tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-185879352024-03-15T21:09:23.350-04:00LitbritChaos, control; chaos, control.
You like? You like?Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.comBlogger868125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-30107007969854789722023-12-02T09:47:00.000-05:002023-12-02T09:47:19.711-05:00La Pepperica<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhseNkbVxP_Yjc_fR3hjOynmJaJ_q593Vv10EX4fIeZqLMWz8N01xfJPS9nO8uxc4ZflTTo0rYq83_s6452Ch399A4GuwFAwCRwc0wPMLj4BlVId680ZBAz8aWeGiNd4L7epcdf/s1600/pepper-spray-cop-16.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 175px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhseNkbVxP_Yjc_fR3hjOynmJaJ_q593Vv10EX4fIeZqLMWz8N01xfJPS9nO8uxc4ZflTTo0rYq83_s6452Ch399A4GuwFAwCRwc0wPMLj4BlVId680ZBAz8aWeGiNd4L7epcdf/s400/pepper-spray-cop-16.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677488158161287922" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[Lots of other good ones <a href="http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2011/11/meme-watch-pepper-spray-cop-will-casually-pepper-spray-everyone-and-everything/#page/1">here</a>.]</div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"></span></b></div></div><blockquote><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson</span></b></div></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>So which <i>is</i> it, President Obama? Which is it going to be?</div><div><br /></div><div>This much is certain: No-one in my sons' history books is quoted as having said, <i>"Give me <b>tyranny</b> or give me death."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Visitors will not line up to visit a <i>Statue of <b>Tyranny</b></i> any time soon.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>"With <b>tyranny</b> and justice for all..."</i> is a contradiction in terms.</div><div><br /></div><div>And good luck trying to convince idealistic young men and women that they're being sent to fight and die in OPEC theatres because it's vitally important to protect Americans'...<i><b>tyranny</b></i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Methinks a re-write is in order:</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">My country 'tis of Them--</div><div style="text-align: center;">Sweet tyrants to the end.</div><div style="text-align: center;">For Them, we toil.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Land where our sick ones died,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Banks ruled, and leaders lied;</div><div style="text-align: center;">From ev'ry mountainside:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"Let them eat oil!"</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-91610271555531598712016-06-21T12:52:00.000-04:002016-06-21T13:28:34.781-04:00Murdered environmental activist Berta Cáceres' name was on Honduran military hitlist <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68th1H-TO0PCwo13npxLAvHFL5rmNSv1kkZ7t2c5_woTcQhmdiwXXaGfltEaeNSOcMgoO1H-r7RFhMdpB2UPYNCC3-onsIOOVebbTLPDGBomFViu3_f1JI3o1spB253KGrRme/s1600/BertaCaceres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68th1H-TO0PCwo13npxLAvHFL5rmNSv1kkZ7t2c5_woTcQhmdiwXXaGfltEaeNSOcMgoO1H-r7RFhMdpB2UPYNCC3-onsIOOVebbTLPDGBomFViu3_f1JI3o1spB253KGrRme/s320/BertaCaceres.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The brutal ramifications of the Hillary Clinton-assisted Honduran coup that took place in 2009 are coming into sharper focus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier?CMP=share_btn_tw">the Guardian reports</a> that Berta Cáceres, the environmental activist, Lenca leader, and Goldman Environmental Prize winner who was found shot dead in her home in March 2016, was on a hitlist given to US-trained special forces.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a class="u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/berta-caceres" style="-webkit-transition: 0.15s ease-out; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.15s ease-out;">Berta Cáceres</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif;">, the murdered environmental campaigner, appeared on a hitlist distributed to US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military months before her death, a former soldier has claimed.</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif;"></span>Lists featuring the names and photographs of dozens of social and environmental activists were given to two elite units, with orders to eliminate each target, according to First Sergeant Rodrigo Cruz, 20. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cruz’s unit commander, a 24-year-old lieutenant, deserted rather than comply with the order. Cruz – who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of reprisal – followed suit, and fled to a neighbouring country. Several other members of the unit have disappeared and are feared dead. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“If I went home, they’d kill me. Ten of my former colleagues are missing. I’m 100% certain that Berta Cáceres was killed by the army,” Cruz told the Guardian. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cáceres is regarded as a hero by many Hondurans, most saliently the poor and indigenous peoples whose land and resources she fought to protect. And before his ouster in the illegal 2009 Coup, when he was dragged from his bed at gunpoint and flown out of the country, then-president Manuel Zelaya had been a strong supporter of movements, by Cáceres and others, that recognized the rights of rural and peasant peoples and peacefully resisted the multinational corporations attempting to seize said land and resources for mining and biofuels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/">Here's Greg Grandin</a>, professor of Latin American history at NYU, on the aftermath of the Coup (bolds mine):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span id="socialHighlighted" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; height: 0px; margin: 0px; max-width: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0px;"></span>Since Zelaya’s ouster, there’s been <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/how-low-can-honduras-go/" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">an all-out assault </a>on these decent people—<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj_q6zB4qTLAhVCFT4KHSw5BYYQFggkMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Feric-holt-gimenez%2Fhonduras-the-war-on-peasa_b_2632033.html&usg=AFQjCNHztZqxRS0hzTHApCCKMvmLKom3UA&sig2=ZVzweOdr4fSanm9002qrrw" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">torture, murder, militarization of the countryside</a>, repressive laws, such as the absolute ban on the morning-after pill, the rise of paramilitary security forces, and the wholesale deliverance of the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj_q6zB4qTLAhVCFT4KHSw5BYYQFggsMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fglobal%2F2014%2Fjan%2F07%2Fhonduras-dirty-war-clean-energy-palm-oil-biofuels&usg=AFQjCNG79OEooMq4w5NSIAeuWUba-_iRuw&sig2=Y5ry2efC62A3iFcei37qeA" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">country’s land and resources to transnational pillagers</a>. That’s not to mention libertarian fantasies, promoted by billionaires such as PayPal’s Peter Thiel and Milton Friedman’s grandson (can’t make this shit up), of turning the country into some kind of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi6raWY2KTLAhUhvIMKHYZsAh4QFghFMAY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fobserver.com%2F2012%2F06%2Fpaypal-cofounder-peter-thiel-wants-to-found-a-libertarian-utopia-in-honduras%2F&usg=AFQjCNHDPzxwXHsklKnCV865aEhzLUjzKA&sig2=PvmE9nEK07WdWi_y3_zFHw" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Year-Zero stateless utopia</a>. (Watch this excellent documentary by Jesse Freeston on <a href="http://resistenciathefilm.com/" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">La Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguán Valley</em></a><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.)</em> </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Such is the nature of the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yzJCAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hillary+CLinton+honduras+credit&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4kpHa2KTLAhWqtoMKHYn0BR8Q6AEINDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">unity government”</a> Clinton helped institutionalize. In her book, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hard Choices, </em>Clinton<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html" style="-webkit-transition: none; border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 225, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> holds up</a> her Honduran settlement as a proud example of her trademark clear-eyed, “pragmatic” foreign policy approach.</b></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Berta Cáceres gave her life to fight that government.</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's what Berta herself <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled">had to say</a> about Secretary Clinton:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[translated] <i>We’re coming out of a coup that we can’t put behind us. We can’t reverse it. It just kept going. And after, there was the issue of the elections. <b>The same Hillary Clinton, in her book, </b></i></span><i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b>Hard Choices</b></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b>, practically said what was going to happen in Honduras. This demonstrates the meddling of North Americans in our country. </b>The return of the president, Mel Zelaya, became a secondary issue. There were going to be elections in Honduras. <b>And here, she, Clinton, recognized that they didn’t permit Mel Zelaya’s return to the presidency. </b>There were going to be elections. And the international community—officials, the government, the grand majority—accepted this, even though we warned this was going to be very dangerous and that it would permit a barbarity, not only in Honduras but in the rest of the continent. And we’ve been witnesses to this.</span></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/before_her_assassination_berta_caceres_singled">Grandin explains</a><span style="color: black;"> how Clinton is implicated in the Coup and points to the actual scandal surrounding her having used a private email system (bolds mine):</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every other country in the world or in Latin America was demanding the restitution of democracy and the return of Manuel Zelaya. <b>It was Clinton who basically relegated that to a secondary concern and insisted on elections, which had the effect of legitimizing and routinizing the coup regime and creating the nightmare scenario that exists today.</b> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I mean—and it’s also in her emails. <b>The real scandal about the emails isn’t the question about process—you know, she wanted to create an off-the-books communication thing that couldn’t be FOIAed. The real scandal about those emails are the content of the emails. She talks—the process by which she works to delegitimate Zelaya</b> and legitimate the elections, which Cáceres, in that interview, talks about were taking place under extreme militarized conditions, fraudulent, a fig leaf of democracy, are all in the emails.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The young (and understandably terrified) sergeant, Cruz (his pseudonym), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier?CMP=share_btn_tw">says</a> he and his troop, including the lieutenant, did not want to kill the Hondurans on the hitlist; they have since fled the country.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In mid-December, Cruz’s commander gathered his subordinates after a Tuesday evening football match and showed them several sheets of paper with names, photographs, addresses and phone numbers of each target. One list was assigned to their unit; the second to a similar unit in Fusina.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>“The lieutenant said he wasn’t willing to go through with the order as the targets were decent people, fighting for their communities. He said the order came from the joint chiefs of staff [and] he was under pressure from the Xatruch commander to comply,” Cruz said. </b></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few days later, the lieutenant left the base and has not been seen since.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Human rights groups have condemned US support for Honduran security forces amid mounting evidence implicating police and military in systematic abuses. In April, activists warned Congress that <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" draggable="true" href="https://theintercept.com/2016/04/12/death-squads-are-back-in-honduras-honduran-activists-tell-congress/" style="-webkit-transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">death squads were targeting opposition activists</a>, much like they did during the “dirty war” in the 1980s. </span></blockquote>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A reminder: American taxpayers </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier?CMP=share_btn_tw" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are footing the bill</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for most of this unutterable brutality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34027.pdf" style="-webkit-transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">The US has given Honduras an estimated $200m in police and military aid since 2010</a><span style="color: #111111;"> as part of its efforts to stem organised crime and undocumented migration, according to defence and state department figures. In addition, Honduras shares the $750m Alliance for Prosperity fund approved by Congress last year for Central America’s violent Northern Triangle.