Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Slavery Forever!! (it REALLY pays!!!)
Hey Folks,
You thought I was kidding in the last posting when I said the re-enslavement of the American people is in its endgame. Well, here we see existing slavery as well as the powerful reaction against attempts to end it.
This is the direction we're heading. I doubt we'll see Americans taken at gunpoint into the boonies to cut trees and clear pastures, but even now people who have lost decent manufacturing jobs are being forced to work at jobs that won't sustain them.
It's either that or crime; on the one hand a figurative gun is put to their heads by capitalists; on the other an actual gun is put to their head by the "Justice System." How far away from slavery is that?
- Uke Man
Antislavery efforts imperiled in Brazil
By Andrew Downie
The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Feb 16
RIO DE JANEIRO - A decision by Brazil's Congress to curb the powers of labor auditors threatens to jeopardize an antislavery program that led to the release of more than 15,000 slaves and made Brazil a world leader in fighting indentured servitude, officials and activists said here this week.
Brazilian lawmakers passed a new law on Tuesday that unites two federal tax bodies in a bid to streamline a complex and bureaucratic system.
But one key amendment in the bill strips labor auditors and prosecutors of their power to determine the relationship between employers and employees. The amendment was included at the behest of media companies, who routinely use freelancers and who, under the existing statute, could be punished for doing so by labor auditors.
Under the new law, judges are now responsible for defining that relationship. An apparently unintended consequence of the change is that auditors can no longer determine what constitutes slavery, say prosecutors, auditors, and human rights activists.
"This will make it substantially more difficult to register and document incidents," said Walter Nunes, president of the federal judges association.
The amendment also prevents prosecutors from leveling immediate fines on employers found to have deliberately kept slaves. Until now, prosecutors who accompany government auditors to track down reports of slavery in the remote outposts of the Amazon jungle had the power to fine employers they determined were keeping slaves. Last year guilty employers were forced to pay around $3 million in back pay to workers they used as indentured servants.
Congress's decision was met with anger and disappointment by antislavery campaigners, who say it will neutralize all the previous work done by a government that had made eradicating slavery one of its proudest boasts.
"The campaign against slavery was successful because auditors were able to recognize slavery and demand that employers pay up," said Rosa Jorge, the president of the auditor's union.
"Now, employees have to go through the justice system, and there are two things that can happen," she says. "Either they cut a deal - and normally that is not good for workers - or they spend years waiting for the case to come to court. But these slaves won't go to court, many of them don't even now that courts exist."
Brazil has a hidden but serious problem of slave labor. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 40,000 slaves working in Brazil today.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made eradicating what he called "Brazil's shame" one of his main goals, and he doubled the Department of Labor Oversight's budget and increased the number of mobile antislavery units from four to seven.
The units follow up on reports of abuse in some of the most inhospitable places in this continent-sized nation and free workers lured into slavery by promises of big payoffs.
Workers are routinely taken to remote outposts and prevented from leaving, sometimes by armed guards. The captives, most of whom are poor and unskilled, are put to work and made to pay exorbitant prices for basics like tools, soap, and food. Many end up owing money, even after spending months doing hard work like cutting down trees or clearing cattle pastures.
Lula's campaign was a huge success, with officials freeing more than 15,000 slaves since he came to power in 2003. The ILO lauded Lula's efforts in a 2005 report on slavery worldwide.
Now, though, that work is in jeopardy, and unionists, lawyers, prosecutors, and human rights workers are banding together to pressure Lula into vetoing the amendment.
Myriad voices have condemned the clause, with judges saying it will add to the backlog in their courts, ministers calling it detrimental to the average worker and the Brazilian Bar Association ruling it unconstitutional.
About the only ones happy with the decision are big businesses. The decision gives employers more leeway to deal with freelance employees, a move that, they argue, is vital in a job market where short-term contracts are increasingly common.
Large companies are now free to hire freelancers without paying them the benefits entitled to full employees. Employers, moreover, will no longer be at the mercy of "the arbitrariness of auditors," says Armando Monteiro, the president of the National Confederation of Industry.
You thought I was kidding in the last posting when I said the re-enslavement of the American people is in its endgame. Well, here we see existing slavery as well as the powerful reaction against attempts to end it.
This is the direction we're heading. I doubt we'll see Americans taken at gunpoint into the boonies to cut trees and clear pastures, but even now people who have lost decent manufacturing jobs are being forced to work at jobs that won't sustain them.
It's either that or crime; on the one hand a figurative gun is put to their heads by capitalists; on the other an actual gun is put to their head by the "Justice System." How far away from slavery is that?
- Uke Man
Antislavery efforts imperiled in Brazil
By Andrew Downie
The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Feb 16
RIO DE JANEIRO - A decision by Brazil's Congress to curb the powers of labor auditors threatens to jeopardize an antislavery program that led to the release of more than 15,000 slaves and made Brazil a world leader in fighting indentured servitude, officials and activists said here this week.
Brazilian lawmakers passed a new law on Tuesday that unites two federal tax bodies in a bid to streamline a complex and bureaucratic system.
But one key amendment in the bill strips labor auditors and prosecutors of their power to determine the relationship between employers and employees. The amendment was included at the behest of media companies, who routinely use freelancers and who, under the existing statute, could be punished for doing so by labor auditors.
Under the new law, judges are now responsible for defining that relationship. An apparently unintended consequence of the change is that auditors can no longer determine what constitutes slavery, say prosecutors, auditors, and human rights activists.
"This will make it substantially more difficult to register and document incidents," said Walter Nunes, president of the federal judges association.
The amendment also prevents prosecutors from leveling immediate fines on employers found to have deliberately kept slaves. Until now, prosecutors who accompany government auditors to track down reports of slavery in the remote outposts of the Amazon jungle had the power to fine employers they determined were keeping slaves. Last year guilty employers were forced to pay around $3 million in back pay to workers they used as indentured servants.
Congress's decision was met with anger and disappointment by antislavery campaigners, who say it will neutralize all the previous work done by a government that had made eradicating slavery one of its proudest boasts.
"The campaign against slavery was successful because auditors were able to recognize slavery and demand that employers pay up," said Rosa Jorge, the president of the auditor's union.
"Now, employees have to go through the justice system, and there are two things that can happen," she says. "Either they cut a deal - and normally that is not good for workers - or they spend years waiting for the case to come to court. But these slaves won't go to court, many of them don't even now that courts exist."
Brazil has a hidden but serious problem of slave labor. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 40,000 slaves working in Brazil today.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made eradicating what he called "Brazil's shame" one of his main goals, and he doubled the Department of Labor Oversight's budget and increased the number of mobile antislavery units from four to seven.
The units follow up on reports of abuse in some of the most inhospitable places in this continent-sized nation and free workers lured into slavery by promises of big payoffs.
Workers are routinely taken to remote outposts and prevented from leaving, sometimes by armed guards. The captives, most of whom are poor and unskilled, are put to work and made to pay exorbitant prices for basics like tools, soap, and food. Many end up owing money, even after spending months doing hard work like cutting down trees or clearing cattle pastures.
Lula's campaign was a huge success, with officials freeing more than 15,000 slaves since he came to power in 2003. The ILO lauded Lula's efforts in a 2005 report on slavery worldwide.
Now, though, that work is in jeopardy, and unionists, lawyers, prosecutors, and human rights workers are banding together to pressure Lula into vetoing the amendment.
Myriad voices have condemned the clause, with judges saying it will add to the backlog in their courts, ministers calling it detrimental to the average worker and the Brazilian Bar Association ruling it unconstitutional.
About the only ones happy with the decision are big businesses. The decision gives employers more leeway to deal with freelance employees, a move that, they argue, is vital in a job market where short-term contracts are increasingly common.
Large companies are now free to hire freelancers without paying them the benefits entitled to full employees. Employers, moreover, will no longer be at the mercy of "the arbitrariness of auditors," says Armando Monteiro, the president of the National Confederation of Industry.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Hey Folks,
On February 25 the local paper reported: “Poorest Americans get poorer / Incomes of 16 million fall 50% below poverty line,” a story by Tony Pugh of McClatchy Newspapers.
On February 26 it reported: “Welfare state getting larger / Cash assistance has waned, but other programs keep growing,” a story by Stephen Olemacher of AP.
Duhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!! Surprise, surprise !!
In the first story we find:
“The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between the "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 — half the federal poverty line — was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.”
Now, Folks, 16 million people is larger than the combined populations of Ohio and Kentucky. Does that “put a face on it”?
Moreover, we’re not talking ALL the poor people; we’re talking only the deeply and severely poor !!
How can this be?
Simple: that’s been The Plan all along.
Wake up folks!! WE are the sheep and they are the sheep owners. That’s ALWAYS been the plan; it’s how “society”/”civilization” works.
Specifically in the US of A, early-on in frontier days the sheep had better grazing – the white ones anyway. They were encouraged to find their fortune taming the wilds. Once they succeeded, the Philadelphia Lawyers and other Robber Barons felt safe enough to come take it away from them ( e.g. Daniel Boone [not to be confused with his imbecile descendent Pat Boone] and Simon Kenton [ of Tecumseh fame] ).
The frontier finally disappeared and free-roaming sheep became scarce – time to put ‘em back on the farm for easy exploitation – the way God (and the Wealthy) wanted it to be (the Rich Man's Burden). That worked pretty well until the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression made things so bad for the masses that revolution was a real possibility.
Franklin Roosevelt saved the wealthy’s ass with his “New Deal,” simultaneously securing their eternal hatred. Ever since, the angry Upper Crust has worked feverishly to dismantle those evil kindnesses, the very ones that saved them from the guillotine.
They have made regular progress culminating with George W. Bush’s blatant, unashamed attacks on everything that “regular” folks once were said to hold dear. That’s The Plan!!!
The re-enslavement of the American people is close to its end game. Rights are obliterated or mangled, standards of living are lowered, availability of education and health care are reduced, unions are made irrelevant, retirement becomes a joke. No wonder the second story reports:
“WASHINGTON — The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid.
The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.
The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.
Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance.
‘If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo,’ said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women’s studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. ‘If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success.’”
That’s The Plan, Folks: “the vast majority have been forced into lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance.” Yep, WAL-MART and Burger King !!
Further on, the article says: “In the early 1990s, critics contended that the welfare system encouraged unemployment.” Yep, people in deep and severe poverty working at “lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance” do fall into the unemployment hole, and that forces WAL-Mart to pay more to get workers.
But Welfare “Reform” took care of that “problem”! Forcing the poor to work for nearly nothing, suffering until they die – it's part of The Plan. And the numbers are staggering: “Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance.” That’s 50 million people, more than the combined populations of Texas, West Virginia, New York, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Kansas, and South Dakota.
“The Plan” explains the seemingly incongruous facts related to “Free Trade” deals, outsourcing over seas, the Mexican immigration “problem,” the New Orleans situation, the war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, and more.
If one believes that the people who run this country really care about the people, the country, or anything not related to their own, personal well-being, these things make no sense (sure, we are fed all sorts of complicated bullshit to “justify” the policies of the rich, and they usually do help the rich, but they always turn out – somehow - not to do for the people what we were told they would during the sales pitch.
The perfect example is provided by the two consecutive articles. The only ones to benefit from Welfare “Reform” were people who were already well off. People got off welfare, went to work, and were worse off. In these two articles a decade-long line of bullshit is clearly revealed, even to the sheepish (if they are awake).
So wake up to The Plan, people. Stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!!”
Or, if you prefer, say:
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!! And wag your tail behind you.
- Uke Man
On February 25 the local paper reported: “Poorest Americans get poorer / Incomes of 16 million fall 50% below poverty line,” a story by Tony Pugh of McClatchy Newspapers.
On February 26 it reported: “Welfare state getting larger / Cash assistance has waned, but other programs keep growing,” a story by Stephen Olemacher of AP.
Duhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!! Surprise, surprise !!
In the first story we find:
“The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between the "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.
A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 — half the federal poverty line — was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.”
Now, Folks, 16 million people is larger than the combined populations of Ohio and Kentucky. Does that “put a face on it”?
Moreover, we’re not talking ALL the poor people; we’re talking only the deeply and severely poor !!
How can this be?
Simple: that’s been The Plan all along.
Wake up folks!! WE are the sheep and they are the sheep owners. That’s ALWAYS been the plan; it’s how “society”/”civilization” works.
Specifically in the US of A, early-on in frontier days the sheep had better grazing – the white ones anyway. They were encouraged to find their fortune taming the wilds. Once they succeeded, the Philadelphia Lawyers and other Robber Barons felt safe enough to come take it away from them ( e.g. Daniel Boone [not to be confused with his imbecile descendent Pat Boone] and Simon Kenton [ of Tecumseh fame] ).
The frontier finally disappeared and free-roaming sheep became scarce – time to put ‘em back on the farm for easy exploitation – the way God (and the Wealthy) wanted it to be (the Rich Man's Burden). That worked pretty well until the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression made things so bad for the masses that revolution was a real possibility.
Franklin Roosevelt saved the wealthy’s ass with his “New Deal,” simultaneously securing their eternal hatred. Ever since, the angry Upper Crust has worked feverishly to dismantle those evil kindnesses, the very ones that saved them from the guillotine.
They have made regular progress culminating with George W. Bush’s blatant, unashamed attacks on everything that “regular” folks once were said to hold dear. That’s The Plan!!!
The re-enslavement of the American people is close to its end game. Rights are obliterated or mangled, standards of living are lowered, availability of education and health care are reduced, unions are made irrelevant, retirement becomes a joke. No wonder the second story reports:
“WASHINGTON — The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid.
The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.
The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.
Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance.
‘If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo,’ said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women’s studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. ‘If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success.’”
That’s The Plan, Folks: “the vast majority have been forced into lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance.” Yep, WAL-MART and Burger King !!
Further on, the article says: “In the early 1990s, critics contended that the welfare system encouraged unemployment.” Yep, people in deep and severe poverty working at “lowpaying jobs with no benefits and few opportunities to advance” do fall into the unemployment hole, and that forces WAL-Mart to pay more to get workers.
But Welfare “Reform” took care of that “problem”! Forcing the poor to work for nearly nothing, suffering until they die – it's part of The Plan. And the numbers are staggering: “Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance.” That’s 50 million people, more than the combined populations of Texas, West Virginia, New York, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Kansas, and South Dakota.
“The Plan” explains the seemingly incongruous facts related to “Free Trade” deals, outsourcing over seas, the Mexican immigration “problem,” the New Orleans situation, the war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, and more.
If one believes that the people who run this country really care about the people, the country, or anything not related to their own, personal well-being, these things make no sense (sure, we are fed all sorts of complicated bullshit to “justify” the policies of the rich, and they usually do help the rich, but they always turn out – somehow - not to do for the people what we were told they would during the sales pitch.
The perfect example is provided by the two consecutive articles. The only ones to benefit from Welfare “Reform” were people who were already well off. People got off welfare, went to work, and were worse off. In these two articles a decade-long line of bullshit is clearly revealed, even to the sheepish (if they are awake).
So wake up to The Plan, people. Stand up and say, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!!”
Or, if you prefer, say:
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!!! And wag your tail behind you.
- Uke Man
Monday, February 26, 2007
Neil Postman warned in 1985 that we were amusing ourselves to death
Hey Folks,
With this essay I realized that whenever I get depressed, it most often is over disappointment with humanity. Pogo said it best: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
- Uke Man
February 22, 2007
From Anna to Britney to Zawahri
By BOB HERBERT
( a ukethanks to Phyll)
Have they buried Anna Nicole Smith yet?
Are you kidding? Ms. Smith may be dead and rapidly decomposing, but there’s too much fun still to be reaped from her story to let it die just yet. This is world-class entertainment: Larry King, “Today,” CNN, The New York Times.
Even the judge in the televised hearing over what to do with Ms. Smith’s remains is milking his 15 minutes, like Judge Ito of O. J. Simpson fame. In a burst of wisdom from the bench, the judge, Larry Seidlin, said, “Like a Muhammad Ali fight, sometimes you have to wait the whole 10 rounds.”
When we were kids we were taught not to laugh at people who were obviously mentally or emotionally disturbed. With Ms. Smith, who was deeply and unmistakably disturbed, we put her on television and laughed and laughed. Would she say something stupid, or spill out of her dress, or pass out in public from booze or drugs? How hysterically funny!
Then her son died. Then she died, leaving an orphaned infant daughter. Instead of turning away chastened, shamed, we homed in like happy vultures. Whatever entertainment value Ms. Smith had when she was alive increased exponentially when she was kind enough to die for us. Now she’s on the tube around the clock.
The story, as they say, has legs.
There are other stories out there, but they aren’t nearly as much fun. The Times reported on Monday, for example, that Al Qaeda is getting its act together in Pakistan and is setting up training camps in an area that, apparently, we don’t dare trespass in.
According to the article, “American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.”
The article went on to say, ominously, “The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.”
I imagine that there are a fair number of television viewers and newspaper readers who have trouble distinguishing the relative importance of celebrity stories, like the death of Anna Nicole Smith, from other matters in the news, like the reconstitution of forces responsible for the devastating Sept. 11 attacks.
If air time is any guide, there’s no contest. It’s been obvious for the longest time that the line between news and entertainment has vanished. News is entertainment. And the death of Anna Nicole Smith is more entertaining — for the time being, at least — than the war in Iraq or the plodding machinations of bin Laden and Zawahri.
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were on the cover of Newsweek last week with the headline “The Girls Gone Wild Effect.” When you turned to the story, there was a full-page picture of the former best friends, with a glassy-eyed Britney looking for all the world like a younger version of Anna Nicole Smith.
The lead-in to the article said in large type: “Paris, Britney, Lindsay and Nicole — They seem to be everywhere and they may not be wearing underwear.”
