In Memoriam

Pete Seeger, singer, songwriter, environmental and peace activist.

One of my neighbors has a bumper sticker promoting Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Not gonna happen now.

ETA:  Jurassicpork bites Grover Norquist on the incivility leg:

The next time one of the sons or daughters of Ronald Reagan accuses the left of incivility when one of their own war-mongering, tax-dodging icons shits the bed, think of asswipes like Grover Norquist jiggling his pudgy body in a spastic jig over the undug grave of progressive heroes like Pete Seeger, who died at 94.

There's a reason why folk singers are invariably progressive and are never Republican. When did Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs or Bob Dylan ever sing songs glorifying Exxon or any multibillion dollar multi-national corporation? It would never occur to a Republican to become a folk singer because that would mean having to, you know, actually embrace and take up the causes concerning common folk since time immemorial.

Bonus: Comrade Misfit has a video playlist up.

Supplemental Reading

Because frankly, I didn't get why Spider-Man's costume became Venom, either.

• Installation of obedience in children and where that leads:  Arthur Silber calls out the government and its representatives.
• The high conical headdress for medieval/Renaissance women was not a European invention.
• Yeah, he said "Class war." Bill Moyers on, well, class war. 

  We don’t have emperors yet, but one of our two major parties is now dominated by radicals engaged in a crusade of voter suppression aimed at the elderly, the young, minorities and the poor; while the other party, once the champion of everyday working people, has been so enfeebled by its own collaboration with the donor class that it offers only token resistance to the forces that have demoralized everyday Americans.

• Americans are being cheated out of their retirement money, and no, privatization is as usual not the answer.
• Dumbing us down?
• s. e. smith has an interesting essay on "sex strikes"--ie, Lysistrata et al.

And now I can close all those tabs.  Phew.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, 2014

• Via Shakesville, the I Have A Dream video, in case you need a reminder of the power that speech contained.  (Shakesville has a transcript.)  I'm playing it right now.
• Jesse Curtis looks at Dr. King's words and the present.

  Dr. King spoke of the interrelated problems of racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism--problems that were so embedded in the fabric of American life that they compromised the very structure of society. We modern Americans, appropriately colorblind and tolerant, believe that we've fulfilled the promise of the Black freedom struggle by...wait for it...being nice to each other.

[crossposted]

You Thought I Was Kidding

Via Zandar Versus The Stupid:  Wisconsin Republicans propose 7 day work week.  (Raw Story.)

You didn't believe me when I said conservatives want to steal your weekends.

Weekends are not, apparently, sacrosanct.  You want to keep having them, you're going to have to fight.  Now.

Yahrzeit

Yahrzeit.

Hall of Fame Honorees, 2014

Messrs. Glavine, Maddux and Thomas.

Pitchers and Catchers Report is before Ash Wednesday this year!  36 days!

Letter and Spirit

1. Jesse Curtis on what the Bible actually says about poverty, with quotes from The Big Guy:

   It is not hard to see that such practices are rampant in our culture. Just think of the schemes of the banks, mortgage companies, and payday lenders. But the more subtle practices the Bible so wisely notes are present here too, and we are implicated in them. The norm in American culture is to live in the best community one can afford, putting as much distance between us and the poor as money will provide. The rich do indeed have many friends, while the poor suffer for want of connections. The Bible speaks of such states of affairs not as age-old ways of the world that we must resign ourselves to, but as expressions of cultures nearing the extreme limits of depravity. When God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to decry extreme evil he focused on treatment of the most marginal members of the society[.]

2. Having, eating, and complaining about one's cake.

   “Ma’am, if we were closed today, how would you get these things you’re buying right now?”

Probably not a Journey to God post.

In Memoriam

Phil Everly.

I grew up with the Everly Brothers in my ears.  It was always easy to understand the lyrics, even when I didn't understand the lyrics (I didn't get why little Susie couldn't just sleep for the longest time).  They were pretty much the standard for two-part harmony.

COPD.  "Lifetime of cigarette smoking."  Yeah.

[News first seen at Making Light.]

Let's Get Meta

If you think of "sin" as a sidewalk peppered with bird droppings, it becomes clear that:

• You can try to avoid stepping in it, but sooner or later you will;
• You will look funny while you are contorting yourself trying to avoid the droppings;
• While it is natural and organic and fertilizing and not deliberate on the part of the bird, excrement still stinks up your shoes.

