[I]t's not clear that a policy of appeasement would be wise. True, we've seen rational leadership even from vicious dictators like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, but the contemporary United States is led by religious fanatics, which introduces a new element into the equation. What's more, the USA is the only country on earth to have ever actually deployed nuclear weapons. Indeed, current political elites are so war-crazed and bloodthirsty that they not only engineered the 2003 attack on Iraq — a country that tried to appease the Americans by eliminating its nuclear program and allowing IAEA inspectors to certify that it had done so — but they continue to deny regretting it to this day. And that includes not only radicals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but so-called “moderates” like Hillary Clinton as well.
Just to kill some time before going to work (7 day weeks gets real old, real fast) where the word “you” comes from.
In the 1600’s the letter “y” was a abbreviation for the sound “th”. We’ve all seen the sign saying, “Ye Olde Tavern.” Ye is pronounced The. In reading the writings of Newton you see him use this extensively. He wrote, “…ye and yat“, for the and that.
Now we come to my theory–I’ve never seen this anywhere else–but, I’m sure that some historian has said this before. In writing “thou” in the olden days they would write you. This was adopted and adapted by the general populace as “you”. The change in pronunciation was from the profound influence of the French language on English.
And that is why, to this day, many groups will not use the word “you”. It’s not really true English.
11/16/07 (Berkeley, CA) – The third Friday of every month I have been attending a war protest on the streets of Berkeley, CA. The majority of the protesters are members of the Grey Panthers and/or are from Strawberry Creek Lodge, a nearby retirement community. The rest are random people who heard about this through word of mouth, IraqMoratorium.org or some other organization. For two hours we stand on four corners of a busy street. All the cars honk when they drive by and when they are stopped at the light some people hand out slips of paper with the date and time of the next event. Pedestrians are also given flyers about taking action to end the war.
The most recent IM Day, I brought my video camera and took some footage. First you will hear a song and then there are some interview clips speaking out against the war. Listen to the voices of our elders. These are the real deal DFHs, many protested Vietnam and wars before that. I’m so glad they agreed to be on camera. You may catch a glimpse of Docudharma’s own dharmasyd – who I met after the first IM Day. She is one of the organizers of this monthly action.
Disclaimer: This is the first time I have ever edited a video and put it on YouTube. I was in a hurry to put it together so the quality may suck but the spirit and sincerity of The People still shines through (I hope). If I can figure out the sound editing I will do another version with all the extra footage I have.
Last night I wrote a diary about Hatred. I mentioned a couple of concepts in that diary that I wish to explore today: Safe Spaces/Zones and Hate Free Zones.
When I came out, it was inevitable that everyone would know about me. That had its downside, which is what I’ve largely written about. But it had an upside as well, an incredibly heartwarming one I was able to become a resource for students who desperately needed one. It took awhile for gay and lesbian students to become comfortable with me, but I immediately was contacted by several students who were gender-variant themselves or had relatives who were. Apparently I was the first person any of them had to talk with about it.
It was an enormous responsibility, especially given the fact that I was myself trying to learn about what it meant to be me. It continued for the rest of my years at the University of Central Arkansas and extended to getting phone calls and emails from people all over the country.
I made my home and office into Safe Spaces (well, as safe as they could be considering they were constantly under observation and prone to vandalism). Whenever they needed to, people were free to come and let me listen to their stories. To me, that’s what a Safe Space is: the location of a willing ear. It is especially helpful if that listener has information to provide to help the speakers validate their existence.
I eventually buckled under that responsibility. Why should anyone listen to me about who they would become? But I continued to think of myself at a Hate Free Zone. I am and will always be an active protector of those who need protection from hatred.
When we moved to New Jersey, I became the luckiest tranny alive. I was invited to apply for a tenure-track position at the most openly supportive atmosphere I could imagine. I mean, where is one going to find a college where valuing diversity is part of the mission statement, which provided domestic partnership benefits and where 15 to 20 percent of the faculty were GLBT, and that was willing to take a chance on a math professor’s ability to become a professor of computer languages. (I’ll not make any links to there today. We’ve had an infestation of hackers recently.)
