Law and Disorder. Weigh in, because this is confusing.

A married woman in Texas was with her lover in his pick up truck in her family driveway when her husband came home and saw them together.  She cried “RAPE” and he fired his gun at the pickup as her lover (remember, he thought the guy was a rapist) drove away.  

After the smoke cleared, the prosecution charged the woman with involuntary manslaughter.

From CNN:

A Texas woman who caused her lover’s shooting death by falsely crying rape was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter.

snip

In late 2006, Darrell Roberson came home from a late-night card game to find his scantily clad wife with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway. Tracy Roberson was with her lover but cried rape, and her husband fired four shots into the truck as Devin LaSalle drove off, killing him.

Read the entire story here, if you wish.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/…

Originally the husband was charged with murder, but once the actual details of this situation came to light, the charges were dropped against him and his wife was charged instead.

Legally, this seems at first blush to be really unorthodox.  

The person firing the weapon that kills a person and ultimately is not charged with a crime, due to the fact the shots were fired under false pretense.  

Did this person need to fire shots in the first place?  

Was a phone call to the police enough, or was the passion of the moment simply too much to expect an average human to react reasonably?

First, wouldn’t you go directly to your wife who is, in your estimation, under duress?  Perhaps then, get the license of the vehicle the alleged perpetrator is driving, or at least the description and then call the police?  Or, would you go to the nearest firearm and start shooting because you can see your wife is no longer in danger but the perpetrator is getting away?

Tough one, for me.  Since I don’t own any firearms, the question is easily answered.

However, that doesn’t mean that if there was a baseball bat sitting in the yard, under the circumstances, would I have grabbed it and started beating the guy if I could get to him, or???

This is not a delicate question, but what do you THINK you would do?

Do you agree with the legal outcome?  Or,

Photobucket

HONORING THE FALLEN: US Military KIA, Iraq/Afganistan – April 2008

There have been 4,373 coalition deaths — 4,065 Americans, two Australians, 176 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvian, 22 Poles, three Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of May 2, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 29,911 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq

April 2008

Cpt. Andrew. R. Pearson

32


1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Billings, Montana

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 30, 2008

Spc. Ronald J. Tucker

21


1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Fountain, Colorado

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 30, 2008

Staff Sgt. Bryan E. Bolander

26


1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Bakersfield, California

Killed when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 29, 2008

Staff Sgt. Clay A. Craig

22


1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Mesquite, Texas

Died of wounds suffered when he received small-arms fire during combat operations in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 29, 2008

Pfc. Adam L. Marion

26


171st Engineer Company, North Carolina Army National Guard

Mount Airy, North Carolina

One of three soldiers who died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their forward operating base with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 28, 2008

Sgt. Marcus C. Mathes

26


94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Zephyrhills, Florida

One of three soldiers who died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their forward operating base with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 28, 2008

Spc. David P. McCormick

26


1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Fresno, Texas

Died of wounds suffered when his forward operating base came under rocket attack in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 28, 2008

Sgt. Mark A. Stone

22


94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Buchanan Dam, Texas

One of three soldiers who died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their forward operating base with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 28, 2008

Pfc. William T. Dix

32


14th Engineer Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade, I Corps

Culver City, California

Died of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on April 27, 2008. The incident is under investigation.

Staff Sgt. Shaun J. Whitehead

24


2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Commerce, Georgia

Died, of wounds suffered when he encountered a roadside bomb during a dismounted patrol in Iskandariya, Iraq, on April 24, 2008

Pfc. John T. Bishop

22


1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Gaylord, Michigan

One of two soldiers who died of injuries suffered in a vehicle incident in Golden Hills, Iraq, on April 23, 2008

Staff Sgt. Ronald C. Blystone

34


1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Springfield, Missouri

Died from wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire during a dismounted patrol in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 23, 2008

1st Lt. Timothy W. Cunningham

26


1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

College Station, Texas

One of two soldiers who died of injuries suffered in a vehicle incident in Golden Hills, Iraq, on April 23, 2008

Sgt. Guadalupe Cervantes Ramirez

26


2nd Transportation Company, Echelons Above Brigade Support Battalion, National Training Center Support Brigade Fort

Irwin, California

Died at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, of injuries suffered in a vehicle incident on April 23, 2008

Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter

19


1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Sag Harbor, New York

One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq, on April 22, 2008

Pvt. Ronald R. Harrison

25


703rd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division

Morris Plains, New Jersey

Died of a non-combat related injury at Forward Operating Base Falcon near Baghdad, Iraq, on April 22, 2008

Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale

21


2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Burkeville, Virginia

One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq, on April 22, 2008

Airman Apprentice Adrian M. Campos

22


Helicopter Sea Combat Support Squadron 22

El Paso, Texas

Found dead in Dubai on April 21, 2008, due to a non-combat related incident. The incident is under investigation.

Spc. Steven J. Christofferson

20


1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Cudahy, Wisconsin

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encoutnered a roadside bomb in Bayji, Iraq, on April 21, 2008

Sgt. Adam J. Kohlhaas

26


1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Perryville, Missouri

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encoutnered a roadside bomb in Bayji, Iraq, on April 21, 2008

1st Lt. Matthew R. Vandergrift

28


2nd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Littleton, Colorado

Died from wounds he suffered during combat operations in Basra, Iraq, on April 21, 2008

Petty Officer 1st Class Cherie L. Morton

40


Naval Security Force, Naval Support Activity Bahrain

Bakersfield, California

Died in Galali, Muharraq, Bahrain, on April 20. The cause of death is under investigation.

Spc. Benjamin K. Brosh

22


2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Died of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Paliwoda, Iraq, on April 18, 2008

Spc. Lance O. Eakes

25


1132nd Military Police Company, North Carolina Army National Guard

Apex, North Carolina

Died of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 18, 2008

Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown

29


Company B, 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group

Magnolia, Texas

Killed by a burst of small-arms fire while attempting to enter a building during an operation to capture an al Qaeda leader in Sama village, Iraq, on April 17, 2008

Cpl. Richard J. Nelson

23


2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve

Racine, Wisconsin

One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq, on April 14, 2008

Lance Cpl. Dean D. Opicka

29


2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve

Waukesha, Wisconsin

One of two Marines killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq, on April 14, 2008

Spc. William E. Allmon

25


1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division

Ardmore, Oklahoma

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 12, 2008

. Merlin German

22


5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force

Manhattan, New York

Died on April 11, 2008 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds he suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq, on February 22, 2005

Sgt. Jesse A. Ault

28


429th Brigade Support Battalion, Virginia Army National Guard

Dublin, Virginia

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 9, 2008

Tech. Sgt Anthony L. Capra

31


Detachment 63, 688 Armament Systems Squadron

Hanford, California

Died of wounds suffered when he encountered a homemade bomb near Golden Hills, Iraq, on April 9, 2008

Spc. Jacob J. Fairbanks

22


1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Died of injuries in a non-combat related incident in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 9, 2008

Spc. Arturo Huerta-Cruz

23


10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Clearwater, Florida

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Tuz, Iraq, on April 14, 2008

Spc. Jeremiah C. Hughes

26


1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team (Stryker), 25th Infantry Division

Jacksonville, Florida

Died of injuries sustained in a non-combat related incident in Abu Gharab, Iraq, on April 9, 2008

