was predictably accused of “class warfare,” his antibusiness “radicalism,” was, in Kennedy’s words, “a carefully staged political performance, an attack not on the capitalist system itself but on a few high-profile capitalists.” Roosevelt was trying to co-opt the populist rage of his economically despondent era, some of it uncannily Tea Party-esque in its hysteria, before it threatened that system, let alone his presidency. Only the crazy right confused F.D.R. with communists for taking on capitalism’s greediest players, and since our crazy right has portrayed Obama as a communist, socialist and Nazi for months, he’s already paid that political price without gaining any of the benefits of bringing on this fight in earnest.

F.D.R. presided over a landslide in 1936. The best the Democrats can hope for in 2010 is smaller-than-expected losses. To achieve even that, Obama will have to give an F.D.R.-size performance — which he can do credibly and forcibly only if he really means it. So far, his administration’s seeming coziness with some of the same powerful interests now vilifying him has left middle-class voters, including Democrats suffering that enthusiasm gap, confused as to which side he is on. If ever there was a time for him to clear up the ambiguity, this is it.

 Word.

All forms of terrorism, some thoughts on 9/11/2010

• On September 11, 2001, about 3,000 people died in the United States at the World Trade Center in New York City, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and on five hijacked airplanes. This was a horrible, shocking display of the hatred of one group of humans for another. And many thousands of family members of the victims continue to suffer under the memory of what happened.
  
• On September 11, 2001,  about 24,000 children died on our planet, most from preventable causes, with undernutrition contributing to about one-third of these deaths and vaccine-preventable disease causing another 14% of those deaths.
  
• In 2001 there were 6.13 billion persons in the world. The United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 arrived at an average of 1 person in 1,000 -- or 613,000 -- being raped each year. This would indicate that on September 11, 2001 around 1,700 persons were raped on the planet, most of them women.

I find  research into unfair deaths and egregious injustice and personal crime statistics to be spiritually exhausting, so I need to stop now. Therefore I will not be providing handy little statistics re the number of children and women sold as sex slaves within their own countries or shipped in containers around the globe,  the number of women beaten each day by their husbands, the number of people who did not have clean water to drink, the number of girls denied an education, the number of children and teens forced to make our rugs, sneakers and other commodities, the number of women who are genitally mutilated and/or forced to marry ...

There are all kinds of terrorism. Human beings can be very twisted in their actions towards others, and in their inactions as well. 9/11 was ONE day. Every single day on this planet the above statistics replay themselves, except for the first one covering 9/11. Every day 24,000 children die of preventable causes and every day 1.7 million people are raped.

If you are one of those who get all riled up by what Al-Qaeda did on 9/11, do you get equally fired up about all the other horrible fates imposed by humans upon their fellow man? Upon children? Did you take even one small action this year to help a victim? Give five bucks to a homeless person? Did you help serve even one meal in a shelter for battered women and their children? Did you even give a small scared child a loving smile?

A Jew Speaks Out Against Islamophobia

Finally there is a line of thought getting put out there drawing the all-important parallels between the climate that led up to the Nazi Holocaust and the anti-Muslim screaming (and actions) going on right now. Anya Cordell speaks out in Tikkun Magazine in her article Lighting the Anti-Muslim Fuse:

When I hear the presumptions about all Muslims these days, I, a Jewish woman, silently substitute “all Jews” and then I know how terrifying and incendiary this language is, because we’ve already seen how these scenes play out, in all too horrific reality. Will those who are screaming the stereotypes the loudest take responsibility when people accept their cues and assume they have license from society to target innocent Muslims in hate-crimes, or worse?

Mandatory Clusterfuck Analysis

Nobody breaks it down like James Howard Kunstler.

The toils of summer are bygone now. The days grow shorter and America stands in the darkling road of its own prospects like a dumb animal frozen in the blinding light of approaching fury. The White House must be a strange place these days with the management of the USA turned over to astrologasters, alchemists, prayer-wheel spinners, fakirs, viziers, necromancers and other visitors from occult realms unaffiliated with the dominion of reality.
One of these characters, Ms. Christina Romer, at a luncheon celebrating her departure as chief of the White House Council of Economic Advisors (i.e. readers of spilled goat innards) even blurted out that she had no idea what's been going on in banking and business and how come America can't be more like it was in 1999. Don't cry for Christina. A cushy chair awaits her at the Hogwarts Berkeley outpost where she can repose in a trance of unknowing until California slides into its own tar pit of default and disintegration....