The nation may be at war, and Al Qaeda may be gearing up for a rematch. But that’s no fun, not when Britney is shaving off her hair and Jennifer Aniston is reported to have a new nose and the thrill-a-minute watch over Anna Nicole’s remains is still the hottest thing on TV.
It was Neil Postman who warned in 1985 that we were amusing ourselves to death. I’m not sure anyone knew how literally to take him.
More than 20 years later, the masses have nearly succeeded in drawing the curtains on anything that’s not entertaining. No one can figure out what do about Iraq or Al Qaeda. A great American cultural center like New Orleans was all but washed away, and no one knows how to put it back together. The ice caps are melting and Al Gore is traveling the land like the town crier, raising the alarm about global warming.
But none of that has really gotten the public’s attention. None of it is amusing enough. As a nation of spectators, we seem content to sit with a pizza and a brew in front of the high-def flat-screen TV, obsessing over Anna Nicole et al., and giving no thought to the possibility that the calamitous events unfolding in the world may someday reach our doorsteps.
With this essay I realized that whenever I get depressed, it most often is over disappointment with humanity. Pogo said it best: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
- Uke Man
February 22, 2007
From Anna to Britney to Zawahri
By BOB HERBERT
( a ukethanks to Phyll)
Have they buried Anna Nicole Smith yet?
Are you kidding? Ms. Smith may be dead and rapidly decomposing, but there’s too much fun still to be reaped from her story to let it die just yet. This is world-class entertainment: Larry King, “Today,” CNN, The New York Times.
Even the judge in the televised hearing over what to do with Ms. Smith’s remains is milking his 15 minutes, like Judge Ito of O. J. Simpson fame. In a burst of wisdom from the bench, the judge, Larry Seidlin, said, “Like a Muhammad Ali fight, sometimes you have to wait the whole 10 rounds.”
When we were kids we were taught not to laugh at people who were obviously mentally or emotionally disturbed. With Ms. Smith, who was deeply and unmistakably disturbed, we put her on television and laughed and laughed. Would she say something stupid, or spill out of her dress, or pass out in public from booze or drugs? How hysterically funny!
Then her son died. Then she died, leaving an orphaned infant daughter. Instead of turning away chastened, shamed, we homed in like happy vultures. Whatever entertainment value Ms. Smith had when she was alive increased exponentially when she was kind enough to die for us. Now she’s on the tube around the clock.
The story, as they say, has legs.
There are other stories out there, but they aren’t nearly as much fun. The Times reported on Monday, for example, that Al Qaeda is getting its act together in Pakistan and is setting up training camps in an area that, apparently, we don’t dare trespass in.
According to the article, “American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.”
The article went on to say, ominously, “The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.”
I imagine that there are a fair number of television viewers and newspaper readers who have trouble distinguishing the relative importance of celebrity stories, like the death of Anna Nicole Smith, from other matters in the news, like the reconstitution of forces responsible for the devastating Sept. 11 attacks.
If air time is any guide, there’s no contest. It’s been obvious for the longest time that the line between news and entertainment has vanished. News is entertainment. And the death of Anna Nicole Smith is more entertaining — for the time being, at least — than the war in Iraq or the plodding machinations of bin Laden and Zawahri.
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were on the cover of Newsweek last week with the headline “The Girls Gone Wild Effect.” When you turned to the story, there was a full-page picture of the former best friends, with a glassy-eyed Britney looking for all the world like a younger version of Anna Nicole Smith.
The lead-in to the article said in large type: “Paris, Britney, Lindsay and Nicole — They seem to be everywhere and they may not be wearing underwear.”
The nation may be at war, and Al Qaeda may be gearing up for a rematch. But that’s no fun, not when Britney is shaving off her hair and Jennifer Aniston is reported to have a new nose and the thrill-a-minute watch over Anna Nicole’s remains is still the hottest thing on TV.
It was Neil Postman who warned in 1985 that we were amusing ourselves to death. I’m not sure anyone knew how literally to take him.
More than 20 years later, the masses have nearly succeeded in drawing the curtains on anything that’s not entertaining. No one can figure out what do about Iraq or Al Qaeda. A great American cultural center like New Orleans was all but washed away, and no one knows how to put it back together. The ice caps are melting and Al Gore is traveling the land like the town crier, raising the alarm about global warming.
But none of that has really gotten the public’s attention. None of it is amusing enough. As a nation of spectators, we seem content to sit with a pizza and a brew in front of the high-def flat-screen TV, obsessing over Anna Nicole et al., and giving no thought to the possibility that the calamitous events unfolding in the world may someday reach our doorsteps.
Check out the Melissa Etheridge video
Hey Folks,
I'm writing this before the Academy Awards. However they come out, Al Gore's movie needs to be seen. Below, you can watch a Melissa Ethridge song related to the Global Warming flick and/or visit the site for startling views of our globe and its present, frightening situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKSywQmT40 Melissa
www.climatecrisis.net the Web Site
- Uke Man
I'm writing this before the Academy Awards. However they come out, Al Gore's movie needs to be seen. Below, you can watch a Melissa Ethridge song related to the Global Warming flick and/or visit the site for startling views of our globe and its present, frightening situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKSywQmT40 Melissa
www.climatecrisis.net the Web Site
- Uke Man
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Soldiers Are Dying So We Can Lose This Right
Hey Folks,
This very important situation is presented by Amnesty International, a very worthy organization. Please watch the video. It is mind-bending.
- Uke Man
Can you guess which Bush administration official said this last month?
"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is granted or assured the right to habeas [corpus]. It doesn't say that."
If you guessed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, you're correct. In fact, the Constitution states that habeas corpus rights cannot be suspended except in times of rebellion or invasion. For centuries, this has meant that a person could challenge his or her detention in an independent court of law - unless those exceptional circumstances existed.
Gonzales's declaration should strike fear in all of us. His dangerous comments before the Senate Judiciary Committee betrayed the Constitutional rights he was sworn to protect as our nation's top law enforcement official...and defied common sense, too. Watch the video!
An additional blow to the rule of law came just this week - when a federal appeals court ruled that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider habeas claims by people held in Guantanamo Bay.
The principle of habeas corpus is as fundamental to our democracy as the idea of "innocent until proven guilty." Alberto Gonzales's remarks are an outrage and an affront to all that our great nation stands for.
( to make a tax-deductible donation to Amnesty's America I Believe In campaign , click here)
This very important situation is presented by Amnesty International, a very worthy organization. Please watch the video. It is mind-bending.
- Uke Man
Can you guess which Bush administration official said this last month?
"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is granted or assured the right to habeas [corpus]. It doesn't say that."
If you guessed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, you're correct. In fact, the Constitution states that habeas corpus rights cannot be suspended except in times of rebellion or invasion. For centuries, this has meant that a person could challenge his or her detention in an independent court of law - unless those exceptional circumstances existed.
Gonzales's declaration should strike fear in all of us. His dangerous comments before the Senate Judiciary Committee betrayed the Constitutional rights he was sworn to protect as our nation's top law enforcement official...and defied common sense, too. Watch the video!
An additional blow to the rule of law came just this week - when a federal appeals court ruled that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider habeas claims by people held in Guantanamo Bay.
The principle of habeas corpus is as fundamental to our democracy as the idea of "innocent until proven guilty." Alberto Gonzales's remarks are an outrage and an affront to all that our great nation stands for.
( to make a tax-deductible donation to Amnesty's America I Believe In campaign , click here)
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Capitalism in Russia - Listen & Think
Ah, yes, Folks,
Listen to the logic. Now there is Capitalism in Russia, and the workers are much worse off than before, but the only way they will ever improve their situation is to let the Capitalists degrade their situation further.
Now that Religion has returned to Russia - along with Capitalism - maybe the workers can get their reward in the afterlife - Pie in the Sky for Workers / Pie on the Table for their owners (er ... bosses).
Listen to the NPR report on this at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6898814
- Uke Man
Listen to the logic. Now there is Capitalism in Russia, and the workers are much worse off than before, but the only way they will ever improve their situation is to let the Capitalists degrade their situation further.
Now that Religion has returned to Russia - along with Capitalism - maybe the workers can get their reward in the afterlife - Pie in the Sky for Workers / Pie on the Table for their owners (er ... bosses).
Listen to the NPR report on this at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6898814
- Uke Man
Friday, February 23, 2007
Magical Spiritual Powers
Hey Folks,
This woman in the story below is officially "bizarre," but how is she different from so many other "bizarre" religious individuals of the past and present? And what does her ability to attract so many superstitious followers say about humanity. What do Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Sun Myung Moon's similar abilities say about humanity?
I've highlighted particularly pertinent parts of the story.
- Uke Man
Former Ugandan rebel leader dies in camp
By DAVID OCHAMI, Associated Press
GARISSA, Kenya - Alice Lakwena, a Ugandan warrior priestess who led an insurgency in the 1980s and claimed to have spiritual powers to protect her fighters from bullets by anointing them with oil, has died at a Kenyan refugee camp, a government official said Thursday.
Lakwena, who was in her 40s, died Wednesday after being sick for about a week with an unknown illness at the Ifo refugee camp in the eastern Garrisa district, said Dennis Ogola, a local administrator.
The daughter of a clergyman from the small Acholi tribe in northern Uganda, she mesmerized her followers with claims that spirits spoke through her.
Lakwena led the Holy Spirit Movement, which combined Christianity with traditional beliefs of her Acholi people, in a yearlong insurgency aimed at toppling Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Army troops defeated the movement in late 1987.
Her cousin, Joseph Kony, is the messianic leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. His rebellion in northern Uganda continues today and has seen as many as 1.8 million people displaced, tens of thousands killed and an estimated 20,000 children abducted.
Lakwena became a major embarrassment to the Ugandan government because the foreign media had reported so extensively on her bizarre exploits.
Her rebellion — one of about a half-dozen in Uganda at the time — began soon after Museveni, a southerner, overthrew a military government led by a northerner.
Known as "Mama Alice," she raised a battalion of followers numbering as many as 15,000, armed with only sticks and stones. She inspired them to go into battle singing hymns, their chests smeared with oil that they believed would repel bullets. She told them the sticks could turn bees into bullets and the stones would explode like grenades.
Thousands of her followers died before Museveni's army crushed her campaign.
Lakwena, who called herself a prophet and a medium of God, fled to Kenya in December 1987, where she was promptly jailed for three months for illegally entering the country.
Lakwena's followers released the news of her death Thursday.
"The people around her regarded her as some kind of spiritual medium. Maybe that is why they did not inform us" earlier, Ogola told The Associated Press.
This woman in the story below is officially "bizarre," but how is she different from so many other "bizarre" religious individuals of the past and present? And what does her ability to attract so many superstitious followers say about humanity. What do Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Sun Myung Moon's similar abilities say about humanity?
I've highlighted particularly pertinent parts of the story.
- Uke Man
Former Ugandan rebel leader dies in camp
By DAVID OCHAMI, Associated Press
GARISSA, Kenya - Alice Lakwena, a Ugandan warrior priestess who led an insurgency in the 1980s and claimed to have spiritual powers to protect her fighters from bullets by anointing them with oil, has died at a Kenyan refugee camp, a government official said Thursday.
Lakwena, who was in her 40s, died Wednesday after being sick for about a week with an unknown illness at the Ifo refugee camp in the eastern Garrisa district, said Dennis Ogola, a local administrator.
The daughter of a clergyman from the small Acholi tribe in northern Uganda, she mesmerized her followers with claims that spirits spoke through her.
Lakwena led the Holy Spirit Movement, which combined Christianity with traditional beliefs of her Acholi people, in a yearlong insurgency aimed at toppling Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Army troops defeated the movement in late 1987.
Her cousin, Joseph Kony, is the messianic leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. His rebellion in northern Uganda continues today and has seen as many as 1.8 million people displaced, tens of thousands killed and an estimated 20,000 children abducted.
Lakwena became a major embarrassment to the Ugandan government because the foreign media had reported so extensively on her bizarre exploits.
Her rebellion — one of about a half-dozen in Uganda at the time — began soon after Museveni, a southerner, overthrew a military government led by a northerner.
Known as "Mama Alice," she raised a battalion of followers numbering as many as 15,000, armed with only sticks and stones. She inspired them to go into battle singing hymns, their chests smeared with oil that they believed would repel bullets. She told them the sticks could turn bees into bullets and the stones would explode like grenades.
Thousands of her followers died before Museveni's army crushed her campaign.
Lakwena, who called herself a prophet and a medium of God, fled to Kenya in December 1987, where she was promptly jailed for three months for illegally entering the country.
Lakwena's followers released the news of her death Thursday.
"The people around her regarded her as some kind of spiritual medium. Maybe that is why they did not inform us" earlier, Ogola told The Associated Press.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
New Video from NYC
Hey Folks,
Thanks to my friends Jason & Ted in New York, here's a video of the Uke Man doing "Pinocchio Knows":
www.ukuleledisco.com/pinocchio
- Uke Man
Thanks to my friends Jason & Ted in New York, here's a video of the Uke Man doing "Pinocchio Knows":
www.ukuleledisco.com/pinocchio
- Uke Man
Parasites
Hey Folks,
I've heard it said that Americans refuse to resent the wealthy because of the "American Dream" that someday they can be rich too. Of course, the wealthy and their lapdog toadies in the press scream "Class Warfare" whenever anything is proposed to help the people (e.g. health care, minimum wage, pensions).
That's not unlike the plantation owners' focusing on religion for their slaves - not to save souls, but to offer potential pie in the sky to avoid trouble over actual deprivation on earth.
Well, folks. Read below how our masters spend their time and your money; then listen to the NPR report on Mexico and India:
I've heard it said that Americans refuse to resent the wealthy because of the "American Dream" that someday they can be rich too. Of course, the wealthy and their lapdog toadies in the press scream "Class Warfare" whenever anything is proposed to help the people (e.g. health care, minimum wage, pensions).
That's not unlike the plantation owners' focusing on religion for their slaves - not to save souls, but to offer potential pie in the sky to avoid trouble over actual deprivation on earth.
Well, folks. Read below how our masters spend their time and your money; then listen to the NPR report on Mexico and India:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7492272 Mexico
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7492275 India (where 300 million people [the population of the USA] live in dire poverty.)
Which direction do you think the "American Dream" is heading?
- Uke Man
A toy for every billionaire at Verona luxury fair
By Mathias Wildt Mon Feb 19
VERONA (Reuters) - Is there a better way to show off how rich you are than to pave your yacht's floors with gold?
The Verona luxury fair in northern Italy -- where billionaires find the kinds of things they hope can distinguish themselves from mere millionaires -- can answer that question.
The six pavilions teemed with attractive saleswomen pitching helicopters, Ferrari and Bentley cars, 1.5 million euro watches and hot tubs with champagne bottles in silver ice buckets.
"Verona is The Luxury Fair, and it's much better than other dusty shows in Italy," said antiques dealer Umberto Campi, from Milan, surrounded by Japanese samurai suits of armor from the 1600s complete with ghoulish masks that start at 20,000 euros ($26,290).
Exhibitors like the Verona fair, which ran from February 10 to 18, because it brings in a diverse audience, from industry professionals to window shoppers like Mauro Giovanardi from Modena, who walked his leashed Chihuahua along carpeted halls.
"It's a way of spending the day looking at shiny things," Giovanardi said.
At one booth, Italian company Aurum showed off its durmast oak parquet flooring covered in 24 carat gold leaf on offer for around 6,800 euros a square meter. The same price could get you a central Milan apartment.
"We're the first in the world," said commercial director Riccardo Risetto. "Others just have gold-painted floors."
Risetto said Aurum is in talks with designers Dolce & Gabbana, who just opened a bar in Milan called Gold, and a shipbuilder who wants to use it for the big luxury yachts he builds.
DIAMOND PRESS
Clothes are a major status symbol for the super-rich just like anyone else. But standing out from the average designer label-wearing rich person can be tricky.
How about champagne-washed, diamond-studded, gold-festooned jeans made by jeweler Xipe of Vicenza and Verona fashion company Move easy? They sell for just 150,000 euros ($196,800).
An added benefit is that the gold lining the pockets can be worn as bracelets and the belt loops turned into earrings. The button which holds them up is a 4 carat diamond.
Plenty of other shiny things could be found at LifeGem, which makes diamonds using the compressed carbon from human or pet hair, ashes or placenta by placing it in a diamond press for six to nine months.
Fausta Benedetti, a jeweler from Trento visiting the LifeGem booth said she was interested in carrying the rocks because "they have meaning."
One of the fair's top attractions testified to the age old adage that it is lonely at the top.
At the Real Doll booth a blonde in transparent lingerie and a brunette in skin-tight top and skirt sat invitingly on a couch with legs spread and mouths puckered.
Both are full-size, very life-like, silicone sex toys with a plastic skeleton and steel joints so they can be placed in any position, Chief Executive Officer and Creative Director Matt Krivicke said.
They cost $6,500.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
So, Size DOES Count!!!
Well, Folks,
I guess it's not just the swordsmanship, after all!!
- Uke Man
Why Female Bugs Outsize Males
Abigail W. LeonardSpecial to LiveScienceLiveScience.com Sun Feb 18
Men and women have got it reversed compared to most of the animal kingdom when it comes to the relative sizes of males and females.
For insects and spiders, as with most non-human animals, the majority of females outsize their male counterparts. A new study looks at why sexual dimorphism—the non-sexual size and shape differences between the sexes—exists in the world of six- and eight-legged creatures.
There are two routes to getting big, scientists say. Either the larger sex grows faster or it undergoes a longer period of growth.
Biologist Daphne Fairbairn of the University of California, Riverside, was one of 13 scientists who contributed research to determine which route prevailed among insects and spiders. The group looked at 155 species of creepy crawlies in which females are larger and found that the key is not how long it takes them to mature but the rate at which they grow.