Sgt. Shaun P. Tousha

30


1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Hull, Texas

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 9, 2008

Staff Sgt. Jeffery L. Hartley

25


1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division

Hempstead, Texas

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Kharguliah, Iraq, on April 8, 2008

Spc. Jason C. Kazarick

30


1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment

Oakmont, Pennsylvania

One of two soldiers killed when enemy forces attacked using a rocket-propelled grenade in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 8, 2008

Sgt. Michael T. Lilly

23


1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment

Boise, Idaho

One of two soldiers killed when enemy forces attacked using a rocket-propelled grenade in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 8, 2008

Maj. Mark E. Rosenberg

32


3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Miami Lakes, Florida

Killed when his wounds encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 8, 2008

Sgt. Timothy M. Smith

25


4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

South Lake Tahoe, California

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 7, 2008

Sgt. Richard A. Vaughn

22


1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

San Diego, California

Died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked using a rocket-propelled grenade, homemade bombs and small-arms fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 7, 2008

Capt. Ulises Burgos-Cruz

29


Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division

Puerto Rico

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Balad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Staff Sgt. Jeremiah E. McNeal

23


237th Engineer Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, 91st Troop Command, Virginia Army National Guard

Norfolk, Virginia

Killed when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Spc. Matthew T. Morris

23


2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment

Cedar Park, Texas

One of two soldiers killed when their vehicle encountered a roadside bomb in Balad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Pfc. Shane D. Penley

19


2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division

Sauk Village, Illinois

Died of wounds suffered while on duty at a guard post at Patrol Base Copper, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Staff Sgt. Emanuel Pickett

34


1132nd Military Police Company, North Carolina Army National Guard

Teachey, North Carolina

Died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Col. Stephen K. Scott

54


356th Quartermaster Battalion

New Market, Alabama

One of two soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their unit with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Maj. Stuart A. Wolfer

36


11th Battalion, 104th Division

Coral Springs, Florida

One of two soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their unit with indirect fire in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 6, 2008

Staff Sgt. Travis L. Griffin

28


377th Security Forces Squadron, 377th Mission Support Group, 377th Air Base Wing

Dover, Delaware

Died of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb near Baghdad, Iraq, on April 3, 2008

Afghanistan – The Forgotten War

There have been 793 coalition deaths — 492 Americans, 5 Australians, 94 Britons, 82 Canadians, 2 Czech, 14 Danes, 16 Dutch, two Estonians, one Finn, 12 French, 22 Germans, 11 Italians, three Norwegians, three Poles, two Portuguese, 6 Romanians, one South Korean, 23 Spaniards, two Swedes — in the war on terror as of May 2, 2008, according to a CNN count. Below are the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The troops died in support of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom or were part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. At least 1,937 U.S. personnel have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon


April 2008

Sgt. 1st Class David L. McDowell

30


2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment

Ramona, California

Died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked using small-arms fire in Baston, Afghanistan, on April 29, 2008

Senior Airman Jonathan A. V. Yelner

24


28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron

Lafayette, California

Died of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered a roadside bomb near Bagram, Afghanistan, on April 29, 2008

Lance Cpl. Jason Marks

27


4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (Commando)

Yeppoon, Queensland, Australia

Killed during a firefight with Taliban fighters approximately 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan province, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2008

Trooper Robert Pearson

22


A Squadron, The Queen’s Royal Lancers

Grimsby, England

Killed when his vehicle struck a suspected mine while his unit was providing security for a resupply convoy returning to Camp Bastion in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on April 21, 2008

Pfc. Mark Schouwink

22


45th Armored Infantry Battalion, 43rd Mechanized Brigade

The Netherlands

One of two Dutch soldiers killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb seven miles (12 kilometers) northwest of Camp Holland in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, on April 18, 2008

1st Lt. Dennis van Uhm

23


45th Armored Infantry Battalion, 43rd Mechanized Brigade

The Netherlands

One of two Dutch soldiers killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb seven miles (12 kilometers) northwest of Camp Holland in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, on April 18, 2008

1st Sgt. Luke J. Mercardante

35


Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Athens, Georgia

One of two Marines killed during combat operations in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 15, 2008

Cpl. Kyle W. Wilks

24


Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force

Rogers, Arkansas

One of two Marines killed during combat operations in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 15, 2008

Senior Aircraftman Graham Livingstone

23


Support Weapons Flight, 3 Squadron, Royal Air Force Regiment

Strathclyde, Scotland

One of two British airmen killed when their vehicle was struck by an explosion during a patrol at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 13, 2008

Senior Aircraftman Gary Thompson

51


504 Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force

Nottingham, England

One of two British airmen killed when their vehicle was struck by an explosion during a patrol at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 13, 2008

Pvt. Terry John Street

24


2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry

Hull, Quebec, Canada

Killed when his armored vehicle struck a suspected roadside bomb in the Panjwayi district in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 4, 2008

Sgt. Nicholas A. Robertson

27


Headquarters Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group

Old Town, Maine

Died on April 3, 2008, at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered during combat operations near the Zahn Khan district in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on April 2



“Epidemic of Suicides”

Veterans Combat VA in Lawsuit Seeking Adequate and Timely Healthcare – Closing Arguments

Civilian Casulties – Iraq

Just Foreign Policy Issues

Over a million {*1,205,025} Iraqis are estimated to have been killed as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Learn More and Take Action»

*Estimate, click for explaination

.

To

John Hopkins School of Public Health { October 11, 2006 report } puts the count at 650,000, with a range from 400,000 to 900,000.

Exact Count of Civilian Casulties may never be known, as is the case in every conflict, especially an Invasion by another Country. For it is the Innocent Civilians and those Defending their Countries {of which All would be counted if this land were ever invaded} who suffer the most, during and long after!

Iraq Refugees UNHCR: UNHCR Global Appeal 2008-2009 – Iraq Situation

Filetype: PDF (116k)

All the Deaths, Maimings and Destruction are the Blood on All Our Hands, No One can escape the Guilt!

March 2008, Febuary 2008, January 2008, December 2007, November 2007, October 2007, September 2007, August 2007, July 2007, June 2007, May 2007, April 2007, March 2007, Feb. 2007, Jan. 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003

You can view other Honor Rolls of the Fallen I have posted on my site {links above}, or from the CNN link at top and the other sources that you might use or know about.



As Of May 3 2008, There Are 85 Pages w/5 ‘Silent Honor Rolls’ Each, Number Of Casulties Varies With Each ‘Silent Honor Roll’; Many now have numbers in the teens and twenties, click on graphic.

A Nations Security Does Not Mean A Nation Sets An Example Of Creating More Hatreds And Enemies By

    ‘Wars Of Choice’

, Nor By Installing And Supporting Dictators, It Leads By The Example Of Peace And Prevention, Especially As A Democracy, Gaining Friends And Supporters, And Defends With Force Only When All Other Options Are Exhausted



97 percent of U.S. deaths in Iraq have occurred after George W. Bush declared an end to “major combat.”

“Mission Accomplished!”

We have lost over 900 dead Americans since the surge. Now if you want to dismiss that as “success” that would be your interpretation.

Chuck Hagel

If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!

Is ‘Funding’ Really For Troops?

What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?

Those who take some sort of relief in the “We are fighting them over there so we won’t be fighting them here!”, Better Rethink their Future, or rather their Childrens Future!!

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,”  – George W. Bush, Texas Gov., 1999


” What does it matter to the dead, the orphan, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

– Mohandas K. Gandhi

The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!!