Opposition to the Synagogue Mosque

Brandeis Professor Jonathan D. Sarna draws the same comparison that has been on my mind between the opposition to the Cordoba Center at 51 Park Place and the shameful history of synagogues being banned in our country despite the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

Mayor Bloomberg likely had some of this history in mind when he asked “should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?” In distancing himself from Peter Stuyvesant and the many others who have defined American religious liberty in narrowly restrictive terms, he reminds us that if today’s target is the mosque, yesterday’s was most assuredly the synagogue.

Even in the original 13 purportedly freedom-loving states, "religious freedom" was interpreted to apply only to Christian denominations, with Connecticut maintaining its ban on Jewish places of worship as late as 1856.

Why is the weekly Jewish Forward, a publication of relatively minor reach in this country, the only place I have noticed the parallel drawn?

Quote of the Day: Matt Taibi on Tea Party primary wins

Tea Party Rocks Primaries -- RollingStone.com: "Everyone involved with politics understands the current dynamic. It’s not hard to grasp. You take very tough economic times, add them to a heavy dose of political opportunism, and multiply both by the aggravating factor of a nihilistic commercial media, and what you get is ethnic scapegoating on a massive scale."

I think he left out one important ingredient here. The resigned ignorance of the general population.

Islamophobes Butt Out of NYC's Business

I actually feel like throwing up. I cannot add a comment about this pastor's opinions and hateful behavior as leader of a spiritual community, I'll just let his actions speak for him. I am so sad. That is my reaction on a personal level.

But let's look at this from a legal standpoint. After all, Law is what sets civilized countries apart from barbaric or totalitarian states, right?

I'm tired of the debate with regard to Park51 centering on the Constitution. Don't get me wrong, I love the Constitution. But people who do not live here have adopted this question of the Park51 community center and made it into a national issue to be scrutinized somehow in the light of Constituional Law.

Well let me help you all out with a *fact*. The Constitution has absolutely no governance over activities in a building in New York City. The only applicable laws would be New York City zoning code. And Park51 is not in violation of anything in New York City zoning code. Therefore ... THERE IS NO LEGAL BASIS FOR PROHIBITING THE PARK51 COMMUNITY CENTER FROM BEING DEVELOPED. Period! End of story! Shut up already!


What's really getting to me is that people who live hundreds or thousands of miles away from Ground Zero, people who have no idea of what works and does not work in New York City, people who would likely refuse to ride the subways here for fear of the density, diversity, creativity, and especially of the racial and ethnic composition of New Yorkers, people who actually couldn't give a flying fadoodle about New York City and think that it is an evil town full of sinners and criminals ... these same people are the ones opining loudly that "the Ground Zero Mosque" does not belong where it is planned and is "insensitive".

Islamophobes, Butt The Hell Out Of NYC's Business. Your opinion doesn't count for anything here. It might seem strange to you, but the closer the polled population lives to Ground Zero, the MORE people think the community center and mosque should just move forward as planned.

This is our home, 9/11 and the aftermath is something we went through first-hand while you watched your TV commentators, and you just have no clue that what makes NYC great and what keeps us all getting along here is that we live and shop and commute and work and pray-or-don't and send our kids to school right alongside of each other here. All types of us, all colors, all economic classes, all countries of origin, all races, all religions.

Hero for today: Cadet Katherine A. Miller

Katherine A. Miller is leaving West Point to attend Yale University because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, a discriminatory policy affecting LGBT people. "I can't be closeted anymore. I need to be open with myself and open with others about who I am."

She was in the top 1% of her class at West Point. DADT has resulted in the discharge of 13,500 service members, and now the discriminatory policy is causing young people in whom the military has invested to leave before doing service.

Wake up, America.
(Facebook friends click through to the original to view the vid)

Obama Signs Act To Empower Native Americans to Fight Rape : Ms Magazine Blog

Obama Signs Act To Empower Native Americans to Fight Rape : Ms Magazine Blog

scribi liberati *

Author Ray Connolly explains how to "do the Dickens" in the age of electronic self-publication and syndication.