Since my arrival I’ve been one of the coordinators of the Gay/Non-Gay Alliance. I do not have the time to devote to that to do a good job of it, but I try. This year, we’ll be doing another Safe Zone training in the spring semester. The other coordinators are pretty much in a similar state as mine, so we’re having Debbie Bazarsky come from Princeton’s GLBT Center this year (she’s the director). She’s younger than us fogey-types and has a lot more handouts than we could produce. 🙂
While she is here, we hope she’s going to not only speak to our fellow faculty and staff members, but also to our student residence assistants, students in the multicultural diversity certificate program and students majoring in Human Resources.
The objective is to produce a lot more willing ears and earnest protectors.
Does your school have a similar program? Your place of work?
A famous US patriot once said “These are the times that try men’s souls.” At the time, he spoke of the events and circumstances surrounding the birth of a nation destined to be defined by the rights and freedoms of the people; a nation led by government of the People, by the People and for the People, where leaders could inspire the People to stand united in spite of differing opinions or particular religious influence.
The advent of the twenty-first century has marked the most severe departure from our founding principles than ever before. We stand on the brink of self-immolation, leaderless and adrift, while selfish, arrogant hypocrites steer our ship of state toward the shoals.Should we fail now to grow resolute and united in our determination to right this ship, we fail not only ourselves but our children, and their children’s children. It is time to look to those children for inspiration and a reminder of what we, as adults, are tasked with as parents and guardians: to create and foster an environment where children can grow to adulthood, secure in the knowledge that we have passed along the best models for ethical leadership and responsible stewardship of this nation that we know how.
And a little child shall lead them
On Tuesday, September 6, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, an article appeared in the New York Times about a curious band of refugees that walked into a Baton Rouge evacuation point: six children, comprised of five toddlers following a six year old boy carrying a five month old child:
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Leadership, in action, during a time where the adult leadership of the nation was focused on trying not to appear wholly incompetent.
They failed.In times of crisis, a nation needs to have faith in the capacity of its appointed leaders to step in and guide them safely through. Taken in that context, our “leaders” have not simply failed — they have failed miserably, to the point where we can no longer think of them as “leaders” at all: that was the turning point where a more critical, if jaundiced, eye was cast upon their actions, and their carefully-constructed façade began to crumble to dust around them.They were brutally upstaged by the simple competence of a small child.1Those self-same leaders, who proclaim their compassion for fellow citizens and their love for children, ardently oppose abortion rights for women — and equally oppose providing insurance for millions of uninsured children. They claim to support scientific research, but stand firm against fully embracing stem cell research while hypocritically claiming successful justification of their idiocy by pointing at the work of foreign scientists — scientists who are forging ahead in the field, while our own endeavors flounder here at home.2 Where have all the (adult) leaders gone?In the year 2007, that question has been asked repeatedly, with growing emphasis. An eighty-two years old businessman by the name of Lee Iacocca even wrote a book with a very similar title: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?3 In order to find out where to look for leadership, and how to recognize it, we should take a peek inside the cover. The opening passages of the book alone should have sounded a clarion call to the would-be and wanna-be leaders of today:
I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.
Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions.
Iacocca shouts out that he’d love to sit back and let the youth lead the charge against the encroaching apathy and ongoing destruction of our nation, but the youth is currently distracted and disillusioned. Our children and our young adults — by far one of the bigger factions of the public — don’t trust our politicians to represent their interests; he doesn’t blame them for this, but wants them to wake up and realize that only by standing up and participating in the system can they hope to change it for the better. He laments that we have created “a hell of a mess” and must all pitch in to clean it up.
So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.
But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense?
Those people are the ones who appear to be missing in action. Our Congress holds the responsibility to bring oversight and accountability to the workings of the government, particularly the Executive Branch;
I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?
[…snip…]You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.
We all have a role to play. We need our Congress to play its role and to actively put the wayward Executive Branch back on track. We ourselves need to drop the veil of false civility and inject the righteous anger and frustration of our national plight into the public discourse — it is no longer time for political correctness, it’s time for political correction.
