1962: Part II
Little Eva: The Loco-Motion
December 2008 archive
Dec 21 2008
Sunday music retrospective: 1962, Part II
Dec 21 2008
A Revolutionary Soul
This essay is a bit of a re-write of one I wrote this time last year.
This week some of us will have a few days off from work and many will also gather with family for times rich in history and tradition. While the days that I celebrated all this as a christian are long gone, I usually like to take a few minutes around this time of year to reflect on the life of Jesus.
I have come to the conclusion that, while he was not god, Jesus was a truly revolutionary soul. As is so often the case, we have for the most part, corrupted what he had to say. The christian fundamentalists have done this by focusing almost exclusively on his birth and death…completely ignoring what he did and said while he was alive. Perhaps that’s because his words call us to a place that is difficult for many of us to go.
One of the most powerful messages he gave was the beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.Blessed are the meek,
for they shall possess the earth.Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they shall be satisfied.Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of God.Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Dec 21 2008
Sunday music retrospective: 1962, Part I
Dec 21 2008
A World Enslaved
There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower slaves to help free themselves.
THONY BELIZAIRE/AFP/Getty Images
21st-century slaves: 300,000 children are in domestic bondage in Haiti.
Dec 21 2008
Not ready to “Make Nice”
The music is easy music but the underlying motivation for having posted it is one of great unease.
JeffLieber opined on DD that it is our own fault we have no influence on government.
THEY are avoiding us because they simply do not think that we — the FAR LEFT — can be reasoned with.
THEY believe, and somewhat rightly so, that we are much more interested in clinging to our self-righteous fury then in being able to manage our disappointments and seeking compromise so they show up when its time for the cash or the grass-roots jolt of energy and then disappear when it comes time to legislate.
THEY believe we are the extremists, no more “reality based” than those at Little Green Footfungus because every slight seems to wipe away YEARS of good governance on issues we care about.
I will counter below, as OPOL did brilliantly in his own counter-essay. I’ll let his delineation of the crimes stand. He said it perfectly, and spoke for me on that account.
We have to deal with these guys…and not by making nice with them. These people are dangerous. Our laws are meant to protect us from people like this, and we need to see that they do. This is no time to look the other way.
Do I want truth and reconciliation? No sir! I want trials and convictions. We can talk about reconciliation after we’ve settled a few accountability issues. How about someone taking responsibility for a change?
The video will tell you I’m not ready to make nice either.
Dec 21 2008
Docudharma Times Sunday December 21
Never Forget That
The Bush Administration Has Violated U.S. And
International Law
As Outlook Dims, Obama Expands Recovery Plans
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: December 20, 2008
WASHINGTON – Faced with worsening forecasts for the economy, President-elect Barack Obama is expanding his economic recovery plan and will seek to create or save 3 million jobs in the next two years, up from a goal of 2.5 million jobs set just last month, several advisers to Mr. Obama said Saturday.Even Mr. Obama’s more ambitious goal would not fully offset as many as 4 million jobs that some economists are projecting might be lost in the coming year, according to the information he received from advisers in the past week. That job loss would be double the total this year and could push the nation’s unemployment rate past 9 percent if nothing is done.
The new job target was set after a meeting last Tuesday in which Christina D. Romer, who is Mr. Obama’s choice to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, presented information about previous recessions to establish that the current downturn was likely to be “more severe than anything we’ve experienced in the past half-century,” according to an Obama official familiar with the meeting. Officials said they were working on a plan big enough to stimulate the economy but not so big to provoke major opposition in Congress.
Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer
Legal Battles, Technical Difficulties Delay Required Transfer to Archives
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page A01
The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House’s electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide the Archives copies of their records, a cache estimated at more than 300 million messages and 25,000 boxes of documents depicting some of the most sensitive policymaking of the past eight years.
USA
Executive Pay
After years of watching the top echelons of corporate management take home billions, shareholders want to know: Will inflated pay packages get slashed?
By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page F01
Angelo R. Mozilo, whose Countrywide Financial came to symbolize the failings of the mortgage industry, took home more than half a billion dollars from 1998 to 2007, including $121.7 million from cashing in options last year alone. Charles O. Prince, who led Citigroup to the brink of disaster, was awarded a retirement deal worth $28 million. Now, in a show of purported restraint, top Wall Street executives are going without bonuses.