Happy New Year. Time to crash.

A Look at Libertarian Utopia

R. J. Eskow at AlterNet on "What America Would Look Like If Libertarians Got Their Way."  With examples.

It's not just about legalizing drugs.

From the "What Did I Tell You?" File

Voting restriction bills have racial causes.  From Talking Points Memo (TPM)

Two University of Massachusetts Boston academics -- Keith G. Bentele, an assistant professor of Sociology, and Erin O'Brien, an associate professor of Political Science -- recently published a paper looking at the proposal and passage of restrictive voter access legislation from 2006 to 2011. In the paper, titled "Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies," the authors conclude that restrictive voter measures are connected to both partisan and racial factors.

[…]

What about the great Republican specter of voter fraud?

"If you want to be extraordinarily generous, you could say allegations of voter fraud may have been a very, very small contributing factor," Bentele said, speaking more generally about voter restriction efforts. "But in general, these partisan and racial effects seem to be really, really strongly associated with this outcome."

Abstract of the paper.

Have I mentioned that I'm reading Albion's Seed?  Because *gobsmack city*.

Chicken. Yes, Chicken.

Drug-resistant bacteria on chickens.  What, where, why.

(No, food poisoning is not a new way to get high.  Au contraire.  But if you enjoy vomiting and diarrhea and you can't afford booze or catching the flu, here's a way to get really sick.)

In Memoriam

• Joan Fontaine, actress
• Tom Laughlin, actor/writer/director

(Also, the last post was 2301.  I just can't keep up.  And Zandar is taking a break.)

Breakfast Links

Procrastination, mostly.  Shall we begin?

• Spocko on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Getting his Perot on for a good cause.
• Apparently conservatives gave in to their urge to exhibit their tushes on the occasion of Nelson Mandela's death:  Republic of T has examples.  Especially when misapprehending normal behavior.   Jesse Curtis riffs off Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay on the uses of violence and non-violence.
• And by the way, racism is not "over."
• As for Santa and Jesus…let me see…St. Nicholas was an Anatolian Greek; not too many blond blue-eyed guys in that group; someone posted a possible reconstruction of the saint's face, and I will post the link later. here we go. He would have been "dark for purposes of whiteness," as Avedon used to say.  Jesus, of course, was Jewish, and Jews have only been considered "white" since the middle of the last century.  Ms. Kelly probably also went to Casablanca for the waters.  (Depictions of Santa have tended to pink him up; depictions of Jesus tend to both lighten his skin and hair.  Depictions are not accurate.  Got that?)

In Memoriam

Peter O'Toole, actor.





(has it really been a week and a half?)

In Memoriam

 Nelson Mandela.  Statesman.  Prisoner, liberator, president of South Africa, worker for peace and justice.  In a nutshell, one of the Great Ones.

And More Again

It's a Love song.

• World News Connection to be shut down New Year's Eve.  Via Mercury Rising, which also said:

   "Open source news/intel, like open source computer code, is far less susceptible to manipulation and corruption. Guess that’s why the Open Source Center has to be done away with."

  Uh-huh.
  

• Just three stitches cost $2,229.11? Sealing a wound with skin glue, for $1,696? This is a national disgrace. In all of the haranguing about healthcare, little attention has been paid to the actual cost of simple procedures like this. When Republicans go on TV and tell everyone that we do have universal healthcare — at emergency rooms — and you see hospitals turning their ERs into “profit centers,” you’ve gotta wonder what the hell is going on. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times: where there’s shit there’s always flies.

  Southern Beale. Yes, it is now cheaper to check into the Ritz and have the doctor come to you.
• Mills River Progressive links to a .pdf of how corporate espionage, um, interacts with non-profits, activists, and an AlterNet summary of tactics used.  And tracking "authentication" has still not been derailed.
• Zandar Versus The Stupid flushes Peggy Noonan and remarks:

  A president who stakes his entire reputation on a complex scheme gone awry? And who never rides herd on the people who were supposed to make sure it went right?
  
  Hmmm, let me think....
  
  That 8-year selective amnesia about the guy before Obama is a funny thing.

• Shakesville's Melissa McEwan deconstructs a conservative's inability to understand choice and society (no, I shouldn't say that.  They understand choice if it's what they think everyone should choose, and they understand society as something where they make the rules.  They also seem to think [I use the term "think* advisedly] that tax money is supposed to support private schools, apparently having missed the word "private.").
  