A Child’s Lead and a Childish Leader: Political Correction vs. “Politically Correct”The legacy of the Republican Party of this day and age can be summed up in the person of their de facto creation: George W. Bush, and the malAdministration that he leads. Juxtaposed against pretty words carefully calculated to say one thing while supporting the opposite, the legacy of Bush Republicans is one of malignant deceit. They claim support of science, yet undermine any research that doesn’t support their politics in spite of the harm to the public or to national security. They claim to be strong on national security, yet gut the programs that would most help the nation and provide true security in order to prop up failed adventures as “successful” — all the while causing more harm than good. They loudly insist that they have created a better, stronger system for education while creating a system where states and schools are practically encouraged to misreport statistics in order to continue receiving funds. Is are children learning became a national embarrassment, along with the memorable phrase Childrens do learn,4 both brought to the forefront of national discourse by the ignoble head of the Republican Party and purported “leader” of the free world. Bush Republicans also support and extol the virtues of misnamed national policies like The Clean Air Act or Healthy Forests. These morally bankrupt hypocrites claim their support of severe restrictions on embryonic stem cell research helps children and credit research by others in another nation as evidence of their argument, and they aggressively push for war in the name of peace.5It is a legacy of deceit, denial and dissembly.It’s time we stood tall and dropped the false cover that political correctness provides to those who excel in prevarication. We need to be direct. We need to be forceful. We need to be blunt.We should follow the lead of a child.Here’s an enhanced closeup, as immortalized by marymary of MichelleMalkinIsAnIdiot:
The child appeared to be imitating something she had seen — probably more than once — when associated with the man standing in front of her. But unlike the parent who quickly and gently hid her action from view, the child’s gesture demonstrated exactly the type of blunt, direct and peaceful confrontation that our adult selves have been sorely deficient in. Fortunately, it is a deficiency that is not complete.Indeed, some Americans have already figured out that the best way to confront the hypocrisy is to visibly challenge those most responsible for it. In this clip, Richard “Dick” Cheney has his own words from the Senate floor (June 25, 2004) quoted back to him in the aftermath of Katrina, when the Bush officials finally decided it was safe to attempt a few photo ops:Another adult who stood up to the Bush Administration, directly confronting Bush with dignity and grace, was Harry Taylor, a man who is now running for Congress:These occurrences are, however, too few and far between. In the interest of our national well-being and the future of both the nation and the children who have lent us the temporary custody of it, we have to do better. Congress has to do better. Our next President has to do better. The current crop of ethically challenged and fiscally irresponsible Republicans know that if they are confronted — if the people begin to stand up and demand answers, criticizing the constant stream of noxious nonsense that is being spread thickly over the landscape — then they will lose their grip on power. They know they will likely lose billions in ill-gotten gains. And some of them, if we are truly diligent in our pursuit of truth and justice, may just end up in jail. They know this, and they are striving to push back against it. They have stooped so low as to repeat and augment the Nixon-era’s challenge that “if the President does it, it’s legal” — they even attempt to quiet dissent by challenging it with the language of treason, while in actuality it is their own actions that betray the nation and her people.We, the People of the United States of America, need to ensure that this happens. If not for ourselves, then do it for the children. They’re watching us, and will learn from our mistakes as well as our successes — but shouldn’t we try to demonstrate how much better it is to chalk up successes in the fight for freedom and democracy? Investigate. Impeach. Convict. Remove. Indict. Convict. Imprison.Set an example; throw the bums out, try them in accordance with the law, not in a kangaroo court, and when they are justly convicted ensure that they are justly imprisoned.Namaste.____________________________________________
Notes and Additional Video Support:
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1. Children have made headlines even more recently as enfants provocateurs (h/t Reason Online via Dawg’sBlog). From News24, an African online news source, comes this story on June 21, 2007:
Cops charge 3-year-old ‘rioter’
21/06/2007 13:44 – (SA)
Patna, India – Police in India have charged a three-year-old boy for allegedly leading a group of rioters and firing at security personnel, the toddler’s uncle said on Thursday.[…snip…]
This news, of course, comes on the heels of a story from the previous month, detailing that charges were dropped against a six year old boy who was accused of molesting and assaulting a woman in her thirties, again in India.