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #111111;">Both aid packages include human rights conditions, but neither has been restricted, even though <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/236910.pdf" style="-webkit-transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; color: #005689; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none !important; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out;">the state department’s most recent human rights report</a> says that “unlawful and arbitrary killings and other criminal activities by members of the security forces” remain one of the country’s most serious problems.</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I doubt that much, if any, of the Berta Cáceres story will warrant as much as a brief mention on American cable news, especially not at the </span><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Place for Politics"</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"News, video, and progressive community. Lean forward!"</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Certainly I won't expect to see much from <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/7/timing-peculiar-ap-call-clinton-democratic-primary/">the gatekeepers who've apparently already chosen</a> the next president of our so-called "democracy", <i>so sit down and shut up, Bernie Bros</i> (even middle-aged, not-male Bernie Bros like Yours Truly). But I wanted to get this important, disturbing story out there as best I can.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I have said before, my feminism extends beyond US borders.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I will say now, to those partisans who, because you're so invested in identity politics you can't see that which exists in front of your own noses, and thus can't bring yourselves to care about women and girls who aren't American:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>You're not feminists. You're #FemiNOTS.</b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-22157346827360559152016-03-06T13:52:00.002-05:002016-04-07T06:06:14.525-04:00My feminism extends beyond US borders, and it informs my first-ever vote as a new American citizen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Police in Honduras repress women protesting violence against women. Photo via <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Do-Feminists-Support-Coups-Honduran-Women-on-Hillary-Clinton-20160225-0050.html">Telesur</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In the days and years before January 22, 2016, when I became a US citizen, the question of whom to vote for was always a hypothetical one for me.</span></div>
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Oh, that doesn't mean I didn't think about, write about, and discuss endlessly at our dinner table all the good, bad, and ugly features of every candidate vying for the votes of my husband and two of my three sons, US citizens by birth. The Huz is our main breadwinner, without a doubt, and we live where his business lives--as opposed to where I would prefer to live--making him the de facto head of the family. But as the saying goes (certainly as it goes in the so-called traditionally "patriarchal" countries I've lived in), the man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head.</div>
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So it would be dishonest of me to say that my interest in presidential politics was just academic. It would be disingenuous of me to say that in researching, analyzing, and discussing the candidates' records and policy proposals; their personal histories and present-day characters; and their values (insofar as it is ever possible to assess those with 100% accuracy when the person one is evaluating only exists in the electronic boxes in one's home), that I was merely indulging a hobby. A rather masochistic hobby.</div>
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I was amassing the data, evaluating it, and applying it to the progressive values we've taught our kids, the values that my family and I strive to uphold in all areas of life, not just politics. I was doing my job as "the neck".</div>
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In 2008, I was genuinely torn. To my mind, there was not that much difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. All things being equal, I told myself, my feminist self, I would have to support the woman candidate because she would bring to the nation's highest office a range of experiential qualities that a man never could. In the same way that, prior to giving birth to my first child, I always thought I knew what agonizing physical pain was (I had, after all, broken long bones while riding horses, and I'd suffered through a few tropical viruses) but in reality could not possibly know what it was really like until I'd gone through it myself. Likewise, then, a man--even a man who was the most empathetic creature on the planet--could nonetheless never truly understand what it was like to go through life as a woman in our culture.</div>
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That mattered a great deal to me. (It still does.) I connected with Hillary Clinton on a number of levels, just as the data tells us that women in my demographic tend to. We've experienced sexism and harassment; we've been underestimated and underpaid; we've seen our perceived worth reduced to our fuckability and outward appearance, even as we are simultaneously told to cover up those attributes lest we cause a helpless male superior at work (or else some rando dude in the parking lot) to accidentally rape us. (Ah yes, rape. That vile and violent power-display thing.)</div>
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Only a woman could truly know, at the experiential level, what all that shit feels like. How it talks to us, deep inside our brains, telling us we are not as good, not as smart, not pretty enough, not thin enough, too thin, too pretty, too loud, too quiet, and now, for me anyway, too old. Even as we manage to do well in the face of all of that because (if we were lucky) we had a role model or two in our family or circle of friends who insisted that we could, or else, we found in the literature or art or cinema some small gem of wisdom and affirmation that made us realize we could--indeed, <i>look at what we've been through, we already have.</i></div>
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At the same time, though, and despite the powerful impetus to link arms with Hillary Clinton and support her in her quest to become the country's first woman president, I could not ignore her Iraq vote. The two candidates were so similar, in so many ways, but that one difference meant a lot to me. I believed 2008 Barack Obama when he said he would end the wars and bring everyone home. More than that, I believed him when he said he did not go along with the herd--he did not cave to pressure from war hawks, and this, in turn, indicated that even as a young senator, he had his own mind and he had the right ethics--the kind of ethics that had him standing up to the murderous George W. Bush and his colleagues.</div>
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Our dinner conversations began to center around Barack Obama. We read his book, Dreams From My Father. (Well, I did--I can't say for sure if the boys did.) I still longed for a really left-leaning candidate, one who broke free from the neoliberals in the Democratic party, the way that terrific, outspoken Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders did in the Senate. "If BERNIE ever runs for president," I declared, "I'm becoming a citizen so I can go with you guys to the poll and vote for him myself."</div>
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Fast-forward to last year. Bernie announced his run and I filed for citizenship, something I know well I should have done years ago--I've been eligible since 1979!--but didn't, because a big part of my heart still lived in England, where other Socialists like me were living (and living in the sunlight, unashamed and unassailed), and I felt it would be unethical to become an American when that English part of me still had blood flowing through it. Bernie, a Democratic Socialist, possibly becoming president? Well, then!</div>
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And here we are. We're looking at the increasing inevitability that, despite a heroic run by Senator Sanders, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. But I can't vote for her, even though I am now a citizen as well as a feminist.</div>
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It's the war/foreign policy thing again. The foreign policy history that Secretary Clinton forged between 2008 and now. It's about Libya. And, especially for me, Honduras. The latter received such scant coverage in this country, it broke (and continues to break) my heart. But it matters a great deal. You see, I lived in Honduras as a young teen--lived through the 1974 Coup--and another part of my heart is with the people of that country, too. Last week, an activist for the indigenous people and campesinos (small farmers) and women of Honduras, a brave and beloved woman activist named Berta Cáceres, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/3/honduran_indigenous_leader_berta_caceres_assassinated">was shot dead</a> in her home. What does this have to do with Hillary Clinton? In 2009, as Secretary of State, Clinton shepherded in the new, hard-right, School-of-the-Americas trained military junta who ousted a democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya. "Ousted" is not quite the right word: after a contentious back-and-forth between Zelaya and the (far) more rightwing factions of the government, soldiers broke into the president's house, beat him up, held him at gunpoint, and dragged him onto a plane--still in his pajamas--and flew him out of the country.</div>
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A bit of background: Mel Zelaya was himself a member of oligarchic society in Honduras. As you are probably aware, Honduras is practically a case study in what goes wrong when income equality gets too out-of-hand. You have a tiny few owning everything, and you have multinational corporations joining forces with them to seize every resource there is, and you have a vast many who have virtually nothing. "Nothing" often means: no electricity, no running water, no shelter, no food. You have fifteen-year-olds with AKs strapped to them stopping you in the street at gunpoint to ask for your ID, and when you hand them your passport, they look at it upside down because they don't know how to read. (True story.) You have indigenous people being abused at every turn, having their waterways seized for dam projects, their land and mountains destroyed by mining interests, their fields taken over by corporate fruit industries. You have a population kept in line by all the traditional fascistic means: sexism, hard-line religion (in the case of Honduras, the Catholic church), and militarized police forces who beat and kill. Who make people disappear.</div>
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But Zelaya, despite his upbringing, had the heart of a leftist. Once elected, he set about making birth control available to poor women. Even Plan B. He stood up and apologized for the country's history of persecuting LGBT individuals, and told them they were okay, they would be safe now. He constantly advocated for the poor, for the indigenous communities, for the campesinos. He worked alongside Berta Cáceres, and other activists like her. He was in the process of pushing for a significant raise in the country's minimum wage when he was "ousted".</div>
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When the coup happened, in 2009, President Obama at first condemned it. As did the UN, as did the OAS. Many Latin American leaders were calling for the US to do something--to demand that Zelaya be allowed to return to his country, where tens of thousands of people were marching in the street, peacefully protesting and calling for their president's safe return (and getting beaten and shot for their trouble). In a few days, the press moved on. Suddenly, our US president was saying nothing. </div>
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Hillary Clinton's emails, released last summer, tell us why. She was very actively involved in supporting the installation of the new, right-wing government. This has been covered by Democracy Now, TeleSur, and other "alternative" media. <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/the-clinton-backed-honduran-regime-is-picking-off-indigenous-leaders/">This piece in The Nation</a>, written by noted Latin American scholar Greg Grandin, is a good one to start with.</div>
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Why is this important to me, and why should it be important to every feminist who is voting in the presidential election? Because of what happened in the aftermath of Zelaya's violent removal from office in 2009--in the years between then, and 2016.</div>
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Draconian abortion laws were put into place. Birth control became unaffordable once again and Plan B was banned.</div>
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LGBT individuals were beaten and killed, after they had just begun to feel as though this was their country too, they were free. Now it was, Oh, sorry, you're actually NOT safe. You will be beaten if you're lucky; murdered and mutilated if you're not.</div>
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Multinationals got their footholds strengthened as militarized police forces beat and killed protestors.</div>
