h/t Matt K
Category: Uncategorized
The heart of a progressive president
From Glenn Greenwald
Though a bit oversimpified — the Bush administration killed plenty of people, while the Obama administration makes use of kidnapping and torture chambers albeit by proxy; also, as this tweeter noted: it’s “unfair to say the Obama administration kills those it doesn’t like, since they claim power to kill people without even knowing who they are” – this concise comparison just about about sums it up. But it’s important to note that President Obama has progressivism in his heart and that makes all the difference in the world.
Between the lines
I wonder if the Playboy model turned health advisor, Jenny McCarthy, reads this stuff and feels any responsibility. The story makes no mention of her or of the fraudulent study published in the British medical journal Lancet in 1998, later discredited. In that article, Dr. Andrew Wakefield made a false connection between autism and vaccinations for various maladies, including whooping cough. McCarthy, herself the mother of an autistic child, picked up on it and has not let go.
We’re now seeing anti-science bearing fruit.
I have no problem with famous people using that fame for causes. But fame carries enormous responsibility. Mistaken notions, even if well-intended, can turn into disastrous outcomes.
Johnson’s article also mentions the poor condition of public health in Washington state, with underfunded and understaffed hospitals struggling under the burden of new (and expensive to diagnose) cases. Doctors are advised to just start treatment when they see symptoms.
The uninsured population in that state is now 14.6%, compared to 11.6% three years ago, prior to reform. Along with McCarthy, Johnson makes no mention of Obama.
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As well-publicized, there was a horrible bombing in Syria that killed 55 people and injured hundreds more. There was a tiny story on a sidebar in the Denver Post, Page 18A, that a “shadowy militant group” claimed responsibility for the incident.
This is a situation where high skepticism is warranted. Syria is a country under attack by outsiders – never mind its lousy government, which is of no concern in Washington (DC).
A horrible bombing, some ragtags claiming responsibility on the Internet … removal of rose-colored glasses might lead to the culprits. I suspect name of that “shadowy group” begins with C and ends with A [or M and D or both]. It’s right out of their playbook.
Am I saying that Americans are involved in random murder, doing violent provocation to enflame an already dangerous situation?
Yes. Quite yes. Daily. Who benefits from continued violence? Just think of our guys as the “militants” or “terrorists” and it’s easier to see.
Roper the mountain man, city shit
I woke up this morning thinking about a friend of years ago who died in 1998 by his own hand. In writing about him I always called him Roper Jobes, and that’s enough of a name for anyone else. In the wake of his passing I was rewarded with his books and written treasures. Among them was a Sierra Club weekly calendar from the 1970’s. Born in New Jersey, he fell in love with the outdoors at a young age, and with the West on a Sierra Club outing. He made his way to Montana at earliest opportunity.
The young man in that diary was lively and exuberant. He had hiked the Great Smokies that year, and some of the passages jumped off the page at me. He wrote about his mornings in camp, the joy of a camp fire. There were expressions like “caught a trout!” and “Black bear!” Sheer joy.
Continue reading “Roper the mountain man, city shit”
Portlandia
I was in a restroom in Fred Myers in Portland this morning. We are visiting kids for a few days.
As I washed up, I overheard one man talking to another. The talker was short, had long hair and a beard, wore jeans and was a bit disheveled. Not that it matters. The taller man was well groomed, white-bearded. They appeared to know one another.
As I washed, the shorter man said that each morning he hooks up two nine volt batteries to his head using wires. He said that this reverses the polarity of his brain, and makes him feel good. It’s how he starts his day.
And I thought … Portland, I love you. Nowhere else do I ever hear that conversation, past or future. A one-time per life event.
Happy crossification everyone!
Easter greetings from D.M. Murdock (aka Acharya S):
Contrary to popular belief, Easter does not represent the “historical” crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In reality, the gospel tale reflects the annual “crossification” of the sun through the vernal equinox (Spring), at which time the sun is “resurrected,” as the day begins to become longer than the night.
Rather than being a “Christian” holiday, Easter celebrations date back into remotest antiquity and are found around the world, as the blossoming of spring did not escape the notice of the ancients, who revered this life-renewing time of the year, when winter had passed and the sun was “born again.” The “Pagan” Easter is also the Passover, and Jesus Christ represents not only the sun but also the Passover Lamb ritually sacrificed every year by a number of cultures, including the Egyptians, possibly as early as 4,000 years ago and continuing to this day in some places.