  Why do I think that none of the conservatives who write that kind of swill have ever been in the armed forces or even served on a jury?

Wooooooooooooo-Hoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

 Chip's a Grand Master!  Chip's a Grand Master!!

Oh, By the Way...

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, at the one-or-is-it-two-month mark, seems to be working. Via Republic of T.

As in California, Obamacare is working in Kentucky for precisely the people it was intended to help. In places like Breathitt County, with a per-capita income of about $15,000 per year, it’s working for Americans who were unable to afford private health insurance and were previously ineligible for Medicaid.

Health care reform is working as envisioned in Kentucky for two reasons. The state opted to set up its own health insurance exchange, and Gov. Steve Beshear (D) stood alone among Southern governors when he signed on to the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare. Kentuckians who apply for health insurance under the new law simply have to choose from a wide array of plans available either through the state’s exchange or its expanded Medicaid program.

If, as Republicans continue to claim, Obamacare “doesn’t work,” then it shouldn’t work anywhere. If it can work in states as different as California [and Kentucky], then it can work anywhere.

Apparently the Republican reaction in California is to run a fake website.  They still got nuthin'.

Dinner with the Family. Not.

Via skippy:  A Walmart Thanksgiving, by Charles Dickens.  Because apparently that bunch (the Walmart Execs, and yes, that's a lousy name for a band) missed the message the first time.  (Crooks and Liars is a terrific resource.)

I understand there is a Walmart somewhere in the region.  I will not be going there.

Death Wish

"How the GOP Is Literally Killing Its Voters," Alex Henderson, AlterNet.  Because you only have to fall through the net once.

Older news, but as teabaggers have been studiously ignoring it (probably because they think they'll benefit.  They're wrong):  The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the reasons to oppose it.  Jim Hightower, AlterNet.

Mass Hysteria

Well, no, more like temper tantrums.

Charles II at Mercury Rising links to and excerpts Ed Pilkington's article in the Guardian, adding his own coda:

These people are evil. There is no other word to describe the attempt to deny health care to people who are uninsurable because they are sick or poor. 40,000 American die every year because of their past efforts. To continue to cause people to die needlessly in the face of having lost the argument and two national elections is, very simply, murder.

Not pro-life, despite the rhetoric. But you knew that.

ALEC does not support legislation in people's best interests.  Remember that.

Working

Driftglass on the employment situation in these United States.

And yes, his headline is deliberate.

ETA:  Jurassicpork concurs.

Four For Texas

• Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I am linking to the article at Transgriot by Monica Roberts, found via Red Light Politics, as part of my remembrance.  No one should be murdered for their gender presentation, their jobs, or their sexuality.  Ever.
• You know, one of the things that apparently needs to be taught in kindergarten is "Never sell or buy drugs from an undercover cop."  Really.  It's been fairly obvious for years now is that the crime is not the buying (or selling) of drugs, but the buying of drugs from undercover cops.  Read any article about someone busted for illegal pharmaceuticals.  If a search of premises is not involved, somewhere the words "undercover police" are guaranteed to appear.  Rep. Trey Radel (Republican, of Florida, of course) is merely the latest slow learner.
• Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast talks about her sister and their relationship over the years, and then weighs in in strong terms on Liz Cheney's dismissal of her sister Mary's marriage.  Frankly, I hope Liz Cheney's ears are hotter than jalapeños.  No decency and no shame.
• Greg Prince shakes hands with Dwight Gooden.  (And writes about meaning.)

Early Sorrow

• In memoriam:  Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize-winning author.
• Batocchio (Vagabond Scholar) on war and human stupidity around war.  A taste because otherwise I'd just quote the whole thing (it's that good):

  Tragically, it's easier to start a war than to end one. And it's easier, in national "debates" on war, for the wiser voices to be drowned out by the foolish, the vain, the frightened, the posturing, the political ambitious, and the greedy.
  