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And, well-documented at this point, the ensuing chaos and mind-bending levels of violence that beset the largest cities, particularly San Pedro Sula, led families who feared for their children's lives (many families had already lost loved ones to drug gang violence) to send them on a long and frightening journey to the US border, where they hoped their kids would somehow find asylum and safety. Meaning these children would have to travel through Honduras, through Guatemala and the entirety of Mexico (parents reading this, please imagine how desperate you would have to be, how dire your circumstances would have to be, for you to kiss your small kids goodbye and put them on a rickety bus and hope against hope they would make it to safety).</div>
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Secretary Clinton said they should be sent back, these kids. Said this would "send a message". I actually watched the debate during which she said this, and shouted at my television: <i>Send a message to WHOM?</i></div>
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I know I've rambled on (to put it mildly), but I was finally moved to speak, and I had a lot to say. I have been reading the discussions, everywhere, about people's support for Secretary Clinton based on feminist principles, and always the discussion turns to the same questions: <i>Why are you denying my experience as a woman? Why can't you see how important it is to me, as a woman, to have a woman be able to rise above all the things we have all faced and be elected to the country's highest office? Why aren't you listening to me?</i></div>
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Meanwhile, I--a feminist, a mother, a target of sexual harassment and sexism--am asking, Why aren't you listening to ME?</div>
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The world does not begin and end at the US borders. Back-channeling deals to install rightwing military juntas that impose and enforce draconian reproductive laws is NOT FEMINIST. Back-channeling deals to install rightwing military juntas that silence--by bullet--more than a few women activists, is NOT FEMINIST. When LGBT people are beaten and killed; when women who are raped can't get abortions; when women who live in a highly patriarchal culture cannot even access ways to plan their families, which in turn seals their fate as permanent members of the underclass so favored among multinationals who need cheap, motivated labor...these results are NOT FEMINIST GOALS.</div>
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Thanks for reading. Now you know why, when I say I "feel the Bern", I really mean it.<br />
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<i>This post also appears at: <a href="http://radioornot.com/blog/why-a-feminist-who-connected-with-hillary-is-voting-for-berniesanders/">RadioOrNot</a></i></div>
Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-72618228150503751642015-08-06T20:15:00.001-04:002015-08-06T23:02:22.048-04:00On this day (how could we, how could we?)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeMVi58Jfcqp47FGMe23C0M47IXM-jB03jfZtA2KCSLfCWK7Fzr8oMnHL6qzsvAiwormYrgyLLgP1X_oM2Uk4EX-kGfOqC-GjnQSWrRGyp870pGm0ABRXqTguY5bIuFzcq-HRG/s1600/bomb_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeMVi58Jfcqp47FGMe23C0M47IXM-jB03jfZtA2KCSLfCWK7Fzr8oMnHL6qzsvAiwormYrgyLLgP1X_oM2Uk4EX-kGfOqC-GjnQSWrRGyp870pGm0ABRXqTguY5bIuFzcq-HRG/s400/bomb_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I am sharing this email with the permission of its author, the venerable civil rights attorney <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Warrior-Memoirs-Rights-Attorney/dp/1893163474">Guy Saperstein</a>, whom I am privileged to call my friend and correspondent.</div>
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(Photos via Wikipedia and CommonDreams, added by me, DNT.)</div>
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***** </div>
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>E</b></span></span><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">xactly 70 years ago, on the morning of August 6, 1945, the</span><span style="font-family: ArialMT;"> </span><i style="font-family: ArialMT;">Enola Gay</i><span style="font-family: ArialMT;">, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, flew over Hiroshima and dropped the first atomic bomb on humans. The bomb exploded 2,000' above the ground and five square miles of Hiroshima was completely destroyed, incinerating and killing 90,000 people; 70,000 more people would die soon after from burns and radiation. Nearly all the killed people were civilians.</span><br />
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Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the United States would drop a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 70,000 civilians.</div>
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President Truman justified the use of nuclear weapons on "military necessity"---the need to avoid an invasion of Japan which would have cost American military lives, but, in fact, every one of Truman's military advisors and his Commander of the U.S. Army in the Far East, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, advised Truman that using nuclear weapons was not necessary to defeat the Japanese, who had a delegation in Washington D.C. negotiating for peace, and expressly advised Truman against using the bombs.</div>
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Historic records of Truman's administration later would reveal that use of nuclear weapons was never directed at Japan: Truman's Secretary of State, James Byrnes, had convinced Truman that the Soviet Union would emerge from WWII as America's only rival and we needed to show them we had nuclear weapons and were willing to use them. Dropping the bombs on Japan was an attempt to dictate post-war terms to the USSR, not defeat Japan. I<b>t was the beginning of the Cold War and the greatest single act of terrorism in the history of the world.</b><br />
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All of this has been documented by historians, most notably Gar Alperovitz in two books: <i>Atomic Diplomacy</i> and <i>The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.</i> Alperovitz' scholarship has stood up for 40 years.</div>
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Of course, this is not the version taught in schools and not the version popular in public conversation in America. America doesn't do introspection. America doesn't do contrition. America fights terrorism, but never looks at its own acts of terrorism.</div>
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But maybe we could look at it today.</div>
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Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-30371311694109686692015-07-30T17:17:00.002-04:002015-07-30T18:16:03.048-04:00Mama Deborah's vegetable soup (stew, really)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
As is my wont, usually when it's cold or rainy--obviously, it was the latter this week--I get in the mood to make soup.<br />
<br />
Soup is a wonderful, forgiving foodstuff. Unlike baking, where you have to pay close attention to the precisely-measured amounts (of most ingredients, anyway), soup-making allows you to customize like mad. If you adore thyme, go ahead and throw in some more; if you're trying to cut back on sodium, eliminate most of the salt; if you've got a surplus of carrots lying around in the fridge, well, no-one is going to argue with the sweet, carroty flavor and extra dose of vitamin A this week's soup is offering. You can be totally creative and health-conscious while thriftily using up leftover vegetables from your last supermarket run or CSA delivery. There really aren't too many rules.<br />
<br />
I made the soup in the photograph above this week, and a few people asked me for the recipe. I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I don't really have a recipe, per se, but I hope they'll like what I'm offering instead: a general guideline for making one's own fabulous vegetable soup. Do it once, and you'll love the results (and process!) so much, it will become a habit, especially as fall draws near.<br />
<br />
This was an enormous amount, as I have a big and hungry family. You should feel free to divide the quantities and add or eliminate ingredients as you see fit.<br />
<br />
Start with a big stock pot. My beloved All-Clad pot, above, which is going on 10 years old, is actually part of gigantic shellfish steaming set. Any good, heavy-bottomed stock pot will do--you want to be able to simmer your soup without scorching it, something that can happen if you use potatoes and/or fava beans (I used both this week).<br />
<br />
Coat the bottom of the pot with olive oil. Add a pinch of sea salt and a dash (or two or five, depending) of crushed red pepper.<br />
<br />
Turn on the flame to low/medium and add your "mirepoix". A classic mirepoix is a mix of diced onions, celery, and carrot slices. I prefer minced garlic to onions, and there were tons of fat fennel bulbs at the market this week, so instead of celery, I cut the fennel into 1" dice (don't worry if you get a few of the leafy fronds in there, they're edible and tasty) and used those. If you can get your hands on fresh fennel, I wholeheartedly recommend using it--it imparts a delicious, sweet, faintly licorice-y flavor to the soup, and I adore that. It's also fun to nibble on raw while you're doing prep.<br />
<br />
So, to recap, for this big batch (so far) I've used:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Olive oil to coat the pan</li>
<li>Pinch of sea salt</li>
<li>Dash(es) of crushed red pepper to taste</li>
<li>3 bulbs of fennel, woody stems and hearts removed, cut into 1" pieces</li>
<li>About 20 medium-ish organic carrots, sliced (however you like to slice carrots--fat, thin, French...your choice).</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Sauté those until they're beginning to get soft, then turn down the heat to low and add:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>1 head of garlic, peeled, with the woody ends nipped off, then minced</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Stir well, put the lid on the pot and let it all cook for a bit, checking on it and stirring every so often. The moisture from the carrots and fennel (or celery, if you're using that) will steam up and help soften everything, and it will also keep things from sticking. (But you still need a little oil to start with.)<br />
<br />
While this is going on, you can prep your other vegetables. Meaning, it's serious wash-and-chop time.<br />
<br />
The only real rule here is that you're going to add the harder, crisper vegetables first; softer, leafier stuff (like spinach) can wait until the end.<br />
<br />
You'll need to have handy, at this point:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>3 cartons of organic vegetable broth (if you've got your own homemade stuff, use that--lucky you!)</li>
<li>1/2 bottle of inexpensive semi-sweet white wine (like Reisling)</li>
<li>Some boiling water in the kettle, standing by alongside the soup pot: if your creation seems too thick at any point, you can splash a little in</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Once the mirepoix is softening up nicely, pour in the wine. Turn up the heat a bit to bring things to a boil. Then pour in the vegetable broth. Get it all nice and bubbly.<br />
<br />
Now add to the pot, more-or-less in this order, waiting until the bubbling resumes between each addition:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>2-3 tablespoons of dried sage or fistful or two of fresh sage that you've chopped</li>
<li>1 pound, give-or-take, of new (baby) potatoes, preferably Yukon gold or other firm-fleshed potatoes, cut in half or even quarters if necessary (not red potatoes though, because they are best for mashing and you'll find they disintegrate rather quickly in soup)</li>
<li>1 15-oz. can of organic Marzano plum tomatoes, which you've squashed in the can with your bare hands (or cut up into smallish chunks if you're squeamish), juice included</li>
<li>1 large can of fava beans, rinsed a few times and drained (or a cup or two of fresh favas, if you can find them, again, <i>lucky you</i>)</li>
<li>1-2 heads of organic broccoli, cut into reasonable-sized chunks</li>
<li>3 large zucchini, sliced</li>
<li>3 large yellow squash, sliced</li>
<li>1-2 cans of organic baby peas, or a bag or two of frozen, or a pound or so of fresh petit pois if they're available (sigh)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
And get all that boiling nicely. After about 20-30 minutes, once the potatoes are softening, you can add:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>1-2 bags (or more) of washed baby spinach.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
And when that is cooking down and swirling around the other vegetables, take a big fistful of:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>fresh thyme</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
...wash it well, and stir it into your soup.<br />
<br />
(I'm trying to remember if I left anything out....)<br />
<br />
You'll want to simmer your soup on low for a good hour or so after this; put the lid on it, but askew, so some steam escapes and it can continue to cook down. Me, I love the way this tastes the next day, when flavors have blended together nicely and the potatoes have thickened everything up. Given that your kitchen will be smelling mighty fine, though, you'll probably have to serve this soup tonight, and it will be raved about. When you're ready to do that, taste a bit and see if it needs more salt; bear in mind, you'll want to use little-to-no additional salt if you're serving your soup with an Italian hard cheese.<br />
<br />
Yes, you can shave some pecorino Romano (or Parmesan) on top. Certain family members of mine insist on it.<br />
<br />
