January 15, 2011 archive

If you missed Noam Chomsky?

Here’s the show!!

Listen to internet radio with Diane G on Blog Talk Radio

We had a couple little techno demon glitches as BTR always does… but he was brilliant, gracious and NOAM!!!

It was lovely, and I think he will be back!

Thanks DD for your support and I hope you got hits from our show 🙂

Time to Remove the Blinders, Dems; Both Parties Are Elites



Years ago Buffy Sainte Marie reminded us that “if the Bad guys don’t get you, the good guys will.” referring to Senator Bill Bradley’s initial attempts to help restore the Black Hills to the Sioux tribes, and his eventual withdrawal of his bill under minimal pressure.

It’s becoming more evident daily that there aren’t many Good Guys left working for us in Washington, and that the Democratic Big Tent brought in more neo-Liberal Money Junkies than most Dems would like to acknowledge.  Democrats Good, Republicans Bad themes are still far too ubiquitous across the ‘liberal’ blogosphere and other media.

This week even D.C insider Matt Stoller, former policy advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson, has gone public with the theme in a comment he posted at Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism blog.  What he said is not uncommon, but as Yves points out, it’s important because he’s a well-known D.C. insider.

Popular Culture 20110114: Gold

This is designed to be a companion piece to a new Pique the Geek installment of the same title that will be published Sunday.  The idea for this dual treatment of gold was inspired by our good friend and supporter from the other two sites to which I contribute, ek hornbeck.

This half of the couple has to do with gold in a nontechnical sense.  The one on Sunday gets, obviously, much more Geeky.  However, technical uses aside, gold has been part of the popular culture since prehistory.  Only recently have truly technical uses for gold been found, and those will be covered elsewhere.

Tonight we shall look at some of the history of gold in popular culture, and finish with a discussion of the so-called gold standard and the numerous sales pitches that dominate the conservative airwaves.  We shall try not to get too Geeky.

Patty-Cake in Iraq

So why are 200,000 American soldiers still serving long rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you look through the images on sites controlled by the Department of Defense, it’s obvious enough.

pattycakes

Playing pattycake!

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for baby and me.

Panjshir2

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Roll it up, roll it up;

And throw it in a pan!

Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man.

Panjshir

Existing beyond Theory

During the course of a normal week, quite a few articles roll through my email and get stuck in a file somewhere.  Often I write something about them and try to share that as promptly as I can.

Today’s item is a research paper published in the Graduate Journal of Social Science this past December.  I’m not quite so prompt in reviewing this one because of my time in the hospital.  But I have gotten there eventually.

I read the pdfs so you don’t have to.  In this case the article is by Natacha Kennedy and Mark Hellen and is entitled Transgender children: more than a theoretical challenge (pdf).

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