“In the insects I research, females are larger than males. But it turns out they mature at the same age, and it takes the same amount of time to get to adult size,” she said. Females, then, must undergo more rapid growth.
So why are the males so much smaller?
“In most animals, the advantages of large size are apparent, whereas the disadvantages are not,” Fairbairn's colleague Wolf Blanckenhorn of the Zoological Museum at the University of Zurich told LiveScience.
He proposes a theory to explain the advantages of small size: While females are bulking up, males are devoting their energy and resources to growing mature reproductive organs, which are much larger and more elaborate than in females—and relative to overall body size, are also significantly bigger than those of mammals.
While men are thought to grow big and strong to better compete for mates, insects and spiders might maximize their reproductive potential by staying small overall, Blanckenhorn explained. Growing larger "where it counts" gives males greater odds of inseminating their partner with each encounter.
The research is detailed in this month’s issue of The American Naturalist.
I guess it's not just the swordsmanship, after all!!
- Uke Man
Why Female Bugs Outsize Males
Abigail W. LeonardSpecial to LiveScienceLiveScience.com Sun Feb 18
Men and women have got it reversed compared to most of the animal kingdom when it comes to the relative sizes of males and females.
For insects and spiders, as with most non-human animals, the majority of females outsize their male counterparts. A new study looks at why sexual dimorphism—the non-sexual size and shape differences between the sexes—exists in the world of six- and eight-legged creatures.
There are two routes to getting big, scientists say. Either the larger sex grows faster or it undergoes a longer period of growth.
Biologist Daphne Fairbairn of the University of California, Riverside, was one of 13 scientists who contributed research to determine which route prevailed among insects and spiders. The group looked at 155 species of creepy crawlies in which females are larger and found that the key is not how long it takes them to mature but the rate at which they grow.
“In the insects I research, females are larger than males. But it turns out they mature at the same age, and it takes the same amount of time to get to adult size,” she said. Females, then, must undergo more rapid growth.
So why are the males so much smaller?
“In most animals, the advantages of large size are apparent, whereas the disadvantages are not,” Fairbairn's colleague Wolf Blanckenhorn of the Zoological Museum at the University of Zurich told LiveScience.
He proposes a theory to explain the advantages of small size: While females are bulking up, males are devoting their energy and resources to growing mature reproductive organs, which are much larger and more elaborate than in females—and relative to overall body size, are also significantly bigger than those of mammals.
While men are thought to grow big and strong to better compete for mates, insects and spiders might maximize their reproductive potential by staying small overall, Blanckenhorn explained. Growing larger "where it counts" gives males greater odds of inseminating their partner with each encounter.
The research is detailed in this month’s issue of The American Naturalist.
Big F'n Surprise
Hey Folks,
The tube has been going on for some time now about the terrible treatment our wounded/injured/maimed troops are getting when they come home. (hear the NPR report at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7489265 )
Big F’n surprise!!!
It’s ALWAYS been that way. We NEVER learn.
OF COURSE it’s the government run by people who make a major issue of “supporting the troops” that is screwing the troops – and not just the wounded troops, but ALL the troops. That’s always the way it has been. Twain and Crane said as much, and it was true before they pointed it out. I said it as long ago as the Viet Nam war and I said it again before this war.
It’s always the same from start to finish!! The people – as well as the troops – are fed incredible crap – they buy in and work themselves into a frenzy (especially those old moronic vets who can never get enough war and glory) to blindly support the war and send our young people (not the old vets rallying around the bar at the VFW) off to die so “we can have our freedoms” (many of which we will have to give up in order to support the troops).
For a while our kids die and the elite make money hand-over-fist until reality sinks in as the deaths and failed expectations mount and – near the end – it is “discovered” that our beloved troops are being fucked over again (as they have ALWAYS been).
There is no excuse for this, other than total stupidity.
- Uke Man
The tube has been going on for some time now about the terrible treatment our wounded/injured/maimed troops are getting when they come home. (hear the NPR report at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7489265 )
Big F’n surprise!!!
It’s ALWAYS been that way. We NEVER learn.
OF COURSE it’s the government run by people who make a major issue of “supporting the troops” that is screwing the troops – and not just the wounded troops, but ALL the troops. That’s always the way it has been. Twain and Crane said as much, and it was true before they pointed it out. I said it as long ago as the Viet Nam war and I said it again before this war.
It’s always the same from start to finish!! The people – as well as the troops – are fed incredible crap – they buy in and work themselves into a frenzy (especially those old moronic vets who can never get enough war and glory) to blindly support the war and send our young people (not the old vets rallying around the bar at the VFW) off to die so “we can have our freedoms” (many of which we will have to give up in order to support the troops).
For a while our kids die and the elite make money hand-over-fist until reality sinks in as the deaths and failed expectations mount and – near the end – it is “discovered” that our beloved troops are being fucked over again (as they have ALWAYS been).
There is no excuse for this, other than total stupidity.
- Uke Man
Monday, February 19, 2007
Put a little mustard on the Wurst-in-Chief !!
Hey Folks,
It's "President's Day" - Whoopdie dooooooo !!!
There are those who honestly believe that we should "honor the office of President" if not the person holding it. That makes sense if one has any faith in the system and in the process of annointing (I mean electing) our masters (er ... I mean leaders).
There have been, I'm sure, some decent people holding that office, but most of them haven't given a damn for the people. Just think "CEO" and how much they care about their workers, customers, or even the stockholders.
As far as I'm concerned, the office is potentially honorable, but that is determined by how it actually functions to serve the people - not by blind faith or patriotic fervor. In that regard George Dubya Bush has made it more obvious than most of his predecessors that the people are dirt.
That's not respectable, not worthy of respect.
Happy Presidents' Day.
- Uke Man
February 8, 2007
The Nation (web only)
The Worst President Ever
Nicholas von Hoffman
A question that seems to be on everybody's mind these days turns out to be: Is George Bush the worst President in American history?
But how do you judge? Is he the most morally disgusting? The worst mangler of the English language? Ever since the atom bomb was dropped, we've had a whole string of bozos who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear." How much should that count against them?
Is John Tyler, our tenth President, a candidate for worst President? Some people who have never heard of this guy have heard of the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Well, Tippecanoe (William Henry Harrison) lasted about a month in office before he died of a cold contracted while making his inaugural address, and the rest is non-history. Tyler is best remembered, if he is remembered at all, as the President whose entire Cabinet, save one, quit on him. Please do not confuse him with Zachary Taylor, the twelfth President, easily Tyler's equal in forgettability.
Is the most forgettable also the worst? Men like Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Benjamin Harrison (Tippecanoe's grandson) were more politically brain-dead than really bad. But not so with James Buchanan, No. 15, who was President from 1857 to 1861. Aside from being a dull, unimaginative, dray horse of a politician, he was the President whose cowardice in handling the South and slavery ended the remotest possibility that the United States would be spared the horrors of the Civil War.
The consequences of Buchanan's political poltroonery were long-lasting and dire, as contrasted with those of Warren Harding. Harding (No. 29) has won many Worst President contests because he had three or four truly stinky crooks in his administration to go along with an otherwise outstanding Cabinet. He was a slob with a drinking problem, and he was also afflicted with Bill Clinton's zipper disease. Since booze was illegal when he was President (1921-23), getting smashed in the White House made him a not-so-great role model--not that much of the country was paying attention since all the other adults in America were doing the same thing at the local speakeasy.
There is a great story about Harding in the closet making boom-boom with his girlfriend, and of his wife being restrained by the Secret Service guys from rushing in and exposing the President in the flagrantest of delictos. But worst President? Not so much.
Others proposed for the worst list include Herbert Hoover, James Madison, Ulysses Grant and Richard Nixon.
Hoover, Democratic propaganda to the contrary, did not cause the Great Depression nor was he indifferent to his people's sufferings. A brilliant, decent man, he was absolutely the unluckiest President.
Madison, the fourth President, justly called the Father of the Constitution, fits anyone's description of a great man, but he loused up the presidency by going to war against England in 1812 with no Army and not much more of a Navy. His foreign policies were so hated in New England that the young federal republic he had done so much to start almost blew apart. Worse was to come. Madison could do nothing when the Brits occupied Washington, DC, and burned down the White House. But in the long run the consequences of his mistakes were minor, so he cannot have the "worst prexy" horse collar put around his neck.
Grant was too noble a man to be the worst anything. He had some crooks in his administration, but, like Harding, he had nothing to do with their corruption. On the plus side, he was the last President until Lyndon Johnson who would go to bat for black people.
As for Nixon, it's still too early to tell. Too many people still living hate him or love him. The decision on that strange, baggy-faced man belongs to Gen X and beyond.
Which brings us to Bush II. It's also too early to tell, but if first signs mean anything, he has got a lot to answer for. We know he is responsible for the death of a lot of people who never hurt him or us. We wonder if he has so disturbed the entire Middle East quadrant of the globe that years and years may pass while the people there and the people here suffer for what he has done. Will we get habeas corpus back? Will the thumb screw become standard operating procedure, or will it be returned to the Middle Ages whence George Bush found it?
One of the criteria for being worst is how much lasting damage the President did. Buchanan, for instance, did more than words can convey. With Bush II the reckoning is yet to be made.
It's "President's Day" - Whoopdie dooooooo !!!
There are those who honestly believe that we should "honor the office of President" if not the person holding it. That makes sense if one has any faith in the system and in the process of annointing (I mean electing) our masters (er ... I mean leaders).
There have been, I'm sure, some decent people holding that office, but most of them haven't given a damn for the people. Just think "CEO" and how much they care about their workers, customers, or even the stockholders.
As far as I'm concerned, the office is potentially honorable, but that is determined by how it actually functions to serve the people - not by blind faith or patriotic fervor. In that regard George Dubya Bush has made it more obvious than most of his predecessors that the people are dirt.
That's not respectable, not worthy of respect.
Happy Presidents' Day.
- Uke Man
February 8, 2007
The Nation (web only)
The Worst President Ever
Nicholas von Hoffman
A question that seems to be on everybody's mind these days turns out to be: Is George Bush the worst President in American history?
But how do you judge? Is he the most morally disgusting? The worst mangler of the English language? Ever since the atom bomb was dropped, we've had a whole string of bozos who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear." How much should that count against them?
Is John Tyler, our tenth President, a candidate for worst President? Some people who have never heard of this guy have heard of the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Well, Tippecanoe (William Henry Harrison) lasted about a month in office before he died of a cold contracted while making his inaugural address, and the rest is non-history. Tyler is best remembered, if he is remembered at all, as the President whose entire Cabinet, save one, quit on him. Please do not confuse him with Zachary Taylor, the twelfth President, easily Tyler's equal in forgettability.
Is the most forgettable also the worst? Men like Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Benjamin Harrison (Tippecanoe's grandson) were more politically brain-dead than really bad. But not so with James Buchanan, No. 15, who was President from 1857 to 1861. Aside from being a dull, unimaginative, dray horse of a politician, he was the President whose cowardice in handling the South and slavery ended the remotest possibility that the United States would be spared the horrors of the Civil War.
The consequences of Buchanan's political poltroonery were long-lasting and dire, as contrasted with those of Warren Harding. Harding (No. 29) has won many Worst President contests because he had three or four truly stinky crooks in his administration to go along with an otherwise outstanding Cabinet. He was a slob with a drinking problem, and he was also afflicted with Bill Clinton's zipper disease. Since booze was illegal when he was President (1921-23), getting smashed in the White House made him a not-so-great role model--not that much of the country was paying attention since all the other adults in America were doing the same thing at the local speakeasy.
There is a great story about Harding in the closet making boom-boom with his girlfriend, and of his wife being restrained by the Secret Service guys from rushing in and exposing the President in the flagrantest of delictos. But worst President? Not so much.
Others proposed for the worst list include Herbert Hoover, James Madison, Ulysses Grant and Richard Nixon.
Hoover, Democratic propaganda to the contrary, did not cause the Great Depression nor was he indifferent to his people's sufferings. A brilliant, decent man, he was absolutely the unluckiest President.
Madison, the fourth President, justly called the Father of the Constitution, fits anyone's description of a great man, but he loused up the presidency by going to war against England in 1812 with no Army and not much more of a Navy. His foreign policies were so hated in New England that the young federal republic he had done so much to start almost blew apart. Worse was to come. Madison could do nothing when the Brits occupied Washington, DC, and burned down the White House. But in the long run the consequences of his mistakes were minor, so he cannot have the "worst prexy" horse collar put around his neck.
Grant was too noble a man to be the worst anything. He had some crooks in his administration, but, like Harding, he had nothing to do with their corruption. On the plus side, he was the last President until Lyndon Johnson who would go to bat for black people.
As for Nixon, it's still too early to tell. Too many people still living hate him or love him. The decision on that strange, baggy-faced man belongs to Gen X and beyond.
Which brings us to Bush II. It's also too early to tell, but if first signs mean anything, he has got a lot to answer for. We know he is responsible for the death of a lot of people who never hurt him or us. We wonder if he has so disturbed the entire Middle East quadrant of the globe that years and years may pass while the people there and the people here suffer for what he has done. Will we get habeas corpus back? Will the thumb screw become standard operating procedure, or will it be returned to the Middle Ages whence George Bush found it?
One of the criteria for being worst is how much lasting damage the President did. Buchanan, for instance, did more than words can convey. With Bush II the reckoning is yet to be made.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Jeff Stonerock & Time Machine
Hey Folks,
This weekend the Uke Man got to sit and sip and enjoy OTHER people's music.
Saturday night, right here in Circleville at the Main Street Pub, I got to hear my friend Jeff Stonerock's band Time Machine do their extraordinary thing.
They played everybody's favorites with right-on three part harmony and tight, rousing musicianship.
A great evening! Thanks, guys!!!!!
- Uke Man
This weekend the Uke Man got to sit and sip and enjoy OTHER people's music.
Saturday night, right here in Circleville at the Main Street Pub, I got to hear my friend Jeff Stonerock's band Time Machine do their extraordinary thing.
They played everybody's favorites with right-on three part harmony and tight, rousing musicianship.
A great evening! Thanks, guys!!!!!
- Uke Man
more Chavez
Hey Folks,
Didn't Chavez offer to help OUR poor people with their heating needs too? What an evil dude.
And where does he get off complaining about NAFTA et. al. just because it hasn't helped Mexico and has hurt American workers (he probably doesn't understand "Trickle-down Economics" - doesn't he know that's why they call poor Mexicans "Peons"? - American workers, too, for that matter).
Thank god the AP reported the crowd "did not respond with applause." I was worried there for a minute.
- Uke Man
Chavez calls for anti-imperialist unity
By DUGGIE JOSEPH, Associated Press
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent -
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday touted the fuel facilities and public works projects his government has built in the Caribbean in an effort to make inroads in a region where the U.S. has long been dominant.
The fiery leftist leader, on a tour of the region, also called on Caribbean nations to join his fight against U.S. hegemony.
"Down with U.S. imperialism! Long live the people of this world. We must join together and we will be free," Chavez said at the site for a new airport on St. Vincent. Venezuela and its close ally Cuba have provided $200 million for the airport.
In a wide-ranging speech, Chavez blasted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which combines the markets of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and promoted his socialist political movement loosely based on the ideas of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
The crowd, however, did not respond with applause to the Venezuelan leader's vitriolic statements.
Earlier, Chavez unveiled a plaque on St. Vincent marking where a fuel storage facility will be built and visited a liquid natural gas facility constructed under his Petrocaribe program.
Petrocaribe, an agreement between Venezuela and 14 Caribbean countries, offers deferred payments and long-term financing for fuel shipments.
Petrocaribe is widely seen as a bid by Chavez to vie with the U.S. for influence in the Caribbean. The U.S. is the biggest trading partner of most countries in the region and their largest market for tourism.
Many Caribbean nations are still buying oil from elsewhere, including oil- and gas-rich Trinidad and Tobago, where the prime minister has resisted the Venezuelan initiative and traded barbs with other regional leaders over the deal.
On Friday, Chavez visited the mountainous, forested island of Dominica, where he addressed a crowd at a new fuel storage tank built by Venezuela, one of five facilities the oil-rich nation has pledged to construct there.
Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit also announced his government's acceptance of a Venezuelan offer to build an oil refinery that would process some 10,000 barrels a day.
"We shall make no apologies ... that President Chavez is our friend and the people of Venezuela are our friends," Skerrit said to widespread applause.
Chavez assured Dominicans that the construction of an oil refinery would not harm the ecology of the island, which promotes itself as an ecotourism destination. Conservationists have objected to the plan, fearing the environmental impact.
"We did not come to pollute your country," Chavez said.
Dominica — one of the Caribbean's poorest countries whose economy — has also received asphalt, university scholarships and $12 million for housing through the Petrocaribe initiative.
Didn't Chavez offer to help OUR poor people with their heating needs too? What an evil dude.
And where does he get off complaining about NAFTA et. al. just because it hasn't helped Mexico and has hurt American workers (he probably doesn't understand "Trickle-down Economics" - doesn't he know that's why they call poor Mexicans "Peons"? - American workers, too, for that matter).
Thank god the AP reported the crowd "did not respond with applause." I was worried there for a minute.
- Uke Man
Chavez calls for anti-imperialist unity
By DUGGIE JOSEPH, Associated Press
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent -
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday touted the fuel facilities and public works projects his government has built in the Caribbean in an effort to make inroads in a region where the U.S. has long been dominant.
The fiery leftist leader, on a tour of the region, also called on Caribbean nations to join his fight against U.S. hegemony.
"Down with U.S. imperialism! Long live the people of this world. We must join together and we will be free," Chavez said at the site for a new airport on St. Vincent. Venezuela and its close ally Cuba have provided $200 million for the airport.
In a wide-ranging speech, Chavez blasted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which combines the markets of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and promoted his socialist political movement loosely based on the ideas of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
The crowd, however, did not respond with applause to the Venezuelan leader's vitriolic statements.