Those kids in India…gotta watch ’em every minute. ;P2.When Pigs Fly by DarkSyde of DailyKos.
Mr. Spinmeister neglected to mention a few key facts in his apologetic zeal to lay the wreath of discovery at the feet of George Bush. To make a a skin cell behave like an embryonic stem cell, a couple of things go without saying: you’d have to know what an embryonic stem cell does. It would be damn helpful to have worked with human cells, particularly skin cells and embryonic stem cells. And that might be an obstacle if you happened to live in a country where having the latter is an expensive, over regulated pain in the ass specifically because of the unpopular policy of a certain unpopular President. Which may explain in part why this breakthrough occurred in Japan.
3. Iacocca, Lee and Catherine Whitney. Where Have All the Leaders Gone?; New York: Scribner, 2007. ISBN 1-416-53247-1. Citations and initial link in the piece above via Snopes.4. This DailyKos diary by buffalo provided a most excellent and relevant YouTube video containing two key clips of education-related Bush malapropisms: George W. Bush: Childrens do learn!, posted 28 September 2007:5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Etc., etc. From
In China, even if you are a one in a million kind of guy…………there are still a thousand of you.
The other day I wrote a piece that talked a little bit about my general disdain for the complex organisms we know as “Human Beings.” I don’t want to leave the wrong impression, there are plenty of humans I do like.I have nothing specifically against the majority of humans, you understand. And of course, I judge each individual on their own merits. It is just that people who are aggressively normal don’t interest me much. But I strive mightily not to discriminate against them, to treat them differently. There is nothing inherently bad about being normal. Some of my best friends are normal.
I just …um…can’t think of their names right now…..
Really I have met very few humans who actually actively repulse me. And almost all of those were in San Diego. As I said in my other piece, the majority of humans are good folks who just want to fit in, lead a nice quite respectable life and if left to their own devices, will do the right thing just about every time unless there are large sums of money involved. My problem with normal people really isn’t about the people….I think it is more about what people have been told is normal. And I think it is also that people set the standards for normalcy too low.
Maybe if THIS was our normal reality, I would have less disdain for humans as a whole.
But I think my Inner Brando (wadda ya got?) will always reject normalcy to some degree, again nothing against normal people, I just enjoy a bit more stimulation, a bit more excitement…..maybe innovation is the right word, or creativity.
Heck just statistically you figure that there have to be big bunches of the kind of human that I enjoy. After all there are nearly seven fucking BILLION of them/us! Every second of every day, five people are born and two die. The numbers are truly staggering.
To paraphrase Steven Wright, people say it’s a small world….but I wouldn’t want to paint it.
Everyday somebody has to make breakfast for 6,635,782,000 people. Just the number of socks lost in the laundry everyday is amazing. Can you imagine the mass, can you imagine how big the pile of lost socks would be if we found them all and for some unknown reason put them in a big pile in Red Square or Dubuque? And speaking of big piles….6,635,782,000 people also ‘visit the restroom’ everyday.
(which of course is how we got into this mess in the first place!)
Random facts from Harpers Index
Number of centenarians that the U.S. census counted in 2000: 50,7401
Projected number it will count in 2050: 1,149,5001
Percentage change since 1992 in the number of civil wars worldwide claiming more than a thousand lives: ?801
Chance that a nation lacking resource wealth will have a civil war in any given five-year span: 1 in 1001
Chance that a nation with resource wealth will: 1 in 51
Number of weapons that have been turned into tools for African farmers by a British nonprofit since 2001: 2,2001
Number of farm implements that a rocket launcher yields: 5
Amount by which Americans’ total spending last year exceeded their earnings: $41,600,000,000
Estimated number of Marshmallow Peeps that will be consumed around Easter this month: 800,000,000
Estimated number of hot dogs that will be eaten in the United States over the Fourth of July weekend: 150,000,000
Average percentage of its food that an American household wastes: 14
Minimum number of shopping carts that went missing from L.A.-area stores last year: 6,220,000
Year by which humans will “be having sex with robots,” according to the head of the European Robotics Research Network: 2011
Chance that a British veterinarian says he or she has treated a drunk dog: 1 in 4
Since I am tossing statistics around like horseshoes…..Lots of people seem to break things down in some similar fashion to this: 30% conservative, 40% middle of the road, 30% liberal, etc. Well….the % of humans I am most interested in and enamored of are the 10% and the 1%! Note: These figures….like 78% of all statistics used in conversations everyday…..are completely made up!