And yes, you can cook some tiny soup pasta (like <a href="http://www.dececcousa.com/Pasta/Soup-Shapes/Acini-di-pepe-78/?Product=31">acini di pepe</a>) in a separate pot, spoon some in bowls, and then ladle your wonderful vegetable soup over it--and <i>then</i> top with cheese (or not), too. Totally up to you and/or your crowd.<br />
<br />
Having a hot, crusty loaf of bread and a full bottle of wine on the table though? That's pretty much mandatory.<br />
<br />
Enjoy.<br />
<br />
XXX<br />
D<br />
<br />
<br />Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-42242333025900832652015-05-13T08:06:00.000-04:002015-05-13T08:06:06.359-04:00I'll be on Radio or Not with Nicole Sandler today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnIb4imYV5ScyJwwl7ZXtZrJerbzSS3iWEmKcXk6yW6dQ5XDVgpltqEZzcKk9pf_9S7BmkVyJQ7LqFEXxV5_IJ_hcghAfO1CpWa3etITm5Top8pV_8iYn1ORpJiaZzTSNNqbo/s1600/nicole-240x300.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnIb4imYV5ScyJwwl7ZXtZrJerbzSS3iWEmKcXk6yW6dQ5XDVgpltqEZzcKk9pf_9S7BmkVyJQ7LqFEXxV5_IJ_hcghAfO1CpWa3etITm5Top8pV_8iYn1ORpJiaZzTSNNqbo/s1600/nicole-240x300.png" /></a></div>
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Be sure to tune in to <a href="http://radioornot.com/live-broadcast-chat/">Radio or Not</a> at 10:30 am, when I'll be talking all things Flori-DUH with my pal Nicole Sandler.<br />
<br />
(The show is re-run throughout the day, and there will be a podcast available at <a href="http://radioornot.com/live-broadcast-chat/">Radio or Not</a>.)<br />
<br />
See you on the radio!Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-38485416490563920982015-02-25T08:37:00.001-05:002015-02-25T08:37:22.888-05:00So far, so good.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-18936130566919559362015-02-13T09:09:00.000-05:002015-02-13T09:09:20.057-05:00Edward R. Murrow, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span class="caption-text" style="background-color: white; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">The coffin of one of three young Muslims who were shot in Chapel Hill, N.C., this week was carried to a funeral prayer service on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">Travis Dove for NYT</span></i></div>
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<span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder" style="background-color: white; display: inline-block; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-sh, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 0.6875rem; line-height: 1rem;"><span class="visually-hidden" style="border: 0px; clip: rect(0px 0px 0px 0px); height: 1px; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; width: 1px;">Credit</span></span><br />
Newsflash: We have crazy, murderous extremists <i>right here in America</i>.<br />
<br />
They torture and murder, oftentimes--to the shock of the rest of the world--<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/us/20-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-u-s-history-fast-facts/">spectacularly and en masse</a>; oftentimes claiming they do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States">it in the name of a larger cause</a>: t<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(United_States)">he voice of a deity in the heavens</a> or the head, and even, most recently, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/us/chapel-hill-neighbors-say-they-felt-threatened-by-man-held-in-killings.html">a seething anger</a> toward the Constitutionally-protected worshipping of any deity of choice, period.<br />
<br />
Terrorists abroad usually have to steal their weapons and equipment, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-insurgents-reaping-wealth-as-they-advance.html">often from the people America had originally supplied them to</a>; sometimes they finance their weapon stash by kidnapping journalists and aid workers and holding them for ransom. Here in the States, though, any crazy, murderous extremist (or group of them) with a few bucks on hand can just go to one of the more than 51,000 gun retailers currently in business. (Yes, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/more-gun-stores-in-america-than-grocery-stores-2012-12">America has more gun retailers than grocery stores</a>.)<br />
<br />
If these murderous people and organizations in America circulated slick propaganda videos of themselves carrying out their rapes, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/11/as_study_finds_4_000_lynchings">lynchings</a>, and shootings (and on and on), would we be okay with having other countries start dropping bombs on <i>us</i>?<br />
<br />
Because that's exactly what many in American media are calling for right now: <i>Crazy murderous extremists are doing crazy, murderous, extreme things in Iraq and Syria, so let's go to WAR!</i> (Again.)<br />
<br />
Charles Krauthammer and Morning Joke are just the most baldfaced and risibly ignorant-sounding of the chattering lot.<br />
<br />
What concerns me: the insidious influence of the quiet, "polite", well-remunerated chatterers--the nascent <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline">Judy Millers</a>, and the ones who work for networks either owned by defense contractors or heavily advertised-on by same; many of whom, amazingly, moonlight as corporate speech-givers and de facto lobbyists. And have the nerve to call themselves journalists, all the while tut-tutting about the "black eye to our profession" they seem to think has occurred because <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/within-nbc-an-intense-debate-over-whether-to-fire-brian-williams/2015/02/11/8e87ac02-b22f-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html">the odd one among them got caught lying a bit <i>too </i>obviously</a>.Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-3384291961767121862015-02-05T14:49:00.002-05:002015-02-05T17:19:27.646-05:00Anti-Choice, therefore Anti-Health and Anti-Women<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEnFzEtRgf4-_84ibRHueaSwTx8-fMBnRUiu2ZLs56mkzsIcKifJo5hLgB9W_aiink2AkG8GzR7zTZIMe3d8TArY8XLzGrDBtl-8C_cNHT8RXaEmocXmYa-4GVDK9BtSol3FBU/s1600/blog-ch-500x280-v01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEnFzEtRgf4-_84ibRHueaSwTx8-fMBnRUiu2ZLs56mkzsIcKifJo5hLgB9W_aiink2AkG8GzR7zTZIMe3d8TArY8XLzGrDBtl-8C_cNHT8RXaEmocXmYa-4GVDK9BtSol3FBU/s1600/blog-ch-500x280-v01.png" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Go read Natasha Chart's </span><a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/02/04/ectopic-pregnancy-anti-choice-laws-made-experience-much-worse/" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">heartbreaking piece</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"> at RH Reality Check, entitled </span><b><i style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I Had an Ectopic Pregnancy, and Anti-Choice Laws Could Have Made My Experience Much Worse</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">.</span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">It's stunning, and infuriating, that in addition to the heartbreak and fear a woman goes through when facing something like this, she must now think about things like, <i>Is this hospital going to provide me with *actual* medical care, or are their decisions going to be guided by the misogynistic laws of a church I don't even belong to? </i></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Consider, for a moment, that in some regions of this great country, Catholic-controlled hospitals are all that are available if you need obstetric/gynecologic care--unless you wish to embark on some long-distance travel--and you'll begin to realize how commonplace this predicament has become.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">How commonplace? <a href="https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/miscarriage-medicine-growth-catholic-hospitals-and-threat">The news is bad</a>:</span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">
Between 2001 and 2011 the number of Catholic-sponsored or affiliated hospitals increased by 16 percent, while the overall number of hospitals nationwide declined.
In 2011, one in ten acute-care hospitals were Catholic-sponsored or affiliated.
That same year, 10 of the 25 largest hospital systems in the country were Catholic-sponsored.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">With the rise of Catholic hospitals has come the increasing danger that women's reproductive health care will be compromised by religious restrictions. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (the Directives), issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), govern care at these facilities. <b>The Directives prohibit a range of reproductive health services, including contraception, sterilization, many infertility treatments, and abortion care, even when a woman's health or life is in danger. Moreover, they often restrict even the ability of hospital staff to provide patients with full information and referrals for care that conflict with religious teachings.</b></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Are we or are we not living in the twenty-first century?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">It needs to be said, over and over until everyone in the country (especially those who occupy the governors' mansions and state and national legislatures) <i>gets it</i>: By placing the prevention of pregnancy termination ahead of safeguarding a woman's health and, even, her life, you are stating in no uncertain terms that women are not people, and our very lives are of diminished value. It's that simple. Trust that women are fully-realized human beings endowed with natural rights to control our own bodies and health--that we are people--and the absolute necessity of protecting choice becomes obvious.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">This is supposed to be a nation of laws, not a nation of churches.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">But this is the reality:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUUnXJJgNkBRVZeBQh15yLXmk5I0f-bUcu6qHm-odQCudOE_ckZbUGnTsY9dBJMbUmX43cPdPyepjM1ErxytAugZbUdKiK5_I7rV9eot5clf8UBRXKxiEKJpCcXmJ10iiyxnsa/s1600/EQU13-CatholicHospitals-LandingPage-Table1-V02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUUnXJJgNkBRVZeBQh15yLXmk5I0f-bUcu6qHm-odQCudOE_ckZbUGnTsY9dBJMbUmX43cPdPyepjM1ErxytAugZbUdKiK5_I7rV9eot5clf8UBRXKxiEKJpCcXmJ10iiyxnsa/s1600/EQU13-CatholicHospitals-LandingPage-Table1-V02.png" height="195" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><i>Photo via <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/pregnant-avoid-alcohol-caffeine-and-catholic-hospitals">ACLU Blog of Rights</a>; graphic via <a href="https://www.aclu.org/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/miscarriage-medicine-growth-catholic-hospitals-and-threat">ACLU.org</a>.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">UPDATE:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">My friend Sara Robinson recommends the excellent blog <a href="http://catholicwatch.org/">Catholic Watch</a>, which follows and reports on the various ways the church influences and controls healthcare in the United States.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">They <a href="http://catholicwatch.org/">write</a>:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The Catholic bishops are imposing their moral values upon Catholics and non-Catholics alike through their control of Catholic hospital and medical systems, which are heavily financed with taxpayer dollars.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">In WA State, almost half of the acute care hospital beds (a proxy for the health care system more broadly) are now subject to the "moral authority" of three Catholic bishops. </span></span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">These bishops oversee medical policy and employment practices for all Catholic "health care ministries," which now includes hospitals, labs, physician practices, hospices, and even insurance companies. These bishops oppose same-sex marriage, birth control, "direct" abortion in all cases - even to save the life of the mother, fertility treatments, and Death with Dignity.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">A recent article in Mother Jones showed that Catholic hospitals contributed 2.8% of total patient gross revenues as Charity Care, which is lower than the industry average of 2.9%.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">CatholicWatch is committed to safeguarding patient and taxpayer rights and protecting our health care system from theocracy-based medicine.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-12632523851885454432015-01-15T11:08:00.000-05:002015-01-15T11:39:05.657-05:00Boko Haram terrorists slaughter hundreds--perhaps thousands--of Nigerians; US cable news too busy in Paris<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Fv9NqNgZrZpNM210P-pYRwnLYDFFCgn3ImJ2myZJwGORAuZGo2rdfmnBeQ-UslH7GfzNpKVso3V9ZkSnnqarqjzq7sutYpg7wd7W2nW0SPJKvZAGYpD8_urLOad8Zsjy0O3K/s1600/Baganigeria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Fv9NqNgZrZpNM210P-pYRwnLYDFFCgn3ImJ2myZJwGORAuZGo2rdfmnBeQ-UslH7GfzNpKVso3V9ZkSnnqarqjzq7sutYpg7wd7W2nW0SPJKvZAGYpD8_urLOad8Zsjy0O3K/s1600/Baganigeria.jpg" height="199" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo via <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/10010602/Nigeria-accused-of-killing-185-during-assault.html">The Telegraph</a></span></i></div>
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Here are terrorists <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/15/boko-haram-massacre.html">brutally murdering</a>--burning alive!--not just dozens, but as many as <i><b>two thousand human beings</b></i> in Baga, Nigeria. Same week as the AQAP attack in Paris. Just more deadly by orders of magnitude (and they're busily wiping out people in Cameroon now).<br />
<br />
And yet...
Did you see 24/7 cable news coverage of this horrific slaughter, as we saw of the Paris murders?<br />
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Can you guess why? Go on, guess.