Docudharma Times Saturday May 3



Out on the streets, that’s where we’ll meet

You make the night, I always cross the line

Tightened our belts, abuse ourselves

Get in our way, we’ll put you on your shelf

Another day, some other way

Saturday’s Headlines: For Bush in Last Year, It’s the Principle: Love and death in the South’s deadliest prison: Elections 2008 London: In paintings by Monet and Manet we see how men’s hobbies begin: Quartet opens door to ending Hamas isolation: Palestinian forces deploy to West Bank town: Ivorian ex-rebels begin to disarm: Election body confirms Mugabe lost the vote: Pakistan coalition averts collapse with deal to restore ousted judges: Cuba puts first computers on sale to the public

After Hiatus, States Set Wave of Executions

HUNTSVILLE, Tex. – Here in the nation’s leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others with capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up.

Less than three weeks after a United States Supreme Court ruling ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have been set in six states between May 6 and October.

“The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. “So in some sense, they’re back from vacation and ready to go to work.”

USA

For Bush in Last Year, It’s the Principle

As Influence Wanes, He Stays Resolute

After U.S. gasoline prices surged to a record high this week, President Bush strode into the Rose Garden to unveil his plans for coping with skyrocketing energy costs: drill for oil in Alaska, add U.S. refineries and build more nuclear plants.

Even the White House conceded that the ideas did not have a chance. Democrats howled, Republicans shrugged and Washington moved on.

Love and death in the South’s bloodiest prison

Two Black Panthers were convicted in the 1972 stabbing of a newlywed guard at Angola, in Louisiana. Now, his widow – and others – aren’t sure they did it.

JEANERETTE, LA. — Thirty-six years have passed since she saw him last, but Leontine Verrett has never forgotten the face of the man she still calls her true love. His name was Brent Miller. He was lean and cocksure and strummed his guitar a little too loud.

Their romance blossomed on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the plantation turned prison built along a bend of the Mississippi River. He came from a clan where men had served as prison guards for generations. She was one of 12 children who moved there when their father got a job running the prison’s sugar mill.

The lovers married on Feb. 5, 1972 — he was 23, she was just 16. Two months later, the bride nicknamed Teenie got a call that there had been “an accident” at Angola, as the prison is known. She was a widow.

Europe

Elections 2008

Boris Johnson has won the race to become the next mayor of London – ending Ken Livingstone’s eight-year reign at City Hall.

The Conservative candidate won with 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Mr Livingstone’s 1,028,966 on a record turnout of 45%.

He paid tribute to Mr Livingstone and appeared to offer him a possible role in his new administration.

Lib Dem Brian Paddick came third and the Greens’ Sian Berry came fourth.

In paintings by Monet and Manet we see how men’s hobbies begin

Britain invented the steam railway, but France has better pictures and more skilful engineers

A seated young woman with a lapdog looks up thoughtfully from her book. To the right of her, a girl in a pretty dress has turned her back to us and is staring downwards through some iron railings. A cloud of steam is rising from left to right below them. The girl seems to be looking towards the source of it. Given the picture’s title it can be only one thing: a steam locomotive.

Edouard Manet painted The Railway (Gare Saint-Lazare) in 1873 and it baffled the critics when it was accepted by the Paris Salon the next year. How were the people in the picture related – sisters or governess and pupil? – and what was its message? Manet was no help – he didn’t believe in explanations – but now the curators of a magnificent new exhibition, Art in the Age of Steam, have had another shot.

Middle East

Quartet opens door to ending Hamas isolation

The big powers have formally acknowledged for the first time that the policy of isolating Hamas through an economic blockade of Gaza is not working.

In a statement issued after talks at foreign minister level in London, the Quartet for Middle East peace opened the door to Egypt to find a “new approach” for Gaza, which was seized by the militant Islamic Hamas movement in June last year. The blockade, which was intended to provoke Palestinians into rejecting the Hamas leadership, has in fact proved counter-productive, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe for the majority of the 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian forces deploy to West Bank town

Hundreds of Palestinian security forces headed to the West Bank town of Jenin on Saturday in the latest extension of a territory-wide crackdown, a senior security official said.

General Thiyab al-Ali, commander of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, told AFP that 600 police reinforcements had been dispatched from Jericho to Jenin and were expected to arrive by midday (0900 GMT).

“The security forces will carry out a campaign of imposing law and order in the Jenin governorate,” he said, in an operation called “Smiles and Hope” that will seek to disarm local gangs and militias.

“These forces will implement the orders of president Mahmud Abbas to serve the citizens, protect them, and end the security breakdown in the governorate,” he added.

Israel at the end of March approved the deployment of some 700 security forces to the town, the site of fierce clashes during the Palestinian uprising which broke out in 2000.

Arica

Ivorian ex-rebels begin to disarm

The former rebels in Ivory Coast who still control the northern half of the country have started to disarm with a ceremony involving 1,000 fighters.

After several false starts, the New Forces rebels say over the next five months all their soldiers will head to specially prepared sites to disarm.

They will then rejoin civilian life or join a new joint national army.

The conflict started in September 2002 when disgruntled soldiers took control of the north after a failed coup.

Cpl Nanu Djeniba was one of the first ex-fighters to receive her official certificate of disarmament, saying she was no longer part of the New Forces rebellion.

Election body confirms Mugabe lost the vote

· Commission says rival failed to avoid run-off

· Senior opposition chief threatened with arrest


Zimbabwe’s election commission yesterday confirmed that President Robert Mugabe lost the election held five weeks ago but that his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, fell below the 50% of the vote required to avoid a run-off ballot between the two later this month.

The commission’s figures, giving Tsvangirai 47.9% to 43.2% for Zimbabwe’s leader since independence in 1980, are close to the numbers leaked by the ruling Zanu-PF earlier in the week.

However, the formal declaration of the results is still some days away as the count has to be approved by the contenders.

Asia

Pakistan coalition averts collapse with deal to restore ousted judges

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

Saturday, 3 May 2008

Pakistan’s fledgling civilian government appeared last night to have found a way out of the crisis threatening to pull it apart when it announced that the nation’s ousted judges would be restored this month.

The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) is the junior coalition party, said 12 May had been set as the date for the reinstatement of the 60 judges – including the ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry – who were kicked out by President Pervez Musharraf last year.

Olympic torch begins relay in Chinese city Macau

MACAU – The Olympic torch began its relay Saturday past glitzy Las Vegas-style casinos and pastel colored colonial buildings in the Chinese city of Macau – the world’s most lucrative gambling center.

The flame was expected to get a warm patriotic welcome in the former Portuguese enclave that returned to Chinese rule in 1999. Protests are relatively rare in the tiny city on China’s southern coast – the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.

The torch arrived from Hong Kong, where it completed a relay Friday that was not disrupted by protesters – a contrast from many other stops during the torch’s 20-nation tour. In several cities, the torch run was marred by pro-Tibet protesters and others demonstrating against China’s human rights record.

Latin America

Cuba puts first computers on sale to the public

HAVANA – Cubans are getting wired. The island’s communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro.

A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780 (euro505). While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.

Inside, four clerks tore open boxes, hastily assembling display computers. By the time a sign went up listing the PCs specifications, more than a dozen shoppers were lined up to get in.