I like the 10% who are weird. The rebels, the free thinkers, the odd, the strange the unconventional, the ones who are ‘off’ a bit.
And I particularly like the 1%…..the mutants.
Though still, being somewhat of a recluse or a hermit or loner…..I like the 1% in theory, not necessarily in my living room.
These are the folks that in spite of all the odds, in spite of all the resistance, in spite of all the strange looks they get walking down the street, in spite of all the shunning and ostracizing and rebukes and cries to straighten up and fly right….don’t. Who instead stick to their guns and have the courage and faith in themselves and their convictions that force/allow them to live outside of ‘normality.’
The freaks and mutants who are ALWAYS the folks who come up with the ideas that change the world.
In spite of all the sheepdogs who are constantly telling them to get back in the herd. In spite of the wolves who hunt down anyone who is different and choose to live outside the pack.
The artists, the inventors, the poets and the dreamers who….unbeknownst to most of the rest of the world, come up with the brilliant stuff that truly moves humanity forward. Even though their ideas and creations make take years if not lifetimes to actually be co-opted by others and over into the mainstream at long last.
Especially people who aren’t afraid to experiment and be unconventional…and the people who aren’t afraid to admit they don’t know how to end essays.
.
.
PS, I think that it is incumbent upon all of us to stretch the limits of normalcy, to make individual expression of our inner selves, our inner mutant more socially and culturally acceptable. I think the last frontier of freedom will be the abolishing of the human impulse to demand conformity. The only reason, imo, conformity is valued is to make society ‘stable,’ and to make other humans feel less insecure about expressing their own mutant tendencies. In other words, we all owe it to the world to let our freak flag fly! Especially after the last seven years of enforced conformity.
From the blog Intercontinental Cry, here is a letter from Margo Tamez asking for help for the people of El Calaboz, Texas as the Border Patrol, Army Corp of Engineers, and NSA harrass them to give up their ancestral lands in order for the border fence to be built.
Subject: Emergency in el Calaboz, Lipan Apache & Basque-Indigena North American Land Title Holders!!!
Dear relatives,
I wish I was writing under better circumstances, but I must be fast and direct.
My mother and elders of El Calaboz, since July have been the targets of numerous threats and harassments by the Border Patrol, Army Corps of Engineers, NSA, and the U.S. related to the proposed building of a fence on their levee.
Since July, they have been the targets of numerous telephone calls, unexpected and uninvited visits on their lands, informing them that they will have to relinquish parts of their land grant holdings to the border fence buildup. The NSA demands that elders give up their lands to build the levee, and further, that they travel a distance of 3 miles, to go through checkpoints, to walk, recreate, and to farm and herd goats and cattle, ON THEIR OWN LANDS.
This threat against indigenous people, life ways and lands has been very very serious and stress inducing to local leaders, such as Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez, who has been in isolation from the larger indigenous rights community due to the invisibility of indigenous people of South Texas and Northern Tamaulipas to the larger social justice conversation regarding the border issues.
However recent events, of the last 5 days cause us to feel that we are in urgent need of immediate human rights observers in the area, deployed by all who can help as soon as possible-immediate relief.
My mother informed me, as I got back into cell range out of Redford, TX, on Monday, November 13, that Army Corps of Engineers, Border Patrol and National Security Agency teams have been going house to house, and calling on her personal office phone, her cell phone and in other venues, tracking down and enclosing upon the people and telling them that they have no other choice in this matter. They are telling elders and other vulnerable people that “the wall is going on these lands whether you like it or not, and you have to sell your land to the U.S.”
…
My mother is under great stress and crisis, unknowing if the Army soldiers and the NSA agents will be forcibly demanding that she sign documents. She reports that they are calling her at all hours, seven days a week. She has firmly told them not to call her anymore, nor to call her at all hours of the night and day, nor to call on the weekends any further.She asked them to meet with her in a public space and to tell their supervisors to come.They refuse to do so. Instead, they continue to harass and intimidate.