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UPDATE:<br />
<br />
Amnesty International <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/nigeria-satellite-images-show-horrific-scale-of-boko-haram-attack-on-baga">has details</a>. Awful, sick-making details. And satellite shots that give one a clearer appreciation for the scope of these shocking attacks (click to enlarge):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOnS5BGLojVXWUQshCLwnIOAKMnsWlQskcbxNOscCh15mXPxsEqRk3DkkGGmrEx5cGEzixiZCNTQM93tUoVV36ha_pyaenw_o7_a9W6BwkUyMxikwMoROnWOBs-XfdyvPo7iB-/s1600/nigerianslaughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOnS5BGLojVXWUQshCLwnIOAKMnsWlQskcbxNOscCh15mXPxsEqRk3DkkGGmrEx5cGEzixiZCNTQM93tUoVV36ha_pyaenw_o7_a9W6BwkUyMxikwMoROnWOBs-XfdyvPo7iB-/s1600/nigerianslaughter.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-16273445420515750582015-01-14T13:23:00.000-05:002015-01-14T13:29:09.385-05:00A Whiter Shade of Male: Meet the GOP's 2016 Presidential Lineup 1.0<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgb5z7xPIVH9FmtFJlrTsLzQeD-ieL-aEysP9dKqc9KtZ9i01G95A6niw1WWsg_I2uAXY0Vkfwb5e-rhS69vWCOf03e5J3o4AsUyxgaWt-JLmEkqWiNSKLipouNqs1nbwkTmf/s1600/GOPClownCarLineup.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgb5z7xPIVH9FmtFJlrTsLzQeD-ieL-aEysP9dKqc9KtZ9i01G95A6niw1WWsg_I2uAXY0Vkfwb5e-rhS69vWCOf03e5J3o4AsUyxgaWt-JLmEkqWiNSKLipouNqs1nbwkTmf/s1600/GOPClownCarLineup.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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From <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SeanHannity/photos/a.10150746729155389.726790.69813760388/10155148886800389/?type=1&fref=nf">Sean Hannity</a> comes the January 2015/FOX News version of the GOP's 2016 Presidential Offerings, fondly referred to--among lefty wags, at least--as <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/jeb-and-mitt-bicker-over-top-seat-gop-2016">The Clown Car</a>. It's early still, and the thing is not quite ready for market--call it a <i>Concept Clown Car</i>.<br />
<br />
For one thing, Rand Paul, Dr. Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Allen West seem to be missing, though you'll often hear their names bandied about the blogosphere and Twitterverse. And where is Marco #DubiousRubio Rubio, Mr. Hannity? Do you have something against Floridians? Harrumph.<br />
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<i>Which Republican do you want to be president?</i> Hannity asks brightly.<br />
<br />
No, there's not a woman in sight, but Hell's bells, people, look at all these choices! You've got:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Overweight White Guy</li>
<li>Wealthy White Guy From Political Family</li>
<li>Generic White Guy</li>
<li>Generic White Guy with White Hair</li>
<li>Another Generic White Guy</li>
<li>White Guy With Indian Name Who Changed His First Name To Sound More White-Guy-ish</li>
<li>White Guy with Glasses and Felony Indictment</li>
<li>White Guy With Strong Religious Convictions and Simmering Woman Issues, and…</li>
<li>Wealthy White Guy, Also With Religious Convictions, Also From Political Family, Also With Simmering Woman Issues (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binders_full_of_women">binders full of 'em</a>, in fact).</li>
</ul>
<br />
Never let it be said that the Republican Party isn't all about the diversity.<br />
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Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-43947733508559887472015-01-08T07:25:00.003-05:002015-01-08T14:52:39.796-05:00Thoughts on Paris #JeSuisCharlie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCfnmFd0PJQ1GgExiZirXRlzEkvQzoM2nvo5pczcjuY327Swf5JCGsBlmX22AShZJHlAfjaIQS8fvfVb8HWKakpWxjAZphJXIj4uK4fwjcps6b0ca1MyTN1eN8LTKorGSj0B1/s1600/CharlieHebdoSolidarityCartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCfnmFd0PJQ1GgExiZirXRlzEkvQzoM2nvo5pczcjuY327Swf5JCGsBlmX22AShZJHlAfjaIQS8fvfVb8HWKakpWxjAZphJXIj4uK4fwjcps6b0ca1MyTN1eN8LTKorGSj0B1/s1600/CharlieHebdoSolidarityCartoon.jpg" height="154" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">To arms, comrades! #CharlieHebdo</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">By Chilean political cartoonist Francisco J. Olea</span></i></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writing, drawing, and publishing criticism of people's religion--and doing so in a deliberately crass, offensive, and even obscene way--is not something that I personally would engage in. Even if it was not, in today's environment, the equivalent of poking at a wasp's nest or splashing kerosene on smoldering coals, I simply wouldn't do it. Not in that manner.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't belong to any organized religion. But some of the people I love, do. To them, and to people I don't know and may never know, but whose rights to believe as they see fit I nonetheless recognize and respect, it is my custom to extend the courtesy of not mocking their religion. Of refraining from questioning tenets of their faith, no matter how silly I might consider them, until and unless they affect me personally or affect public policy. And even then, I would challenge their beliefs only inasmuch as they restricted the freedoms of others; I would do my best to avoid being nasty or sneering. TL;DR: <i>I'm a nice girl, and being a provocateur is not my job.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time, though, I not only wholeheartedly support the right of citizens and members of the press to write, draw, and publish criticism of people's religion--even highly offensive criticism--I'm also moved to reiterate <i>the absolute necessity of them doing so in a free society</i>, and to oppose any and all notions that the state should somehow restrict the free expression of religious criticism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To invoke Frank Zappa: <i>Words. Just Words.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sometimes get offended by things I see and read. But I am not harmed by them: instead, they provoke me to examine my thinking, at which point I may be offered, as Mill once said, "<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">the opportunity of exchanging error for truth", or else "</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Moreover, I have the freedom to click away; to turn my head from the television; to not buy the magazine; to ignore; to forget.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When power--be it in the form of traditional government or self-appointed or state-sponsored terrorist forces--gets involved in restricting free speech, we no longer fully have those opportunities, perceptions, or rights. Because the end result of the restriction of speech by power is violence, as it was in Paris yesterday. And when people wind up dead, we no longer have anything at all--neither freedom, nor rights, nor, ultimately, breath.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #181818; display: inline !important; float: none; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>Je suis Charlie.</b></i></span></span></div>
Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-12674867931657648192014-09-09T20:50:00.001-04:002014-09-09T20:50:39.260-04:00Florida's proposed Amendment 2, the Right to Medical Marijuana Initiative, begets advocacy group Kush Liberty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj72ISIyEo6Yn2TOwoHyntr9hUWQ7mXYheUGRe-e_sGk9PMgeqbT6JFtz2uuWyTjpU0aRdKBI1ICGNOpNIMFPe583MAYa0S0vjmwUvXqDHNJIbiWH8CbvyS7_Alp38rJVZDX18Z/s1600/press_release_distribution_0392913_82309_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj72ISIyEo6Yn2TOwoHyntr9hUWQ7mXYheUGRe-e_sGk9PMgeqbT6JFtz2uuWyTjpU0aRdKBI1ICGNOpNIMFPe583MAYa0S0vjmwUvXqDHNJIbiWH8CbvyS7_Alp38rJVZDX18Z/s1600/press_release_distribution_0392913_82309_1.jpg" /></a></div>
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As the November elections draw near, with Amendment 2--commonly known as the Florida Right to Medical Marijuana Initiative--getting plenty of press in our state, I wanted to share <a href="http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/marijuana-advocacy-group-kush-liberty-launches-crowd-funding-campaign-to-develop-innovative-mobile-tools-to-promote-collaboration-among-marijuana-advocates-392913.php#">this press release</a> sent to me today:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Kush Liberty of Tampa, Florida, a </span><a class="link_release_content" href="http://www.kushliberty.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2c58a5; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">group of local marijuana advocates</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">that provide marijuana news and resources via their website</span><a class="link_release_content" href="http://www.kushliberty.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2c58a5; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">KushLiberty.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">, are raising funds for an online community and mobile application that will serve as advocacy tools for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal and industrial uses.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The Group is asking for $30,000 with which the team will produce an online community, a mobile application, and the necessary marketing and promotional tools to build awareness of the Group's offerings. The </span><a class="link_release_content" href="http://kushliberty.com/index.php/community" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2c58a5; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">online community</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> will be an extension of the current website and will provide a safe environment for users to communicate publicly or privately and to organize meet-ups and rallies. The Android/Apple mobile app will provide updated stats and information about the legalization of marijuana. The Group feels these tools will enable the community to be effective advocates who will then work to spark the vote in Florida and beyond. </span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Lots more information <a href="http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/marijuana-advocacy-group-kush-liberty-launches-crowd-funding-campaign-to-develop-innovative-mobile-tools-to-promote-collaboration-among-marijuana-advocates-392913.php#">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Be sure to get out and vote, everyone!</span></span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-13218757893613677682014-07-28T20:32:00.000-04:002014-07-28T20:34:17.551-04:00Grand jury dismisses charges against fired TSA agent Jeno Mouton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Former TSA agent Jeno Mouton worked for the agency for twelve years, often putting in overtime hours at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
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As TSA News <a href="http://tsanewsblog.com/12830/news/houston-tsa-agent-arrested-after-making-terroristic-threats/">reported in February</a>, Mouton was fired from his job and arrested on charges of making "terroristic threats."</div>
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A Harris County grand jury recently dismissed the charges against Mouton, finding there was insufficient evidence to corroborate the TSA's case.</div>
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TSA News spoke to Mouton, as well as his attorney, Shanna Hennigan, who confirmed that all the charges were dropped and that the grand jury dismissed the case, also known as "no-billing" it.</div>
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"They ruled that the details [as submitted by the TSA] were either uncorroborated or completely untrue," said Hennigan.</div>
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Hennigan said the TSA's case focused on a single sentence of Mouton's discussion with a supervisor on Saturday, January 25th of this year -- a discussion that Mouton himself had requested, following protocol that employees should bring workplace concerns and frustrations to the attention of their supervisor.</div>
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"At the end of it, I said something like, 'I'm glad we could have this talk, because I don't want to be like some type of crazy person that would come back and do something like shooting up the place', and I thanked her, and then I punched in and went back to work my overtime shift," said Mouton.</div>
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After a little over an hour, however, Mouton says he was asked to hand over his credentials and go home for the rest of the weekend, then report back on Monday morning, before his scheduled shift that day.</div>
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On Monday morning at around 8 o'clock, he met with Federal Security Director Olusheyi Ogunleye. Ogunleye had Mouton sign a written statement about his discussion with the supervisor on Saturday, then he handed Mouton back his credentials and told him to return to his post. Mouton worked the entire day. At 4 p.m., a TSA administrative assistant informed him that he was being placed on administrative leave until further notice. He was required to once again turn in his credentials.</div>