Earlier, Chavez unveiled a plaque on St. Vincent marking where a fuel storage facility will be built and visited a liquid natural gas facility constructed under his Petrocaribe program.
Petrocaribe, an agreement between Venezuela and 14 Caribbean countries, offers deferred payments and long-term financing for fuel shipments.
Petrocaribe is widely seen as a bid by Chavez to vie with the U.S. for influence in the Caribbean. The U.S. is the biggest trading partner of most countries in the region and their largest market for tourism.
Many Caribbean nations are still buying oil from elsewhere, including oil- and gas-rich Trinidad and Tobago, where the prime minister has resisted the Venezuelan initiative and traded barbs with other regional leaders over the deal.
On Friday, Chavez visited the mountainous, forested island of Dominica, where he addressed a crowd at a new fuel storage tank built by Venezuela, one of five facilities the oil-rich nation has pledged to construct there.
Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit also announced his government's acceptance of a Venezuelan offer to build an oil refinery that would process some 10,000 barrels a day.
"We shall make no apologies ... that President Chavez is our friend and the people of Venezuela are our friends," Skerrit said to widespread applause.
Chavez assured Dominicans that the construction of an oil refinery would not harm the ecology of the island, which promotes itself as an ecotourism destination. Conservationists have objected to the plan, fearing the environmental impact.
"We did not come to pollute your country," Chavez said.
Dominica — one of the Caribbean's poorest countries whose economy — has also received asphalt, university scholarships and $12 million for housing through the Petrocaribe initiative.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
or "The Raping of America"
Hey Folks,
Here you go. Of the people, by the people, and for the people??? Sorry!!!
This is what it's REALLY like: "Greed is good!! Greed works!! Lie to the people!! Tell them you love them; tell them anything; then you can rape them over and over again - maybe forever!!"
- Uke Man
February 5, 2007
The Green-Zoning of America
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll )
One of the best of the many recent books about the Iraq debacle is Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” The book tells a tale of hopes squandered in the name of politicization and privatization: key jobs in Baghdad’s Green Zone were assigned on the basis of loyalty rather than know-how, while key functions were outsourced to private contractors.
Two recent reports in The New York Times serve as a reminder that the Bush administration has brought the same corruption of governance to the home front. Call it the Green-Zoning of America.
In the first article, The Times reported that a new executive order requires that each agency contain a “regulatory policy office run by a political appointee,” a change that “strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts.” Yesterday, The Times turned to the rapid growth of federal contracting, fed “by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.”
These are two different pieces of the same story: under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system.
The blueprint for Bush-era governance was laid out in a January 2001 manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.” The manifesto’s message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration’s conservative agenda. And there’s no question that Heritage’s thinking reflected that of many people on the Bush team.
How should the civil service be defeated? First and foremost, Heritage demanded that politics take precedence over know-how: the new administration “must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second.”
Second, Heritage called for a big increase in outsourcing — “contracting out as a management strategy.” This would supposedly reduce costs, but it would also have the desirable effect of reducing the total number of civil servants.
The Bush administration energetically put these recommendations into effect. Political loyalists were installed throughout the government, regardless of qualifications. And the administration outsourced many government functions previously considered too sensitive to privatize: yesterday’s Times article begins with the case of CACI International, a private contractor hired, in spite of the obvious conflict of interest, to process cases of incompetence and fraud by private contractors. A few years earlier, CACI provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib.
The ostensible reason for politicizing and privatizing was to promote the conservative ideal of smaller, more efficient government. But the small-government rhetoric was never sincere: from Day 1, the administration set out to create a vast new patronage machine.
Those political appointees chosen for their loyalty, not their expertise, aren’t very good at doing their proper jobs — as all the world learned after Hurricane Katrina struck. But they have been very good at rewarding campaign contributors, from energy companies that benefit from lax regulation of pollution to pharmaceutical companies that got a Medicare program systematically designed to protect their profits.
And the executive order described by The Times will make it even easier for political appointees to overrule the professionals, tailoring government regulations to suit the interests of companies that support the G.O.P. — or to give lucrative contracts to people with the right connections.
Meanwhile, never mind the idea that outsourcing of government functions should be used to promote competition and save money. The Times reports that “fewer than half of all ‘contract actions’ — new contracts and payments against existing contracts — are now subject to full and open competition,” down from 79 percent in 2001. And many contractors are paid far more than it would cost to do the job with government employees: those CACI workers processing claims against other contractors cost the government $104 an hour.
What’s truly amazing is how far back we’ve slid in such a short time. The modern civil service system dates back more than a century; in just six years the Bush administration has managed to undo many of that system’s achievements. And the administration still has two years to go.
Here you go. Of the people, by the people, and for the people??? Sorry!!!
This is what it's REALLY like: "Greed is good!! Greed works!! Lie to the people!! Tell them you love them; tell them anything; then you can rape them over and over again - maybe forever!!"
- Uke Man
February 5, 2007
The Green-Zoning of America
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll )
One of the best of the many recent books about the Iraq debacle is Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.” The book tells a tale of hopes squandered in the name of politicization and privatization: key jobs in Baghdad’s Green Zone were assigned on the basis of loyalty rather than know-how, while key functions were outsourced to private contractors.
Two recent reports in The New York Times serve as a reminder that the Bush administration has brought the same corruption of governance to the home front. Call it the Green-Zoning of America.
In the first article, The Times reported that a new executive order requires that each agency contain a “regulatory policy office run by a political appointee,” a change that “strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts.” Yesterday, The Times turned to the rapid growth of federal contracting, fed “by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.”
These are two different pieces of the same story: under the guise of promoting a conservative agenda, the Bush administration has created a supersized version of the 19th-century spoils system.
The blueprint for Bush-era governance was laid out in a January 2001 manifesto from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.” The manifesto’s message, in brief, was that the professional civil service should be regarded as the enemy of the new administration’s conservative agenda. And there’s no question that Heritage’s thinking reflected that of many people on the Bush team.
How should the civil service be defeated? First and foremost, Heritage demanded that politics take precedence over know-how: the new administration “must make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second.”
Second, Heritage called for a big increase in outsourcing — “contracting out as a management strategy.” This would supposedly reduce costs, but it would also have the desirable effect of reducing the total number of civil servants.
The Bush administration energetically put these recommendations into effect. Political loyalists were installed throughout the government, regardless of qualifications. And the administration outsourced many government functions previously considered too sensitive to privatize: yesterday’s Times article begins with the case of CACI International, a private contractor hired, in spite of the obvious conflict of interest, to process cases of incompetence and fraud by private contractors. A few years earlier, CACI provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib.
The ostensible reason for politicizing and privatizing was to promote the conservative ideal of smaller, more efficient government. But the small-government rhetoric was never sincere: from Day 1, the administration set out to create a vast new patronage machine.
Those political appointees chosen for their loyalty, not their expertise, aren’t very good at doing their proper jobs — as all the world learned after Hurricane Katrina struck. But they have been very good at rewarding campaign contributors, from energy companies that benefit from lax regulation of pollution to pharmaceutical companies that got a Medicare program systematically designed to protect their profits.
And the executive order described by The Times will make it even easier for political appointees to overrule the professionals, tailoring government regulations to suit the interests of companies that support the G.O.P. — or to give lucrative contracts to people with the right connections.
Meanwhile, never mind the idea that outsourcing of government functions should be used to promote competition and save money. The Times reports that “fewer than half of all ‘contract actions’ — new contracts and payments against existing contracts — are now subject to full and open competition,” down from 79 percent in 2001. And many contractors are paid far more than it would cost to do the job with government employees: those CACI workers processing claims against other contractors cost the government $104 an hour.
What’s truly amazing is how far back we’ve slid in such a short time. The modern civil service system dates back more than a century; in just six years the Bush administration has managed to undo many of that system’s achievements. And the administration still has two years to go.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Is the Chimp-Empire Crumbling ???
GAME OVER: THIRTY-SIX SURE-FIRE SIGNS THAT YOUR EMPIREIS CRUMBLING
BY: DR. DAVID MICHAEL GREEN, political scienceprofessor at Hofstra U. in New York.SOURCE: Published on 2-2-07 by CommonDreams.org.URL: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0202-26.htm
So. You've built yourself an empire, eh? Well, bully for you!
What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course.You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!
But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind,thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:
1. You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.
2. You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.
3. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).
4. You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.
5. You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)
6. You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.
7. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.
8. You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking abou tsmelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.
9. You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.
10. You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries,and you don't dare institute a draft.
11. You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.
12. You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.
13. You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.
14. You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.
15. You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.
16. You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.
17. You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.
18. You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.
19. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.
20. You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.
21. You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus,Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)
22. You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.
23. You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.
24. You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.
25. You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.
26. You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.
27. You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.
28. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.
29. You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.
30. You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner,and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.
31. You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words:"All right. You've covered your ass, now."
32. You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.
33. You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.
34. You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.
35. You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.
36. And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one. Rome? Britain? Spain?
At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.
BY: DR. DAVID MICHAEL GREEN, political scienceprofessor at Hofstra U. in New York.SOURCE: Published on 2-2-07 by CommonDreams.org.URL: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0202-26.htm
So. You've built yourself an empire, eh? Well, bully for you!
What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course.You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!
But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind,thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:
1. You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.
2. You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.
3. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).
4. You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.
5. You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)
6. You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.
7. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.
8. You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking abou tsmelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.
9. You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.
10. You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries,and you don't dare institute a draft.
11. You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.
12. You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.
13. You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.
14. You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.
15. You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.
16. You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.
17. You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.
18. You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.
19. You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.
20. You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.
21. You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus,Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)
22. You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.
23. You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.
24. You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.
25. You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.
26. You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.
27. You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.
28. You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.
29. You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.
30. You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner,and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.
31. You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words:"All right. You've covered your ass, now."
32. You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.
33. You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.
34. You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.
35. You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.
36. And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one. Rome? Britain? Spain?
At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
What????????????
Hey Folks,
Think about it:
Before Hugo Chavez 20% of Venezuela was wealthy; 80% were impoverished. Chavez has infuriated the 20% by concentrating on the 80%.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, "I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela."
Doesn't she have that backward? Twenty percent riding the backs of eighty percent doesn't sound like majority rule, and an 8o% poverty rate smacks of "human rights issues."
Rice went on to say, "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically."
The "economic" part refers to Chavez throwing the foreign oil company vultures off the train. The "political" part is a veiled threat of coercion.
No wonder God loves America more than any other country.
Rice believes Chavez is "destroying" Venezuela
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she believed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was destroying his country economically and politically.
Venezuela's Congress on January 31 granted Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.
"I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela," Rice told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically."
Venezuela is the fourth largest oil exporter to the United States and Washington, which has been at odds with Chavez for years, has criticized his plans to nationalize his country's oil and utility assets.
The Venezuelan leader is known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric and is a close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Despite her comments Rice said she wanted to avoid getting into "a rhetorical contest" with Chavez. She said the United States has traditionally had good relations with Venezuela and would like to have them in the future.
Venezuela has vowed to strip some of the world's biggest oil companies of controlling stakes in oil projects of the country's Orinoco Belt by May 1.
The pledge, which affects firms such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Statoil and BP Plc, forms a vital part of the nationalizations at the heart of his revolution in Venezuela.
The White House said that any U.S. firms affected by nationalizations must be compensated fairly.
Think about it:
Before Hugo Chavez 20% of Venezuela was wealthy; 80% were impoverished. Chavez has infuriated the 20% by concentrating on the 80%.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, "I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela."
Doesn't she have that backward? Twenty percent riding the backs of eighty percent doesn't sound like majority rule, and an 8o% poverty rate smacks of "human rights issues."
Rice went on to say, "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically."
The "economic" part refers to Chavez throwing the foreign oil company vultures off the train. The "political" part is a veiled threat of coercion.
No wonder God loves America more than any other country.
Rice believes Chavez is "destroying" Venezuela
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she believed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was destroying his country economically and politically.
Venezuela's Congress on January 31 granted Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.
"I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela," Rice told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically."
Venezuela is the fourth largest oil exporter to the United States and Washington, which has been at odds with Chavez for years, has criticized his plans to nationalize his country's oil and utility assets.
The Venezuelan leader is known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric and is a close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Despite her comments Rice said she wanted to avoid getting into "a rhetorical contest" with Chavez. She said the United States has traditionally had good relations with Venezuela and would like to have them in the future.
Venezuela has vowed to strip some of the world's biggest oil companies of controlling stakes in oil projects of the country's Orinoco Belt by May 1.
The pledge, which affects firms such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Statoil and BP Plc, forms a vital part of the nationalizations at the heart of his revolution in Venezuela.
The White House said that any U.S. firms affected by nationalizations must be compensated fairly.
Slow Lynching # 3
Hey Folks,
You can help with this. Please sign the petition to Free Gary Tyler at:
www.freegarytyler.com/petition.php . I did.Please pass it on.
- Uke Man
February 5, 2007
Gary Tyler’s Lost Decades
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll )
Destrehan, La. - The term “time warp” could have been coined for this rural town of 11,000 residents that sits beside, and just a little below, the Mississippi River. A remnant of the sugar-plantation era, the region’s racially troubled past is always here, seldom spoken about but inescapable, like the murk in the air of a perpetually stalled weather front.
The Harry Hurst Middle School is on the site of the old Destrehan High School, which was the scene of violent protests during the integration period of the 1970s. Local residents have tried to blot out the murder case that made Destrehan High notorious three decades ago, but there’s a big problem with that collective effort to forget. The black teenager who was railroaded into prison (and almost into the electric chair) for the murder of a white student in 1974 is still in prison all these many years later. He’s middle-aged now, still suffering through a life sentence without any chance for parole in the notorious state penitentiary at Angola.
There is no longer any doubt that the case against the teenager, Gary Tyler, was a travesty. A federal appeals court ruled unequivocally that he did not receive a fair trial. The Louisiana Board of Pardons issued rulings on three occasions that would have allowed Mr. Tyler to be freed.
But this is the South and Mr. Tyler was a black person convicted of killing a white. It didn’t matter that the case was built on bogus evidence and coerced witnesses, or that the trial was, in the words of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, “fundamentally unfair.” Mr. Tyler was never given a new trial and the pardon board recommendations were rejected by two governors.
(Lurking in the background as the case unfolded was David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who was very active politically in Louisiana and always ready to inject his poison into the public issues of the day. If you drive around Destrehan and nearby communities today you will still see some of the old blue-and-white campaign signs for Duke.)
Mr. Tyler, a sophomore at Destrehan High, was on a bus filled with black students that was attacked on Oct. 7, 1974, by a white mob enraged over school integration. A shot was fired and a 13-year-old white boy standing outside the bus collapsed, mortally wounded. Mr. Tyler was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace after he talked back to a sheriff’s deputy.
Although the bus and its passengers were searched and no weapon was found, Mr. Tyler was taken into custody, savagely beaten and accused of committing the murder. A gun was “found” during a subsequent search of the bus and witnesses were rounded up to testify against Mr. Tyler. It turned out that the gun (which has since disappeared) had been stolen from a firing range used by officers of the sheriff’s department. All of the witnesses who fingered Mr. Tyler would eventually recant, saying they had been terrorized into testifying falsely by the authorities.
Mr. Tyler was represented at trial by a white sole practitioner who had never handled a murder case, much less a death penalty case. He kept his meetings with his client to a minimum and would later complain about the money he was paid.
The outcome was predictable. Mr. Tyler was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair by an all-white jury. At 17, he was the youngest prisoner on death row in the country. He almost certainly would have been executed if the U.S. Supreme Court had not ruled the Louisiana death penalty unconstitutional.
The Fifth Circuit ruling in 1981 said that an improper charge to the jury had denied Mr. Tyler the presumption of innocence at his trial. “It is folly,” the court said, “to argue that the erroneous charge did not affect the central determination of guilt or innocence.”
What was folly was any expectation that Mr. Tyler would be treated fairly at any point. Despite the appeals court ruling, he was denied a new trial on a technicality.
Now consider this, because it will tell you all you need to know about racial justice in the South. A 19-year-old black man named Richard Dunn was shotgunned to death as he was heading home from a benefit dance in support of Mr. Tyler at Southern University in New Orleans in 1976. A white man, Anthony Mart, was arrested and convicted of shooting Mr. Dunn from a passing car.
Gary Tyler’s current attorney, Mary Howell, ruefully explained what happened to Mr. Mart for the cold-blooded killing of a black stranger: He was sent to prison for life but was pardoned and freed after serving about 10 years.
You can help with this. Please sign the petition to Free Gary Tyler at:
www.freegarytyler.com/petition.php . I did.Please pass it on.
- Uke Man
February 5, 2007
Gary Tyler’s Lost Decades
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll )
Destrehan, La. - The term “time warp” could have been coined for this rural town of 11,000 residents that sits beside, and just a little below, the Mississippi River. A remnant of the sugar-plantation era, the region’s racially troubled past is always here, seldom spoken about but inescapable, like the murk in the air of a perpetually stalled weather front.
The Harry Hurst Middle School is on the site of the old Destrehan High School, which was the scene of violent protests during the integration period of the 1970s. Local residents have tried to blot out the murder case that made Destrehan High notorious three decades ago, but there’s a big problem with that collective effort to forget. The black teenager who was railroaded into prison (and almost into the electric chair) for the murder of a white student in 1974 is still in prison all these many years later. He’s middle-aged now, still suffering through a life sentence without any chance for parole in the notorious state penitentiary at Angola.
There is no longer any doubt that the case against the teenager, Gary Tyler, was a travesty. A federal appeals court ruled unequivocally that he did not receive a fair trial. The Louisiana Board of Pardons issued rulings on three occasions that would have allowed Mr. Tyler to be freed.