Micro Gravity

I like to mute the soundtrack and play some tunes while I watch this.


via videosift.com

If I knew how, I’d put a cool soundtrack over this.  

There’s more stuff below.

Do Boomerangs work in Space (Stations)?


via videosift.com

Geeks in Space!

Check out the video of “Saturday Morning Science.”  It’s a Mr. Wizard type of show for kids.  This is where I got the one about water drops.  Dr. Don Pettit’s microgravity experiments are very cool, check it out (I didn’t post it here–It’s long).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Stephan Hawkin testing for a possible space flight.


via videosift.com

In the future; Who knows?  Maybe He’ll make it.

Again, needs a soundtrack.  Later.

Lawsuit filed to stop wolf killings

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

30 days after the Bush Administration removed Yellowstone’s Gray Wolves from the endangered list, a lawsuit has been filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council to stop the toll on the small population, which is now at 37 dead wolves and counting.

On the very day that these wolves lost their Endangered Species protection, a crippled wolf named “Limpy,” one of the most photographed wolves in Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak pack, was shot to death when he ventured outside the park.

Another wolf was stalked for over 35 miles by snowmobile before being overtaken and shot. Another was found dead on the side of the highway, his still-warm body torn apart by bullets. And, tragically, at least four female wolves have been killed just prior to the denning season, which could doom some of the region’s wolf pups.

The Gray Wolf was taken off the endangered list earlier this year, after repeated attempts by the Bush Administration to remove them from the list, despite their marginal population.

More below the jump…

The NRDC Action Fund has issued a press release (excerpt) and had introduced a petition (links at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST:

The restoration of the gray wolf in the Northern Rockies is one of America’s greatest environmental success stories. Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and the central Idaho wilderness in 1995 after being exterminated by settlers, trappers and the federal government. Since then, these new populations have increased to 1,500 or so animals. Wolves play a crucial role in the ecosystems of the Northern Rockies, helping to preserve riparian forests and maintain healthy populations of raptors and coyotes. They are also a boon to the region’s economy, generating tens of millions of dollars in tourist revenue each year.

But Rocky Mountain wolves are now in grave danger. In March 2008, the Bush Administration stripped gray wolves in Greater Yellowstone and across the Northern Rockies of endangered species protection. Earlier in the year, the administration issued a new rule allowing the slaughter of hundreds of these wolves. Entire packs of wolves could be gunned down from airplanes in minutes. In fact, the federal government has already spent our tax dollars to buy two planes for the purpose of aerial gunning.

READ MORE

The Baltimore Herald

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

TBH480

I’m not from Baltimore and the only thing I like about the Orioles is that they lost in ’69 to the Mets.

Still I am a Cliffs Notes Character, so shallow my most substantial dimension is length.

One of the ways I yell louder is my contribution to Overnight News Digest where I’m celebratimg my one year anniversary in Magnifico’s house, the most valuable new feature of dKos since Diary Rescue according to Meteor Blades.

Outside of some early meta news digests my format has been kind of stable.

I use Yahoo News.  CNN and MSNBC are mere single sources and really offer no more variety than The New York Times and The Washington Post and I suppose if you’re a serious news junky you have dozens of these sites book marked in your browser and monitor them periodically.  If you have a great passion for variety nothing beats Google News where you can find hundreds of sources for any given story, but a limited number of them.

Yahoo covers a broad range of topics from the major wire sevices- AP, Reuters, and AFP as well as some limited offbeat sources like McClatchy (World News), The Christian Science Monitor (Top Stories) and Time Magazine (U.S. News and World News).  The topics I cover for Overnight News Digest are Top Stories, Most Popular (a meta indicator), World, U.S. News, Politics, Business, and Science.

I kind of like my product.  It is not simply the front page of Yahoo News, it is instead carefully filtered by a human being to include stories that interest me or that I think will interest you as a casual reader, and references to mainstream media sources that you can use to inspire a diary or buttress an argument.

I produce this piece of magic 3 times a week, Tuesday nights as Overnight News Digest and The Morning News, and Saturday and Sunday as Weekend News Digest.

Having done this for pretty much a year now I have observed that there is enough New news that if you don’t insist on 54 story tomes you could publish maybe even twice a day- a morning and evening edition.

Of course you couldn’t do that here on dKos where you are limited to one diary a day mind you, but it just so happens that I am in possesion of a valuable piece of Net-estate- The Baltimore Herald.

Now this is courtesy of pacified who owns all the ads, but it is (as near as I can tell) a fully functional Soapblox playground of blogging fantasy.

My core concept is this- twice a day we would post a series of 15 diaries.

15!  30 A DAY!?

Don’t worry. they’re short diaries.  It’s all about the tags.

Over on the right hand side of the page are 17 links to 17 tags

  • World
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Europe
    • North America (English and French speaking)
    • South America (Spanish speaking)
    • Antarctica (Penguin speaking)

  • U.S.
    • News/Politics
    • Media
    • Entertainment

  • Business
  • Science
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Not News!

Front Page Diaries are throw away vessels for the four or 21 stories that fit in their particular category.  You can certainly comment on any particular content and feel free to contribute story links, but if you have more than one or two…

Why not publish a diary with the correct tag or tags so you show up in our aggregator of doom?

Now World and U.S. are simply collections of their sub topics which wouldn’t get their own Front Page diary and I think many cycles of news will pass before the penguin speaking part of the world demands much attention so there’s a certain flexibility to the system.

Not News! deserves recognition as a place to park meta and personal issues so that they get some attention. I have endevoured in this model to give maximum recognition to contributor diaries and minimize the importance of the Front Page which will be subject to thrashing traffic in exchange for granularity.

About Shouting Louder

I don’t think that personally for me it’s going to be that difficult to come up with 60 stories a day that are worthy of your attention.  Frankly many of my proposed categories are going to be ignored because I have no interest in any sport except America’s Cup yacht racing.  Still the average is going to be 4 or 5 stories a category which is about what I’m looking for.

BUT I DO NOT INTEND TO DO THIS ALONE!

You dear sucker valued contributor are essential to my plan to take over the world with pastel colored boxes!

While I have access to the style sheet for DocuDharma I have to admit that I don’t understand it much.  So I’m hoping to impose on someone for my web design.

For now, because the site is not set up yet, I’d like to have people volunteer here and there and let me set up accounts for them.  I’m looking for Contributing Editors and Admins.  You like Entertainment and are willing to handle it once a week?  We should chat.

And while I’m not exactly proposing a site for chat (for one thing I’d have to get all meta about what is and is not polite conversation) I am proposing a site where you can easily search for and contribute content.  Tag your diary correctly and you’ll be pretty permanently linked to the Front Page even without awesome powers and abilities.  I expect the diary list will not scroll as fast as the Front Page but it will be open to random contributions.

In terms of diary format I like my style and contend it is superior.

Headline (with a link)

Author, Organization

Date or Time

  • <blockquote>Representative quote containing no more than 20% of the total article (and stuff that doesn’t have more than six graphs in total is pretty freaking useless) not to exceed 5 paragraphs (3 preferred) in length in total in any event.</blockquote>

Your snide comments here.

I find Headlines engaging and informative even when they’re a pack of lies like most diary titles.  They certainly attract my attention.  In my limited experience as a news picker I’ve noticed particular authors are more obnoxious than others which is why you should credit them and old news is… old.

Your commentary is of course timeless and can be as extensive as you want.