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Mouton said that he didn't hear from anyone at the agency the following day, but on Wednesday he started getting calls from concerned friends (co-workers) at the agency, who told him there was now a BOLO ("Be on the Lookout") alert for him. That Friday evening, Houston Police Department showed up at Mouton's door and arrested him.</div>
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Mouton and his attorney said his statement at the end of his conversation with the supervisor was in no way meant as a "terroristic threat." They believe the TSA were being both disingenuous and illogical. Disingenuous, because supervisors saw fit to take a single sentence completely out of context, attach the dread T-word to it, and fire a man who had worked for them for twelve years--and then have him arrested on charges of making a "terroristic threat," effectively ruining his chances of finding well-paying work in the future. Illogical, because if Mouton <em>had</em> posed such a threat, why was hensent back to work that Friday afternoon? Why was he also told to report back to the airport on the following Monday, at which point he was given his credentials and assigned to his post for the entire day?</div>
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This isn't the first time the TSA has either taken words out of context or <a href="http://tsanewsblog.com/9281/news/frank-hannibal-sues-tsa-for-5-million/">overreacted to an innocent joke</a>. There is also a common theme in evidence: the lack of logic and common sense that has TSA agents confiscating supposed potential explosives -- be they <a href="http://abombazine.blogspot.com/2014/02/terrorist-toothpaste-or-were-governed.html">tubes of toothpaste</a>, <a href="http://tsanewsblog.com/12882/news/tsa-bans-carry-on-liquids-and-more-on-russia-bound-flights/">bottles of shampoo, or jars of face cream</a> -- and casually <a href="http://tsanewsblog.com/965/news/cupcake-conundrum-if-the-icing-is-so-dangerous-why-do-they-toss-it-in-the-trash/">tossing them into a bin</a> <em>located just a few feet away from hundreds of passengers waiting in line</em>; and the lack of logic and common sense that led the TSA to send Jeno Mouton, a man they considered to have made "a terroristic threat", back to work, for multiple shifts, in one of the country's largest international airports.</div>
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Attorney Hennigan also noted that her client did not return to the airport after he was put on administrative leave, as news reports claimed. Mouton confirmed this, and added that there was no videotape record of such an appearance, either. Said Mouton:</div>
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"And on top of all that, if they really believed I was any kind of threat, there are protocols they were supposed to have followed. They never shut down any part of the terminal. They brought me back to do my job, that afternoon, and then again all day Monday."</div>
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Mouton has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hennigan says he is working part-time, but at a greatly reduced salary. Mouton says the most important thing for him right now is <a href="http://www.click2houston.com/news/fired-tsa-employee-seeks-to-clear-his-name/27075812">to clear his name</a> and find well-paying work. In an email to TSA News, he points to an egregiously racist and erroneous article online (we won't link to it). He writes:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">"Some of the things that I've been encountering on the Internet and stuff that's been damaging to myself and my family. All because of this alleged allegations of the TSA. My God, this stuff is so hurtful and degrading." </span></blockquote>
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TSA News reached out to the TSA for comment; no one from the agency has responded.</div>
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<em>(Screengrab photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.click2houston.com/news/fired-tsa-employee-seeks-to-clear-his-name/27075812">Click2Houston</a>)</em><br />
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Also at <a href="http://tsanewsblog.com/14530/news/grand-jury-dismisses-charges-against-fired-tsa-agent-jeno-mouton/">TSA News</a>.</div>
Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-73499746733683357312014-06-27T11:42:00.001-04:002014-06-27T13:23:01.327-04:00TSA crime featured in Netflix series Orange is the New Black<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>TSA is the new IRS.</em></div>
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Allow me to explain. Throughout history, literature, cinema, television, and even religious texts have employed the archetype of the heartless, obtuse, and abusive government agent; in so doing, writers have frequently turned to some variant of the tax-collector. This character--a loathsome IRS agent, say--usually symbolizes an overarching societal ill. By giving physical form to the source of our despair--and oftentimes, equipping him or her with a bitterly comedic persona and a reliably Orwellian vernacular--writers have explored, with varying degrees of success, such issues as the soullessness and waste inherent in bureaucracy; the creeping malignancy of government overreach; and the sadistic, sociopathic criminality that invariably begins to flow when some humans are allowed to wield outsized, unearned power over other humans.</div>
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Now that Americans--a people whose very existence as a nation and culture is largely rooted in migration, in travel--find themselves being forced to submit to unwarranted, intrusive searches of their bodies and belongings, at the hand of the government, <em>simply because they wish to engage in said travel</em>, it was probably inevitable that the TSA-agent-as-emblem would begin appearing in popular culture.</div>
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The well-received Netflix series <em>Orange is the New Black, </em>now in its second season, is a drama set in a women's prison. What makes the show compelling is that the writers, in addition to scripting a present-day storyline that takes place inside the institution, routinely explore the inmates' individual backstories through flashbacks. Thus, characters who initially seem harsh, difficult, and generally unlikeable become fully realized and sympathetic once their humanity is revealed to the viewer. Concurrently, a funny, attractive, and/or appealing character can, when her backstory is told, turn the viewer's perception of her on end: she has now become abhorrent.</div>
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This is precisely what happens in Season 2, Episode 7 of <em>Orange is the New Black</em> (entitled <em>Comic Sans</em>), wherein we get to really know the once-likeable inmate named Cindy. From Tom & Lorenzo's <a data-mce-href="http://tomandlorenzo.com/2014/06/orange-is-the-new-black-comic-sans/" href="http://tomandlorenzo.com/2014/06/orange-is-the-new-black-comic-sans/">excellent recap</a>:</div>
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<span data-mce-style="color: #252525;" style="color: #252525;">Cindy gets her flashback this episode and like Lorna’s, it served as a jarring reminder that some of these ladies, no matter how entertaining they are as inmates, are real assholes in the outside world. To an almost shocking degree, she was shown to be irresponsible and self-absorbed, leaving her sister/daughter alone in a car while she runs upstairs to get high with friends or constantly abusing her position as a TSA agent, in a manner that taps into real fears people have about the security state in this country.</span></blockquote>
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By "abusing her position as a TSA agent", they are referring to the Cindy character engaging in the unethical and illegal acts that <em>real-life TSA agents engage in every day</em>, at airports across the country, and have for years. As documented in TSA Newsblog's extensive (and ever-growing) <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/master-list-of-tsa-abuses-and-crimes/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/master-list-of-tsa-abuses-and-crimes/">Master List of TSA Crimes and Abuses</a>. <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13388/news/nyt-tsas-behavior-detection-program-useless-wasteful/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13388/news/nyt-tsas-behavior-detection-program-useless-wasteful/">Waste</a>. <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13476/news/more-pre-check-propaganda-and-more-tsa-fraud/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13476/news/more-pre-check-propaganda-and-more-tsa-fraud/">Fraud</a>. <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/12824/news/another-tsa-agent-charged-with-theft-chicago-ohare/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/12824/news/another-tsa-agent-charged-with-theft-chicago-ohare/">Theft</a> of passengers' belongings (especially electronics, <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/6339/news/what-tsas-ipad-theft-problem-means-for-your-next-flight/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/6339/news/what-tsas-ipad-theft-problem-means-for-your-next-flight/">like iPads</a>). <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/5927/news/patdown-assault-trauma-syndrome-fear-shaking-sleeplessness-nightmares-and-flashbacks/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/5927/news/patdown-assault-trauma-syndrome-fear-shaking-sleeplessness-nightmares-and-flashbacks/">Inappropriate sexual touching</a>. <a data-mce-href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13680/news/new-gao-report-again-finds-tsa-waste-congress-clueless/" href="http://tsanewsblog.com/13680/news/new-gao-report-again-finds-tsa-waste-congress-clueless/">Waste writ large</a>.</div>
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The TSA's abusiveness being so clearly depicted in a TV show can be viewed two ways. It is disturbing to consider that this agency's criminality has become pervasive (and invasive) enough to earn the TSA agent/character a place in the imaginations of screenwriters. But it's also gratifying in the sense that these artists are choosing to shine the light of popular culture on issues--most saliently the government-sanctioned violation of our Fourth Amendment rights--that far too many Americans still pooh-pooh as "needed security". Until the abuse, theft, or assault <em>happens to them</em>.</div>
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[Photo via the tumblr <a data-mce-href="http://orangeis.tumblr.com/post/88010173620" href="http://orangeis.tumblr.com/post/88010173620">Orangeis</a>]</div>
Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-80280104512913246922014-05-30T18:12:00.002-04:002014-05-30T18:14:04.456-04:00I'm on BBC World Radio, talking about Edward Snowden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Greetings, all.<br />
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I'm back at my blogging dashboard after an extended hiatus. Though I have been tweeting regularly in the interim, as time permitted, which is how the BBC found me yesterday and invited me to be on their discussion panel show, <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zjqvt">World, Have Your Say</a></i>.<br />
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The topics: Edward Snowden--traitor or patriot?--as well as the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of hundreds of millions of innocent American citizens and residents (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason">crimes against the Constitution</a> or jaw-dropping <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason">treason</a>, <i>ahem</i>).<br />
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(I've made it clear that I believe Snowden <a href="http://litbrit.blogspot.com/2014/01/edward-snowden-nominated-for-nobel.html">is a patriot</a>. And I stated <a href="http://litbrit.blogspot.com/2006/05/fcc-gets-involved.html">long ago</a> how wrong these warrantless surveillance programs are.)<br />
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I'm not an experienced radio personality, but I nonetheless enjoyed speaking my mind. My debate opponents, arguing in opposition to me, were a constitutional lawyer in New York and an IT engineer in Washington, DC.<br />
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I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can access <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01zjqvt">the May 29th show here</a>, then mouse over the leftmost photo in the middle row of the photo grid, and you'll get a <i>Listen now</i> pop-up. The Snowden discussion begins at the 45:50 point.Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-7358165959501337822014-04-16T09:12:00.001-04:002014-04-16T09:31:46.648-04:00Right wing radicals; Right wing terrorism<center>
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The money quote, so to speak: what if, instead of yelling <i>"Heil, Hitler!"</i>, the Kansas City white supremacist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/us/apparent-hate-crime-aimed-at-jews-instead-strikes-christians-who-gave-to-others.html?_r=0">who shot three people dead</a> this weekend had instead shouted <i>"Allāhu Akbar!"</i>?<br />