But this is the South and Mr. Tyler was a black person convicted of killing a white. It didn’t matter that the case was built on bogus evidence and coerced witnesses, or that the trial was, in the words of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, “fundamentally unfair.” Mr. Tyler was never given a new trial and the pardon board recommendations were rejected by two governors.
(Lurking in the background as the case unfolded was David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who was very active politically in Louisiana and always ready to inject his poison into the public issues of the day. If you drive around Destrehan and nearby communities today you will still see some of the old blue-and-white campaign signs for Duke.)
Mr. Tyler, a sophomore at Destrehan High, was on a bus filled with black students that was attacked on Oct. 7, 1974, by a white mob enraged over school integration. A shot was fired and a 13-year-old white boy standing outside the bus collapsed, mortally wounded. Mr. Tyler was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace after he talked back to a sheriff’s deputy.
Although the bus and its passengers were searched and no weapon was found, Mr. Tyler was taken into custody, savagely beaten and accused of committing the murder. A gun was “found” during a subsequent search of the bus and witnesses were rounded up to testify against Mr. Tyler. It turned out that the gun (which has since disappeared) had been stolen from a firing range used by officers of the sheriff’s department. All of the witnesses who fingered Mr. Tyler would eventually recant, saying they had been terrorized into testifying falsely by the authorities.
Mr. Tyler was represented at trial by a white sole practitioner who had never handled a murder case, much less a death penalty case. He kept his meetings with his client to a minimum and would later complain about the money he was paid.
The outcome was predictable. Mr. Tyler was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair by an all-white jury. At 17, he was the youngest prisoner on death row in the country. He almost certainly would have been executed if the U.S. Supreme Court had not ruled the Louisiana death penalty unconstitutional.
The Fifth Circuit ruling in 1981 said that an improper charge to the jury had denied Mr. Tyler the presumption of innocence at his trial. “It is folly,” the court said, “to argue that the erroneous charge did not affect the central determination of guilt or innocence.”
What was folly was any expectation that Mr. Tyler would be treated fairly at any point. Despite the appeals court ruling, he was denied a new trial on a technicality.
Now consider this, because it will tell you all you need to know about racial justice in the South. A 19-year-old black man named Richard Dunn was shotgunned to death as he was heading home from a benefit dance in support of Mr. Tyler at Southern University in New Orleans in 1976. A white man, Anthony Mart, was arrested and convicted of shooting Mr. Dunn from a passing car.
Gary Tyler’s current attorney, Mary Howell, ruefully explained what happened to Mr. Mart for the cold-blooded killing of a black stranger: He was sent to prison for life but was pardoned and freed after serving about 10 years.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
What we do for love
Hey Folks,
You MUST see this video, but first a little Valentine's Day review:
met·a·phor
1 : a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language -- compare SIMILE
anal·o·gy
1 : inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others
2 : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : SIMILARITY b : comparison based on such resemblance
al·le·go·ry
1 : the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence
NOW !!! Enjoy the allegorical, metaphoric analogy:
http://www.glumbert.com/media/roleplay
- Uke Man
p.s. "getting screwed" is NOT "getting loved"!!!
You MUST see this video, but first a little Valentine's Day review:
met·a·phor
1 : a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language -- compare SIMILE
anal·o·gy
1 : inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others
2 : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : SIMILARITY b : comparison based on such resemblance
al·le·go·ry
1 : the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence
NOW !!! Enjoy the allegorical, metaphoric analogy:
http://www.glumbert.com/media/roleplay
- Uke Man
p.s. "getting screwed" is NOT "getting loved"!!!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
A Slow Lynching # 2
Hey Folks,
You can help with this. Please sign the petition to Free Gary Tyler at: www.freegarytyler.com/petition.php . I did.
Please pass it on.
- Uke Man
February 8, 2007
‘They Beat Gary So Bad’
By BOB HERBERT
(a uke thanks to Phyll)
ST. ROSE, La.
Juanita Tyler lives in a neat one-story house that sits behind a glistening magnolia tree that dominates the small front lawn.
She is 74 now and unfailingly gracious, but she admits to being tired from a lifetime of hard work and trouble. I went to see her to talk about her son, Gary.
The Tylers are black. In 1974, when Gary was 16, he was accused of murdering a 13-year-old white boy outside the high school that they attended in nearby Destrehan. The boy was shot to death in the midst of turmoil over school integration, which the local whites were resisting violently.
The case against young Tyler — who was on a bus with other black students that was attacked by about 200 whites — was built on bogus evidence and coerced testimony. But that was enough to get him convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to die in the electric chair. His life was spared when the Louisiana death penalty was ruled unconstitutional, but he is serving out a life sentence with no chance of parole in the state penitentiary at Angola.
Ms. Tyler’s sharpest memory of the day Gary was arrested was of sitting in a room at a sheriff’s station, listening to deputies in the next room savagely beating her son.
“They beat Gary so bad,” she said. “My poor child. I couldn’t do nothing. They wouldn’t let me in there. I saw who went in there. They were like older men. They didn’t care that I was there. They didn’t care who was there. They beat Gary something awful, and I could hear him hollering and moaning. All I could say was, ‘Oh Jesus, have mercy.’
“One of the deputies had a strap and they whipped him with that. It was terrible. Finally, when they let me go in there, Gary was just trembling. He was frightened to death. He was trembling and rocking back and forth. They had kicked him all in his privates. He said, ‘Mama, they kicked me. One kicked me in the front and one kicked in the back.’ He said that over and over.
“I couldn’t believe what they had done to my baby.”
The deputies had tried to get Gary to confess, but he wouldn’t. Ms. Tyler (like so many people who have looked closely at this case) was scornful of the evidence the authorities came up with.
“It was ridiculous,” she said. “Where was he gonna get that big ol’ police gun they said he used? It was a great big ol’ gun. And he had on those tight-fitting clothes and nobody saw it?”
The gun that investigators produced as the murder weapon was indeed a large, heavy weapon — a government-issued Colt .45 that had been stolen from a firing range used by the sheriff’s department. Deputies who saw Gary before the shooting and those who searched him (and the rest of the black students on the bus) immediately afterward did not see any gun.
“I don’t know where the police got that gun from,” said Ms. Tyler. “But they didn’t get it from my son, that’s for sure.”
Ms. Tyler worked for many years as a domestic while raising 11 children. Her husband, Uylos, a maintenance worker who often held three jobs at a time, died in 1989. “He had a bad heart,” Ms. Tyler said.
She shifted in her chair in the living room of the small house, and was quiet for several minutes.
Then she asked, “Do you know what it’s like to lose a child?”
I shook my head.
“I always felt sorry for that woman whose son was killed,” she said. “That was a terrible time. I remember it clear, like it was yesterday. But what happened was wrong. The white people, they didn’t want no black children in that school. So there was a lot of tension. And my son has paid a terrible price for that.
“They didn’t have no kind of proof against him, but they beat him bad anyway, and then they sentenced him to the electric chair.”
Ms. Tyler visits Gary at Angola regularly, the last time a few weeks ago. “He’s doing well,” she said. “And I’m glad that he’s able to cope. He tries to help the young ones out when they come in there. He always tells me, ‘My dear, you have to stay strong so I can stay strong.’ So then I just try to hold my head up and keep on going.”
She looked for a moment as if she was going to cry, but she didn’t.
“It’s just sad,” she said. “I wonder if he’ll ever be able to come out. I wonder will I live long enough to see him out.”
You can help with this. Please sign the petition to Free Gary Tyler at: www.freegarytyler.com/petition.php . I did.
Please pass it on.
- Uke Man
February 8, 2007
‘They Beat Gary So Bad’
By BOB HERBERT
(a uke thanks to Phyll)
ST. ROSE, La.
Juanita Tyler lives in a neat one-story house that sits behind a glistening magnolia tree that dominates the small front lawn.
She is 74 now and unfailingly gracious, but she admits to being tired from a lifetime of hard work and trouble. I went to see her to talk about her son, Gary.
The Tylers are black. In 1974, when Gary was 16, he was accused of murdering a 13-year-old white boy outside the high school that they attended in nearby Destrehan. The boy was shot to death in the midst of turmoil over school integration, which the local whites were resisting violently.
The case against young Tyler — who was on a bus with other black students that was attacked by about 200 whites — was built on bogus evidence and coerced testimony. But that was enough to get him convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to die in the electric chair. His life was spared when the Louisiana death penalty was ruled unconstitutional, but he is serving out a life sentence with no chance of parole in the state penitentiary at Angola.
Ms. Tyler’s sharpest memory of the day Gary was arrested was of sitting in a room at a sheriff’s station, listening to deputies in the next room savagely beating her son.
“They beat Gary so bad,” she said. “My poor child. I couldn’t do nothing. They wouldn’t let me in there. I saw who went in there. They were like older men. They didn’t care that I was there. They didn’t care who was there. They beat Gary something awful, and I could hear him hollering and moaning. All I could say was, ‘Oh Jesus, have mercy.’
“One of the deputies had a strap and they whipped him with that. It was terrible. Finally, when they let me go in there, Gary was just trembling. He was frightened to death. He was trembling and rocking back and forth. They had kicked him all in his privates. He said, ‘Mama, they kicked me. One kicked me in the front and one kicked in the back.’ He said that over and over.
“I couldn’t believe what they had done to my baby.”
The deputies had tried to get Gary to confess, but he wouldn’t. Ms. Tyler (like so many people who have looked closely at this case) was scornful of the evidence the authorities came up with.
“It was ridiculous,” she said. “Where was he gonna get that big ol’ police gun they said he used? It was a great big ol’ gun. And he had on those tight-fitting clothes and nobody saw it?”
The gun that investigators produced as the murder weapon was indeed a large, heavy weapon — a government-issued Colt .45 that had been stolen from a firing range used by the sheriff’s department. Deputies who saw Gary before the shooting and those who searched him (and the rest of the black students on the bus) immediately afterward did not see any gun.
“I don’t know where the police got that gun from,” said Ms. Tyler. “But they didn’t get it from my son, that’s for sure.”
Ms. Tyler worked for many years as a domestic while raising 11 children. Her husband, Uylos, a maintenance worker who often held three jobs at a time, died in 1989. “He had a bad heart,” Ms. Tyler said.
She shifted in her chair in the living room of the small house, and was quiet for several minutes.
Then she asked, “Do you know what it’s like to lose a child?”
I shook my head.
“I always felt sorry for that woman whose son was killed,” she said. “That was a terrible time. I remember it clear, like it was yesterday. But what happened was wrong. The white people, they didn’t want no black children in that school. So there was a lot of tension. And my son has paid a terrible price for that.
“They didn’t have no kind of proof against him, but they beat him bad anyway, and then they sentenced him to the electric chair.”
Ms. Tyler visits Gary at Angola regularly, the last time a few weeks ago. “He’s doing well,” she said. “And I’m glad that he’s able to cope. He tries to help the young ones out when they come in there. He always tells me, ‘My dear, you have to stay strong so I can stay strong.’ So then I just try to hold my head up and keep on going.”
She looked for a moment as if she was going to cry, but she didn’t.
“It’s just sad,” she said. “I wonder if he’ll ever be able to come out. I wonder will I live long enough to see him out.”
Monday, February 12, 2007
Free Press??? Ha!!!!!!!!!!! "Fuher Press" is more like it !!
Hey Folks,
If you think we have a Free Press, if you think "dictators" and the Bush Administration don't have much in common, give a listen to this Fresh Air interview on NPR (and watch the FRONTLINE piece Tuesday nights, Feb. 13, 20, 27 at 9:00 p.m.):
The Future of the News Media - Fresh Air from WHYY, February 12, 2007 · Investigative reporter Lowell Bergman is the producer of the new FRONTLINE documentary, News War: Secrets, Spin and the Future of the News. The series is about the mainstream news media and the political, legal and economic forces at play.
Listen at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7363240
From the PBS/FRONTLINE website:
News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin (Part I)Feb. 13, 2007 at 9pmCorrespondent Lowell Bergman examines the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources from Watergate to the present; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing and at times ugly affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.
More & Videos at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/preview/
- Uke Man
If you think we have a Free Press, if you think "dictators" and the Bush Administration don't have much in common, give a listen to this Fresh Air interview on NPR (and watch the FRONTLINE piece Tuesday nights, Feb. 13, 20, 27 at 9:00 p.m.):
The Future of the News Media - Fresh Air from WHYY, February 12, 2007 · Investigative reporter Lowell Bergman is the producer of the new FRONTLINE documentary, News War: Secrets, Spin and the Future of the News. The series is about the mainstream news media and the political, legal and economic forces at play.
Listen at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7363240
From the PBS/FRONTLINE website:
News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin (Part I)Feb. 13, 2007 at 9pmCorrespondent Lowell Bergman examines the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources from Watergate to the present; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing and at times ugly affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.
More & Videos at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/preview/
- Uke Man
Ukulele Cabaret - Last Report on the New York trip
Hey Folks,
At last!!! A report on the last night of my New York trip. I hope to have more videos from this particular Cabaret eventually. For now, here are videos mostly from earlier Cabarets. And these are only some of the acts who appeared!!!
Enjoy!!!
Uke Man
Sonic Uke www.ukuleledisco.com/juliuscabaret
www.ukuleledisco.com/leftoverstrange including Alan Drogin & Howie Leifer
Khabu, Orlando, Bruce, Derek www.ukuleledisco.com/loveorconfusion
Mary J. Martin www.ukuleledisco.com/harrysroom
Ukulele Lloyd www.ukuleledisco.com/somepeace
Dana McCoy, Candy Rogers, Kate Greer http://www.ukuleledisco.com/promqueen
Ukulele Man www.ukuleledisco.com/jesuschrysler
Heather Lev http://www.ukuleledisco.com/seethemgo
David & Sam www.ukuleledisco.com/spendmas
D'yan Forest www.ukuleledisco.com/introdyan
Patsy Monteleone www.ukuleledisco.com/ghostupstairs
Evy Mayer http://www.ukuleledisco.com/openthatcan
- Uke Man
At last!!! A report on the last night of my New York trip. I hope to have more videos from this particular Cabaret eventually. For now, here are videos mostly from earlier Cabarets. And these are only some of the acts who appeared!!!
Enjoy!!!
Uke Man
Sonic Uke www.ukuleledisco.com/juliuscabaret
www.ukuleledisco.com/leftoverstrange including Alan Drogin & Howie Leifer
Khabu, Orlando, Bruce, Derek www.ukuleledisco.com/loveorconfusion
Mary J. Martin www.ukuleledisco.com/harrysroom
Ukulele Lloyd www.ukuleledisco.com/somepeace
Dana McCoy, Candy Rogers, Kate Greer http://www.ukuleledisco.com/promqueen
Ukulele Man www.ukuleledisco.com/jesuschrysler
Heather Lev http://www.ukuleledisco.com/seethemgo
David & Sam www.ukuleledisco.com/spendmas
D'yan Forest www.ukuleledisco.com/introdyan
Patsy Monteleone www.ukuleledisco.com/ghostupstairs
Evy Mayer http://www.ukuleledisco.com/openthatcan
- Uke Man
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Hey Folks,
Some people have half-assed arguments, but don't know it. Since THEY believe something, and they are supported (they believe) by a book and many, many other people who seem to think the same way; they can't see their foolishness - without a little help.
That's where the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) comes in. People may think that a church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is silly. Just the same, it argues exactly like the folks for "Intelligent Design" do. And, by golly, if "Intelligent Design" true-believers want equal time with Science, then OTHER faith-based explanations of creation MUST be included as well!!!
Check it out. And thank any Pirate you come across.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster for information - or
http://www.venganza.org/games/index_large.htm for THE Flying Spaghetti Monster VIDEO GAME !!!!!
Below is a letter to the Kansas school board bent on imposing "Intelligent Design" on the science curriculum.
- Uke Man
Open Letter To Kansas School Board
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.
I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.
In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.
Sincerely Yours,
Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.
P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.
Some people have half-assed arguments, but don't know it. Since THEY believe something, and they are supported (they believe) by a book and many, many other people who seem to think the same way; they can't see their foolishness - without a little help.
That's where the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) comes in. People may think that a church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is silly. Just the same, it argues exactly like the folks for "Intelligent Design" do. And, by golly, if "Intelligent Design" true-believers want equal time with Science, then OTHER faith-based explanations of creation MUST be included as well!!!
Check it out. And thank any Pirate you come across.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster for information - or
http://www.venganza.org/games/index_large.htm for THE Flying Spaghetti Monster VIDEO GAME !!!!!
Below is a letter to the Kansas school board bent on imposing "Intelligent Design" on the science curriculum.
- Uke Man
Open Letter To Kansas School Board
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.
I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.
In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.
Sincerely Yours,
Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.
P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Fried Rice ????
Hey Folks,
Today - in 2007 - a few things Vladimir Putin had to say were reported, and Joe Lie-berman had a retort. Well, in 2002 the Revolutionary Worker printed an analysis of a document put out by the White House and written by Condoleezza Rice.
First, below is the Putin/Lie-berman story; then the Revolutionary Worker article.
You be the judge.
- Uke Man
Putin blasts U.S. for its use of force
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press
MUNICH, Germany - Russian President
Vladimir Putin blasted the United States Saturday for the "almost uncontained" use of force in the world, and for encouraging other countries to acquire nuclear weapons.
In what his spokesman acknowledged were his harshest attacks on the U.S. since taking office in 2000, Putin also criticized U.S. plans for missile defense systems and
NATO's expansion.
Putin told a security forum attracting top officials that "we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations" and that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.
"This is very dangerous, nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," Putin told the gathering.
Putin did not elaborate on specifics and did not mention the wars in
Iraq or Afghanistan.
But he voiced concern about U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in eastern Europe — likely in Poland and the Czech Republic — and the expansion of NATO as possible challenges to Russia.
