Ok, I’m going to admit it again, I’m a Rachel Maddow groupie…I just LOVE her. And if you’ve ever watched her show, you know that she does a segment titled either “Ms. Information” or “Holy Mackerel” where she covers stories from below the fold.

So I thought today I would do my best Maddow imitation and bring you some stories you might have missed while you were working so hard on getting the petition signed and making sure our Zen Dictator fearless leader ends his strike.

These are not the kind of stories ek, magnifico, or mishima would write about. I could never dream of reaching their level. But its Christmas Eve Eve, so I hope you’ll join me in a little “holy mackerel.”  

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.

The words in the title are instructions the New Orleans Police Department gave to residents of the city in the wake of Katrina. A.C. Thompson of The Nation tells a chilling tale about all this in an article titled Katrina’s Hidden Race War. I know that many of you Dharmaniacs travel the tubes quite extensively, so perhaps you’ve seen this story and the video Thompson made about it. But just in case some of you haven’t, I wanted to write about it here.

If we go back to those horrific days in September 2005 after the storm, we can all remember the media’s focus on Black people “looting.” That kind of fear-mongering mixed with racism was enough for one small and mostly white area of New Orleans, Algiers Point, to form a militia and take up open season on Black men.

Today, while perusing articles at ColorLines, I was struck by several that had to do with what it means to be Muslim in America.

Their lead story is by Seth Wessler and is titled Silenced in the Classroom. It tells the story of Khalil Gibran International Academy, started in NYC in 2007.

The Khalil Gibran school was to have been a refuge in the midst of post-Sept. 11 New York City, a place where a mixed group of Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers would learn together. The school, which opened in 2007 with a sixth-grade class, was designed to grow into a middle and high school in the spirit of the more than 65 dual-language schools in New York City, which teach in Spanish, Creole, Russian and other languages. By graduation, it was expected that Khalil Gibran students would have a command of Arabic and an understanding of the cultural context in which the language exists.

The person who tipped off New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen about the illegal wiretapping of US citizens has come forward with his story in Newsweek. His name is Thomas Tamm.

Sometimes when it comes time to write, I’m in more of a contemplative mode, yearning to listen instead of speak. Today is one of those times. So I hope you can follow me on a bit of a journey through some of the poetry and music that’s speaking to me today.

I’m still thinking about darkness and light, as all kinds of seasons are shifting around us. James Baldwin seems to have been intimate with darkness and speaks to it profoundly.

One discovers the light in darkness. That is what darkness is for. But everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found there is a light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith…I know we often lose…and how often one feels that one cannot start again. And yet, on pain of death, one can never remain where one is. The light. The light. One will perish without the light…For nothing is fixed, forever, and forever, and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have…The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. And the moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

There is an interesting new development taking place at Obama’s web site Change.gov. Starting this last Wednesday, they are asking participants to submit questions they have about policy and implementation and then letting folks vote on the questions they would most like to see answered.

According to the blog entry linked above:

Since its launch yesterday, the Open for Questions tool has processed over 600,000 votes from more than 10,000 people on more than 7,300 questions…

Participation in Open for Questions outpaced our expectations, and we’re looking forward to rolling it out again next week…

Over the next few days, some of the most popular questions selected by the Change.gov community will be answered by the Transition team, and their responses will be posted here on the site.

This could get interesting! Either the Obama Team will answer some VERY interesting questions, or they’ll skirt tough issues to pick and choose. Wait til you see what this process generated.  

I know we mostly talk about federal politics and policies here because that’s what we all have in common. But for me, this economic crisis just got REAL serious this week and its breaking on a state and local level. I have to admit that, for the first time since this mess started, my stomach is in knots – its getting ugly out here. So I wanted to write about what I’m seeing and invite you to fill in the picture of how its unfolding in your area.

The news this week in Minnesota has shifted a bit from the recount between Franken and Coleman to the state budget deficit. Our state operates on a fiscal year of July to June. For the budget year we are currently in – the forecast is for a $426 million deficit (that’s in a budget of just over $30 billion). What that means is that the Governor and Legislature have to come up with $426 million in cuts to the CURRENT budget – and we’re already halfway through the spending year.

In Minnesota, social services, corrections and courts are managed by Counties instead of the State. Cities, Counties, and Local School Districts depend on property taxes, as well as federal and state aid. The State collects income and sales taxes and then supports Cities, Counties, and Local School Districts with local government aid. They make two payments a year on this with the second payment of $280 million due December 26th. The easiest way for the State to take a big stab at making up for this huge current deficit is to reduce/eliminate this payment. So that’s whats likely to happen in the next week.

This essay is a proposed edit to the latest draft of Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor. I decided to put it in essay form so Buhdy would have access to the “edit” function, which will make it easier if he wants to pick and choose for the final product. I hope you’ll comment on the edits, but please don’t recommend. Thanks

This is a question I think progressives need to spend more time contemplating. Our commitments tend to be about moving forward to correct the wrongs and injustices faced by people in the world. But the truth is, too many times our efforts either don’t help or create unintended consequences that can make the situation worse.

A co-worker and I spend quite a bit of time contemplating this question as we attempt to manage programs at a small nonprofit whose mission is the work with troubled youth and families. And I was reminded of the question last night while listening to a portion of Krista Tippent’s NPR program, Speaking of Faith. Her guest was Binyavanga Wainaina, editor of the Kwani? literary journal and a visiting professor of Africana Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts, for a show titled The Ethics of Global Aid, One Kenyan’s Perspective. Here’s a quote from Mr. Wainaina that was highlighted in the conversation.

A lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it’s a blank empty space and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived and colonized us. This power, this power to help, is just about as dangerous as hard power, because very often it arrives with a kind of zeal that is assuming ‘I will do it. I will solve it for you. I will fix it for you,’ and it rides roughshod over your own best efforts.

The hard part about winter for me is not necessarily the cold…its the darkness. I don’t know what its like where you are, but around these parts I figure we spend about 1/3 of any 24 hour period in the light and the rest of the time darkness rules. So its the dark that’s on my mind today.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with darkness. Its a great excuse for the lazy among us to hibernate. And it seems that there are some who prefer the dark for prowling. But overall, we seem to want to avoid it.

The current edition of ColorLines has an article titled Two Words That Can Get You Life in Prison by Raj Jayadev. Its mostly the story of Joshua Herrera, a 24 year old aspiring fire fighter who learned the hard way what you can be sentenced to life in prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time if you are a young man of color in this country. Here’s a bit of the story.

Herrera was out one night with friends. He drove three of them to the home of Thomas Martinez, a boyfriend of one of the young men’s mother. The men wanted to confront Martinez, who had allegedly abused the mother, and retrieve her belongings from the house.

Herrera stayed in the car while his friends entered the home. Martinez fled the scene and later claimed that one of the defendants had a shotgun. According to court testimony, Martinez was assaulted by one of the defendants, Richard Rodriguez. According to police reports, the young men returned to the car with a safe and two ounces of methamphetamines.

After dropping off his friends, Herrera was pulled over by police three blocks from his family home. His car, it would later be revealed, had been under surveillance by detectives investigating one of Herrera’s friends. He was arrested on the spot.

So what are the two words that, were it not for the heroic efforts of his mother, family and community, would have landed Herrera in jail for life with no prior criminal record? Gang member.