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You know the answer to that. There would've been a an enormous uproar--Terrorism!--and Dear Media would've been all over it like a cheap suit.<br />
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Instead, an odd silence. Just as a few years ago, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/04/14/37528/dhs-report-right-wing/">when the DHS issued an analysis</a> of these groups and warned they were gaining more recruits, they backed down after being met with the bleatings of Limbaugh, Malkin, et. al. Yet as Maddow shows, in recent years the right-wing extremists--the neo-Nazi groups and clinic bombers and right-wing seditionists--have committed significantly more deadly attacks against Americans, in America, than Islamic extremists have.<br />
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This is an important piece. Please watch and share it.Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-63983592287807161782014-01-29T16:56:00.001-05:002014-01-29T16:56:53.294-05:00Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel Peace Prize<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Friends, family, and readers know I applaud Snowden's brave whistle blowing and feel he should be allowed to return to the United States, granted total clemency, and thanked for his service to the citizens of this country. So clearly, I'm very happy about this, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/29/world/europe/norway-snowden-nobel-nomination/">via CNN</a>:<br />
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Two Norwegian lawmakers have jointly nominated National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, they said Wednesday on their party website. </blockquote>
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Snowden has "revealed the nature and technological prowess of modern surveillance," and by doing so has contributed to peace, said a joint statement by Bard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen of the Socialist Left Party. </blockquote>
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Nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- whose previous winners include such figures as the late South African President Nelson Mandela, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Barack Obama -- close on Saturday, with the winner announced in October.</blockquote>
Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-72948716987679859392014-01-28T19:11:00.002-05:002014-01-28T19:11:38.371-05:00R.I.P. Pete Seeger, a great American<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/arloguthrie/posts/10153787404935195">Arlo Guthrie</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>I</b></span> usually do a little meditation and prayer every night before I go to sleep - Just part of the routine. Last night, I decided to go visit Pete Seeger for a while, just to spend a little time together, it was around 9 PM. So I was sitting in my home in Florida, having a lovely chat with Pete, who was in a hospital in New York City. That's the great thing about thoughts and prayers- You can go or be anywhere. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I simply wanted him to know that I loved him dearly, like a father in some ways, a mentor in others and just as a dear friend a lot of the time. I'd grown up that way - loving the Seegers - Pete; Toshi and all their family. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I let him know I was having trouble writing his obituary (as I'd been asked) but it seemed just so silly and I couldn't think of anything that didn't sound trite or plain stupid. "They'll say something appropriate in the news," we agreed. We laughed, we talked, and I took my leave about 9:30 last night. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
"Arlo" he said, sounding just like the man I've known all of my life, "I guess I'll see ya later." I've always loved the rising and falling inflections in his voice. "Pete," I said. "I guess we will." </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I turned off the light and closed my eyes and fell asleep until very early this morning, about 3 AM when the texts and phone calls started coming in from friends telling me Pete had passed away. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
"Well, of course he passed away!" I'm telling everyone this morning. "But that doesn't mean he's gone."</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo via <a href="https://twitter.com/NicholsUprising">John Nichols</a></i></span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-68010542746934352402014-01-27T19:03:00.001-05:002014-01-27T19:34:33.332-05:00Entitled, empowered, and indicted<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ICvmAl5ckBx8kk3oGDJd4q4BpU_XxwIF100LssF3DDOr_xInCjTJ2-MKG_XjkMlS65886YXlGaHBMMZk2tPFj5jB59kqMrnRWay6BpgIKYpTn0HrtufNpv91pZaIPn0qksMU/s1600/52e2bb19d9629.preview-620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ICvmAl5ckBx8kk3oGDJd4q4BpU_XxwIF100LssF3DDOr_xInCjTJ2-MKG_XjkMlS65886YXlGaHBMMZk2tPFj5jB59kqMrnRWay6BpgIKYpTn0HrtufNpv91pZaIPn0qksMU/s1600/52e2bb19d9629.preview-620.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/kevin-horrigan/horrigan-pea-green-with-envy-over-shameless-greed/article_930db2eb-df8d-590a-9685-d1c5fe1be5d3.html">via.</a></i></span></div>
<br />
Former First Lady of Virginia Maureen McDonnell, aka The Honorable Mrs. Governor Ultrasound, can't be faulted for merely <i>fantasizing</i> about swirling around the dance floor in an over-the-top-expensive Oscar de la Renta gown. I know I've entertained more than a few Walter Mitty reveries in which I'm a twirling princess or goddess or queen, my taffeta skirts swishing in the spotlight as I soak in all the admiration.<br />
<br />
And then the light turns green and someone honks a horn.<br />
<br />
Being empowered, being celebrated--whether one is a public servant, the spouse thereof, or even a vice-presidential nominee with a borrowed Neiman's card (ahem, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/us/politics/23palin.html?_r=0">Sarah Palin</a>)--is not the same as being entitled.<br />
<br />
But sometimes power-drunk people confuse real life with television.<br />
<br />
In the HBO program <i>Sex and the City</i>, Sarah Jessica Parker's character got to live out an Oscar de la Renta fantasy. She was dating Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the day after reading aloud to him from that month's Vogue--describing a gown by the designer as "her poetry"--Baryshnikov presented her with the very dress she'd coveted. The episode's final scene shows the couple in a Manhattan McDonalds; Parker is wearing her fantasy dress, à la McDonnell, doing what one does while wearing an Oscar de la Renta: <i>pirouetting on someone else's dime.</i><br />
<br />
And other people's dimes are subject to wildly varying laws when it comes to gifts and goodies bestowed upon public servants by individuals and businesses. Then there are federal regulations. Clearly the intent is to maintain the illusion (if, sadly, little else) that public servants are there to serve the public--the people who vote them into office and pay their salaries--and not, as is all too often the case, to do the bidding of this billionaire or that foreign interest or those corporations.<br />
<br />
Seemingly, there isn't much in the way of such laws in the Commonwealth of Virginia. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-politics/virginia-has-one-of-nations-most-lax-ethics-laws-for-politicians/2013/04/27/8f1e1218-a774-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html">According to the Washington Post</a>, the state is one of ten that allows officeholders to accept gifts of virtually unlimited value. (There certainly are federal laws. <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/robert-f-mcdonnell-indictment/751/">To wit</a>.)<br />
<br />
Speaking of the word commonwealth, it comes from the late middle English <i>commun welthe</i>, the wealth of the people. It is the wealth of the people that paid Governor Bob McDonnell's salary, as it is with all American public servants and the families they support: it's the people's money.<br />
<br />
In short, the spouses of public servants are supposed to buy their <i>own</i> dresses.<br />
<br />
And really, there is no excuse for what Maureen McDonnell did. Oh, there are plenty of <i>reasons</i> for her behavior, with baldfaced greed topping the list.<br />
<br />
(Yes, what Governor Bob McDonnell did is obviously far worse, because he was the one the people voted for and entrusted with all that power, but right now, we're talking about dress-greed, not megalomania, abuse of power, or for that matter, rank misogyny, all of which deserve long posts of their own.)<br />
<br />
But there is no excuse because, hey, ever heard of regular old ready-to-wear? Forgive me, but other than its label, the blue dress in the picture is no different from those on racks in bridal and department stores all over Virginia. (Moreover, I can only imagine the state is home to countless gifted seamstresses, any one of whom could have whipped up a gown to rival Oscar's.)<br />
<br />
And I don't for a moment buy the whole "We're under so much pressure to look nice, we simply <i>had</i> to get donors to spend tens of thousands of dollars on clothes for us" line, either. <i> Please.</i> Professional American women with actual jobs manage to pull themselves together and stand in front of courts, cameras, and classrooms every single day.<br />
<br />
It was about entitlement, pure and simple. <i>We're the First Couple--we're entitled to fine watches, elegant holidays, and couture gowns!</i><br />
<br />
And this from a so-called "conservative" couple! Who, when it comes to providing for the basic needs of the people who elected them, love nothing more than to preach the gospel of cutting spending, not living above one's means, <i>tightening that belt, honey.</i><br />
<br />
Learn to sew, Mrs. Governor Ultrasound. Perhaps you can replicate that gown--I hear orange is the new blue.Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-31093751854183025372013-07-21T07:20:00.002-04:002013-07-21T07:25:56.891-04:00Welcome home, Scarface<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It was past ten when we arrived home from holiday last night, and the resident muscle-men were kind enough to haul all the bags and boxes from the car to the kitchen.<br />
<br />
All but one duffel: mine.<br />
<br />
And I was damned if I wasn't going to have my favorite nightgown and the engrossing book I was reading, having just traveled for ten hours, through pounding rain, in a vehicle whose interior was dark enough to make reading said book impossible but light enough that I could see the ghost-whiteness of my knuckles.<br />
<br />
<i>Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to marry race-car drivers.</i><br />
<br />
So I trudged out to the car, heaved my duffel's neck-breaking entirety onto one shoulder, yanked Ruby's pillow from the backseat, and wound my way in the dark through the family's various trucks and heavy machinery, back to the house.<br />
<br />
The fever-steam we call Florida rain had ceased a while earlier, but water was still trickling and splatting everywhere. And then an enormous fan palm frond, its moorings weakened by God knows how many gallons of water and miles-per-hour of wind, tumbled from above, hitting me in the face--hard--and giving me a lovely diagonal gash on the bridge of my nose. I knew it was a gash because I immediately tasted the blood now coursing downward, ruining my camisole.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh joy.</i><br />
<br />
I pounded on the much-closer back door, because Robert had locked it so the boys wouldn't go in and out and in and out the way they always seem compelled to do, letting mosquitoes in. Nothing. I pounded again, feeling more anger than pain at that point. Then I gave up, shifted the duffel (which was getting wetter by the minute) to my other shoulder, and traipsed, pack-mule-like, to the kitchen door, all the while trying to ignore the earsplitting din of the incessantly copulating tree-frogs who rarely have anything better to do on a Saturday night in rural Florida and who can fucking blame them.<br />
<br />
My poor nose duly Neosporined and Band-aided, my tea made (with condensed milk, because the bloody milk had gone bad before its time-<i>-typical</i>), I went to bed, looking forward to a good six hours of oblivion.<br />
<br />
But I'd forgotten about the vicious, inconsiderate bastards who drive the Tropicana train along the lake at all hours of the night. In just a few hours, there they were again, blasting their house-rattling, dog-awakening horns.<br />
<br />
<i>There is nothing you can do to me that Florida has not already done.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/blogs/green-south-florida/sfl-march-south-florida-water-supplies-20120313,0,2916242.story">via.</a></span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-67149945659808102342013-07-10T03:22:00.000-04:002013-07-10T10:06:41.634-04:00On PrivacyHere is why intruding on my privacy, and the privacy of millions of other people living in America, is wrong on its face: <i>it is not that I have something to hide--it's that I have everything to lose.</i><br />