On the missile defense system, Putin said: "I don't want to accuse anyone of being aggressive" but suggested it would seriously change the balance of power and could provoke an unspecified response.
"That balance will be upset completely and one side will have a feeling of complete security and given a free hand in local, and probably in global, conflicts..." he said. "We need to respond to this."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the charge that the U.S. "aspired to get unipolar power or acted unilaterally is just not borne out by the facts."
"Even our involvement in Iraq, certainly Afghanistan, is pursuant to
United Nations resolutions," Lieberman said at the conference. "So that was provocative and wrong."
Asked if he had any reaction to Putin's charges, Defense Secretary Robert Gates just shook his head and said no.
Putin's spokesman Dimitry Peskov said the Russian leader did not intend to be confrontational, but acknowledged it was his harshest criticism of the United States since he was elected in March 2000.
Entire article at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070210/ap_on_re_eu/security_conference
War Doctrine of Empire
Revolutionary Worker #1169, October 6, 2002, posted at http://rwor.org
The United States government has now, officially, declared itself the military ruler of the world. They put it down in black and white.
On September 20, the White House published its new "National Security Strategy of the United States," a 33-page document written by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's personal tutor and top strategic adviser.
This document formally announces a new international and military doctrine for the United States-- which includes extreme changes of policy.
First, this doctrine announces, for the first time in writing, that the rulers of the U.S. have decided never to allow any government or coalition to challenge U.S. military supremacy.
The document says: "The United States must and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy--whether a state or non-state actor--to impose its will on the United States, our allies, or our friends... Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."
This throws out a half century of official U.S. policy involving "containment" and "deterrence"--including the idea that mutual threat between various powers created a "balance" that prevented war. Instead, the U.S. government has committed to a permanent arms race with no rival in sight, so that it can threaten or crush anyone who tries to match its power.
Second, this document rejects any notion that other people and countries have national sovereignty. It announces instead, the truly Orwellian concept of "sovereign responsibilities." It writes that the U.S. will be "convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."
In other words, the U.S. will decide what a foreign government's "responsibility" is--and if that government is not convinced , the U.S. will unleash threats, bombs, "regime change," and occupation.
Third, this document announces that the U.S. has the right to launch attacks on other countries without warning, provocation or international approval. It writes "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively..."
This doctrine of preemptive war means that the U.S. claims it has the right to attack countries simply because a government (or even small "terrorist" forces within a country) may some day wish to threaten U.S. interests. This doctrine insists that the U.S. government no longer needs evidence of hostile actions or even of the capability of taking hostile action. And the U.S. government reserves for itself the right to define what a "terrorist" is--without proving its charges to anyone.
This is a policy defending unprovoked aggression. It knowingly defies both international law and the charter of the United Nations.
A Declaration of World Domination
This new document defines a world where the U.S. constantly threatens everyone, and no one will (ever!) be allowed to develop the means to threaten the U.S.
National sovereignty is assumed to be absolute for the U.S.--unrestrained by treaty, alliance or law-- while national sovereignty has evaporated for everyone else. Gone is any sense (or pretense) of the right of peoples to rule themselves and determine their own affairs within their own borders.
This doctrine continues a rejection of treaties that might restrain U.S. military power. It pooh-poohs a 50-year-old structure of consultation and joint operations with "the Western allies."
It is the announcement that this government intends to impose, by brute force and the threat of force, the diktat of U.S. imperialism over the entire world. It is a naked, arrogant and brutish declaration of wild ambitions.
The document calls this "a distinctly American internationalism"--but is there any doubt that this means a straight-up American imperialism ?
It is worth noting that this doctrine was not voted on by Congress or approved in an election. It was not offered for debate in the media. It was not negotiated with allies. It was not approved by the United Nations. A plan for global domination is being simply announced (and put into motion!) by the decree of the American president acting on behalf of the small corporate-capitalist ruling class he answers to.
Today - in 2007 - a few things Vladimir Putin had to say were reported, and Joe Lie-berman had a retort. Well, in 2002 the Revolutionary Worker printed an analysis of a document put out by the White House and written by Condoleezza Rice.
First, below is the Putin/Lie-berman story; then the Revolutionary Worker article.
You be the judge.
- Uke Man
Putin blasts U.S. for its use of force
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press
MUNICH, Germany - Russian President
Vladimir Putin blasted the United States Saturday for the "almost uncontained" use of force in the world, and for encouraging other countries to acquire nuclear weapons.
In what his spokesman acknowledged were his harshest attacks on the U.S. since taking office in 2000, Putin also criticized U.S. plans for missile defense systems and
NATO's expansion.
Putin told a security forum attracting top officials that "we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations" and that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.
"This is very dangerous, nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," Putin told the gathering.
Putin did not elaborate on specifics and did not mention the wars in
Iraq or Afghanistan.
But he voiced concern about U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in eastern Europe — likely in Poland and the Czech Republic — and the expansion of NATO as possible challenges to Russia.
On the missile defense system, Putin said: "I don't want to accuse anyone of being aggressive" but suggested it would seriously change the balance of power and could provoke an unspecified response.
"That balance will be upset completely and one side will have a feeling of complete security and given a free hand in local, and probably in global, conflicts..." he said. "We need to respond to this."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said the charge that the U.S. "aspired to get unipolar power or acted unilaterally is just not borne out by the facts."
"Even our involvement in Iraq, certainly Afghanistan, is pursuant to
United Nations resolutions," Lieberman said at the conference. "So that was provocative and wrong."
Asked if he had any reaction to Putin's charges, Defense Secretary Robert Gates just shook his head and said no.
Putin's spokesman Dimitry Peskov said the Russian leader did not intend to be confrontational, but acknowledged it was his harshest criticism of the United States since he was elected in March 2000.
Entire article at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070210/ap_on_re_eu/security_conference
War Doctrine of Empire
Revolutionary Worker #1169, October 6, 2002, posted at http://rwor.org
The United States government has now, officially, declared itself the military ruler of the world. They put it down in black and white.
On September 20, the White House published its new "National Security Strategy of the United States," a 33-page document written by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's personal tutor and top strategic adviser.
This document formally announces a new international and military doctrine for the United States-- which includes extreme changes of policy.
First, this doctrine announces, for the first time in writing, that the rulers of the U.S. have decided never to allow any government or coalition to challenge U.S. military supremacy.
The document says: "The United States must and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy--whether a state or non-state actor--to impose its will on the United States, our allies, or our friends... Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."
This throws out a half century of official U.S. policy involving "containment" and "deterrence"--including the idea that mutual threat between various powers created a "balance" that prevented war. Instead, the U.S. government has committed to a permanent arms race with no rival in sight, so that it can threaten or crush anyone who tries to match its power.
Second, this document rejects any notion that other people and countries have national sovereignty. It announces instead, the truly Orwellian concept of "sovereign responsibilities." It writes that the U.S. will be "convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."
In other words, the U.S. will decide what a foreign government's "responsibility" is--and if that government is not convinced , the U.S. will unleash threats, bombs, "regime change," and occupation.
Third, this document announces that the U.S. has the right to launch attacks on other countries without warning, provocation or international approval. It writes "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively..."
This doctrine of preemptive war means that the U.S. claims it has the right to attack countries simply because a government (or even small "terrorist" forces within a country) may some day wish to threaten U.S. interests. This doctrine insists that the U.S. government no longer needs evidence of hostile actions or even of the capability of taking hostile action. And the U.S. government reserves for itself the right to define what a "terrorist" is--without proving its charges to anyone.
This is a policy defending unprovoked aggression. It knowingly defies both international law and the charter of the United Nations.
A Declaration of World Domination
This new document defines a world where the U.S. constantly threatens everyone, and no one will (ever!) be allowed to develop the means to threaten the U.S.
National sovereignty is assumed to be absolute for the U.S.--unrestrained by treaty, alliance or law-- while national sovereignty has evaporated for everyone else. Gone is any sense (or pretense) of the right of peoples to rule themselves and determine their own affairs within their own borders.
This doctrine continues a rejection of treaties that might restrain U.S. military power. It pooh-poohs a 50-year-old structure of consultation and joint operations with "the Western allies."
It is the announcement that this government intends to impose, by brute force and the threat of force, the diktat of U.S. imperialism over the entire world. It is a naked, arrogant and brutish declaration of wild ambitions.
The document calls this "a distinctly American internationalism"--but is there any doubt that this means a straight-up American imperialism ?
It is worth noting that this doctrine was not voted on by Congress or approved in an election. It was not offered for debate in the media. It was not negotiated with allies. It was not approved by the United Nations. A plan for global domination is being simply announced (and put into motion!) by the decree of the American president acting on behalf of the small corporate-capitalist ruling class he answers to.
Friday, February 09, 2007
This would work, but I won't go your bail !!
Hey Folks,
If you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane or Train:
1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.
2. Remove your laptop.
3. Turn it on.
4. Make sure the guy who won't leave you alone can see the screen.
5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky.
6. Then hit this link:
http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
If you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane or Train:
1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.
2. Remove your laptop.
3. Turn it on.
4. Make sure the guy who won't leave you alone can see the screen.
5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky.
6. Then hit this link:
http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
Thursday, February 08, 2007
There's no hope for the human race !!!
Will Rogers: "A man that don't love a horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love horses then there is something worse the matter with him."
Hey Folks,
You'll have to decide whether there's something the matter with me or not. I guess you could say I love horses - to some extent - and I have sympathy with those who love them more than I do.
Still, for anyone who hopes that the world might some day be ordered on a rational basis, the story posted below is disheartening. Basically, it reports that the state of Texas has outlawed the butchering of horses for food. It also reports that the court decided the case based partially on the opinion that no cinematic cowboy had ever eaten his horse.
Well, personally, I don't care whether Texas slaughters horses for meat or provides rest homes for aged equines, with hospice in their final days and the inevitable burial/cremation paid for by the state.
But the story still disturbs me. It is an example of the unlikelihood of our race ever living by a rational standard. Loving horses is fine, but everything else about this story is nuts.
1. We are not told, but it seems likely that horses can still be sold to the glue factory when their owners no longer want them - they just can't be sold to provide meat for HUMAN consumption. Hmmmmm ... If love of horses keeps us from butchering them for food, what enables us to send them to the glue factory?
2. Texas is known for raising cattle to provide meat for human consumption. I'm sure Texans also raise pigs and chickens and catfish and maybe even emus for meat for human consumption. Westerners are also known to love hunting, killing, and consuming wild deer (Bambi), mountain goat, buffalo, antelope, rabbit (Thumper), etc.
As a child, my grandfather raised some pigs, chickens, and beef cattle. He also had a saddle horse. I loved all the animals (well, maybe not the chickens - the Leghorn roosters were mean as hell), but I particularly favored the pigs. The porkers were cuter and smarter than the horse, the steer, or the chickens.
There have been any number of cinematic pigs, and I don't remember any of them being eaten. I wonder if Nebraska or Iowa, corn Meccas, might outlaw the slaughter of pigs for human consumption?
Nahh, that would be irrational.
3. Texas is big on "bidness" and is "conservative" politically. Those who own and run Texas would be the last among us to "dictate" to business on anything relevant to the well-being of workers, the environment, or the general population. It's a "Right to Work" state, has no income tax - graduated or otherwise; environmentalists, feminists, civil rights activists, and - certainly PETA enthusiasts - are not appreciated there. It is the home of JR, rampant pollution, the Death Penalty, gigantic property holdings, & Big Oil.
Yet, they WILL totally eliminate a business (at least a foreign-owned one) to salve a culturally inculcated, emotional, and arbitrary notion related to animals and - supposedly - to cowboys.
Hmmmmm ...
Now, Folks, at this point some of you may be cussing me and thinking, "Why does he hate horses?" or "He can't make me hate horses!" or "If I want to be against the butchering of horses for food, I can, and HE can't stop me!" or something along those lines.
If so, you are letting your emotions over-ride your intellect. As I said above, I personally don't have a horse in this race. I am saying neither that horses should be butchered nor that they shouldn't. Besides, it doesn't matter what I say; Texas does as Texas is - without benefit of my opinions. And you will believe as you believe based on your own intellect and emotions - regardless of what I may opine.
The point of this essay involves people, not horses. If you can wrap your head around that, you can quit cussing me, calm down, and maybe even take a break to pet your horse and give him some oats (just "a few").
Having said that, if you are still upset with me, you are demonstrating the same depressing behavior I noticed in the original article. You are so enamored of horses, that you feel the need to "defend" them - even against someone who is not attacking them. THAT's irrational.
Well, Folks, now you may again be thinking - something like: "Who are you to say I'm irrational?" or "Big deal! So, I'm irrational," or "So what!! Who cares? What difference does it make?"
Well, I'm nobody, but irrationality does have a definition in the language. You be the judge:
irrational: not governed by or according to reason
reason: sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense
It is not logical to attack someone for threatening horses when he is not threatening horses.
As to what difference it makes, if one is still talking about horse meat, it doesn't make much difference. Some ethnic Americans will be put out, perhaps some authentic French chefs and gourmets, too. The price of a horse steak will probably go up (supply & demand, you know). But on a global scale, it's no big deal.
What it represents, however, is huge.
If people will behave on the basis of emotion rather than reason on a matter like this one, how much more unlikely to expect them to act rationally on matters that ARE big deals?
War, the environment, torture, nationalism, party affiliation, religion, capital punishment, abortion, race, ethnicity; class/tribal/caste systems; the "Justice" system, public education; capitalism/socialism/communism; taxes, health care, jobs/opportunity, substance abuse - all of these and more are big deals, are serious matters, and all are continuing sources of antagonistic, never-ending discord.
As with the horse meat issue, these issues incite strong emotional responses, and more often than not they are not rational or helpful responses. Intellect, rationality, a scientific approach are suppressed to protect the emotional components. While a relative few are affected by the Texas outcome, litterally billions of people have suffered over the ages from irrational, self-destructive actions relevant to these and similar issues.
We all have heard:
"If we do not learn from the mistakes of history, we are doomed to repeat them." - Santayana
Well, learning from the mistakes of the past is a rational, intellectual exercise. Loving one's country, industry, army, political party, religion, moral code, skin color, ethnicity, personal income, etc. does not help one objectively understand history or its mistakes. Rather, these "loves" hide the lessons of the past from us. We protect our loves by rejecting our rationality - it's called "rationalizing" as in "My country [etc.], right or wrong; since it can't be wrong - since it's MY country [etc.]."
And so, this essay is not about whether or not horse meat will remain available in this country. It is about whether the human race is capable of grappling with issues rationally, whether it is even possible for humanity to "learn from the mistakes of history."
As a young man, I thought it was. Over the years doubt crept in and has grown. The news piece below hasn't helped rekindle my optimism.
- Uke Man
Court: No horse slaughtering in Texas
By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press
HOUSTON - A federal appeals court says slaughtering horses for meat is illegal in Texas, where the animals symbolize the Old West and where two of the nation's three processing plants are located.
The decision, issued Friday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, overturns a lower court's ruling last year on a 1949 Texas law that banned horse slaughter for the purpose of selling the meat for food.
The lower court said the Texas law was invalid because it had been repealed by another statute and was pre-empted by federal law. However, a panel of three judges on the 5th Circuit disagreed, saying the law still stood and was still enforceable.
The 5th Circuit decision also cited more than the law.
"The lone cowboy riding his horse on a Texas trail is a cinematic icon. Not once in memory did the cowboy eat his horse," wrote Judge Fortunato Benavides.
The ruling involves the Dallas Crown Inc. slaughter mill in Kaufman and Beltex Corp. in nearby Forth Worth. The nation's third plant is in Illinois, run by Cavel International Inc. at DeKalb. All three operations are foreign-owned.
A bill pending before Congress would shutter all three operations.
The plants ship the meat overseas, since it is considered a delicacy in parts of Europe and Asia.
About 88,000 horses, mules and other equines were slaughtered in 2005, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.
While proponents such as the American Veterinary Medical Association say slaughter is a kind way to deal with old horses and a better alternative to abandonment, opponents including Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and country music star Willie Nelson have argued that the killing of equines is un-American — and that many young horses are killed as well.
The Humane Society of the United States, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, applauded the 5th Circuit decision.
"This is the most important court action ever on the issue of horse slaughter," Wayne Pacelle, the society's president and chief executive, said in a statement. "When this ruling is enforced, a single plant in Illinois will stand alone in conducting this grisly business."
There was no immediate response to calls seeking comment Saturday from representatives of Dallas Crown and Beltex.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Tell it to the Veep !!!
Hey Folks,
Yep. Different rules for different folks. As John Stewart pointed out Dick Cheney's grandchild is off limits to any political or policy debate. It's everybody else's kids and grandkids who are fair game.
And it doesn't matter that Dick and his comical sidechimp, Bonzo II (see "Bonzo returns to Washington") have been really oppressive toward gays (hey! it's just politics!!).
Yeah!! This is a baby!! Don't cross the line!! God hates MOST fags, but not this one, Buster!!
- Uke Man
Cheney: Pregnancy's not political
Feb 1 - AP
NEW YORK - The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine. "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family. She did not say how the child was conceived. The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild.
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy. Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line. "He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment."
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
She is the author of "Now It's My Turn: a Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life," published last year.
Yep. Different rules for different folks. As John Stewart pointed out Dick Cheney's grandchild is off limits to any political or policy debate. It's everybody else's kids and grandkids who are fair game.
And it doesn't matter that Dick and his comical sidechimp, Bonzo II (see "Bonzo returns to Washington") have been really oppressive toward gays (hey! it's just politics!!).
Yeah!! This is a baby!! Don't cross the line!! God hates MOST fags, but not this one, Buster!!
- Uke Man
Cheney: Pregnancy's not political
Feb 1 - AP
NEW YORK - The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine. "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family. She did not say how the child was conceived. The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild.