  […]
  
  And here's the thing. The national discourse will never be lacking in Richard Cohens and Megan McArdles eager to sacrifice other people's lives because they feel scared. It will never be lacking Tom Friedmans hungry to have others fight in a war to prove their own toughness. It will never lack Ann Coulters filled with rage and driven to prove their dominance, or George Bushes and Bill Kristols enthusiastic to taunt their political foes and live out macho fantasies. It will never lack highly pedigreed but foolish pundits such as Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, who try to sell (to themselves and others) blithe imperialism as sober-minded realism. That leaves it to the rest of us to oppose these fuckers and build mechanisms so they can't start more unnecessary wars, not so easily. And that will be the work of sustained effort over many years. [Emphasis added.]

  The old-fashioned term is "vainglory." 
• [ETA: This morning over at Comrade Misfit's place, I saw a post announcing that one of the blogs that had been silent for a year was so because the blogger, Jeff Huber, had died, so I ankled on over and I'm still reading, but this post supports what I've been thinking about war for a while now. A sample:

  Every place we have bombed, boarded, bludgeoned, beheaded and bloodied, from Iraq to the Bananastans to Libya to Somalia to Yemen, looks like a big-city zoo ten minutes after the force-ten earthquake hit it.
  
  Our generals and the sycophant politicians who grovel at their spit-polished feet would have us believe that we now have to dedicate the next 80 years or so into rounding up all the critters we let loose and putting them back in their cages. Well guess what, folks. All them loose critters are making new critters faster than we can give Dick Cheney's pals no-bid contracts to build new cages to put them all in. You cannot win un-winnable wars. The longer you pursue them, the longer it takes to lose them.

  By the way, he has a lovely line in euphemism. "Unrefined used horse lunch," indeed.
  

AlterNet Is Totally On Fire Today

Who's got the marshmallows?

• Why you should be concerned about that global warming climate changing stuff.
• "Anarchist" as substitute for "commie" in the scare-monger arsenal.
• Capitalism's discouragements.
• People who lack empathy--nature or nurture?
• Breaking bad, er, habits.

Weekend…The Long Version

Thank you, Don Pardo.

• It turns out that the head of CBS News is a former Faux News honcho, and that there's a wee bit of possible conflict of interest with the eyewitness who wasn't.  (News Corpse, via Mercury Rising.)
• Ta-Nehisi Coates (Atlantic) and Abi Sutherland (Making Light) dissect Richard Cohen's unconsciously revealing column in the Washington Post; Mr. Coates calls it what it is, and Ms. Sutherland makes of the offending paragraph a pantoum.*  [ETA:  Lance Mannion has another take on that column.][EFTA, 11/24: Chris Clarke, who is probably not the Chris Clarke in my elementary Russian class in college, damnit, composed a pointed parody.  Courtesy of in medias res at Making Light.]

* "pantoum |panˈto͞om|(also pantun )

nouna Malay verse form, imitated in French and English, consisting of quotations with anabab rhyme scheme linked by repeated lines."

It Seems...

that one of the witnesses to the Benghazi attack…wasn't there.

"Careful With That Axe, Eugene"

Still meditating on that generosity thing.  And pondering what it meant that Mom left all that luggage in front of the seat on the train and then disappeared (another dream, more weirdness).  In any case, all these tabs have got to go.

• Via Echidne of the Snakes, another conservative misapprehension.

  For note that a good economy, a safety net which encourages entrepreneurship (and stops the vortex that results in extreme poverty), fair wages and retirement systems would NOT create "a permanent majority demanding government hand-outs." Because the majority of people would be paying federal income taxes and sharing in the expenses of our shared concerns.

• Republic of T on the peculiar things conservatives believe about the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.  With videos.  Bonus:  "Speaker Boehner, Job Discrimination Is Not "Frivolous."  With examples and personal testimony.
• Good news!  Illinois voted to allow same-sex marriages!  (OK, so this is a day or so old.)
• Mills River Progressive on restraining the NSA and on the Farm Bill.
• Fancy that:  Obamacare gaining positive attention in the polls.  Gee.  And in spite of all that negative attention, too.  Gosh!
• Music!  Music!  Music!

We Fight On

Pvt. Chelsea Manning's ongoing struggle to live as a woman (and the obstacles in the way).

The military has said it does not provide treatment for gender dysphoria. Pentagon policy dictates that transgender soldiers are not allowed to serve, but Manning can't be discharged until she's released from prison and exhausts appeals of her criminal convictions. The Army Medical Command has said prisoners cannot receive hormone treatment at Fort Leavenworth, though Manning is apparently the first to request it. Prison officials have said Manning won't be allowed to dress as a woman.

The case may have to go to court.