Memo to Joe Walsh: Taxes are already at a historic low--even lower than they were under Republican presidents

(H/T Laffy for the video)

I watched the exceedingly rude, arrogant, and condescending Congressman Joe Walsh on Hardball Monday night, and as he interrupted, sidestepped, and over-talked his host, I did a little talking of my own, to my hapless television set (come on, you know you do it, too).

Like virtually all who signed Grover Norquist's No Tax Increase pledge--and then deny that Grover Norquist tells them what to do--Walsh pushes the narrative that even closing loopholes and adjusting definitions of qualified deductions are the same thing as sucking the lifeblood from the job-creators who, he keeps promising, will eventually produce all these magical jobs if we just believe hard enough and stop asking them to pay their fair share.

(Comedian Bill Maher describes this nonsense as regarding "job creators"--aka the wealthy/corporate class--as some sort of delicate and endangered exotic animals at the center of a National Geographic feature: Shhh! Don't upset them! They'll run away!)

And while the deranged House Republicans chug along in their clown car, sometimes spinning in circles, always lurching toward the default cliff they seem to want to take the country right over, too many Democrats are oddly silent about the dire need to increase revenue if we're to ever get within spitting distance of balancing the budget one day, which is what the president wants, even if people like me would suggest that job creation via bold, broad, and inarguably necessary infrastructure spending should be the first priority.

Taxation in America--money coming in--is at a historic low. Expenditures, thanks in large part to those big, expensive wars, are at a historic high. I'm no math fiend, but even I can see the problem here.

But for those who, like Congressman Walsh, would seem to be even more math challenged than I, perhaps a nice graphic would help get the point across:

(Via.)

Alan Grayson running for Congress; vows to fight Washington's culture of "Meanies and Weenies"

All of this compromise hasn't accomplished anything useful for anybody on our side...the President should be saying to people, "The Republican party is cruel; the Republican party is bigoted; the Republican party cares only about tax breaks for the rich."

-- Congressman-to-once-again-be Alan Grayson, D-FL

YEAH.

Yesterday, Alan Grayson declared his candidacy; my Mum and Dad's lost cat Manuel suddenly showed up at their door after worrying everyone sick for a week (and he seems no worse for wear); and I baked an enormous pan of Georgia peach cobbler which my lads thoroughly enjoyed, hot from the oven, with vanilla Häagen-Dazs melting in rivulets all over it. Not bad for a Monday, and sweltering summer Monday at that!

What's making you happy this week?

Friday Frank: Montana; New York, 1982

I was just thinking to myself, Wow, I haven't posted a Friday Frank in ages. ( This rainy afternoon has inspired me to spend entirely too much time poking around YouTube for old favorites.)

This one is too good to not share. I only wish it were longer.

Bon Weekend, everyone--and stay dry!

XXX
D.

Fourth thought

"Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

-- John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty

Freedom From and Freedom To: We're giving away our privacy and liberty, and for what?

Comedian Lee Camp riffs on the worrisome state of American privacy in one of his great Moments of Clarity.

I have long maintained that the concepts of Freedom From and Freedom To are both vital components of human liberty (and I thank Margaret Atwood for introducing this concept to my young feminist's brain via her masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale).

Indeed, without Freedom From, Freedom To--the necessary foundation upon which any bona fide pursuit of happiness gets built--becomes, itself, an untenable concept.

As our Freedom From is curtailed, so goes our Freedom To. When law-abiding citizens are increasingly prevented from traveling freely about their own country by air, and now by train, bus, and car--as they are searched, x-rayed, groped, and humiliated, absent probable cause, mind you, and even assaulted, and by agents of the We-the-People government that is supposed to be by, for, and of US--these selfsame citizens are also realizing a parallel curtailment of their human potential.

Think of all the opportunities missed, the creativity hampered, the activism delayed, the commerce sacrificed, and the education denied due to the vast reduction of our Freedom From unconstitutional searches and privacy invasions. Every former gypsy and rambling man I know--even people who'd consider themselves apolitical and TSA-agnostic--has drastically reduced his or her travel to a bare minimum these days, if they even leave home at all. And when you ask why, the answer will never be fear of terrorism, but rather, will almost invariably center around an extreme distaste for the overbearing and omnipresent Security State and its concomitant time-sucking nature. It's just not worth it, they say.