At this time, due to the great stress the elders are currently under, communicated to me, because they are being demanded under covert tactics, to relinquish indigenous lands, I feel that I MUST call upon my relatives, friends, colleagues, especially associates in Texas within driving distance to the Rio Grande valley region, and involved in indigenous rights issues, to come forth and aid us.
Please! Please help indigenous women land title holders resisting forced occupation in their own lands! Please do not hesitate to forward this to people in your own networks in media, journalism, social and environmental justice, human rights, indigenous rights advocacy and public health watch groups!
I used to read the comics in the newspaper all the time but now they are all so mind numbingly boring I don’t bother. Does anybody read Dercity? If you don’t check it out he is a gem. I like this one but he is rarely “off.”
I like to read Cary Tennis over atsalon because sometimes the problems people write in about make me realize that I am not nearly as screwed up and shallow as I thought I was. This one tells the sad tale of a 43 year old woman who is beautiful but terrified she is aging. I wasn’t that cute when I was young, so now that I am 43, the whole losing my beauty thing doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. My grandmother, who is 86, says the being old part doesn’t concern her much it is the whole her body is falling apart and she worries she won’t be able to live independently for much longer thing that irks her.
Cartoon fun… I relate to this cartoon, I could see me having a bad day like this… and I love his crappy attitude…
Happy music….
Please don’t rec pony party, hang out chit chat and then go read some of the excellent writers here.
For better or worse, Hillary Clinton's political image is largely dominated by her tenure as First Lady. It seems fairly clear that Hillary was a key, if not the key, advisor to President Clinton on many many issues. And while Tim Russert's questions on documents from the period is not really an attempt to shed light on this, it is rather more of the same gotcha nonsense, it does inadvertently get to a lot of questions about Hillary.
[First ladies] must have a better understanding of how the presidency works than all but half a dozen people in the world. One of those half a dozen is Hillary Clinton, who saw it all — well, she apparently missed one key moment — and shared in all the big decisions. Every first lady is promoted as her husband's key adviser, closest confidant, blah, blah, blah, but in the case of the Clintons, it seems to be true.
That seems true to me. But here's the thing – my recollection of the Clinton years had Hillary supposedly playing the liberal in the lion's den of Centrists role in the Clinton Administration. I'll never forget the reaction of Peter and Marian Wright Edelman to welfare reform. Peter resigned his post and Marian Wright Edelman made sure everyone understood how she felt personally betrayed by HILLARY, not Bill. Hillary was to be the liberal conscience of the Clinton Administration. How time changes images. Now Hillary's supposed liberal past is long forgotten. For those who favor DLCism, this is a sign of Hillary's good sense. For those who disfavor it, it proves hillary is a corporatist sellout DLCer. This is a central question about Hillary Clinton. Who could best answer this question? I believe Bill Clinton would be that person. I think it would help us all, and probably mostly Hillary Clinton, if he and Hillary were to discuss her role and views on the Clinton Administration and the issues faced at the time. Release of documents to add to this telling would be even better. I think it is time to tell the story – not of the personal lives of the clintons – but the public policy lives of the the Clintons. Tell us what Hillary did, said, advised and thought. To me it is the most interesting and relevant question of the entire campaign.
I am thematically challenged today. Those who know me well would say that is nothing new. Sometimes I turn floundering into an art form.
I have to thank Ek for putting excerpts of Cyrano in Hollow Stars Gazette. It has reminded that it is time to re-read Anna Karenina. Every few years I crack it open and the interesting part is that at different points in my life I have either identified or embraced certain characters in the book. After that I will crack open the Brothers Karamazov. I seriously regret not taking a Russian lit course in college.
I really enjoy doing the “mini quizzes” at Mental Floss they are short, don’t test for anything substantive and make me think my brain hasn’t calcified. Really, it has.
Hmmmm…. Squirrels….
Hmmmm… Adulthood…
Don’t rec pony part but hang out and chit chat and then go see the other excellent offerings here.
The city of New York, once widely feared for its mean streets scarred by random violence, is on course for its lowest murder rate in four decades with this year’s total expected to be below 500.