Why wait for a publisher in an era when an advance can only be obtained for a piece of work considered a "sure thing" by persons who fear taking any risk? Connolly's economic business model is to give away a whole bunch of chapters, published one at a time, for free. Then to read the ending one pays (less than the cost of a paperback) to download the whole book. Then the free chapters come down and the book moves to Amazon's product list.

I hope this works. It sure is a strong impetus to "just write" without worrying about the submission/rejection cycles, editors who might impose unwanted revisions, recouping an advance, and so on. Therefore authors are liberated to simply create and to bring their work directly to market, much as musicians (and not just indie bands anymore) can do by releasing free mp3's.

Publishing houses beware. Adapt or die.

* never did take Latin, is this correct?

Quote of the day: Against DADT discharges

Why and how the hell do we end up firing our best and brightest when we’re fighting in two wars? If Secretary Donley does not step in, this nation will lose a service member worth $25 million in training whose skill sets are desperately needed today.

-- Aubrey Sarvis (in washpost, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, commenting on the case of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach who filed for a restraining order barring his discharge from the Air Force on DADT grounds.

Cases like this one, though, do have their value. To those who believe a gay man cannot be manly enough to serve with valor, Lt. Col Fehrenbach's 90 flight missions in three conflict zones defy that particular myth. And for those who believe that any gay person in a shower is obsessed with homosexual desires and will start playing games with soap, towels and strap-ons ... GUESS WHAT, you have been showering with gay comrades all along, you just didn't know it!

Journalist of the Day: Robert Barnes

Even before I have read the article, this award is for the first sentence of As Stevens retires from court, one final duel with Scalia:

It is fitting that the last duel between the old ink-slingers at the Marble Palace was over guns.

Interlude: Bjork and PJ Get It On

Thanks to FB friend Amy for turning me on to this... it instantly became my fave version of this tune, beating out the Stones, Devo, certainly trumping Britney, and even the love of my life Otis Redding. Sorry Otis, this version has your guts but adds The Tension Of Getting No Satisfaction.

Single-Payer was the only decent idea

With all due respect to my friends who have urged me to relax my objections to the upcoming changes in health insurance "because we need to change things, and this is a start," ... the new plan sucks.

There is no incentive whatsoever for the insurers to reduce premium costs by any means other than minimizing the bang for the buck. So unless you can afford the high deductible and co-payments that will be assessed if you leave your insurance network, the list of covered doctors and hospitals is very likely to be reduced. Meaning:

• you may have to leave a doctor you have been seeing for some time and whom you trust.
• you might be in trouble if you have a medical emergency in a location where there are no nearby hospitals in your network and you are admitted to a bed for more than ER care.
• the insurers have not been asked to absorb a single dollar's worth of impact in our attempt to create a more fair system.
• the Conservatives are right. This bill sucks and should be repealed. LET'S START OVER indeed.

 Of course, Conservatives would rather see a more free-market idea. I would rather see the health-insurance industry eviscerated and destroyed.

Let the Market Regulate Itself, Except When We Want To Impose Our Morals on The Rest of You?

Over the years we've all seen examples of Conservatives opposing industry regulation. The industry should be self-policing. The government should not be spending our money to inspect meat, or children's toys. If a company makes defective products, consumers will not purchase from them, so the problem will just take care of itself.

I would love to hear a Right-winger explain to me why the same market forces should not be allowed to regulate media content. Why moral standards of some of us must be imposed on all of us. Why it is OK to show someone getting shot to death, but not to show people making love, on television. These are the same people who whine about Government getting too deeply into our personal lives and choices. About "the nanny state."

I'm glad to see the FCC is finally reevaluating the arbitrary and unAmerican "decency" rules that control our media content. I hope they end up throwing all such imposed rules out the window for good.

If you don't like it, don't watch it. If you think it will corrupt your children, exercise your responsibility as a parent, use the parental controls available on your cable box and/or stay on top of what shows your kids are consuming.

Quote and Hero for Today: Rabbi Arik Ascherman

In the type of wonderful portrayal of people and places that Nick Kristoff knocks out "on the regular", he quotes Rabbi Ascherman who heads up the Israeli organization Rabbis for Human Rights:

In the long run, we’re going to live here together, he says, “or we’re going to die here together.

Ascherman himself has served as a human shield between West-bank settlers or Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.