It's just not worth it. That sad sentence would break the hearts of our forebears, don't you think? And yet, it perfectly encapsulates the American mindset right now.

Whither Liberty, ca. 2011? Whither Justice For All?

Perhaps we should ask a Constitutional scholar and professor. He might know.

"And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer: Let it be."

Violinist Michael Province, aged 15, and cellist Nathan Chan, aged 16, do John Lennon proud. What a beautiful, joyful interpretation of a song for our day.

Shine on 'till tomorrow, gentlemen. And bravo!

(H/T Diane S.)

Oil sands, tar sands; tar sands, oil sands--let's call the whole thing awful

With so many Americans facing a summer characterized by "staycations" (if they're lucky to even have homes in which to stay), job-hunting, and general belt-tightening, it's understandable that they'd be more receptive to something--anything--that promised to keep gas prices from soaring again, even if it meant turning their heads for a while so as to avoid seeing the toxic morass of trouble waiting for them not too far down the road. Few of us enjoy being reminded about the dirty realities attendant to our oil addiction on a good day--and in a good economy. When the chips are down, though, and the clever PR folks have been busily weaving their magic, even the sticky, corrosive stuff from Alberta might start to sound good to us--Hey, it's from Canada, our friends. It will increase the world's oil supply and that will lower the price!

Or something. Gain an understanding of the nature of the beast--the commodities market, that is, and the manner in which speculators can drive prices upward, as well as the way other oil-producing nations open and close the spigots--and you'll be quickly disabused of any Econ 101-style fantasy. But who's got the heart to do even that much, and can we be blamed, really? I mean, what options exist beyond the gasoline-powered internal combustion engines that power the cars we're all currently trying to cut down on driving?

Yes, more and more automakers are offering electric and hybrid-electric cars, and I'm excited about the ones yet to come. But even taking into account any modest tax incentive, these vehicles don't come cheap, and for the millions of Americans who are currently unemployed or underemployed, buying a new car of any kind is simply not feasible.

And yes, there are public transportation options for some, depending on where you live. In the vast majority of Florida, for example, it's extremely difficult to get around without a car. Few areas in this state were built on a model of sustainability, with a mind toward residents being able to walk to work, school, and grocery stores. For the most part, our peninsula is stuffed like a Christmas stocking with huge, ungainly suburbs, all of them laced together by increasingly threadbare ribbons of horrifically crowded roads and interstate highways.

So, then, at this point in time and given the current economic climate, a lot of us are going to be ripe for a good PR nudge by Big Oil. And boy, are the spinmeisters working overtime in their efforts to overcome the facts about the proposed tar sands pipeline, excuse me, oil sands pipeline. (I imagine the phrase tar sands is being phased out due to its propensity to evoke mental images of tar on our sands, fresh in our minds thanks to the catastrophic BP spill last year.)

As I wrote last month, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a project so encumbered by serious threats--to American water tables, to ecosystems, to human lives, and, thanks to the resource-greedy, carbon-spewing process of refining tar sands, to the future of the planet itself--it is almost surreal. It's a horror show that puts the summer theatre lineup to shame; coming soon, only it's dead real.

Forewarned is forearmed, so here's a sampling of information (emphasis mine) about this nightmare of a proposed oil project, and at the bottom, you'll find a link to the House of Representatives along with the address of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I hope you'll take a few moments to write to them. It bears repeating: the United States should to be investing heavily in sustainable and renewable energy resources, not enabling further dependence on a fuel that is slowly killing us--or, as is the case with tar sands oil and the Keystone XL pipeline, that will likely sicken and wipe out unknown numbers of lifeforms, including human beings, on an accelerated schedule.

Tar sands oil--that is, the production and exporting thereof--is undeniably bad for Canada:

Oilsands deposits underlie three main areas in northeastern Alberta, totalling about 140,000 square kilometres.

That's about the size of the state of Florida, a comparison often used by U.S. environmentalists to suggest how much boreal forest would be ripped up. But not quite. About 80 per cent of the oilsands will be mined in-situ, a technique that uses injected steam to soften the bitumen underground and pump it out. The gaping, smoky open pits often equated with oilsands mines will sprawl across about 500 square kilometres.

