big on love, tolerance, and the human potential
Here’s seasoned journalists alone with John McCain. The title of this revealing article is
McCain’s Prickly TIME Interview
But with the press focused on Obama, McCain got attention only when he slipped up during one of his patented freewheeling encounters with reporters. And so in July, the campaign decided to clamp down on the candidate.
There is not a full man here.
Were he here to tear down another George!
Thomas Jefferson:
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds… we will have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers…
And this is the tendency of all human governments.
A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]… ’til the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Here’s an unusually emotional article you’ll likely not see.
It’s written in the Daily Mail by J Randy Taraborrelli, who says, “As a journalist who has reported more on Jackson in the past 30 years than anyone else – including having written three best-selling books about him – I can’t help but be deeply saddened by the way his life has turned out.
…
From the time he was a teenager, Michael Jackson believed he would sell more records than anyone else – and, of course, he did.
He also knew he would have the biggest-grossing concert tours in history. But all of that is now in the past.
Today, he spends his time wandering around Las Vegas…”
The Mail hired an expert to make a graphic of what Michael Jackson should really look like.
“I can’t believe that, as reporters, you would walk into a ‘spin room’,” he said, amazed at the journalists’ willingness to swallow the bullshit that the campaign and candidates spoon feed them.
“How can you keep talking to people who are lying to you?” he asked.
“This loveless marriage [between reporters and politicians] has to be unconsummated.”
One, Two.
Not on mainstream media.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv0smG7ptcM&hl=en&fs=1]
[read like old beat coffee house free verse]
I will be happy soon.
Our complex Eisenhower era of Military and Industry build mistake and doom, minor men, that have made abundant things costly and rare, in governments of whine and pride, a lament of the angry, an error of fraud, killing the common to lift the elite, killing and killing, and injures our great community for little men of privilege, a lobby of indemnity, ingenious magicians of public honey, vulgar braggarts in a loud veneer of media too timid to reveal our democracy is not an agriculture of votes but the water of our future.
The strong are acutely quiet.
As seeds spike their dark inch, as leaves pull to light, as life is mighty and honor is our bounty, as even roses know, we too will one day bloom.
[hey cat, dig it]
Canada’s online newspaper The Tyee says, “It’s times like this that a statement of optimism, in itself, can be a gutsy move.”
Toronto-born writer Cory Doctorow — who says he is probably a distant relative of novelist E.L. Doctorow — makes such a statement in Little Brother, a young adult novel about San Francisco hacker kids taking on the Department of Homeland Security. Little Brother is Doctorow’s first young adult publication, and like most of Doctorow’s fiction, the complete text is available for legal free download at http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/.
Somewhere between Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Anarchist’s Cookbook, Little Brother is a coming-of-age story, a how-to manual and a call to arms for technically smart, self-reliant Millennial kids to get radicalized and become a movement, opposed to the fear-based politics of the post-9-11 era.
“Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. John McCain voted with George Bush 90% of the time.” – Sylvestre Reyes (TX), Congressional Hispanic Caucus
So please join me in welcoming an impassioned public servant, a loving daughter, wife and mother, my little sister and our nation’s next first lady: Michele Obama.
Camille speaks of her daughter’s arrest by a suppressive government:
“My exhausted daughter, with hundreds of others, tried to sleep that first night …on the chemical-covered oily, cold cement floor of these pens, without food or water, without being read her rights, without being offered a chance to post bail, without seeing a judge although the National Lawyers Guild offered to represent them pro bono, without being charged or told why she was arrested and handcuffed and taken there, without being allowed to make a call to a lawyer or friend or parent or anyone — all cell phones were confiscated as “terrorist weapons.” Her purse was taken. She had nothing but the clothes on her back.
Meanwhile…ordinary criminals arrested that same day in NYC for burglary, rape and heinous crimes were processed by the courts in less than 10 hours. My daughter, who had committed no crime, was incarcerated for three days incommunicado. People suffered chemical burns, bug bites, overcrowding and medical problems because their medicine was confiscated. A pregnant woman sat crying on the floor in the oil.
Here’s a picture with memory.
Police try to stop Mario Savio, leader of the Free Speech Movement from speaking at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, 1964. Note: The ‘protesters’ seem to be comfortably seated.
In 2008, protests are quashed. Sometimes, the message of the demonstrations are leaked, but generally the issues are deadened and put into walled off compounds.
DENVER, Aug. 27 (UPI) — A press freedom organization is accusing Denver police of roughing up journalists covering a protest at the Democratic National Convention. Reporters Without Borders says it is unclear what prompted police to step up their level of force during a demonstration that began outside the Pepsi Center on the opening night of the convention.
And here’s a clip from 2008.
Police Trap Peaceful Protesters in Denver by Davin Hutchins on Aug 25.
“A calm political protest quickly turned chaotic as anxious Denver police surrounded protestors peacefully marching toward the Democratic National Convention Center.