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy. Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line. "He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment."
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
She is the author of "Now It's My Turn: a Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life," published last year.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Postcard from America
Yep, an ACTUAL post card made up for the occasion - see the folks smiling?
Can you say, "Cheese"?? Lots a'money to be made with them there postcards !! Yes sir!!!! Everbody wants one, specially if'n there in it !!
Can you say, "Cheese"?? Lots a'money to be made with them there postcards !! Yes sir!!!! Everbody wants one, specially if'n there in it !!
A slow lynching
Hey Folks,
Golly. A lot of people are all hyped up about Harry Potter's nude stage play. Do they have the time, interest, or energy to even think about something like this?
Well, I guess we should just be thankful that racism is dead here in our classless paradise, the US of A, America, one nation, under God (don't forget that), with liberty and justice for all.
- Uke Man
February 1, 2007
A Death in Destrehan
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Destrehan, La. - On the afternoon of Oct. 7, 1974, a mob of 200 enraged whites, many of them students, closed in on a bus filled with black students that was trying to pull away from the local high school. The people in the mob were in a high-pitched frenzy. They screamed racial epithets and bombarded the bus with rocks and bottles. The students on the bus were terrified.
When a shot was heard, the kids on the bus dived for cover. But it was a 13-year-old white boy standing near the bus, not far from his mother, who toppled to the ground with a bullet wound in his head. The boy, a freshman named Timothy Weber, died a few hours later.
That single shot in this rural town about 25 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans set in motion a tale of appalling injustice that has lasted to the present day.
Destrehan was in turmoil in 1974 over school integration. The Supreme Court’s historic desegregation ruling was already 20 years old — time enough, the courts said, for Destrehan and the surrounding area to comply. But the Ku Klux Klan was still welcome in Destrehan in those days, and David Duke, its one-time imperial wizard, was an admired figure. White families in the region wanted no part of integration.
When black students were admitted to Destrehan High, they were greeted with taunts, various forms of humiliation and violence. Some of the black students fought back, and in the period leading up to the shooting there had been racial fights at a football game and inside the school.
While the Weber boy was being taken to a hospital, authorities ordered the black students off the bus and searched each one. The bus was also thoroughly searched. No weapon was found, and there was no evidence to indicate that the shot had come from the bus. The bus driver insisted it had not come from the bus, but from someone firing at the bus.
One of the black youngsters, a 16-year-old named Gary Tyler, was arrested for disturbing the peace after he talked back to a sheriff’s deputy — one of the few deputies in St. Charles Parish who was black. It may have been young Tyler’s impudence that doomed him. He was branded on the spot as the designated killer.
(Later, at a trial, the deputy, Nelson Coleman, was asked whose peace had been disturbed by Mr. Tyler’s comments. “Mine,” he replied.)
Matters moved amazingly fast after the shooting. Racial tension gave way to racial hysteria. A white boy had been killed and some black had to pay. Mr. Tyler, as good a black as any, was taken to a sheriff’s substation where he was beaten unmercifully amid shouted commands that he confess. He would not.
It didn’t matter. In just a little over a year he would be tried, convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death by electrocution.
The efficiency of the process was chilling. Evidence began to miraculously appear. Investigators “found” a .45-caliber pistol. Never mind that there were no fingerprints on it and it turned out to have been stolen from a firing range used by the sheriff’s deputies. (Or that it subsequently disappeared as conveniently as it was found.) The authorities said they found the gun on the bus, despite the fact that the initial search had turned up nothing.
The authorities found witnesses who said that Mr. Tyler had been the gunman. Never mind that the main witness, a former girlfriend of Mr. Tyler’s, was a troubled youngster who had been under the care of a psychiatrist and had a history of reporting phony crimes to the police, including a false report of a kidnapping. She and every other witness who fingered Mr. Tyler would later recant, charging that they had been terrorized into testifying falsely by the police.
A sworn affidavit from Larry Dabney, who was seated by Mr. Tyler on the bus, was typical. He said his treatment by the police was the “scariest thing” he’d ever experienced. “They didn’t even ask me what I saw,” he said. “They told me flat out that I was going to be their key witness. ... They told me I was going to testify that I saw Gary with a gun right after I heard the shot and that a few minutes later I had seen him hide it in a slit in the seat. That was not true. I didn’t see Gary or anybody else in that bus with a gun.”
Mr. Tyler was spared electrocution when the Supreme Court declared Louisiana’s death penalty unconstitutional. But in many ways he has in fact paid with his life. He’ll turn 50 this year in the state penitentiary at Angola, where he is serving out his sentence of life without parole for the murder of Timothy Weber.
Golly. A lot of people are all hyped up about Harry Potter's nude stage play. Do they have the time, interest, or energy to even think about something like this?
Well, I guess we should just be thankful that racism is dead here in our classless paradise, the US of A, America, one nation, under God (don't forget that), with liberty and justice for all.
- Uke Man
February 1, 2007
A Death in Destrehan
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Destrehan, La. - On the afternoon of Oct. 7, 1974, a mob of 200 enraged whites, many of them students, closed in on a bus filled with black students that was trying to pull away from the local high school. The people in the mob were in a high-pitched frenzy. They screamed racial epithets and bombarded the bus with rocks and bottles. The students on the bus were terrified.
When a shot was heard, the kids on the bus dived for cover. But it was a 13-year-old white boy standing near the bus, not far from his mother, who toppled to the ground with a bullet wound in his head. The boy, a freshman named Timothy Weber, died a few hours later.
That single shot in this rural town about 25 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans set in motion a tale of appalling injustice that has lasted to the present day.
Destrehan was in turmoil in 1974 over school integration. The Supreme Court’s historic desegregation ruling was already 20 years old — time enough, the courts said, for Destrehan and the surrounding area to comply. But the Ku Klux Klan was still welcome in Destrehan in those days, and David Duke, its one-time imperial wizard, was an admired figure. White families in the region wanted no part of integration.
When black students were admitted to Destrehan High, they were greeted with taunts, various forms of humiliation and violence. Some of the black students fought back, and in the period leading up to the shooting there had been racial fights at a football game and inside the school.
While the Weber boy was being taken to a hospital, authorities ordered the black students off the bus and searched each one. The bus was also thoroughly searched. No weapon was found, and there was no evidence to indicate that the shot had come from the bus. The bus driver insisted it had not come from the bus, but from someone firing at the bus.
One of the black youngsters, a 16-year-old named Gary Tyler, was arrested for disturbing the peace after he talked back to a sheriff’s deputy — one of the few deputies in St. Charles Parish who was black. It may have been young Tyler’s impudence that doomed him. He was branded on the spot as the designated killer.
(Later, at a trial, the deputy, Nelson Coleman, was asked whose peace had been disturbed by Mr. Tyler’s comments. “Mine,” he replied.)
Matters moved amazingly fast after the shooting. Racial tension gave way to racial hysteria. A white boy had been killed and some black had to pay. Mr. Tyler, as good a black as any, was taken to a sheriff’s substation where he was beaten unmercifully amid shouted commands that he confess. He would not.
It didn’t matter. In just a little over a year he would be tried, convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death by electrocution.
The efficiency of the process was chilling. Evidence began to miraculously appear. Investigators “found” a .45-caliber pistol. Never mind that there were no fingerprints on it and it turned out to have been stolen from a firing range used by the sheriff’s deputies. (Or that it subsequently disappeared as conveniently as it was found.) The authorities said they found the gun on the bus, despite the fact that the initial search had turned up nothing.
The authorities found witnesses who said that Mr. Tyler had been the gunman. Never mind that the main witness, a former girlfriend of Mr. Tyler’s, was a troubled youngster who had been under the care of a psychiatrist and had a history of reporting phony crimes to the police, including a false report of a kidnapping. She and every other witness who fingered Mr. Tyler would later recant, charging that they had been terrorized into testifying falsely by the police.
A sworn affidavit from Larry Dabney, who was seated by Mr. Tyler on the bus, was typical. He said his treatment by the police was the “scariest thing” he’d ever experienced. “They didn’t even ask me what I saw,” he said. “They told me flat out that I was going to be their key witness. ... They told me I was going to testify that I saw Gary with a gun right after I heard the shot and that a few minutes later I had seen him hide it in a slit in the seat. That was not true. I didn’t see Gary or anybody else in that bus with a gun.”
Mr. Tyler was spared electrocution when the Supreme Court declared Louisiana’s death penalty unconstitutional. But in many ways he has in fact paid with his life. He’ll turn 50 this year in the state penitentiary at Angola, where he is serving out his sentence of life without parole for the murder of Timothy Weber.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Just ask Bernice; she'll tell ya !!
Preface to "Hey Folks": This morning I'd planned to post this piece, but before I did, a friend told me NPR's "Morning Edition" had received complaints about a Penn Jillette "This I Believe" commentary, "There Is No God," first aired in 2005.
I imagine the complaints came from one or more of Bernice's ideological kin. You can hear Penn's "contrary" comments at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
Hey Folks,
This is what we're up against.
As I've said before, I'm willing to let folks like Bernice believe whatever they want, but if Bernice chooses to expose her backward, narrow views in the newspaper AND claim an inside track to the infinite while denying that to those who don't think as she does; then she exposes herself to criticism.
Moreover, that criticism is no more "persecution" of Christians than is her criticism "persecution" of non-Christians. Both are or neither are.
I'll comment further after her brief letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch, directly below, parts of which I have highlighted.
Bible contains all the facts you need
Friday, January 12, 2007
In reference to the Jan. 2 letter "First step is to prove existence of Jesus," from Paul Nevai, I respond with simple common sense.
You can read the facts in the Bible for proof, for the Bible, and only the Bible, is the inspired word of God, and no other book can make that claim. Yes, you can read the facts, but with the heart, man believes.
Many places in the Bible tell us about seeking the truth: Deuteronomy 4:29 is just a start: "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul," you will find him.
If you visit Jerusalem, the facts are there. They are everywhere if you only look. It doesn’t matter whether you are Jew, Christian or Muslim. Jesus died for all. He is looking for the faithful follower that Nevai mentioned.
BERNICE DIXON
Galloway
I can accept Bernice's "simple" and "common" self-characterizations, but not the claim of making "sense." Bernice's position is simple; not much to it. She simply "straightens everyone out," claims God supports her view (and only her view); and that's the end of the discussion.
Short letter.
It's common too. I'm sure there are millions of Bernices out there who march in unison.
It is, however, non-sensical ( unfortunately, realizing that is beyond our Bernice).
In this country we are supposed to be able to believe whatever we want, and I support that. Bernice and I can believe different things and disagree without attacking one another, if we so choose.
We can also attack one another. However, if we do, and one attack qualifies as "persecution," BOTH do. A lot of folks like Bernice can't grasp that.
They insist they're being picked on by the people they are simply trying to help - like gays, feminists, liberals, atheists, and (shudder) "humanists." Well, that IS simple and common. But it's bullshit just the same.
- Uke Man
I imagine the complaints came from one or more of Bernice's ideological kin. You can hear Penn's "contrary" comments at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
Hey Folks,
This is what we're up against.
As I've said before, I'm willing to let folks like Bernice believe whatever they want, but if Bernice chooses to expose her backward, narrow views in the newspaper AND claim an inside track to the infinite while denying that to those who don't think as she does; then she exposes herself to criticism.
Moreover, that criticism is no more "persecution" of Christians than is her criticism "persecution" of non-Christians. Both are or neither are.
I'll comment further after her brief letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch, directly below, parts of which I have highlighted.
Bible contains all the facts you need
Friday, January 12, 2007
In reference to the Jan. 2 letter "First step is to prove existence of Jesus," from Paul Nevai, I respond with simple common sense.
You can read the facts in the Bible for proof, for the Bible, and only the Bible, is the inspired word of God, and no other book can make that claim. Yes, you can read the facts, but with the heart, man believes.
Many places in the Bible tell us about seeking the truth: Deuteronomy 4:29 is just a start: "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul," you will find him.
If you visit Jerusalem, the facts are there. They are everywhere if you only look. It doesn’t matter whether you are Jew, Christian or Muslim. Jesus died for all. He is looking for the faithful follower that Nevai mentioned.
BERNICE DIXON
Galloway
I can accept Bernice's "simple" and "common" self-characterizations, but not the claim of making "sense." Bernice's position is simple; not much to it. She simply "straightens everyone out," claims God supports her view (and only her view); and that's the end of the discussion.
Short letter.
It's common too. I'm sure there are millions of Bernices out there who march in unison.
It is, however, non-sensical ( unfortunately, realizing that is beyond our Bernice).
In this country we are supposed to be able to believe whatever we want, and I support that. Bernice and I can believe different things and disagree without attacking one another, if we so choose.
We can also attack one another. However, if we do, and one attack qualifies as "persecution," BOTH do. A lot of folks like Bernice can't grasp that.
They insist they're being picked on by the people they are simply trying to help - like gays, feminists, liberals, atheists, and (shudder) "humanists." Well, that IS simple and common. But it's bullshit just the same.
- Uke Man
Sunday, February 04, 2007
New York City Uke Report 3
Hey Folks,
Friday night I thought I’d just be hearing ukulele music at the Ukulele Noir show at Mo Pitkin’s. As it turned out, Jason & Ted of Sonic Uke “dragged” me up on stage, provided a boa, and with the help of our host / the King-of-Noir / Craig Robertson (I shared the boa), we belted out a few Sonic Uke numbers.
Great fun !!
- Uke Man
Friday night I thought I’d just be hearing ukulele music at the Ukulele Noir show at Mo Pitkin’s. As it turned out, Jason & Ted of Sonic Uke “dragged” me up on stage, provided a boa, and with the help of our host / the King-of-Noir / Craig Robertson (I shared the boa), we belted out a few Sonic Uke numbers.
Great fun !!
- Uke Man
Yeah, but can we arrest the Vice President?
Hey Folks,
You decide. Which is worse: "you're in a gaddamn law suit" or "Go fuck yourself"???
If the ossifer appeals the case to the Supremes, they'd better be careful. If they rule for the policeman, Cheney's ass is grass (oops!! sorry about the obscenity).
- Uke Man
Court rules in favor of cursing man
By JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Feb 3
DETROIT - An officer who arrested a man for cursing in a public meeting violated the man's right to free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision that Montrose Township police officer Stephen Robinson had probable cause to arrest Thomas Leonard in 2002 when Leonard cursed while addressing the township board.
"It cannot be seriously contended that any reasonable peace officer, or citizen, for that matter, would believe that mild profanity while peacefully advocating a political position could constitute a criminal act," the three-judge panel wrote in Friday's decision.
"All our client did was get up at a public meeting and express himself vigorously, and he was arrested for it," said Glen Lenhoff, Leonard's attorney.
At the time, Leonard's wife, Sarah, was suing the township over a towing contract. Thomas Leonard accused the board members in the meeting of cheating his family and saying, "That's why you're in a goddamn lawsuit."
Robinson arrested Leonard, charging him with disorderly conduct and using obscene language. He was held in jail for an hour, and the charges were dismissed a month later.
Leonard sued in 2003, claiming the arrest violated his Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable seizure and, in a later motion, his First Amendment right to free speech. He sought at least $25,000 in damages.
Ralph Chapa, a partner in the law firm representing Robinson, said his firm is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A U.S. District Court judge dropped the charges against Robinson in 2005, agreeing with the officer that he had probable cause to arrest Leonard. The case is to go back to the lower court, pending further appeals.
You decide. Which is worse: "you're in a gaddamn law suit" or "Go fuck yourself"???
If the ossifer appeals the case to the Supremes, they'd better be careful. If they rule for the policeman, Cheney's ass is grass (oops!! sorry about the obscenity).
- Uke Man
Court rules in favor of cursing man
By JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Feb 3
DETROIT - An officer who arrested a man for cursing in a public meeting violated the man's right to free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision that Montrose Township police officer Stephen Robinson had probable cause to arrest Thomas Leonard in 2002 when Leonard cursed while addressing the township board.
"It cannot be seriously contended that any reasonable peace officer, or citizen, for that matter, would believe that mild profanity while peacefully advocating a political position could constitute a criminal act," the three-judge panel wrote in Friday's decision.
"All our client did was get up at a public meeting and express himself vigorously, and he was arrested for it," said Glen Lenhoff, Leonard's attorney.
At the time, Leonard's wife, Sarah, was suing the township over a towing contract. Thomas Leonard accused the board members in the meeting of cheating his family and saying, "That's why you're in a goddamn lawsuit."
Robinson arrested Leonard, charging him with disorderly conduct and using obscene language. He was held in jail for an hour, and the charges were dismissed a month later.
Leonard sued in 2003, claiming the arrest violated his Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable seizure and, in a later motion, his First Amendment right to free speech. He sought at least $25,000 in damages.
Ralph Chapa, a partner in the law firm representing Robinson, said his firm is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A U.S. District Court judge dropped the charges against Robinson in 2005, agreeing with the officer that he had probable cause to arrest Leonard. The case is to go back to the lower court, pending further appeals.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
New York City Uke Report 2
Hey Folks,
Thursday night in Brooklyn, just three blocks from Ron’s apartment, there was “Uke Night” at Biscuit !!! Nice place – beautiful mural - just needed a little wallpaper paste in the seams.
There were two guest acts: David Hornbuckle and Sam (part of the Dixieland Space Band that played my show the day before http://www.mdhornbuckle.net/dso/ ), and a major part of Yoon Sunchoi’s amazing/jazzy band http://www.myspace.com/yoonsunchoi – featuring Khabu Doug Young.
I played a few of mine, too (and thoroughly enjoyed a chile & hominy & brisket stew w/ a scone-like biscuit).
Both these acts were (as the kids say) Totally Awesome (or used to say, if they don’t say that any more).