That doesn't mean the rest of the region will remain pristine. Even in-situ mines require roads, pipelines and other facilities that will chop the forest into smaller and smaller blocks and destroy habitat for animals that require large undisturbed areas. One U.S. scientist has estimated that those effects will reduce songbird populations by 166 million birds over the next 30 to 50 years. [...]

The Alberta Cancer Board has found cancer rates about 30 per cent higher than anticipated in the downstream community of Fort Chipewyan, with blood and lymphatic cancers double the expected rate. The board didn't consider possible causes.

Government air-quality monitoring has found no increases in carbon monoxide, ozone, particulates or sulphur dioxide in Fort McMurray, the largest community in the oilsands area. Nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen sulphide have increased slightly. In some streams, PAHs are already at levels toxic to fish embryos. However, a fish with two jaws caught last spring downstream from the oilsands was later found to be a goldeye showing signs of a natural after-death phenomenon.

What about those tailings ponds?

The oilsands use a lot of water and much of it ends up in vast tailings ponds, which are now the size of the city of Vancouver, and they're growing. The ponds are toxic. About 1,600 ducks tried to land in one last year and most died, covered in oily sludge. The ponds are separated in some places from the Athabasca River only by large earthen dams. One study suggests that up to 11 million litres of tailings leak out every year, although Alberta says any leaks percolate harmlessly into bedrock.

Sediment in the ponds has been very slow to settle and dealing with it is one of the industry's most stubborn problems. Companies have proposed "capping" the ponds with clean water and leaving them, but Alberta's energy regulator recently said mines must start converting to dry tailings by the summer of 2011. Of nine oilsands projects that filed proposals to do that, only two plan to meet the timeline, although the regulator promises the timeline will be enforced.

How significant are greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands?

It depends on the comparison. The oilsands are Alberta's second-largest industrial emitter - coal-fired power plants are bigger. One oft-repeated statistic is that all the greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands account for only five per cent of Canada's total emissions and 0.1 per cent of global emissions.

Environmentalists respond that any one project which shows up on a global scale is significant, period. They also point out that the oilsands are Canada's fastest-rising source of greenhouse gases.

Tar sands oil and the Keystone XL Pipeline would be undeniably bad for the United States, its citizens, and its environment:

[Nebraska cattleman Randy] Thompson apologizes for becoming animated, but says he's about done using politically correct language where the Keystone XL project is concerned.

Though he is a lifelong conservative and registered Republican, Thompson had never written so much as a letter to the editor or contacted a single politician in his life until agents for TransCanada first notified him, three years ago, that his property lay in the path a proposed $7-billion crude oil pipeline.

Now he is at the centre of a high-stakes fight over Keystone XL, which would transport up to 900,000 barrels per day of oilsands bitumen from northern Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The long-delayed pipeline project has been under intense scrutiny amid persistent concerns - raised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state legislators and private landowners - about the dangers posed by a possible spill of Canadian crude along its 2,700 kilometre route.

The U.S. State Department has the authority to grant a 'presidential permit' approving construction, and has indicated it will make a decision by the end of 2011 on whether Keystone XL is in America's national interest. [...]

As the project is currently planned, Keystone XL would run directly over the vast Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies Nebraska with 83 per cent of the water used in irrigation and 78 per cent of the state's public water supply.

Moreover, the pipeline would cut a swath through Nebraska's Sand Hills, the largest sand dunes complex in the western hemisphere, where soil disturbances risk massive "blowouts" and erosion that can take decades to repair.

TransCanada has waged an intense campaign - via mass-media advertising campaigns and lobbying in the corridors of the state legislature in Lincoln - to convince Nebraskans the pipeline will be both safe and an economic boon to the state. But public skepticism has grown following a series of leaks on TransCanada's existing Keystone 1 pipeline, which became operational in June 2010.

One rupture in a pipe fitting last month left a 20,000-gallon mess at a TransCanada pumping station in North Dakota.

"I am appreciative we will have jobs and revenue derived from the pipeline, but I really have an issue with the route that it has taken," says Tony Fulton, a Republican state senator.

"There is no other place on the planet like our Sand Hills, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which is precious not just to us but to the country."

The debate over the pipeline in Nebraska has been characterized by charges TransCanada has negotiated in bad faith, using arm-twisting tactics to coax landowners into granting right-of-way easements to build the pipeline.