“After trapping the crowd between two buildings, hundreds of officers used pepper spray, batons and unwarranted aggression.
“After being surrounded for 20 minutes, two ANP producers managed to escape after recording the whole affair.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoAVce-Rc2c&hl=en&fs=1]
Eisenhower resigns the Republican Party.
I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican.
For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year.
My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security.
At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?
Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after. In my grandparents’ time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America’s interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and “soft power”; the advancement of civil rights; investment in infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future.
And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.
It was not easy taking this step, since politics, like religion, is something learned on the knee of one’s parents and grandparents. And like anything else inherited, it is imbedded in one’s own identity. This makes leaving even harder.
But there will be some joy for me in my new status since I will be able to speak for myself, and not as a member of a party that has, sadly, lost its way.
Reflections on Leaving the Party
by Susan Eisenhower
08.21.2008
[click picture for source]
Eurythmics and others produced a strong delightful song for Obama.
American Prayer – Dave Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, Cyndi Lauper, Barry Manilow, Joan Baez, Macy Gray and Joss Stone.
On iTunes as well as the Dave Stewart Songbook. Flash site at My American Prayer.
Here’s Dave Stewart’s Official Version, where he says,
When I set out to make a video for the new version of this song, I wanted to honor all of those millions of people, especially young people, who are, for the first time, feeling empowered to voice their beliefs. I wanted to capture how Obama’s message of change has echoed across the broad fabric of what is America.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6BLKV7L8OU&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1]
Yanko Design has found the Chrono-Shredder.
“There’s no on or off button. As minutes pass, a continuous roll of time is shredded until you end up with a big pile of paper by the New Year.”
[Designer, Susanna Hertrich. Tip to j-walk]
The New Republic offers background on the McCain marriage:
As Cindy McCain faithfully shadows her husband in his quest for the presidency, it’s hard to imagine that she was once the senior member of their partnership.
What is it about an orphan that is stunned to find a place of belonging and so much more stunned to lose it that life is weak and breath desperate? We cannot know. We refuse to know any person so alone.
So orphans go. A few luckily kept. Some to war. Many to arguing. And many a star not lit among our blind blue sky. Old is same. Weakening and age takes as much as nothing given and never loved. Orphans and elders is what we say are alike. Skirts on a bird. Pants on a whale. Dust on days.
What is it a dead spouse leaves? Would you say something stupid like life’s lessons? That’s a trite error because marriage isn’t trite. Awhile together is enough to paint our inside, twist our frame, pace our journey, and fuse our view. Awhile alone is enough to wash us bare, bend us more, erase our deeds, and blind our hope. A remaining spouse is another orphan, another old coot. Soot. Dust.
What is it not orphans, not old, not left behind, want so much they forget orphans, old, and left behind? Perhaps wanting belonging. Yes, belonging too.
Warning. Viewer Discretion is Advised
Dinoire met with a number of doctors in the months before her surgery. Her injury occurred while she was sleeping. Dinoire woke up to find that, while unconscious, her nose and lips had been bitten off by her black Labrador — which was ultimately euthanized. It was only when she attempted, in vain, to smoke a cigarette that Dinoire realized she was without half a face.
This article says, “you might call it cutting by color“.
“Cancer surgeons today operate “blind” with no clear way of determining in real-time whether they have removed all of the diseased tissue, which is the key to successful surgery.
“Researchers in Massachusetts now report development and early clinical trials of a new imaging system that highlights cancerous tissue in the body so that surgeons can more easily see and remove diseased tissue with less damage to normal tissue near the tumor.
“This technique is really the first time that cancer surgeons can see structures that are otherwise invisible, providing true image-guided surgery.”
How many centuries from cave to river? How many centuries from docks to keys? How many centuries from trade to democracy? How many Presidents keep promises?
The cruel reality, says BusinessWeek, promises are broken:
Here’s one way to figure out how the 2008 election will affect the stock market: Look at the Presidential candidates’ platforms and speeches, and decide whether they would hurt or help particular industries.
Stand on a floor and buy. Stand on a floor and sell. You decide.
I learned just now, a filibuster is “An early 17th century term that the English used for a buccaneer in the Caribbean.” The French, the Dutch, also said, “”vrijbuiter” meaning “free looter.” Put that in your pipe!
No, no, it’s not the goofus amongus we worry about. Oh, not anymore, fer sure.
At this point for me, it’s almost like there’s no turning back. And because of my own actions, I watch my kid closer than I think is necessary for her social development. Overprotective? Maybe. It’s kind of sad, really. But this is the information age, and security risks are far different than they used to be.
I’m not hard to find, and I am a proud parent. And just to throw it out there, I will shoot an intruder if you come to my house. Remember that if there are any freaks reading this *looks over shoulder*
That’s so old school, it’s actually embarrassing… but I made my bed and now my family has to lie in it.