If you have even 3 stories that hang together in one of the pigeon holes, tag it and bag it and you’ll turn up on the bookmark like The Stars Hollow Gazette.  I don’t mean to straight jacket people’s creativity but you should seperate your colors and fabrics (meaning keep a collection of stories within the categories I list above).  In the Front Page pieces a nice feature would be to collect the headline links and feature them above the fold so you can just click through.

I’m thinking this would be a useful tool for people and I’m not intending to devote too much of my personal time to it, but I can spare a couple of hours a day to story pick.  It is not my intention to substitute for anything that is currently happening on dKos with Overnight News Digest or on DocuDharma with 4 @ 4, the DocuDharma Times, or Weekend News Digest; but to extend and enhance that resource.

Or maybe I’m totally misguided.

Your thoughts below.

Random Japan

Down on your luck? The cat-embroidered slippers at the door of Fukuneko-do are only the beginning at this maneki-neko mecca. The cozy shop, hidden in a winding alley in Kagurazaka, is piled high with kitty-printed kimono, handkerchiefs, wallets and jewelry. You can even pick up some custom-made candy imprinted with the face of the feline tencho-san, who can likely be found napping in his wicker basket. Should a scratch behind the ears be met with a swat, worry not-according to the lovely kimono-clad owner, his “neko punch” is good luck.

The productive worker

Who says your tax dollars aren’t put to good use?

Chicken by any other name is still a chicken

Until you change the label

The Price of Petrol

And a length of hose

Cops take a crack at closing the doors (and legs) at Osaka panty-flashing clubs

71

Percent of counterfeit Japanese goods that are produced in China, according to the Japan Patent Office

500,000

Commuters inconvenienced by a seven-hour stoppage on the Chuo line due to a fire at an electrical substation last month

6,105

National government workers who took more than a month’s sick leave in fiscal 2006, according to the National Personnel Authority

A Retrospective on the Snail Darter and the Little Tennessee River Valley

(11:00PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Who Remembers the Snail Darter case?

Or the Crazed Rabbit that attacked Jimmy Carter’s fishing boat in the 70’s?

This is the tale of the tragic flooding of the Valley of the Little Tennessee River, the heroic folks who fought the TVA action, the creative lawyers and law students who won the precedent setting supreme court decision, the brave settlers whose farms were taken and the stoic Native Americans whose homeland it was before – and the roles of the snail darter and the crazed rabbit.  And how it all comes down to – you guessed it – politics.

I meant to write this a couple weeks ago, but got distracted by my own environmental activism, Sierra Club monthly and quarterly meetings, showing William McDonough’s great film the Next Industrial Revolution, Earth Day events, lobbying in the state legislature for an increase in the coal severance tax, and an on-site with some other activists and OSM of a mountaintop removal site.  

I originally thought I might tie this up with a message about activism to effect change.  Don’t know that I’ll make it to that point, as I am certainly demoralized recently about my own local efforts. And am ready to take a break in my garden for the summer.  Maybe that’s change enough . . .

But the story of the snail darter case is a great one . . .

Friday April 18 was the 30th anniversary of the argument in the United States Supreme Court in the legendary snail darter case.  Wikipedia has a good article that gives a detailed background here.  

UT Law School hosted a symposium: TVA vs. Hill: A 30 year Retrospective on the Legendary Snail Darter Case.  You can read about it here.  Be sure to read the article by Professor Zygmunt Plater linked there and  here.

There were panels throughout the afternoon with lot’s of the major participants.  It was great.  The most enjoyable CLE credits I’ve ever earned.

The Timeline handed out at the symposium started with the tectonic uplift creating the Smoky Mountains and the Little Tennessee River in 200,000,000 BC, through the Woodland Indian habitations 15,000 years ago, the white settlers in the 1700’s, the creation of TVA in the 1930’s and proliferation of dams over the next two decades to the announcement of the Plan for the Tellico dam in 1959.

The plan was not for hydro-electric production, as many people now imagine – but for another TVA recreation lake and landside development.  A $120 million project, for the purchase of 38,000 acres, less than half of which was to be flooded.  The land was condemned for resale at a profit to pay off the cost of the project.  25,000 of those acres were prime agricultural farm land.  More than 300 family farms condemned – for an algae-laden lake.  ( I remember swimming in TVA lakes as a teenager.  I always came out covered a thin slimy green film.)

Folks living in the valley began to be approached by TVA  about selling their farms.  A few stalwart families held out and joined with some conservationists to begin the fight against the dam.  One of the panelists said that of her 160 acre farm eventually lost to TVA, only 3 acres were actually flooded.  The rest was for shore line economic development.

In 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) became law.  The Environmental Defense Fund and Association for the Preservation of the Little T filed a NEPA suit and obtained an injunction stopping work on the dam until TVA completed an EIS.   The EIS was completed in 1972 and failed to adequately address alternatives.  In May 1973 the injunction was lifted and work resumed on the dam.

On August 12, 1973 Dr. David Etnier discovered a new species of fish, the snail darter at Coytee Springs on the Little T.  On December 28, 1973 the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law.

In October 1974, law student Hank Hill proposed a term paper to his professor Zygmunt Plater: Tellico as a violation of the ESA.

Both Hank and Zyg were fly fishermen.  Hank grew up loving to fish the Little T.  Zyg had had not the heart to fish it during his years in Knoxville, knowing the river and valley were set for destruction.  But Hank’s theory gave him hope and at the retrospective symposium, they both recounted a great day fishing and reconnointering the river.  They had hope they could save it. And they almost did.

In 1975 the snail darter was put on the endangered list with a critical habitat designation, thanks to the efforts of the citizens involved and over TVA objections

They filed the ESA case in the Eastern District of Tennessee in 1976.  The district judge promptly dismissed it, but in 1977, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed the district court and enjoined further construction.  TVA applied for certiorari to the US. Supreme Court and the court granted cert.

Zyg Plater remembered the key point in the argument April 18, 1978: a question by chief Justice Burger, good Republican that he was and hardly the one to figure in as the saviour of the lowly snail darter. Burger was concerned that the project had already been started and a considerable sum of public money spent.   Professor Plater used language from one of Burger’s own opinions to remind the chief justice that he had said  in Rondeau v Mosinee Paper v. Corp. that the courts have the “full panoply” of equity powers to enforce the laws of Congress.

Burger’s opinion came out June 15.  TVA vs Hill, 1978 United States Supreme Court, 437 U.S. 153, the landmark decision on the Endangered Species Act.:

“It may seem curious to some that the survival of a relatively small number of three-inch fish among all the countless millions of extant species would require the permanent halting of a virtually completed dam for which congress has expended more than $100 million . . .

One would be hard pressed to find a statutory provision whose terms were any plainer than those of §7 of the Endangered Species Act.  Its very words affirmatively command all federal agencies ‘to insure that actions authorized, funded or carried out by them do not jeopardize the continued existence’ of an endangered species or result in the destruction of modification of the species. This language admits of no exception.  Accepting the Secretary’s determination, as we must, it is clear that TVA’s proposed operation of the dam will have precisely the opposite effect, namely the eradication of an endangered species. . .