This is the first combo Hero and Quote for Today post, Rabbi Ascherman is a real mensch. A deep bow to Kristoff as well for making his readers better people, not just better educated, by reporting to us so many great stories of human strength and spiritual beauty.

Today's Hero: Jim Keady, obscure goalie, real mensch

LA Times:

For years, the former professional goalie has waged a one-man campaign to highlight Nike's labor practices, complaining that the company pays Indonesian workers low wages to stitch together the uniforms that have made the company the world's most successful sports garment manufacturer.

Sitting at an outdoor coffeehouse here, Keady produced several Nike jerseys in Cup team colors. "These jerseys are real wealth you can touch," he said. "They're making Nike and the players rich while the workers who make them continue to grind out lives of abject poverty."

Keady's campaign goes back to 1997 when, as a soccer coach for St. John's University in New York, he questioned the school's plans to sign a $3.5-million endorsement deal with Nike.

The devout Catholic insisted that the contract would be hypocritical for a Christian university. "I was told to drop the issue or get out," he said. "So I resigned in protest."

...In 2000, the towering, redheaded Keady moved to Indonesia and lived on the same salary as a Nike worker, which at the time was about $1.25 a day, staying in a 9-by-9-foot home in a community where 10 families share bathroom and kitchen facilities.

Interlude: cinder blocks and slide guitar

Of all the world's music, and I love (almost) all of it, I love the South African I'm-gonna-act-happy-in-your-face defiant love, and the rhythmic mash-up of it, and the melodic lilt of it. This woman in her 5th-hand clothes and her hard-tack life, just made my Western day.

Today's Hero: Hamis Ngomera

News is spreading about recent murderous attacks on albinos in Tanzania because of the price fetched by their body parts:

According to the Albino Association of Tanzania, the price for a complete set of albino body parts – comprising limbs, genitals, ears, tongue, hair and blood – has gone up from 75,000 US dollars to 200,000 US dollars.

Hamis Ngomera is a chapter chairman of the Albino Association of Tanzania and a Red Cross volunteer.
He travels to and through communities helping albino victims of violence and hoping to quench the superstitious beliefs that fuel this awful trade.

Hamis is himself albino.

Every Time ... that you purchase body soap -- or toothpaste, or shampoo!!

Every time you choose a product for your shower or bath or aprés-bain, consider whether it contains petroleum-derived ingredients (such as "mineral" oil, paraffin, petrolatum), and whether it is contained in a plastic jar or tube (also a product of the oil industry). Consider that liquid products such as "body wash" cost much more in carbon fuel emissions to ship, because of the weight of the water that is included, than do solid or powdered dry products.

In my quest to consume as few plastics as possible, in (of all places) my local Rite Aid drug store, I recently made a very happy discovery in "South of France" French-milled bar soap. (They also make glycerine soaps, and I will try one soon.) The soap is packaged in unprinted recyclable cardboard, and is olive oil and plant-derived glycerin based. No animal testing involved. The brand was almost sold out (not surprising at four bucks and change for two bars) so between the two scents left on the shelves I chose Lavender.

When I unwrapped the soap I remembered a hint about soap products that was taught to me by a facialist many years ago. Soaps have an alkline pH factor -- some stronger and some more neutral. To test whether the alkalinity of a soap is tolerable to your skin, give it a little lick -- if it "bites" it is too alkaline.

My South of France lavendar soap has NO bite. It is a lovely, gentle cleanser. So I decided to try it as toothpaste. And shampoo. It works great as a tooth and hair cleanser as well as a body and face wash. Just rub your toothbrush on the bar, or rub the bar itself on your wet hair (then splash on a little more water and lather up).

"South of France" soap is made not in France but in Greensboro, North Carolina. Check out their product line, but Every Time consider whether you really need to buy any of the stuff that comes in plastic bottles made from evil oil.

Follow-up on December 8, 2011:

Another great brand, though twice as expensive, is Dr. Bronner's bar soaps in great natural scents. The "plus" of Dr. Bronner's is that it is (1) organic and (2) most ingredients are Fair Trade.

Cornell Quotes Code and Cuts Clits

If you visit Cornell University Law School's web site today you can read U.S. Code Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 7,  § 116 which says:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both

 The exclusions in subsection (b) number only two: necessary to the health of that other person, or for medical purposes in connection with labor or birth.

