May 21, 2013 archive

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The main purpose our blogging is to communicate our ideas, opinions, and stories both fact and fiction. The best part about the the blogs is information that we might not find in our local news, even if we read it online. Sharing that information is important, especially if it educates, sparks conversation and new ideas. We have all found places that are our favorites that we read everyday, not everyone’s are the same. The Internet is a vast place. Unlike “Punting the Pundits which focuses on opinion pieces mostly from the mainstream media and the larger news web sites, “Around the Blogosphere” will focus more on the medium to smaller blogs and articles written by some of the anonymous and not so anonymous writers and links to some of the smaller pieces that don’t make it to “Pundits” by Krugman, Baker, etc.

We encourage you to share your finds with us. It is important that we all stay as well informed as we can.

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This is an Open Thread.

Paul Krugman at his blog Conscious of a Liberal want to know Where Are The Deficit Celebrations?.

This is your Obama DOJ at work protecting us from an 83 year old nun and two pacifists, from transcriber at Corrente:

• In which an 83-year-old nun is convicted of terrorism, her weapon is white roses, and the jury is not allowed to hear a former Attorney General testify in her defense: It’s nukes in America

also from lambert:

• Unlike Michelle Obama, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with aspiring to be a rapper

From Gaius Publius at Americablog:

• Pressure building on OFA over Keystone Pipeline betrayal

At Crooks and Liars, Mike Lux writes about foreclosure protestors demanding that Attorney General Holder hold the Wall Street Banks that ravaged America’s economy accountable:

• The Courage to Put Yourself on the Line

From Suzie Madrak:

• Are The Deficit Hawks Actually Trying To Starve Us Now?

and by David:

• Iowa Senate Republican Staffer Fired After Reporting Sexual Harassment

At FDL Action, Jon Walker on health care:

• Poorly Designed Employer Mandate Could Lead to Problematic Gaming
• Projected Government Health Spending Down Almost a Trillion Since Deficit Hysteria Began

Over at naked capitalism, Dan Kervick:

• Did the House of Representatives Just (Unintentionally) Eliminate the Debt Ceiling?

David Dayen:

• SEC Convenes Foot-Dragging Roundtable on Rating Agency Reform, While Securities Issuers Return to Familiar Rating-Shopping Tricks

From our friends at Voices on the Square:

by Robyn:

• Pentagon acknowledges transgender veterans

and JayeRaye:

• Hellraisers Journal: IWW strikers sing on their way to jail after mass arrest.

And in case you hadn’t turned on the TV or Radio, a huge, deadly tornado swept through Moore, Oklahoma leveling the suburb of Oklahoma City.  

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

May 21 is the 141st day of the year (142nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 224 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1881, the American Red Cross was established in Washington, D.C. by Clara Barton, who became the first president of the organization.

Clara Barton

Clara Barton (1821-1912) had a career as a teacher and federal bureaucrat when the American Civil War broke out. Barton liked teaching when she was younger. All of her older siblings became teachers. Her youngest sibling was 12 years of age, when Barton was born. Her brother David was always like a teacher to her. She taught her first class, at age 17. She also expanded her concept of soldier aid, traveling to Camp Parole, Maryland, to organize a program for locating men listed as missing in action. Through interviews with Federals returning from Southern prisons, she was often able to determine the status of some of the missing and notify families.

After performing humanitarian work during and after the conflict, on advice of her doctors, in 1869, she went to Europe for a restful vacation. There, she saw and became involved in the work of the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War, and determined to bring the organization home with her to America.

When Barton began the organizing work in the U.S. in 1873, no one thought the country would ever again face an experience like the Civil War. However, Barton was not one to lose hope in the face of the bureaucracy, and she finally succeeded during the administration of President Chester A. Arthur on the basis that the new American Red Cross organization could also be available to respond to other types of crisis.

As Barton expanded the original concept of the Red Cross to include assisting in any great national disaster, this service brought the United States the “Good Samaritan of Nations” label in the International Red Cross. Barton became President of the American branch of the society, known officially as the American National Red Cross. Soon after the initial May 1881 meeting in Washington, on August 22, 1881, the first local chapter of the Red Cross was formed in village of Dansville, New York, where Barton kept a part-time residence between 1876 and 1886. Subsequent local chapters were established in Rochester and Syracuse. Ultimately, John D. Rockefeller, along with four others and the federal government, gave money to create a national headquarters in Washington, D.C., located one block from the White House.