If you’re angry that so many executives got paid so much for screwing up so spectacularly, you might take solace in the fact that shares they still hold have lost value, too. But if you think executive pay is finally succumbing to the force of gravity — if you’d like to believe that an epic destruction of investor wealth will fundamentally and permanently change the way chief executives are paid, or that you, dear shareholder, have the power to join forces with others just like you and create a more rational order — don’t bet on it.
Dec 21 2008
The Man: Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder Jr.
President-Elect Barack Obama announced on December 1 that he has nominated Eric H. Holder, Jr. to serve as Attorney General, to take over the running of The Department of Justice in Obama’s incoming administration from current AG Michael Mukasey.
Mr. Holder has been a partner with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP since 2001.
Mr. Mukasey since his appointment as Attorney General, like all representatives of Mr. Bush have done, has waffled, spun, twisted in the wind, squirmed, sweated, excused, equivocated, and otherwise bullshitted America and the world as George Bush’s acolyte under hot lights and pointed interrogations from Congress over evidence of torture ordered at the highest levels of the Bush administration, the president and vice president, that the least informed people in the world all know is well defined, immoral, and illegal under international law, US law, and international treaties. (see addendum)
A war crime, in simpler terms. A war crime that Vice President Cheney has in recent days confessed publicly that the Bush administration intentionally engaged in.
Mr. Holder is the target of the new Docudharma/Democrats.com sponsored Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Bush War Crimes. Don’t forget to sign the petition if you haven’t already.
Who is Eric Holder? What are his views and philosophy on the questions of torture, war crimes, secret prisons hidden away from the rule of law, and Bush’s “war on terror”?
What can we expect his reactions to be to the petition? We have only his own words and background to look to for clues.
Dec 21 2008
Food For Thought
Apple basket
Pumpkin basket
Bedtime snack
Waiting for juice
Good to the last drop.
Any left?
The back side of the café.
Checkered tablecloth
Living escargot
Pita bread
Dec 21 2008
The Spirit of Goyathlay (Geronimo)
An elder told me that the Navaho took Geronimo’s bones and gave them a proper burial before the U.S. Army only thought that he remained buried at Fort Sill after they buried him there. I told her I had been to the grave site. She asked me, “Did it feel like he was in there?” “No,” I said. “They ‘buried’ him in the grave stone by stone, so he wouldn’t ever come back,” she said. I personally don’t believe he is at Fort Sill, and I don’t believe this either –
“The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club & the K — t [Knight] Haffner, is now safe inside the T — [Tomb] together with his well worn femurs[,] bit & saddle horn.”
Dec 20 2008
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Automakers grab loans, look to Obama White House
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers
41 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – The long-term fate of the auto industry rests with Barack Obama now that President George W. Bush has given car companies $17.4 billion in emergency rescue loans.
Simply letting the Big Three collapse was not an option amid a recession, housing slump and financial credit crunch, Bush said in announcing the short-term loans and demanding tough concessions from the automakers and their employees. “By giving the auto companies a chance to restructure, we will shield the American people from a harsh economic blow at a vulnerable time,” the president said in his Saturday radio address. “And we will give American workers an opportunity to show the world once again that they can meet challenges with ingenuity and determination, and emerge stronger than before.” |
Dec 20 2008
It Has to Stop!
I think some the angst I’m feeling comes from my fear that, even with our historic victory, that too little will change in time to make a difference. Generals always want to fight the last war, while politicians want to wage the last campaign. It’s easy to look backward and hard to look forward, and far too few seem to realize the extent to which the stakes have been raised. Our circumstances have really become quite dire. That doesn’t sink in easily for the many who want to pretend that the world is always going to be the way it’s always been.
The politics of yesterday are not going to serve us any longer. We need more than change. We need more than a mid-course correction. We need the crazy to stop.
And I don’t mean just slow down a little, or be a little less crazy. I mean it has to stop. We have to reverse course in this damned country, not just modify it somewhat.