Aided by burgeoning affluence and a decade of “zero-tolerance” policing, a steady decline in the Big Apple’s violent crime rate has left the city basking in a new-found glow of safety. Criminologists suggest that killings by strangers have become so rare that the police cannot reasonably be expected to stamp out the problem any further.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 – As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call “kitchen table issues” – small ideas that affect ordinary people’s lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.
Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law. Now, with little political capital left, Mr. Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, is using his executive powers – and his presidential platform – to make little plans sound big.
When Conservation International wanted to educate the world about Brazil’s indigenous Kayapo Indians, whose Amazon home is threatened by deforestation, it brought an unlikely advocate to Washington: S. Robson Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores.
A partnership between Wal-Mart, reviled by labor unions and their allies as the enemy of the little guy, and an environmental nonprofit group was unthinkable just a few years ago. Critics had long accused Wal-Mart of treating its workers badly and crushing independent businesses with its mammoth stores. Its relentless focus on low prices has been blamed for the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and deadly pollution in underdeveloped countries. To some, Wal-Mart symbolized capitalism at its worst.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Militants struck at the heart of Pakistan’s security establishment Saturday, killing up to 35 people in suicide attacks on a checkpoint outside army headquarters and a bus carrying intelligence agency employees, officials said.
The brazen early morning attacks in Rawalpindi coincided with the announcement that Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister overthrown in 1999 by the country’s current military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would return from exile Sunday.
For more than a decade, the writer Taslima Nasrin has been fighting; fighting against the courts, fighting to be heard and fighting for her life. Last night, the Bangladeshi-born author was struggling again as violent protests in one city – and the purported threat of further violent protests in another – saw her shuttling across India to avoid angry Muslims who have accused her of insulting Islam.
“I have no place to go. India is my home and I would like to keep living in this country until I die,” the Sakharov Prize winner told The Hindu newspaper. “Here in this country, I have got the love and sympathy of the people for which I am grateful.”
One might think a chocolate-powered vehicle would be as much use as a chocolate tea cup – but two British adventurers have embarked on a trek across Europe and west Africa which aims to show that it could be a new, clean mode of transport.
Andy Pag and his co-driver John Grimshaw left Mr Grimshaw’s home town of Poole, Dorset, on a cross-Channel ferry yesterday. They are travelling in a Ford Iveco Cargo lorry powered by fuel which began life as chocolate, in an attempt to raise awareness of “green” biofuels. Their 4,500-mile (7,250 km) trip across the Sahara desert to Timbuktu in Mali should take about three weeks.
Émile Lahoud, the Lebanese President, charged the army last night with maintaining security in the crisis-stricken country as he stepped down from office after Parliament failed to elect his successor.
Declaring that “risks of a state of emergency” prevailed over the nation, Mr Lahoud ordered all Lebanese security agencies to be at the disposal of the army until a “legitimate government is formed”. The Government called on the army to ignore the outgoing President’s order, raising the risk of violent confrontation between rival factions.
Delegates to Gauge President’s Support For Rice’s Efforts
By Glenn Kessler and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A01
When the Middle East peace conference kicks off Tuesday in Annapolis, President Bush will deliver the opening speech and also conduct three rounds of personal diplomacy with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Such an active role is notable for a president who has never visited Israel while in office, who has made only one trip to Egypt and Jordan to promote peace efforts, and who has left the task of relaunching the peace process largely in the hands of his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
The child appeared to be imitating something she had seen — probably more than once — when associated with the man standing in front of her. But unlike the parent who quickly and gently hid her action from view, the child’s gesture demonstrated exactly the type of blunt, direct and peaceful confrontation that our adult selves have been sorely deficient in. Fortunately, it is a deficiency that is not complete.Indeed, some Americans have already figured out that the best way to confront the hypocrisy is to visibly challenge those most responsible for it. In this clip, Richard “Dick” Cheney has his own words 
These occurrences are, however, too few and far between. In the interest of our national well-being and the future of both the nation and the children who have lent us the temporary custody of it, we have to do better. Congress has to do better. Our next President has to do better. The current crop of 