I suppose the next step is to educate my child as much as possible eh? Don’t talk to strangers, never open the door, and don’t touch Daddy’s gun. Oh man what have I gotten myself into…
Search icon Danny Sullivan wrote “Being Social Online & Protecting Your Kids”. The comments are interesting too.
yuh sure, great universe and a’ that
Went out with Lucky Lord Barkeley this AM, not 200 feet, in the cold dew, and he’s stung on his hip by a yellow jacket. I thought a thorn, maybe a snake but I was watching and saw no sweeping.
He tailed in zigs and stopped to ask for help, nosing his right butt. Took me minutes to find this burr in his fur.
As soon as he saw it, I crushed it, he ate it, then he ran to bed.
Remember Jack Kennedy asked kids to fix us with a Peace Corps?
Politics made sense and kids like good sense, and peace was a real word.
But bullets killed this man, his brother, and King too, then sunk a generation.
Now it’s propaganda run by idiots hiring fools, so twisted only fools understand it.
While we cower, silly people, angry men remain unable.
Dreaming without editing. It’s Friday.
Bernanke says the Fed must increase regulation of banks and investment firms. This is not what McCain and his jingo sidekick Phil Gramm want.
www.brianhayes.com/2008/07/why-mccain-reached-top.html
www.brianhayes.com/2008/03/commodities-bubble.html
During and after the Keating and Enron collapses – now with housing and oil – $Billions of hurt hurt Americans, these boys sell us populism, not their wisdom, to sell deregulation, get votes. They tell the fringe that Jesus is on their shoulder and tell everyone else that God prefers a free market over socialized rules because freedom helps wealth trickle into your poor pocket.
When Greenspan was dubwa-speaking, er, double-speaking, about our economy, time and time again he called for risk management tests, installed a few, but took us to the brink of Chicago School, pure game theory in the fashion of both loose and derivative.
But Bernanke thinks prudence matters and sees ‘gamers’ are excessive.
Sure. I know. I’m obtuse again, telling odd stories as if an old Bard at the end of the bar. But I’m doing more than planting clues. I’m saying it seems the Fed has had enough of lies and Laffer’s curve. He might not let foreign libertines nor strong states take America, and is indicating for the first time since Reagan that the party is… well… requires penance, and must justify outlandish, ingenious estates.
Andy Warhol meets Wall Street is over.
Yacht For Sale.
You too Trump.
America is taking its first steps to becoming organized?
Oh, what will the Europeans say?
Of course this is true.
Worldly players have climbed into wit and strength. China, Russia. Europe too. The Middle East, gee whiz, Venezuela or Brazil…. Our world is better than Zimbabwe or Bush. How long can our allies be Poland, Latvia, and only a mayor or two?
Sad, yes it’s sad, that statesmanship has failed.
How many ideologues can a bureaucracy hire before failure?
But if you parse Rand Corporation or Hoover, as far back as the late-80s, before oligarch was a homespun worry in our own land, many have warned that cheap battle, insincere bullies and pandering politicians were the first mistake if we wanted a better post-Cold-War world.
Since turning the Executive Branch budget into the industrial Brown Group, plus today’s ridiculous White House armies, is there one, name one, any successful military response?
Berkeley activists said Vietnam was stupid. We all took Jimmy Carter to the wash when Iran stormed our walls. But what campus marches because Saddam’s Suni ain’t Shi’ite?
What will you tell your your children when one trillion dollars failed to find bin Ladin? Oh, Tom ‘Brokaw’ Mix is our best cowboy?
Remember Jack Kennedy asked kids to fix us with a Peace Corps?
Politics made sense and kids like good sense, and peace was a real word.
But bullets killed this man, his brother, and King too, then sunk a generation.
Now it’s propaganda run by idiots hiring fools, so twisted only fools understand it.
While we cower, silly people, angry men remain unable.
While we cower, silly people, angry men are as unable now as always.
As if frogs know they’ll be rats, we vote zero government as if the Bible says it’s true. That’s our recent evolution, wot?
Upside-down might be easier to fix than stupid.
There will not be articles in the mainstream media examining McCain’s character. But here’s an article from a fellow POW that knows John McCain. He says, I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button.
Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60’s and 70’s. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.
I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.
It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush’s war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John’s views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.
I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man. He disingenuously and famously put his arm around the guy, even after Bush had intensely disrespected him with lies and slander. So on these and many other instances, I don’t see that John is the “straight talk express” he markets himself to be.
Doctor Phillip Butler is a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war. He is a highly decorated combat veteran who was awarded two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merits, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Heart medals. After his repatriation in 1973 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at San Diego and became a Navy Organizational Effectiveness consultant. He completed his Navy career in 1981 as a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.
For an illuminating comparison, here’s a mainstream examination of John McCain, 25 Things You Might Not Know About McCain. Please note that AP is a wholesale distributor of media products.