If you now cruise over to The Bioethics Forum, you will learn that pediatric urologist Dix Poppas is operating on little girls, and I mean little girls, whose clitorises are deemed to be too large -- by surgically removing a portion of the shaft and reattaching the glans. Then to prove that the young beneficiaries of his "medical care" still have normal nerve response, in follow-up exams a vibrator is applied to the clitoris of patients as young as six years old while they are conscious. Where is this taking place? Cornell!

In my time I have met two or three men whose penises were too large. I mean, really too large. Would anyone contemplate treating little boys by removing a section of their penile shaft at age 6 or 8 or 10? Especially since a large clit hardly interferes with a female's enjoyment, whereas a too-large penis, as explained to me by the bearers of these members, does interfere with a guy's?

Kudos to Profs. Dreger and Feder for bringing this to light, not just on this Hastings Center-hosted blog but Dreger mainstreamed it as well and it's already all over the b'sphere.

Quote of the Day: Emman Mbong, Nigerian Official, re the Gulf Gusher

"We’re sorry for them, but it’s what’s been happening to us for 50 years."

I Guess She Is Not Happy About Being Raped and Plundered

Tears of Mother Earth Illusion | Mighty Optical Illusions

The Fury of Jilted Citizens

Philosophy professor J.M. Bernstein breaks down for us what he identifies as being the root cause of virulent Tea Party anger. He explores the underlying belief -- a prevalent myth in our culture of minimized, granular social units -- in the notion that the Individual is autonomous and owes nothing to our collective existence.

Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions. The opposing metaphysical claim, the one I take to be true, is that the very idea of the autonomous subject is an institution, an artifact created by the practices of modern life: the intimate family, the market economy, the liberal state. Each of these social arrangements articulate and express the value and the authority of the individual; they give to the individual a standing she would not have without them.

Bernstein makes a strong analogy between Tea Party anger and that of jilted lovers, drawing on Hegel's philosophy that:

... all social life is structurally akin to the conditions of love and friendship; we are all bound to one another as firmly as lovers are, with the terrible reminder that the ways of love are harsh, unpredictable and changeable. And here is the source of the great anger: because you are the source of my being, when our love goes bad I am suddenly, absolutely dependent on someone for whom I no longer count and who I no longer know how to count; I am exposed, vulnerable, needy, unanchored and without resource. In fury, I lash out, I deny that you are my end and my satisfaction, in rage I claim that I can manage without you, that I can be a full person, free and self-moving, without you. I am everything and you are nothing.

This is the first piece I've come across that seems paint a valid Big Picture. The angry jilted lovers are denying the interconnectedness that actually defines us and validates us as a society. It's worth a good, slow read.

Interlude: Playing. Life. Change. Ah, AfReeCahhh

"The Playing For Change Foundation is building a new music school in the Village of Kirina, Mali. Kirina is a village of musicians, some of whom can trace their musical ancestry back over 75 generations! In this very special episode West African music legend Baaba Maal and friends perform for the village elders in honor of the new "Playing For Life" music school that is just beginning construction."

Comment of the Day: assessment of the nationalism of our species

It's sad that today there are still people running their lives (and ruining others) according to primitive fairy tales.

As a species we are dumber than dirt.

by "Dom" re the concept of a "Greater Israel" that incorporates the "God-given" Samaria and Judea.

Idea of the Day: from America Speaks Out

Dana Milbanks has written up the GOP's lame new effort at providing a speak-out platform. Apparently they are hoping the common muck might help them figure out what the hell their party is supposed to stand for these days. Milbanks chooses a few funny samplers, but the actual site is even better. Democrats (or, at least, anti-Republicans) are out in legion posting such stuff as ...

The Republicans need to get as far away from Socialism as possible. Therefor, they need to shed associations with one of the most socialist figures in our country: Jesus Christ! Yes, this man took from the rich and gave to the poor. He aided people who were in dire needs, instead of letting private enterprises do it. This man is Pure Evil and we will not tolerate the association of Republicans and Jesus Christ! Republicans may want to burn an effegy on a cross to send a signal to all of us American-loving, conservative voters of how they are now with us instead of against us!

Completely Forgettable London 2012 Logo

I am not a graphic designer, not even a good amateur designer, but maybe I serve as a valid critic here because my eyeballs are Average Josephines that like or dislike a visual element the same as any other member of the common muck.