Having determined that there is an irreconcilable conflict between the operation of the Tellico Dam and the explicit provisions of  §7 of the Endangered Species Act, w must now consider what remedy, if any, is appropriate.  It is correct, of course, that a federal judge sitting as a chancellor is not mechanically obligated to grant an injunction for every violation of the law. [But] once Congress, exercising its delegated powers, has decided the order of priorities in a given area, it is for the Executive to administer the laws and for the courts to enforce them . . . We agree with the court of Appeals that in our constitution system the commitment to the separation of powers is too fundamental for us to pre-empt congressional action by judicially decreeing what accords with’common sense and the public weal.’  Our Constitution vests such responsibilities in the political branches.  Affirmed.”

437 U.S. 153

It could not have been a better decision!  So what happened that the dam was eventually completed and the Little T Valley destroyed?

As plaintiffs Hill and Plater relayed at the symposium, it all came down to politics in the end. The Tennessee Congressional delegation, including freshman representative Gore, had never gotten behind those Tennessee citizens fighting the dam.  From the Plater TBA article:

The Darter Icon in the Press and Politics. Ultimately the pork-barrel coalition in Congress, with a rider pushed onto an appropriations bill by Rep. John Duncan and Sen. Baker, overturned the ESA’s protections for the darter,[18] and President Jimmy Carter retreated from his promised veto of the bill (which also had prohibited economic analysis of water projects by the president’s water resources council). After 200 million years, the river ended on Dec. 29, 1979.

The critical failure in the darter’s final defense probably lay with the inability of the citizens to bring public recognition to the dramatic real economic merits of the darter’s case and the dysfunctional economic demerits of TVA’s dam. Before the rider vote, every Member of Congress was given a personal letter from Secretary of Interior Cecil Andrus, chair of the economic review ordered by Congress that had unanimously decided against the dam. But although every member knew of the Tellico Dam’s economics, they also knew that the American public did not know, so the pork barrel was free to roll. And the president was told by his political liaison, Frank Moore, that he could not withstand the ridicule a veto would receive from the press and public opinion that viewed the snail darter as an economically irrational, environmentally extreme technicality.

And so it was. With Sen. Baker’s assistance the congressional pork barrel was able to roll, and even the president of the United States was dissuaded from asserting the economic merits by the media mockery of the case.

Despite the law and despite the economic record, in other words, the darter’s last major natural population and its river were ultimately lost because their national political opponents were successful in framing the case in the public eye as an icon of foolishness, the caricature that still continues in press commentary and political discourse today

Now you know the role of the crazed rabbit in this sad saga.  Professor Plater told us that, incredibly, then President Jimmy Carter, on the night after he decided he could not veto, called him, the professor plaintiff, to apologize.  They had counted on his veto.  He knew it was the right thing to do.  But he told Zyg Plater that the subcommittee chair just would not let him do it.  The President of the United States.  A man we now know to have much courage, much honesty and truthfulness in his post presidency.  But he had been subjected to ridicule already by the media earlier (I think) that summer, and certainly portrayed as weak by the media throughout his presidency that he just did not have – or his advisors did not think he had- the political capitol to do what he knew was right.

So we see the media’s role even in the 70’s was to thwart justice and the truth. It’s gotten much worse since then.  And now we really don’t have many courts that respect the Constitutional separation of powers, and not the majority on our Supreme Court.

What does this portend for the future?  How do we have the “umph” to fight for what we know is right for our country – and for the planet and all the species on it?  In the face of a ridiculing media – and nowadays a complacent public, greedy corporations, and an evil adminstration and spineless corrupt government?

When I left the UT symposium that day three weeks ago, I was kind of jazzed. It had been a thrilling day.  The lawyers, activists, the folks who had lost their farms were all inspiring.  They all said if given the choice they would do it all over again.  Though with some forknowledge about trying to work the politics better.

But they knew – and know – that it was a righteous fight.  And somehow they had strength there that day, in the retrospective gathering, declaring their will to fight again if need be.  And TVA’s plans for the valley have never really materialized.  There was no great economic boom, no great industrial park.  There was no need for another recreational lake. (As I’m writing this, I just got off the phone with a friend who is a fishermen, who grew up in Chattanooga.  I asked him about whether he had ever fished the Little T.  He said just once, but immediately said it was one of the great troutfishing streams in the southeast, crystal clear waters, that his father had worked for TVA and had always thought the flooding of the Little T was a mistake.)

At the symposium, I had the honor to sit for much of the day next to one of the panelists who had come down to represent the Cherokee heritage part of the story. Except for the time on the panel when he was telling his story, he was pretty silent throughout, almost stoic.   The flooding also took Chota, the old capitol of the Cherokee, as well as Tuskegee, the birthplace of Sequoyah.

As Sygmunt Plater says, from the UT snail darter website:

That wasn’t exactly the end, because enviros are such bad losers, they keep on trying. The Cherokee Indians had been working with our coalition right along, so then they filed a constitutional lawsuit against the dam based on violation of Native American religious rights (Congress can’t amend away constitutional claims). But the Cherokees’ appeal came up one vote short in the 6th circuit, the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari, and the river finally died. David Scates tells a sad story, of watching as the water came up. There was a budding rosebush at the edge of the river as the impoundment backed up, and as the sunlight filtered down through the two feet of cold clear water that had drowned it, for the last time its flowers blossomed, staying there for a few days, under water. He told us, ‘I cried, seeing the blossoms open under the water as it came up.'”

A clear glass vase, filled with fresh water and a smallish fish over what look to be miniature farm silos, and a lovely red rosebud on top were the symbol for the retrospective.  It was a fitting symbol for lovely day.  I can’t help thinking that with the reversal of dams out west as a prototype, maybe someday those ancient Cherokee and Native American sites will once again see the light of day.

Planet Shit Dispatch: American Idiot Edition



You know who is bitter in America? I am. Because shit-kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with, and everybody else had to suffer the consequences!

-Bill Maher

The bubba vote? What a fucking hoot! Newsweek magazine just continues to amaze in their increasingly successful quest to become America’s predominant tabloid shitrag. This week’s cover story is laughingly entitled Obama’s Bubba Gap and flogs the latest Clinton slime machine storyline that the magical mulatto empty suit is failing to attract the same dumb motherfucker demographic who were largely responsible for giving us the eight year running pox on western civilization that is the George W. Bush soft dictatorship.

The Clintons are really fixated on bagging their limit of unsophisticated rubes with the tired charge that Obama is some sort of high falutin, nappy headed version of John Kerry, an effete snob and an ivory tower elitist who some slobbering white trash freak wouldn’t want to have a beer with. He is just a prissy boy with no ‘testicular fortitude’ who doesn’t throw down shots of whiskey at photo ops and can’t bowl worth a damn, but I sure as hell bet that he can wind surf and is a living god when it comes to polo.

This is just phase 26 of the ‘kitchen sink strategy’ designed by a vengeful woman scorned in the aftermath of that Super Tuesday so long ago to keep moving the goalposts down the field, paying off the refs and making the ball carrier face repeated flagrant fouls on the way to the end zone. Like some grotesque running of the gauntlet designed to exact the maximum amount of damage because the ultimate sin in Murka is bucking the system. I brings to mind the great and eerily prophetic 70’s movie Rollerball in which Jonathan E. refuses to retire and faces the ultimate death match of a game with no rules, no time limit and a sole purpose of publicly killing him because he had the audacity to believe that he was bigger than the ‘game’.