Thompson says he was warned, in his very first discussions with TransCanada's agents, that rejecting the company's offer of compensation would prompt it to seek an eminent domain order to condemn his land so the pipeline could proceed.

Some U.S. lawmakers are concerned, if not alarmed, and have called for further review of the pipeline's potential for disaster while questioning the currently weak state of regulatory oversight, facts that even an industry-friendly outlet is admitting:

U.S. Congressmen Henry Waxman, the leading Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, is worried that regulatory oversight isn’t keeping up with an increasing amount of diluted bitumen being transported via U.S. pipelines. "I'm concerned that the industry is changing, but the safety regulations are not keeping up with the changes," he said at an Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. "That could be a recipe for disaster down the road."

Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council said at the hearing, "It is in the public's best interest for our pipeline safety for regulators to evaluate the risks that high volumes of heavy, corrosive and abrasive crudes, such as diluted bitumen, will have on the U.S. pipeline."

A number of pipeline accidents in the U.S. Midwest have some questioning whether diluted bitumen may be to blame. TransCanada's existing Keystone pipeline leaked 10 barrels of oil, due to a faulty fitting at a Kansas pump station last month. That accident followed a 500-barrel spill at a pump station in North Dakota in early May.

The committee last month passed a bill requiring the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to study the impact of diluted bitumen on U.S. pipelines.

Even Republicans think the issue should be investigated. "I think it is something we need to look into," said Republican Representative Joe Barton.

However, President of the Association of Oil Pipelines Andrew Black disputes any claims that diluted bitumen is contributing to pipeline corrosion, saying, “Diluted bitumen has been moved through pipelines for many years.” [Well, then, that settles it!--DNT]

Yet, a large number of the Usual Suspects (aka the House Republicans), are pushing hard for prompt approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline:

House Republicans are attempting to fast-track the controversial pipeline that would carry crude oil from tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada, across the US heartland and down to refineries in Texas.

The House Energy and Power Subcommittee approved a bill that requires President Obama to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline by November 1.

If he were to do so, he would have to over-rule demands for further review by the Environmental Protection Agency and ignore the protests of local communities that would be affected along the 1,700-mile pipeline route.

House Republicans seem bent on upping the nation's consumption of tar sands oil, presumably to reduce oil imports from the MidEast.

The strategy is blind to the environmental consequences of tar sands production, which has an environmental and emissions footprint that is several times larger than traditional crude oil.

The increased impact is due to the large amounts of energy, water and solvents needed to separate the crude oil from sand with which it is mixed in geological deposits.

-----

To find your House reps, click here.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

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Also at Dirty Hippies

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

This exquisite, dreamily chocolate-y flourless torte is one of my go-to grownup desserts for special occasions, and I say that because creating the torte tends to be a relatively labor-intensive and time-consuming endeavor, certainly more so than the throwing together of my (almost) everyday cakes and cookies (not that there's anything wrong with--or non-delicious about--those). Furthermore, Grand Marnier is a bit pricey these days. Trust me, though, this torte is absolutely, positively worth the effort and expense.

This is my adaptation of a recipe I found in Elle, back in the 1980's. (Come on, America, please go metric already!) It's also the first birthday cake I ever made for Robert, in 1988; the following year, we got married. To be clear, I'm not suggesting any connection between the two, although, as readers may remember, I do firmly believe that a fine chocolate experience affords the kind of transcendent bliss and soul-soothing magic that make fine chocolate itself worth defending from the slings and arrows of outrageous corporate takeovers.

Anyway, I'm going to give you my recipe for an 8" torte; the picture above is of the 10" one I made for Robert's birthday this year, reasoning that the lads would be deeply unhappy if they only got a tiny sliver each and there were no remaining torte over which to fight the next day. If you're making this with an eye toward satisfying a large-ish number of chocolate connoisseurs, just multiply the ingredients by 1.5, and when you get to the eggs, substitute 8 whites and 7 yolks for the 5 eggs called for. (Note to my fellow math-o-phobes: use your cell-phone's calculator, as I did! Or, *sigh*, just e-mail me, and I'll send you the quantities for the 10" version.) As for the chocolate itself, I generally use Ghirardelli's bars in my baking--the quality is reliably good and they're widely available in the States. If you're near a Trader Joe's, though, I'm told their chocolate is superb.