The London 2012 Olympics, to my eyes, is horrible. A series of disjointed shapes that do not, for me, ring a bell. What the hell are they supposed to be? Is this a map of the fairgrounds? A representation of the continents? Not only do I not "get it", but it does not even make a lasting impression on the brain, it is too complex. Too many shapes, with edges too serrated to leave an imprint. Show someone the logo for 10 seconds. Wait a few days and show it to them again -- just the shapes with the words removed this time. I'd bet that person would not be able to tell you what they're looking at.

Besides. It's just FUGLY:

A Spark of Hope

I don't know that I could survive if I did not encounter the occasional news story that re-inspires hope that the human race has merit and can join together to reinvent our world.

Worldpress.org posted a piece, A Palestinian Village that Started a Movement, that started my day off right:

A new feature documentary film Budrus, produced by the Washington, DC and Jerusalem-based organization Just Vision, documents nonviolent Israeli and Palestinian civilian efforts to resolve the conflict. It tells the story of Budrus, the village where this movement was born....

The movement aims to stage nonviolent protests to change the route of the separation wall off of Palestinian-owned lands....

The film captures images of Palestinians weeping over lost olive trees, Israeli border police struggling over whether to use violence against Israeli peace activists, and Palestinian youth being chastised because their rock throwing at Israeli soldiers threatens to turn a peaceful movement into a violent confrontation.

Some of the most moving scenes show Palestinian women jumping away from bulldozers and a female Israeli soldier establishing a rapport with Palestinian women in Budrus. While this film captures the story of this village in particular, its larger goal is to show that change can be accomplished in the Middle East through peaceful means."

Just Vision has posted a trailer:



I will try to "stay tuned" and will post when the movie becomes available in theaters or online.

UPDATE 2010-05-19 08:02 -0400 --

Budrus was shown on Apr 28 at the Tribeca Film Festival (an event I swear to myself each year I will attend "next year" ... I'm such a stick in the mud!). I hope it returns to New York soon...

There is an official Budrus site that lists screenings here.

What He Said

My Country, Tis of Me - Magazine - The Atlantic ... Michael Kinsley's standout passage:

... the Tea Party movement is not the solution to what ails America. It is an illustration of what ails America. Not because it is right-wing or because it is sometimes susceptible to crazed conspiracy theories, and not because of racism, but because of the movement’s self-indulgent premise that none of our challenges and difficulties are our own fault.

“Personal responsibility” has been a great conservative theme in recent decades, in response to the growth of the welfare state. It is a common theme among TPPs—even in response to health-care reform, as if losing your job and then getting cancer is something you shouldn’t have allowed to happen to yourself. But these days, conservatives far outdo liberals in excusing citizens from personal responsibility. To the TPPs, all of our problems are the fault of the government, and the government is a great “other,” a hideous monster over which we have no control. It spends our money and runs up vast deficits for mysterious reasons all its own. At bottom, this is a suspicion not of government but of democracy. After all, who elected this monster?

This kind of talk is doubly self-indulgent. First, it’s just not true. Second, it’s obviously untrue. The government’s main function these days is writing checks to old people. These checks allow people to retire and pursue avocations such as going to Tea Party rallies.

Tweet of the Day: Adobe p(r)opoganda

adamwilcox: "Dear Adobe, when the name of your 'open' product contains two uses of ® then it isn't open."

Short-Sighted in 3D

Washington Post reports in James Cameron: 3-D will become standard format:

"Avatar" director James Cameron said Thursday that 3-D will replace 2-D as the standard, mainstream format for film, television and online content in less than 25 years.

Viewers will soon not only enjoy films in 3-D theaters but all forms of entertainment, including sports and music shows on TVs and laptops, Cameron said at a technology forum in Seoul.

I personally actually prefer 2-D viewing, because for me the abstraction of human experience into the 2-D format transports me in such a way that I can "lose myself" in what's happening on the screen (on a good day, with a good flick). 3-D does not allow me to lose myself; instead it puts me into the picture.

Take that for whatever it's worth (or not), since I also love B&W movies, and to this day I still miss the hiss and pop of a needle on vinyl and the acoustic sound of musicians all sitting in one recording studio playing together in a room at the same time.

However, looking at the idea of a mass market for 3-D viewing as a practical matter, I just don't see this happening ... because of the glasses that one must wear to watch a 3-D movie or video. And for those who already wear glasses, the glasses-over-the-glasses.