A lot of those 70’s movies have a lot of relevance today when viewed again because let’s face it, people really had their shit together a lot more back then and were scared fucking shitless of what this country was becoming. Rollerball was about the corporatization of the planet, the elimination of any actual wars and the mass opiate game that kept the masses in line, I would strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it and don’t waste your time with the silly remake. Soylent Green is looking more and more like the work of great work of vision too with the current world food crisis, global warming, over population and borderline anarchy. How long is it going to be before some corporate genius comes up with the great solution that wraps up everything in one great bundled solution for all of our current problems?

Hell, the prototype program is already out there just waiting to take on some of that great added value that Wall Street looters cream their suits over and of course like so many other nefariously anti-American things like web censorship, bioweapons, military arms and vaccines is it being test marketed in a country without the civil liberties protections that even our now picked clean constitution offers us here in Der Heimat.

It was recently revealed that the Chinese government (you know, the human rights abusing chinks sponsoring the idiotic corporate Olympics this summer) is utilizing mobile execution units or ‘death vans’ to dispatch with criminals and more than likely in keeping with tradition, other enemies of the state including any dissidents that are not destined for slave labor factories to produce cheap shit for export to your local Wal-Mart.

The old Stalin era Russians sent out bread trucks at night to haul off dissidents, the Nazi’s used buses with non-threatening silhouettes of people painted onto the windows so as to not appear menacing in order to more easily lure their victims into vehicles that were specially designed to asphyxiate the occupants with exhaust fumes, could it be that there will be big yellow smiley faces painted on the vans when they are rolled out here in the USA? As with Google and Microsoft who are currently using China as a market in which they can beta test internet censorship software before the imminent U.S. rollout it is probably only a matter of time until there is a death van coming very soon to a location near you. And since you are out here acting as a subversive blogger in the Bushreich’s surveillance state rest assured that YOU will likely already be on the pick up list.

On being confronted with the gruesome truth about the new state fleet Chinese officials were positively Pennesque and Rovian in their shameless explanation that the vans actually represented a more humane means of performing executions rather than the traditional use of firing squads and for good measure further justified the new program by saying that it actually benefits the poor per the following excerpt from a 2006 USA Today story:

Makers of death vans say they save money for poor localities that would otherwise have to pay to construct execution facilities in prisons or court buildings. The vans ensure that prisoners sentenced to death can be executed locally, closer to communities where they broke the law.

My God that sounds so Murkan that it sends a cold chill running up my spine. Just how quickly do you think that the one party rulership of this country would jump at the opportunity to introduce legislation to roll out the newest weapon in the ‘Global War on Terror’ to deal with all of those sleeper cells of secular humanist, al-Qaeda worshipping, godless, gay loving liberals? And guess which company will probably get the no-bid contract? If you guessed the same one that was recently awarded $385 million to construct ‘temporary detention facilities’ you are already more of a danger to the state than you might realize.

But wait, there’s more. The truly ghoulish part of this horrible tale is that the death vans are staffed with medical professionals who after performing the execution by lethal injection then proceed to harvest the victim’s organs which are put up for sale and the bodies are being driven immediately to a crematorium before relatives are allowed to view the decesaed or otherwise investigate. According to Amnesty International, the same world human rights organization that incurred the wrath of the Bushist government for their condemnation of our new national right to torture and maintain a gulag system:

Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can “be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot,” says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. “We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade.

Executions in death vans are recorded on video and audio that is played live to local law enforcement authorities – a measure intended to ensure they are carried out legally.

China’s refusal to give outsiders access to the bodies of executed prisoners has added to suspicions about what happens afterward: Corpses are typically driven to a crematorium and burned before relatives or independent witnesses can view them.

Chinese authorities are sensitive to allegations that they are complicit in the organ trade. In March, the Ministry of Health issued regulations explicitly banning the sale of organs and tightening approval standards for transplants.

Even so, Amnesty International said in a report in April that huge profits from the sale of prisoners’ organs might be part of why China refuses to consider doing away with the death penalty.

What a great idea for the mutated form of capitalism/fascism that is so popular in the world among the globalists today and the vans can also one day be used to facilitate the elimination of the unfit so that the entire Social Darwinist process can be accelerated. The organ market represents yet another opportunity for money to be made, you can bet that Wall Street will go absolutely bonkers over the profit potential and the futures market will explode faster than you can say Thurston Howell III. Aren’t the wonders of the fucking free market grand?

There is a marvelously sick serendipity in the possibility of the death vans hitting the domestic market at exactly the same time when civil liberties are disappearing, secret arrests are looming, the death penalty is being expanded and Haliburton is constructing concentration camps for ‘future programs’ yet to be defined, people are getting hungrier by the day and with the U.S. manufacturing base having been gutted the bean counters are desperately looking for a new export product other than toxic financial shit bombs.

Could Soylent Red, White and Blue be coming soon?

But I digress….

We have come to where the highest qualification for the presidency is the abilty to successfully pander to the white trash aka the Hoosier state vote, a bunch of ignorant racist hicks who worship Larry Bird, just Midwestern versions of the same dumb, beer swilling, testosterone reeking dipshits who were largely responsible for George W. Bush and the by proxy ass fucking of the rest of America. It was pretty damned funny when this little story came out that Clinton hack Mickey Kantor is in the political classic movie on the 1992 Bubba For President campaign War Room referring to those pasty white inbred idiots in Indiana that are now being hornswoggled as get this – “white niggers”! The actual quote attributed to Kantor is “How would you like to be a worthless white nigger?” Now that is piss your pants hilarious but Bill O’Reilly won’t be asking the Queen about that one during her next hot session of dry humping on Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda pulpit will he? This is as astoundingly humorous a bit of true honesty as when Jack Abramoff referred to the rubber fetus crowd as the bunch of ingorant, knuckledragging morons that they are an email that was exposed a few years back. I say that Hillary has one set of brass balls to accuse Obama of being an elitist with yuppie pricks like Kantor on the staff.

Does Hillary shave her pits? Why does Michella Obama hate America? Where’s his Merkin flag pin, is she really a hermaphrodite? just how are them hoop shootin’ local white boys at the local all American John Cougar Fucking Mellencamp little foreclosed on pink houses small town high school going to do this year? That is about as sophisticated as it gets for the dumbest fucking collection of white trash corn fed, pumpkin patch peckerwoods north of the Mason Dixon Line. Shit yeah, we have no jobs, the double-wide is in pre-foreclosure and the kids are going to bed cold and hungry but goddamit we are gonna wage us a proxy war against that uppity high fallutin darkie and all of his Muslim buddies.

And no amount of the empty suit’s damnation of Reverend Wright is going to do one fucking thing to change the mind of the ‘nigger hating white niggers’ when it comes down to it, they will all obediently goosestep to their polling places come November and cast their votes for John McCain.

The shit-kickers and rubes will once again be the ones who ultimately make the choice come November, they will swallow the same bullshit in a slightly different package and the rest of us will continue to suffer the consequences of living in a country with such an overwhelming amount of willfully ignorant, easily suckered morons.

I am beginning to strongly suspect that we are all doomed to be fucked!

God Bless America!

Funkadelic Friday Flashback

In memory of …

Thanks to buhdy for giving me the chance to guest host tonight!  Did you find that blotter yet dude?

First the Flashback



Alan’s Albert’s Psychedelic Breakfast (Pink Floyd)

(Part 2 here)



Break On Through (The Doors)



Are You Experienced? (Hendrix)



White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)




Now the Funk



Kalifornia (Fatboy Slim)



Get Higher (Black Grape)



Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out (Freak Power)  

What I’m Saying

At the risk of being dismissed as a whiner, I expressed some discontent earlier today regarding the invisible novel I’ve been posting here, which has been deluged with invisible reccs and tips by every Docudharma member, as well as by many of their friends, neighbors, and pets with Internet access.  