You'll want to make this the day before, at least, as the flavors need to blend and develop.

Chocolate Grand Marnier Torte à la Litbrit

For the torte:

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup walnuts
1/3 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
2 oz. finely-grated or chopped semisweet chocolate
zest of one orange, finely grated
5 eggs, which you've taken out of the fridge and allowed to come to room temperature, then separated
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (but not pulverized)

For the glaze:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup (this is not the same thing as HFCS, don't worry)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

-----

Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly butter an 8" springform pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, butter that, and then dust very lightly with flour.

Melt the unsweetened chocolate and butter together in a double-boiler or pan with a heavy bottom over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from stove and allow to cool.

In a Cuisinart or other food processor, whirl the walnuts around with 2 tablespoons of the sugar until finely ground, using the on-off pulsing button, and then tip it into a small bowl and add the grated, semisweet chocolate (not the melted stuff, not yet!) and the orange zest, and stir until mixed.

Beat the egg yolks in a mixer until they are foamy; add 4 tablespoons of sugar and keep beating until the mixture is pale yellow. Then stir the cooled, melted chocolate/butter mixture into the egg yolks.

In another, deep bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until you see soft peaks. Reduce the mixer's speed and slowly sprinkle in 1/3 cup sugar, making sure it's incorporated before adding the next sprinkle (patience, patience). Then increase the speed again and beat like mad until the egg whites are stiff.

Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the unsweetened chocolate mixture, then sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top, and fold together gently until barely combined. Repeat this until all is combined and batter is smooth, but do not overmix, or you'll knock all the loft out of your egg whites.

Spread the batter evenly in your prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes. (My oven is a bit temperamental and tends to run high, so I reduce the temperature 10-20 degrees and watch my precious sweetie-projects like a hawk--this torte is no exception.) Remove when a toothpick inserted in the middle of the torte comes out almost clean. Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then run a thin, flat knife around the edges of the cake; remove the springform pan's rim, and invert the cake onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper and re-invert onto another wire rack on which you've put a fresh piece of parchment. Allow to cool completely, then wrap the cake tightly in plastic film (Saran wrap) and put it in the freezer for about an hour, until semifrozen.

Meanwhile, make the filling...

Drain any liquid from your ricotta, and press it through a fine sieve into a small bowl. Stir in the sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of the Grand Marnier; fold in the chocolate bits. Cover with plastic and refrigerate until mixture firms up and can be spread.

Remove the cake from the freezer and carefully, with a very slim and sharp knife, trim off any exceedingly obvious bumps on the crust. Now, the tricky part: with the same knife, slice the semi-frozen cake horizontally in two. I find that if I score it around its perimeter first, finding the halfway-mark between the top and bottom and going in about an inch and giving it a quarter-turn at a time, it's easier to do this in an even way. I also pay attention to my knife, making sure it's parallel to the counter and not sawing away at strange angles. Keep turning and slowly easing the sideways knife blade in until you've got two perfect discs.

Place the bottom-most disc, cut side up, on the serving platter you plan to use. Sprinkle it with at least 1 tablespoon of Grand Marnier. Remove filling from the fridge and spread on top of this, going to within 1/4" of the edge of the torte. Then place the top half of the cake on it, sprinkle that with the remaining Grand Marnier, cover the whole thing with plastic wrap and press down gently and evenly to compact the layers and filling. Refrigerate at least five hours, or overnight.

Now, the glaze. Melt the butter, corn syrup, salt, and 2 teaspoons of water together in a double boiler or small, heavy pan, over low heat. Stir occasionally, turn up the heat to medium, bring to a boil, and allow it to boil for 1 minute, stirring all the while now. Remove from heat and stir in the semisweet chocolate, which will quickly melt. Allow to cool for about five minutes; it will thicken somewhat.

Take the cake out of the fridge and unwrap it. Pour the glaze over it, and with a metal spatula or frosting knife, quickly spread it out over the top and sides. Wait five minutes for it to set, then press the chopped walnuts into the sides and slightly on to the top, as you see in the picture. Refrigerate again for an hour, at least; take it out again about fifteen minutes before serving.

If you like, you can use orange slices and a few curlicues of peel for decoration, as I did.

Fire up the espresso machine, take a bow, and enjoy!