You know what I mean !!!
- Uke Man
Thursday night in Brooklyn, just three blocks from Ron’s apartment, there was “Uke Night” at Biscuit !!! Nice place – beautiful mural - just needed a little wallpaper paste in the seams.
There were two guest acts: David Hornbuckle and Sam (part of the Dixieland Space Band that played my show the day before http://www.mdhornbuckle.net/dso/ ), and a major part of Yoon Sunchoi’s amazing/jazzy band http://www.myspace.com/yoonsunchoi – featuring Khabu Doug Young.
I played a few of mine, too (and thoroughly enjoyed a chile & hominy & brisket stew w/ a scone-like biscuit).
Both these acts were (as the kids say) Totally Awesome (or used to say, if they don’t say that any more).
You know what I mean !!!
- Uke Man
New York City Uke Report 1
Hey Folks,
Some pictures from that Wednesday night at the Bowery Poetry Club: “Ukulele Man & Friends” (Heather Lev http://heatherlev.com/ - Ron Hester http://cdbaby.com/cd/hesterron / Alan Drogin from Sonic Uke http://www.sonicuke.com/ / David Hornbuckle & his Dixieland Space Orchestra
http://www.mdhornbuckle.net/dso/
It was a great night, seeing old friends and making new ones. Sadly, Sonic Uke couldn’t perform. Jason Tagg had just dislocated his shoulder and couldn’t play. He was there, though, filming away (and he’s getting better). Thanks to Alan for stepping in.
- Uke Man
Some pictures from that Wednesday night at the Bowery Poetry Club: “Ukulele Man & Friends” (Heather Lev http://heatherlev.com/ - Ron Hester http://cdbaby.com/cd/hesterron / Alan Drogin from Sonic Uke http://www.sonicuke.com/ / David Hornbuckle & his Dixieland Space Orchestra
http://www.mdhornbuckle.net/dso/
It was a great night, seeing old friends and making new ones. Sadly, Sonic Uke couldn’t perform. Jason Tagg had just dislocated his shoulder and couldn’t play. He was there, though, filming away (and he’s getting better). Thanks to Alan for stepping in.
- Uke Man
Friday, February 02, 2007
What did I say !!
Hey Folks,
Hugo Chavez is saying what our elected "leaders" don't have the stomach to say!!!
Note that what Bush criticizes Chavez for was legislated by the Venezuelan congress and supported by an overwhelming percentage of the people and the Venezuelan constitution. What Bush has done is impose his will on the gutless congress, the somnambulant public, and the supple press - in the face of dismal public support and without regard for our constitution.
Who is the authoritarian dictator?
- Uke Man
Venezuela's Chavez slams Bush on Iraq
By IAN JAMES, Associated Press - Feb 1
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez dismissed Washington's concerns that Venezuela's democracy is under threat, saying a "dictatorship" led by
President Bush poses a true threat to democracy around the world.
Condemning the war in Iraq, the Venezuelan leader said that Bush and John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence who is designated for the No. 2 position in the State Department, should be tried for "war crimes" committed by the U.S. military across the globe.
"The two of them are criminals. They should be tried and thrown in prison for the rest of their days," Chavez told a news conference.
"If he had any dignity, the president of the United States would quit. The U.S. president doesn't have the political or moral capacity to govern," he added.
Chavez was responding to comments made on Wednesday by Bush, who said he was concerned about Venezuela's democracy.
"I am concerned about the undermining of democratic institutions. And we're working to help prevent that from happening," Bush said in an interview with Fox News.
Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense recently, with U.S. officials accusing Chavez — a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro of becoming increasingly authoritarian and Chavez accusing U.S. officials of scheming against his left-leaning government.
Last week, Chavez threatened to expel U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield for "meddling" in Venezuela's domestic affairs. Brownfield has called for improved relations between the two countries, but said he's ready to leave if the Chavez administration decides to expel him.
Chavez fiercely denied that his initiative to accelerate changes in broad areas of Venezuelan society through presidential decree, which was approved by the pro-Chavez Congress on Wednesday, would endanger his country's democracy.
"The people gave me the power I have, and it's within the framework of a constitution," Chavez said.
Critics have called the measure giving Chavez sweeping powers to legislate as a move toward dictatorship.
The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more power than he has ever had in eight years as president, and he plans to use it during the next 18 months to transform this oil-rich South American nation.
Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel who was re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in December, also announced that his government would nationalize oil projects in Venezuela's Orinoco River basin by May 1.
Any foreign oil company that resists the nationalization, under which Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA would take a stake of "no less 60 percent," can leave, Chavez said.
The Venezuelan president said the private companies affected — British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA — would be given the option to stay on as minority partners in petroleum-rich region.
"I'm sure that they're going to accept this because we are going to continue being partners. Now, if they aren't in agreement, they are totally free to leave," he said.
Hugo Chavez is saying what our elected "leaders" don't have the stomach to say!!!
Note that what Bush criticizes Chavez for was legislated by the Venezuelan congress and supported by an overwhelming percentage of the people and the Venezuelan constitution. What Bush has done is impose his will on the gutless congress, the somnambulant public, and the supple press - in the face of dismal public support and without regard for our constitution.
Who is the authoritarian dictator?
- Uke Man
Venezuela's Chavez slams Bush on Iraq
By IAN JAMES, Associated Press - Feb 1
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez dismissed Washington's concerns that Venezuela's democracy is under threat, saying a "dictatorship" led by
President Bush poses a true threat to democracy around the world.
Condemning the war in Iraq, the Venezuelan leader said that Bush and John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence who is designated for the No. 2 position in the State Department, should be tried for "war crimes" committed by the U.S. military across the globe.
"The two of them are criminals. They should be tried and thrown in prison for the rest of their days," Chavez told a news conference.
"If he had any dignity, the president of the United States would quit. The U.S. president doesn't have the political or moral capacity to govern," he added.
Chavez was responding to comments made on Wednesday by Bush, who said he was concerned about Venezuela's democracy.
"I am concerned about the undermining of democratic institutions. And we're working to help prevent that from happening," Bush said in an interview with Fox News.
Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense recently, with U.S. officials accusing Chavez — a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro of becoming increasingly authoritarian and Chavez accusing U.S. officials of scheming against his left-leaning government.
Last week, Chavez threatened to expel U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield for "meddling" in Venezuela's domestic affairs. Brownfield has called for improved relations between the two countries, but said he's ready to leave if the Chavez administration decides to expel him.
Chavez fiercely denied that his initiative to accelerate changes in broad areas of Venezuelan society through presidential decree, which was approved by the pro-Chavez Congress on Wednesday, would endanger his country's democracy.
"The people gave me the power I have, and it's within the framework of a constitution," Chavez said.
Critics have called the measure giving Chavez sweeping powers to legislate as a move toward dictatorship.
The law gives Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, more power than he has ever had in eight years as president, and he plans to use it during the next 18 months to transform this oil-rich South American nation.
Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel who was re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in December, also announced that his government would nationalize oil projects in Venezuela's Orinoco River basin by May 1.
Any foreign oil company that resists the nationalization, under which Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA would take a stake of "no less 60 percent," can leave, Chavez said.
The Venezuelan president said the private companies affected — British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA — would be given the option to stay on as minority partners in petroleum-rich region.
"I'm sure that they're going to accept this because we are going to continue being partners. Now, if they aren't in agreement, they are totally free to leave," he said.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Can you spell "Impeach"? Can you spell "Revolution"?
Hey Folks,
Here's what OUR dictator is up to.
- Uke Man
Bush’s plan to destroy America
Rant January 31st, 2007
Capitol Hill Blue
By DOUG THOMPSON
The absolute and unrelenting takeover of the government of the United States by a despot named George W. Bush continues - right under the noses of the new Democratic leadership of Congress and in outright defiance of the wishes of the American voters who sent a clear mandate for change in last year’s elections.
Bush recently made more moves to consolidate power in the executive branch, signing an order that requires key government agencies to place his political appointees in positions to control policy on health, environmental issues, civil rights and privacy.
These political hacks, appointed without review or approval of Congress, can now “interpret” the laws as they - or their President - see fit without regulatory oversight or a requirement to report to anyone.
Even worse, my White House sources tell me that Bush is putting into place a carefully-crafted plan to extend his power and influence over government policy long after he leaves office on January 20, 2009.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, at Bush’s direction, is advising cabinet secretaries to convert these political appointees to Senior Executive Service (SES) positions before Bush’s second term ends, giving hand-picked policy makers absolute authority even after the President leaves office.
SES positions are protected by federal civil service, so the policy makers could not be replaced by an incoming President - Democrat or Republican — who follows Bush.
My sources tell me Bush plans to place conservative zealots throughout federal agencies, give them authority to control policy for as long as they hold their jobs, and then convert those appointees to civil service positions that will continue to enforce his wishes for years to come.
Far-fetched? Not at all. Cabinet secretaries have long had the power to convert some key appointees to SES positions although - until Bush signed his executive order granting broad policy making powers to such appointees - they did not have the ability to continue a President’s programs long after he leaves office.
Bush is still hoping for at least one more vacancy on the Supreme Court before his second term ends, giving him a chance to control judicial rulings well into the next decade.
Such is the pattern of a man determined to control all phases of government without any checks and balances.
“The White House has been gaming the system for six years,” says Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and an acknowledged national expert on Constitutional law. “He has shut down Congress and slowed down the courts.”
Some hoped the Democratic takeover of Congress would stop Bush’s power grabs but he continues and the overly-cautious and gun shy leadership on Capitol Hill appears powerless to stop him.
While they consider “non-binding” resolutions on withdrawing troops from Iraq, Democratic leaders of Congress have asked for a “legal interpretation” on what power, if any, it has to stop Bush.
And who did it ask for this “interpretation?” The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, a Bush appointee who believes the President’s power is absolute and the one crafting the program to extend that power and influence far beyond his Constitutionally-limited two terms in office.
“If you listen to the president and some Democratic leaders, Congress can do little to stop the hemorrhaging of lives in Iraq,” Turley says.
In a recent op-ed for USA Today, Turley wrote:
The truth is that there is a lot that Congress could do. Among other things, it could stop the war. But neither the president nor many Democrats want to publicly entertain such a possibility. Indeed, the president has insisted, again, that he alone makes such decisions. When asked about what Congress can do if it opposes his build-up, Bush was dismissive and said, “Frankly, that’s not their responsibility.” Of course, the president acknowledged, “They could try to stop me from doing it…but I made my decision, and we’re going forward.”
Democratic leaders seem to be encouraging the same view of an unchecked executive. The new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and other members suggested last week that it may be unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds for an escalation.
All of this would have come as a great surprise to the framers. Far from being some type of constitutional eunuchs, legislators hold the very power that determines whether a war will continue, expand or end: the power of the purse. The framers specifically justified this congressional power as a check on the president’s ability to entangle the nation in disastrous foreign adventures.
But the Democrats, to date, seem too politically timid to make the hard decisions to curb the reign of terror by Bush and his legions. They tiptoe around problems that demand quick and firm actions.
While they keep talking and debating and holding hearings and considering “non-binding” resolutions, Bush consolidates his power base and expands his unchecked authority.
The Democrats may have fiddled too long already. It may be too late. For six years, George W. Bush has worked diligently to dismantle the Constitution, rip away the freedoms that provided the foundation for this country and destroy a once-great nation called the United States of America.
And, unlike his war in Iraq or his many other failed programs, this may be the one mission he might actually accomplish.
Here's what OUR dictator is up to.
- Uke Man
Bush’s plan to destroy America
Rant January 31st, 2007
Capitol Hill Blue
By DOUG THOMPSON
The absolute and unrelenting takeover of the government of the United States by a despot named George W. Bush continues - right under the noses of the new Democratic leadership of Congress and in outright defiance of the wishes of the American voters who sent a clear mandate for change in last year’s elections.
Bush recently made more moves to consolidate power in the executive branch, signing an order that requires key government agencies to place his political appointees in positions to control policy on health, environmental issues, civil rights and privacy.
These political hacks, appointed without review or approval of Congress, can now “interpret” the laws as they - or their President - see fit without regulatory oversight or a requirement to report to anyone.
Even worse, my White House sources tell me that Bush is putting into place a carefully-crafted plan to extend his power and influence over government policy long after he leaves office on January 20, 2009.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, at Bush’s direction, is advising cabinet secretaries to convert these political appointees to Senior Executive Service (SES) positions before Bush’s second term ends, giving hand-picked policy makers absolute authority even after the President leaves office.
SES positions are protected by federal civil service, so the policy makers could not be replaced by an incoming President - Democrat or Republican — who follows Bush.
My sources tell me Bush plans to place conservative zealots throughout federal agencies, give them authority to control policy for as long as they hold their jobs, and then convert those appointees to civil service positions that will continue to enforce his wishes for years to come.
Far-fetched? Not at all. Cabinet secretaries have long had the power to convert some key appointees to SES positions although - until Bush signed his executive order granting broad policy making powers to such appointees - they did not have the ability to continue a President’s programs long after he leaves office.
Bush is still hoping for at least one more vacancy on the Supreme Court before his second term ends, giving him a chance to control judicial rulings well into the next decade.
Such is the pattern of a man determined to control all phases of government without any checks and balances.
“The White House has been gaming the system for six years,” says Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and an acknowledged national expert on Constitutional law. “He has shut down Congress and slowed down the courts.”
Some hoped the Democratic takeover of Congress would stop Bush’s power grabs but he continues and the overly-cautious and gun shy leadership on Capitol Hill appears powerless to stop him.
While they consider “non-binding” resolutions on withdrawing troops from Iraq, Democratic leaders of Congress have asked for a “legal interpretation” on what power, if any, it has to stop Bush.
And who did it ask for this “interpretation?” The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, a Bush appointee who believes the President’s power is absolute and the one crafting the program to extend that power and influence far beyond his Constitutionally-limited two terms in office.
“If you listen to the president and some Democratic leaders, Congress can do little to stop the hemorrhaging of lives in Iraq,” Turley says.
In a recent op-ed for USA Today, Turley wrote:
The truth is that there is a lot that Congress could do. Among other things, it could stop the war. But neither the president nor many Democrats want to publicly entertain such a possibility. Indeed, the president has insisted, again, that he alone makes such decisions. When asked about what Congress can do if it opposes his build-up, Bush was dismissive and said, “Frankly, that’s not their responsibility.” Of course, the president acknowledged, “They could try to stop me from doing it…but I made my decision, and we’re going forward.”
Democratic leaders seem to be encouraging the same view of an unchecked executive. The new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and other members suggested last week that it may be unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds for an escalation.
All of this would have come as a great surprise to the framers. Far from being some type of constitutional eunuchs, legislators hold the very power that determines whether a war will continue, expand or end: the power of the purse. The framers specifically justified this congressional power as a check on the president’s ability to entangle the nation in disastrous foreign adventures.
But the Democrats, to date, seem too politically timid to make the hard decisions to curb the reign of terror by Bush and his legions. They tiptoe around problems that demand quick and firm actions.
While they keep talking and debating and holding hearings and considering “non-binding” resolutions, Bush consolidates his power base and expands his unchecked authority.
The Democrats may have fiddled too long already. It may be too late. For six years, George W. Bush has worked diligently to dismantle the Constitution, rip away the freedoms that provided the foundation for this country and destroy a once-great nation called the United States of America.
And, unlike his war in Iraq or his many other failed programs, this may be the one mission he might actually accomplish.
And Bush criticizes Chavez
Hey Folks,
Listen to Keith Olbermann and John Dean discuss the latest dictatorial actions of Emperor Boygeorge. Can you spell "Banana Republic"? Can you shuffle? Can you say, "Thank you, Sir; may I have another?"
Ahhhh ... democracy in action !!!!
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=511bea7d-bd53-4b4f-9aa9-9bb7a75f8c09&p=News_Comment%20-%20Analysis&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677&fg=
Who's being dictatorial, Chavez or Bush? Who's working to oppress the people, Chavez or Bush?
Bush is the dictator since in a "democracy" serving an elite minority at the expense of the masses constitutes authoritarian fraud. And - one might ask - if Chavez serves 80% of a democratic people, isn't that the way it's supposed to work here - but doesn't?
(In the next posting, this will get even scarier. Be prepared to kiss your ass goodbye.)
- Uke Man
Listen to Keith Olbermann and John Dean discuss the latest dictatorial actions of Emperor Boygeorge. Can you spell "Banana Republic"? Can you shuffle? Can you say, "Thank you, Sir; may I have another?"
Ahhhh ... democracy in action !!!!
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=511bea7d-bd53-4b4f-9aa9-9bb7a75f8c09&p=News_Comment%20-%20Analysis&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677&fg=
Who's being dictatorial, Chavez or Bush? Who's working to oppress the people, Chavez or Bush?
Bush is the dictator since in a "democracy" serving an elite minority at the expense of the masses constitutes authoritarian fraud. And - one might ask - if Chavez serves 80% of a democratic people, isn't that the way it's supposed to work here - but doesn't?
(In the next posting, this will get even scarier. Be prepared to kiss your ass goodbye.)
- Uke Man
About Me
- Name: Tom Harker
- Location: Circleville, Ohio, US
Music and Politics, Politics and Music!!! * * * Everything is political. We’re admonished, “Never discuss religion or politics.” Follow that advice, and we’ll have to quit talking altogether. * * * Well, the Uke Man speaks! * * * Keep track here of my musical shenanigans, my political ruminations, and - from time to time - some other interesting eruptions.
Previous Posts
- "Things are lookin' good !!"
- The Chicken are coming home to roost !!
- The Gateway to Crime !!
- Ice Cream and Coffee can be Dangerous !!
- Bush's Pet (scape) Goat ???
- How Smart Are We ??
- Consumed
- A short (hopefully interesting) discussion
- Hi, atus!!
- So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood a while ...
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