In care you ever think WTF? as you look east Easter bunnies and egg celebrations and how they got messed up in the risen savior, think rebirth, fertility. It’s all from the same origins – pagan rituals dating back to long before recorded history.
On knowing nothing and seeing even less
In Happiness she highlights an important point: Our brains have allowed us to survive and prosper on this planet, but not by all-encompassing vision. Rather, it is limited vision that focuses us on a few things while we ignore things that do not aid survival. We survive attacks by beasts and by each other, and threatening weather and climate. Quoting William James from Varieties of Religious Experience:
…our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go though life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus , and at a touch they are there in all their completeness….No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.
From Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception:
The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, but shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.
Arizona charm
We are finishing our time in Arizona. The last week was with Bozeman friends who stayed with us. That week just blew by. We are also friends with two other couples from Bozeman who own houses down here, and have spent time with them as well.
We thought briefly about the snowbird life, and even looked at some houses, as they are ridiculously cheap down here. Then we realized that owning a house here carries with it an obligation to come here, and that would foreclose other possibilities. We quickly backed off, thanked the realtor and will probably head back to Colorado before our time in this house is up.
Did Sgt. Robert Bales act alone?
Comments by participants in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War claimed that the incident, though grisly, was not that unusual. “Free fire zones” meant that anyone breathing oxygen was a target, so that soldiers landing in the villages that day were free to kill anyone they saw, no questions asked. Only after a low-level GI, Ron Ridenhour, finally got Seymour Hersh to report on the matter did it become a scandal. And again, it must be noted, Hersh’s report includes comments from participants that the incident simply was not that unusual.
Afghan people are furious that Sgt, Bales was extradited from there to stand trial at home. Afghanistan news media is alive with reports that Bales did not act alone, was part of a coordinated effort, complete with helicopter landings and burned corpses. Could it be that that Sgt. Bale’s unit had free fire authority, and that on landing and finding no “militants” that they simply killed everyone there, My Lai style?
If so, there are many possible outcomes. One is the Calley scenario, where Bales would be allowed to take the fall, stay in jail long enough to escape public memory, and then quietly fade away. In this outcome, Bales sits quietly on trial as he is convicted, apparently penitent. News reports circulate that he was troubled, a loner, had combat stress, maybe even find high school buddies who uncover dark secrets about pornography and drugs.
What if Bales wants to put the Army on trial? That could be nasty, as the Army will not allow itself to be exposed (should the Afghan media be giving us accurate reporting). There would be no public trial, and he would be convicted, possibly executed, certainly put in solitary confinement.
Or, he might commit “suicide.” That would be the Joe Stalin solution: No person, no problem.
Hard to know what is true or factual right now. It would be wise of all of us to watch all reporting on this matter from all sources.
Stratfor does it with impunity, while Assange is “fucked”
According to Democracy Now, there appears to be a sealed indictment against Julian Assange coming out of the highly secretive Obama Administration. This from Rolling Stone magazine, a few issues ago:
Assange recently spoke to someone he calls a Western “intelligence source,” and he asked the official about his fate. Will he ever be a free man again, allowed to return to his native Australia, to come and go as he pleases? “He told me I was fucked,” Assange says.
The Obama Administration has been far worse in the privacy/free speech area than any administration before, and gets away with it because are happy to support any policy so long as the person who puts it in place is a Democrat.
The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published an internal email from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that suggests the U.S. Justice Department has obtained a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The email is one of around five million obtained from Stratfor’s servers by the hacker group, Anonymous. “Somehow you have a private intelligence company, Stratfor, a ‘shadow CIA,’ as people have called it, having information about this sealed indictment—secret again—that Julian Assange doesn’t have, that WikiLeaks doesn’t have, that his lawyers don’t have,” says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is a legal adviser to both Assange and to WikiLeaks. “What you see here is secrecy, secrecy, secrecy.” News of the indictment comes less than a week after Army Private Bradley Manning was arraigned for allegedly leaking classified U.S. military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks.
Isn’t it interesting that a private corporation has this information, presumably leaked, and bears no scrutiny, while Julian Assange, who has done the very same thing, is “fucked?”
Piece of Mindful 