Cock-ups will cost you when you're liberal; otherwise, IOKIYAR*

Lovely, dear...we've all seen one before, you know.

Let's see...on this hot, sunny June morning in America, we've got families being thrown out onto the streets thanks, ultimately, to the criminals on Wall Street.

We've got how many wars going on, how many people still without work, how many families in the Gulf states still dealing with the double-blow of the economy followed by the BP spill that everyone has forgotten about?

Healthcare crisis? What crisis? (I just learned that my family's monthly health insurance premium is slated to go up $700--that's PER MONTH--because I turned fifty. Awesome!)

But lest anyone think that the Politicians Who Are Not Anthony Weiner haven't been busy, I'm here to tell you that in three weeks, with the help of the tut-tutting church ladies in the "liberal media", a strong voice of the people was silenced--like *that*--and not because he enabled torture, carried on an affair with an aide and then bribed her to keep silent, or sold his votes to the highest-bidding corporate donor.

No, Weiner was drummed out of office due to his having engaged in salacious (and occasionally illustrated) online correspondence with women he'd never been in the same room with, actions that struck me as being the peacock-like display behavior of a charged-up male inspired by the surfeit of female attentions that typically attend the powerful and/or celebrated.

I now demand David Vitter's naughty bits so I can bronze them and hang them from my rear-view mirror. It only seems fair.

*It's O.K. If You're A Republican

On social democracy, that inexplicably unmentionable phrase that truly embodies the spirit of We, the People

from Andy Warhol's Money series

This is one of those instances where even typing something out does little to make it more believable: Delta charges soldiers returning home from Afghanistan an additional luggage fee of $200 each (they are allowed three checked pieces, but as you'd imagine, members of our armed forces have a lot of bulky belongings that can't be jammed into three bags).

And yet.

I think there is an important larger message here: Delta, as we all know, is a corporation. Supreme Court classifications to the contrary notwithstanding, corporations are simply amoral entities, built from paper and pixels, that do not think or feel one way or another about anything; rather, they just seek maximum profits, period. Think of them like sharks--they don't care who gets hurt, they don't care what standards of decency and propriety they offend (making soldiers pay extra for their baggage? Really??) and they don't care who gets in the way; they only care about feeding, feeding, and more feeding.

For a conscientious human being, then, the question is not "How can Corporation XYZ be so uncaring?" but instead, "How far have we gone--and how much further are we willing to go--in allowing these amoral entities to control all the aspects of our daily existence?"

Right now, when you regard the matter with wide-open eyes, you realize that corporations control our elected leadership--much if not most of it, anyway--as well as our geopolitical posture, our banking system, our education system, our medical decisions, our agriculture and food supply, and, perhaps most worryingly, our very ability to elect candidates for public office who represent us, the people, as opposed to them, the aforementioned entities whose only raison d'être is to turn a profit.

Going by what I learned in high school American history, and what I've since observed about what I'd loosely term "the national character", I'd say Americans tend to recoil at the very notion of being controlled and reflexively put a foot down if they feel that is what someone, or something, is trying to do.

As such, they shy away from--and often will outright demonize--the word "socialist", because they see it as being under the controlling thumb of the state.

Blame the paucity of engaging, thought-provoking debates about political philosophy in our high school social studies classes; blame the shallow nature of the learning that does take place in a teach-to-the-test climate wherein facts are regurgitated and promptly forgotten; the end result is that far too many of us don't seem to realize that we are the state.

Ironically, in a social democracy (which yes, is a form of socialism, albeit one that's rather more grounded in reality than utopian socialism), we would be the ones in control.

As matters currently stand, we're under the control of a plutocracy--and it's an insidious, shadowy, "Aw shucks, we're just like you" kind of plutocracy--with the difference being, the plutocracy is most definitely not us.

And on ever-increasing numbers of issues, we have virtually no say whatsoever, not even within the context of elections, wherein we get the false choice of voting for one beholden-to-corporations candidate over the other beholden-to-corporations candidate, and thanks to their professed differences on a handful of social issues (Roe, marriage equality, guns), we think we've had some say. We "feel" as though we have some measure of control.

We don't.

Whenever I am in a conversation with non-political-junkies--at dinner, say--with people who start complaining about the government this and the state that, and people inevitably head into a discussion about why we are better off not letting the government or the state have so much power, I always chime in: HEY! You are forgetting something! The government is US. The state is US.