I’ll keep posting this here, but I have to say I’m getting disgusted by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people here on DD can’t seem to spare 5 minutes of their precious fucking time to read an installment when I post it.

WTF?

They must see these installments, they’re on the recc list twice a week.  I don’t think it would kill them to set aside 5 minutes twice a week to read this.  And if the strain of doing that doesn’t completely incapacitate them, they could maybe even find a crowbar somewhere and pry a fucking tip out of themselves for me.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, I’m sweating blood writing this novel.

Nightprowlkitty, Ria, and discussed this, and my response to Ria about Docudharma not being a literary or fiction blog began as a comment but I’m posting it as an essay instead.

I’m saying a LOT of people here need to get out of the rut of writing and reading essays that say the same damn things over and over again.

I’m saying there are more effective ways to express what we believe in than writing yet another essay about yet another outrage and then singing to each other in the choir of our essay threads, morning, noon, and night, time after time after time–like a million other political blogs are doing.  Morning, noon, and night.  Time after time after time.

I’m posting this novel because I believe what NL believes about writers and musicians and poets:

They can reach down past all the numbness to remind us that we still feel and we’re still human, even though at times we’d rather not be. But if there is any hope for the world, we have to keep in touch with our humanity.

In every installment of this novel, I’m trying to reach down past all the numbness to remind us that we still feel and that we’re still human.  I’m trying to do that even though it’s like bleeding through these last eight years all over again.  I’m trying to do that because there will be no hope for the world if we don’t keep in touch with our humanity in every way we can, as often as we can, for as long as we can.  

Ever since the first storyteller told the first story to the first listener, telling stories is how human beings have kept in touch with their humanity.  Stories express the deepest truths about the human condition, they touch us in ways non-fiction never has and never will.

That’s why I’m writing this novel.  

That’s why I’m posting it here.

That’s why I read Robyn’s beautiful poetry even though I disagree with her about more than a few things.  That’s why I read The Weapon of Young Gods, that’s why I read Iglesia, that’s why love The TaleMaster.

That’s why I’m asking people to support and encourage the fiction writers and poets here.  If you think it’s easy pouring your soul into a novel or a poem, try it sometime.  If you did, you’d have a little more appreciation for them, for at least a few minutes, you’d pull off that essay writing and reading superhighway you’re on every day, and listen to what they have to say.          

Friday Night at 8: Caring from the Heart

I just finished reading a remarkable book, Heart Like Water by Joshua Clark, a memoir of his time spent in the French Quarter during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Josh experienced the storm, the days afterward with no electricity, finding other Quarter residents in various bars that stayed open the whole time, scrounging for food, exploring, dodging cops and soldiers who were driving around trying to enforce the evacuation.

He didn’t know as much as the rest of the nation what all too many folks were going through, at the Super Dome, the Convention Center, the 9th Ward, Plaquemines Parish — it wasn’t until later that he explored the Gulf Coast (including Mississippi), still dodging cops and soldiers, and saw the devastation.

And he wrote about it, in a wild stream of consciousness that sears the heart.

At the end of the book, Josh writes about apprehending the suffering of others.  He has been wandering the region, talking to people, hearing their stories.  But he senses something is missing:

… I look at the viscera of this place, the gray of predawn mixing with the gray of what was once a neighborhood to make everything once again like some dim reflection of a dream, and I want so badly to care, to ache, not from the head like we all do, but from the heart.  But I just can’t, no mater how hard I try, not now.

This is not an essay about New Orleans or Katrina.  It’s about human suffering and how we deal with it.

In our society, too often folks who suffer misfortune are shunned in one way or the other by the rest of us.

We may very well be kind people who wish to help, but often the sheer magnitude of human suffering we encounter makes us retreat from truly caring from the heart, from reaching out and connecting with those who are suffering when we are perhaps in better circumstances than they.

Well, Billie says it best:

Money, you got lots of friends

crowding round the door

When you’re gone and spending ends

They don’t come ’round no more

I’m not talking here about donning sackcloth and ashes and wailing and devoting one’s life to those who suffer.  Simple recognition, human witnessing, is difficult enough, I think.

We see politically how this plays out.  The Republican noise machine has called out the Welfare Queen as well as the undocumented worker to scare middle class folks into thinking their share of the pie will be cut smaller by people who don’t deserve help at all.  We see rich people being held to different moral standards, we see class warfare.

It’s easy to play on the fears of people, to make them turn against those who suffer with the subtle threat that they will be next if they try to really help.

And now, in our times, we are seeing suffering on a planetary scale.  Through our own advanced technology, we can know what is going on around the world, and it is not a happy sight.

And because we see this suffering so many steps removed, on TV screens or computer monitors, we can feel so overwhelmed that we never get around to caring from the heart and not the head.

I wrote last week about the challenge of staying human in these crazy times.

Caring from the heart is part of meeting that challenge.

We’ve been bamboozled far too long by powers that be who try to make us think we can’t do anything about this suffering, who are masters of rationalization and spin and who then confirm our own disconnect to our fellow human beings.  This diminishes us, makes us more isolated and cut off from our own humanity.

Why did Josh want to feel others’ suffering?  Why did he want to “ache?”  What was the motive driving him to this and why was it painful for him not to be able to feel what he wanted to feel?

When we connect with others, and I’m not talking about acts of charity or anything like that (which is not to say I don’t think that’s important), but just a real awareness of the fact others are suffering, we are the ones who gain something.  It may be painful to see that we are in a position of privilege and that privilege is paid for by the pains and hungers of other human beings, but I think it is far more painful in the long run to deny this reality and turn away with rationalizations, to care only from the head.

Because when we care from the heart, it transforms us.  We recognize folks who suffer as human beings just like us, we drop our pretensions that we are somehow exempt from, at the very least, witnessing this suffering.

One million Iraqis dead.  We can remember them, we can care from the heart.

Over 1,500 dead from the Federal Flood.  We can remember them, we can care from the heart.

The Sudan.

Burma.

Tibet.

All around the world.

No matter how much the powers that be try to tell us compassion is a limited resource, we know better, that there is no limit to the capacity of the human heart.

And when we connect in this way, we are better able to act as a brother or sister than some sort of removed observer, feeling guilt or blame, selfish sadness over our own inability to save the world which we then blame on those who are suffering, or shame that we can’t do more and so we do nothing at all.

When we connect, when we care from the heart, no one is a stranger, from the homeless man on the streets of Manhattan to the Iraqi refugee just trying to find a resting place.

This is not an easy thing to do.   Right-wing politicians and citizens love to hurl the phrase “bleeding heart liberal” at this reality like an incantation they believe will destroy what we all know is true.

They do this so they can continue to hide behind their shells of inhumanity, cut off from the very source of what makes us human, a hidden, shrieking part of themselves knowing just the same that this act has nothing at all to do with politics, even as those who master this ability often find themselves in the political arena in one way or the other.

All it takes is effort, awareness, and courage.

If we are to remain human beings during these crazy times, caring from the heart for those who suffer is an essential act and one worth taking the time to explore, to see for ourselves that this caring heart is already within us, full and complete, right there for the discovery.

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