Sorry, I just cannot see that millions of us would be keeping multiple pairs of 3D glasses in a home entertainment center drawer, passing them out to our guest, all of us sitting around in silly specs to watch every TV show or movie we rent.

I'll post back on this in 25 years :-)

Quote of the Day: Obama’s Remarks on Oil Spill Response

Text - Obama’s Remarks on Oil Spill Response - NYTimes.com:

Let me also say, by the way, a word here about BP and the other companies involved in this mess. I know BP has committed to pay for the response effort, and we will hold them to their obligation. I have to say, though, I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn't.

Donor Strike: Rich Progressives Pledge To Withhold Cash

So the Stinkin' Rich may save the American political system from special interests. The irony of it all.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Driving While Hispanic, Being Presidential While Black

Frank Rich looks at the connections between Arizona's new "arrested for driving while Latino" law and the radical right's growing "Take Back America" campaign complete with its Birther members who would be so funny if they were not so sad and so scary. The GOP is bending over in full kowtow to the Teabaggers and I'm starting to think the overt racism of the past was less dangerous than the tide that is currently on the rise.

It's difficult, as always, to choose from among Rich's high-fidelity paragraphs a couple to quote. These were chosen sort of randomly:

It's harder and harder to cling to the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is merely an element in the G.O.P., not the party's controlling force -- the tail that's wagging the snarling dog. It's also hard to maintain that the Tea Party's nuttier elements are merely a fringe of a fringe. The first national Tea Party convention, in Nashville in February, chose as its kickoff speaker the former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, a notorious nativist who surely was enlisted precisely because he runs around saying things like he has ''no idea where Obama was born.'' The Times/CBS poll of the Tea Party movement found that only 41 percent of its supporters believe that the president was born in the United States.

The angry right and its apologists also keep insisting that race has nothing to do with their political passions. Thus Sarah Palin explained that it's Obama and the ''lamestream media'' that are responsible for ''perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part'' of Arizona's law. So how does that profiling work without race or ethnicity, exactly? Brian Bilbray, a Republican Congressman from California and another supporter of the law, rode to the rescue by suggesting ''they will look at the kind of dress you wear.'' Wise Latinas better start shopping at Talbots!

Oh gosh, I can't resist adding one more paragraph:

In a development that can only be described as startling, the G.O.P.'s one visible black leader, the party chairman Michael Steele, went off message when appearing at DePaul University on April 20. He conceded that African-Americans ''really don't have a reason'' to vote Republican, citing his party's pursuit of a race-baiting ''Southern strategy'' since the Nixon-Agnew era. For this he was attacked by conservatives who denied there had ever been such a strategy. That bit of historical revisionism would require erasing, for starters, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, not to mention the Willie Horton campaign that helped to propel Bush 41 into the White House in 1988.

 Frank Rich so skillfully melds his pieces. He knits and purls together his thoughts, the news, our political history, and "startling" quotes you may not have heard about before. A read of the whole rather lengthy op-ed piece is highly recommended.

Spill, Baby, Spill (LOOK IN THE MIRROR)

From this morning's NY Times:

The latest effort to contain the oil spill that has poured millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico encountered a setback 5,000 feet underwater, officials said Saturday, meaning oil will continue gushing into the ocean for at least several more days, and possibly months.

This will be the worst man-made environmental disaster of my lifetime. My prayer is that it is never exceeded in anyone's lifetime.

Poisoned water will spread into the Gulf Stream, up the Atlantic seaboard, across the ocean. We have mainlined an overdose.

This is so sad; when I think of marine life, of generations future, of the vanity, selfishness and greed of our human race ... my throat clamps up and my heart physically hurts.

The oil companies do not have bottom-line responsibility here; there would be no oil industry without our demand for petroleum products. Do not point at BP and Big Oil. Let's each of us, instead, look in the mirror and NOTICE OUR OWN ADDICTION ...

• every time we start up a fossil-fuel-fired engine.
  
• every time we place a small order on the internet and, like pathetically stupid royalty, have a truck burn fuel to deliver, for our convenience, a small box directly to our doorstep
  
• every time we order take-out food that arrives in plastic containers
  
• every time we purchase shampoo, hand cream, laundry soap, bottled water, children's toys, household items that are contained in plastic.
  