<br />
And when the intruder is the State, with its ominous, full-on power to destroy any individual by accident or intent (because as said destroyed individual will tell you, the results are the same), that which an individual has to lose can be significant, and the results of his having lost it, life-altering.<br />
<br />
The notion of "innocent until proven guilty" underpins our jurisprudence for a good reason. The burden of proof is not, and should never be, on me: I should not have to prove a negative, <i>that I am not something bad, that I'm not doing something bad</i>. I simply am. I exist.<br />
<br />
Thus, if I am suspected of wrongdoing, well, prove it in court. Prove it in accordance with the laws that, however imperfect, have managed to convict and imprison serial killers, armed robbers, and terrorists alike (at least they did until the Patriot Act afforded the State an easy, lazy way to do an end-run around the Constitution). But if I am simply existing, minding my own business, communicating with my family, friends, and business associates, the State should have no right to monitor my words--not the time when, or location where, they were written or spoken; not the frequency with which some recipients (as opposed to others) crop up on some concocted list of my associates; and <i>certainly</i> not the words themselves.<br />
<br />
That is--or rather, <i>was</i>--the point of having warrants: to protect those who are merely existing from intrusion into their private, personal lives by the State. By setting forth very specific requirements, most saliently probable cause, that must be met before allowing intrusive evidence-gathering that disrupts an individual's security and privacy.<br />
<br />
Proper warrants, too, not bullshit rubberstamped-anytime-anyplace-totally-unspecific-to-any-one-crime-applicable-to-countless-millions-of-citizens-FISA-warrants that are issued in secret.<br />
<br />
The only reason all this is happening is this: <i>we're allowing it.</i><br />
<br />
The existence of secret courts with secret rulings--much like secret police--does not bode well for the health of our democracy. And when the death rattle kicks in, we will not be able to blame the terrorists. The government <i>is us</i>. We are the ones who harvested, processed, and swallowed our own hemlock, because someone, somewhere, convinced us that the potion would protect us from all evil, and damn if he didn't make a pretty penny in so doing.Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-85935103423688025592013-07-01T01:26:00.002-04:002013-07-01T01:29:50.628-04:00On Ed Snowden's "Oppressive Regime Tour"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
For those who argue--ridiculously--that Edward Snowden should have "faced the music" and stayed in the US rather than "tour the oppressive, anti-human-rights regimes of the world", a little reminder: Neither Russia, nor Ecuador, nor Venezuela, nor Cuba <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty#Contemporary_use">executed anyone in 2011</a> (the most recent year for which statistics are available).<br />
<br />
The United States? We put 43 human beings to death in 2011 alone.<br />
<br />
That puts us behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, but ahead of <i>every other nation in the world</i> in terms of the state killing of citizens.<br />
<br />
Torture?<br />
<br />
Does it count <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6">when the US "renditions"</a>--aka, has other cruel regimes do it <i>for</i> us, like Syria, Egypt, or Jordan? Because even if it doesn't, we're right up there at the top among the world's torturers.<br />
<br />
Good grief, people. Take off the prima-donna sleep mask, open your eyes, and <i>wake the hell up.</i><br />
<br />
P.S. As for rendition, the U.S. is still at it, too--the only difference between then (under Bush) and now is that our government currently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/us/politics/25rendition.html?_r=0">claims</a> it is overseeing things so that when we <i>do</i> apprehend someone suspected of wrongdoing, throw a hood over his head, and haul him off to another country to be "interrogated", the questioning will not be accompanied by torture--at least, not as far as we know (because it is, after all, taking place in another country, and we can't completely control what goes on behind closed doors). Don't you feel better?<br />
<br />
Image: Andy Warhol,
<i>Little Electric Chair (Green)</i>, 1964 Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-84130983717750121802013-06-30T09:33:00.002-04:002013-06-30T09:48:31.741-04:00Cinnamon-Chocolate Bat Cookies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>There are blue sugar crystals on that there bat. </i></span></div>
<br />
<i>Chocolate Bats: The Legend</i>. The tale begins about eighteen years ago, when Son One was in Montessori, and I was in the mood to bake cookies for Hallowe'en. I played around with one of Martha Stewart's recipes, adding cinnamon to the mix at the behest of the lad, and cut them into bats: <i>WELL</i>, thought I<i>, let me put on some strong coffee right this minute.</i><br />
<br />
The following morning, I packed a couple of bats in the royal lunchbox, and then, on second thought, wrapped a half-dozen more and put them in too: <i>If there are other kids at the table</i>, <i>voilà--everyone's happy.</i><br />
<br />
Mistake.<br />
<br />
At twelve-thirty, I received a call from the teacher: "Er...Mrs. Tornello, I'm calling about those chocolate bat cookies."<br />
<br />
<i>Uh-oh. Did the sharing go okay</i>, I wondered. (We really were working on that stuff.)<br />
<br />
"Your son came over to the teacher's table and gave each of us one of your chocolate bat cookies--such a lovely, thoughtful boy--and they were <i>so good</i>. Could you...possibly...would you mind making a big batch for the whole class?" (Note: she meant the whole school, since they all ate lunch together.)<br />
<br />
I made a triple batch of the cookies that night and sent them in. They became a regular thing around here, too, and not just at Hallowe'en. I still have the kitschy little black plastic bat cookie cutter, used to make the cookie in the photo; the boys--there are three of them now--are still capable of reducing the chocolate bats by half within an hour of baking. I made them last night, in fact. I think there might be one or two left. <i>Sigh.</i><br />
<br />
This unfrosted, mostly unadorned cookie is texturally akin to slightly-cakey sugar-cookie, that is, it combines the best qualities of a wafer, a sugar cookie, and a brownie. It's deeply chocolatey but not overly sweet, especially if you go light on the sugar-sprinkling. At Hallowe'en, use orange sugar to make them sparkle and jump off the plate (as if they needed help).<br />
<br />
<b>Deborah's Chocolate Bats</b><br />
<br />
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted<br />
1 1/4 cups best quality unsweetened cocoa<br />
1/4 teaspoon salt<br />
2 generous teaspoons ground cinnamon<br />
3 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened<br />
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted<br />
2 large eggs, lightly whisked<br />
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract<br />
<br />
Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside. In another bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy; add the eggs and vanilla.<br />
<br />
Switch to a wooden spoon and stir the flour mixture into the egg-butter-sugar mixture; combine thoroughly but don't over-mix. Divide the dough into two balls, wrap each in plastic, and flatten slightly so you've got two very thick chocolate frisbee-like shapes. Put in the fridge for an hour or so.<br />
<br />
Heat your oven to 350º F (my oven can get a bit too hot, so I always bump this down to about 325º F and wait a bit longer--it's preferable to having them burn on the underside).<br />
<br />
Cover your cookie sheets with parchment paper.<br />
<br />
Using a rolling pin and a clean, lightly floured surface, roll the dough out carefully until it's about 1/8" thick--mine are often a tiny bit thicker, as the humidity this time of year makes it nearly impossible to work with very thin dough of <i>any</i> sort. Flouring both your rolling pin and hands will help keep the dough from sticking too much. (So will working with cooled dough, in a nice cool kitchen--<i>lucky you</i>--if you possibly can.)<br />
<br />
With a bat-shaped cookie-cutter--or one that's any favorite shape, of course--cut out your cookies. A wafer-thin metal spatula will be useful in transferring them onto the cookie sheet. As with many things containing flour, the less you manhandle this dough, the more tender and melt-in-your-mouth the final result will be, so be gentle and take your time. You can put the bats fairly close together, as they don't tend to swell and spread the way some cookies do. Sprinkle them with a little sugar, either plain granulated, raw, or colorful.<br />
<br />
Bake for 8-10 minutes. They're supposed to be<i> juuust </i>this side of crisp and not darkened at all.<br />
<br />
I have to admit it: chocolate bats, when oven-warm, are quite gorgeous--more so when eaten while standing at the stove with a little cup of espresso in one hand, enjoying the peace that you know is as temporary as it gets: that deep chocolate-cinnamon aroma might just as well be a fifty-foot-wide bat signal. <br />
<br />
Enjoy!<br />
<br />Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18587935.post-19952097139083937722013-06-25T18:04:00.000-04:002013-06-25T18:08:28.495-04:00Unwarranted email-snooping ruled unconstitutional in 2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was poking around in some 4th Amendment case law online and came across <a href="http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/email-decision.pdf">a relatively recent (2010) ruling</a> (.pdf) by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. It's a solidly pro-civil liberties ruling that seems tailor-made for the files of whoever wants to challenge the legality of the NSA's unwarranted domestic surveillance programs. <br />
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The case was United States. v. Warshak et. al., and it involved the prosecution of Steven and Harriet Warshak, owners of Enzyte (a herb-based "male enhancement" supplement). The court upheld Warshak's conviction, more-or-less, because of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule (whereby law enforcement is recognized to have been doing its job and following the law as it existed then).<br />
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(I will note here that I vehemently disagree with the so-called "good faith exception".)<br />
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However--and this is encouraging--the court ruled as unconstitutional <i>the very statutes that enabled the prosecution's secret evidence-gathering.</i><br />
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Circuit Judge Keith, concurring (emphasis mine) (the last couple of lines are my favorites):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Following NuVox’s policy, the provider would have destroyed Warshak’s old
emails but for the government’s request that they maintain all current and prospective
emails for almost a year without Warshak’s knowledge. <b>In practice, the government
used the statute as a means to monitor Warshak after the investigation started without
his knowledge and without a warrant. Such a practice is no more than back-door
wiretapping. I doubt that such actions, if contested directly in court, would withstand
the muster of the Fourth Amendment.</b> Email, much like telephone, provides individuals
with a means to communicate in private.
See Warshak v. United States
, 490 F.3d 455,
469-70 (6th Cir. 2007),
vacated
, 532 F.3d 521 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc). <b>The
government cannot use email collection as a means to monitor citizens without a warrant
anymore than they can tap a telephone line to
monitor citizens without a warrant.</b> The
purpose of § 2703, along with the Stored Communications Act as a whole, is to maintain
the boundaries between a citizen’s reasonable expectation of privacy and crime
prevention in light of quickly advancing technology. S. Rep. 99-541, at 4. To interpret
§ 2703(f) as having both a retroactive and prospective effect would be contrary to the
purpose of the statute as a whole.<br />
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While it was not the issue in today’s decision, <b>a policy whereby the government
requests emails prospectively without a warrant
deeply concerns me. </b>I am furthermore
troubled by the majority’s willingness to
disregard the current reading of § 2703(f)
without concern for future analysis of this statute.</blockquote>
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Thoughts? <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image via <a href="http://techpp.com/">techpp.com</a>.</span>Deborah Newellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02527317477388626268noreply@blogger.com10