• every time we use a disposable plastic pen (or, worse, throw away a pen for which we could, instead, purchase a refill) or lighter.
  
• every time we purchase or don clothing made with polyester fiber
  

A quick web search for "petroleum-derived products" turns up this page from Ranken Energy Corporation, an oil exploration company. "A partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items)":

One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like...

Solvents	Diesel fuel	Motor Oil	Bearing Grease
Ink	Floor Wax	Ballpoint Pens	Football Cleats
Upholstery	Sweaters	Boats	Insecticides
Bicycle Tires	Sports Car Bodies	Nail Polish	Fishing lures
Dresses	Tires	Golf Bags	Perfumes
Cassettes	Dishwasher parts	Tool Boxes	Shoe Polish
Motorcycle Helmet	Caulking	Petroleum Jelly	Transparent Tape
CD Player	Faucet Washers	Antiseptics	Clothesline
Curtains	Food Preservatives	Basketballs	Soap
Vitamin Capsules	Antihistamines	Purses	Shoes
Dashboards	Cortisone	Deodorant	Footballs
Putty	Dyes	Panty Hose	Refrigerant
Percolators	Life Jackets	Rubbing Alcohol	Linings
Skis	TV Cabinets	Shag Rugs	Electrician's Tape
Tool Racks	Car Battery Cases	Epoxy	Paint
Mops	Slacks	Insect Repellent	Oil Filters
Umbrellas	Yarn	Fertilizers	Hair Coloring
Roofing	Toilet Seats	Fishing Rods	Lipstick
Denture Adhesive	Linoleum	Ice Cube Trays	Synthetic Rubber
Speakers	Plastic Wood	Electric Blankets	Glycerin
Tennis Rackets	Rubber Cement	Fishing Boots	Dice

I suggest we shock ourselves about how Green we really are NOT compared to how Green we like to think we are, by studying this entire list.

I suggest that any one of us who does nothing to protest ocean-floor drilling has a barrel of spilled oil on our conscience.

And I suggest we look in the mirror, and assess our own role in using, and disposing, thoughtlessly and often needlessly, the products derived from oil drilling. Every time we use something. Every time we toss something in the trash. Daily. Every minute. Every time.

Quote and Blogger of the Day: Matt Taibbi rips a new one for David Brooks

In his blog piece Let Them Eat Work, Matt Taibbi shreds David Brooks (NYT) for asserting in the latest Opinionator Blog (with Gail Collins) that, "for the first time in human history, rich people work longer hours than middle class or poor people. How do you construct a rich versus poor narrative when the rich are more industrious?"

Matt's piece is so good I had trouble picking what to pull out as my Quote of the Day". After several reads I decided to honor this sentence:

If [Brooks] keeps this up, he’s going to make his way into the Guinness Book for having extended his tongue at least a foot and a halfp farther up the ass of the Times’s Upper East Side readership than any previous pundit in journalistic history.

Heros of the Day: Zimbabwean Orphans

Nicholas Kristof's has been reporting from his lastest African travels in Zimbabwe, and offers a hard look at the impact of a corrupt and totalitarian ruler on the populace. Recommended reading: "Young Superheros in a Hut" and accompanying slideshow.

These kids are my heros of the day.

They come from two families. Both sets of parents died from AIDS and the kids banded together to raise themselves under the leadership of the eldest, who was 15 at the time the kids moved in together.

Are you connected to mountaintop removal?

A Day Late, 40 Acres and a Mule Short, in VA

Breaking news on washpost:

McDonnell issues thorough apology for leaving slavery out of proclamation

Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) apologized late Wednesday for failing to include slavery in his proclamation declaring April as Confederate History Month.

 Nothin' like a majority voting block of persons of color and progressives to make a politician fall prey to Delayed Involuntary Sensitivity Syndrome.

Must-See of the Day: War comes to reality video

I am sorry to do this to you but this must be seen by anyone living in any country that has any troops in Iraq. And everyone else in every country that might some day send some troops somewhere. Unless you have witnessed or fought or suffered through war first-hand, even if you *think* that you think War Is Wrong, watch this classified video.

This is what our taxes fund. This is what we are not out in the streets protesting. This is our shame. This RIPS MY HEART.

(Props to Julian Assange and any/all others involved in creating Wikileaks ... a whole new breed of citizen journalism that our society so desperately needed.)