When the State-That-Is-Us has control, this is a good thing. Trouble is, that's not what we're seeing. We are not under the control of ourselves--of us--but rather, we're under the control of the wealthy, namely corporations and their interests. That's why our own money, our tax dollars, never seem to get spent the way we want--on excellent public education for all American children, affordable health care, clean air and water initiatives, programs to feed our hungry and provide shelter for our homeless, energy-efficient public transportation that would relieve us of our miserable hours-long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and so on--but instead get spent, one obscene trillion-pile after another, on endless wars, bailouts, subsidies for Big Oil and of course, Big Agribusiness, and money-pit "security" agencies that violate our Constitutional rights and treat law-abiding citizens as guilty until proven innocent. I'm sure you can think of more.

The government is us. And to my mind, the only way to even begin to make leadership behave that way is to completely change the way elections are funded and do away with all forms of campaign "donations" as well as halting altogether the corporate lobbying of sitting leaders.

Campaigns would be publicly-funded; candidates for public office would be given a strict limit as to what they could spend on a campaign.

Imagine what could be accomplished if, instead of spending months and years in "pre-election money-grubbing-and-vote-pandering mode", a leader could actually lead. No more mudslinging attack ads (too expensive!) and no more ridiculous talking-point pageants masquerading as debates. Imagine candidates running for office solely because they are leaders answering a call to duty. Imagine them getting elected based solely on their leadership abilities--their knowledge, their talent, their record of doing good work on our behalf.

Imagine having leaders who are beholden to no-one but us, the we in We, the People.

It would not be impossible for the United States to implement a truly American-people-controlled system of governance--a social democracy--indeed, I would argue that social democracy is the closest thing there is to an actual embodiment of what the Founding Fathers intended for the country, and one only need read the wise and poignantly beautiful writings of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et. al. to confirm this.

But given the range of theatrical talents, the vast and tentacular wealth, and the predators' amorality that characterize the beasts we currently face, it is dispiritingly unlikely that we ever will.

Dear Media: Is that a REAL scandal in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Cf.

Litbrit on the Nicole Sandler show

I had a great time this morning chatting with fellow Floridian Nicole Sandler. We talked about Weinergate, among other things, and wondered why it almost always seems to be male politicians who find themselves entangled in these things.

I come on around the 35:30 mark.

Double, double, oil and trouble

As usual, the hardly-extreme position of wanting to look after the planet--and protect our ecosystems, not to mention our food and water supplies so as to save our own hides as well as leave our grandchildren a decent place in which to live--is under attack. Make that, undergoing a full-on assault.

It needs to be said, again, that opponents of clean energy policy, responsible climate-change policy--indeed, any and all initiatives to educate Americans about climate change and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, period--are the ones behind a significant amount of the attacking, insulting, and discrediting of President Obama that's been going on for as long as he has been in office. (That much of it is also fueled by racism at the base level means it's that much easier for the oil giants to garner support in their attacks on the president--surely you didn't think it was all about his being a secret Kenyan Muslim usurper?!)

At the top of the list of offenders are the reviled Koch brothers and their monied front groups, like Americans for Prosperity, as well as the libertarian and conservative think-tanks they help fund, like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Despite their open and despicable attacks on the president, the Koch Brothers, who stand to benefit in a big way, would like nothing more than for him to give the Keystone XL Pipeline his blessing. From ClimateProgress:

The Keystone XL pipeline, awaiting a thumbs up or down on a presidential permit, would increase the import of heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day, if it gets built.

Proponents tout it as a boon to national security that would reduce America’s dependence on oil from unfriendly regimes. Opponents say it would magnify an environmental nightmare at great cost and provide only the illusion of national benefit.

What’s been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda.

And yes, in case you were wondering, it's not just a pride thing, not just a matter of holding grudges against people who smeared you--the pipeline's environmental threats are very real and rather jaw-dropping in their enormity.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would cut through six states; its presence and operation would threaten 2,000 miles worth of American homes and farmlands. This is dirty tar sands oil we're talking about, and its ill effects are much worse than those associated with conventional oil. From Friends of the Earth:

Pollution from tar sands oil greatly eclipses that of conventional oil. During tar sands oil production alone, levels of carbon dioxide emissions are three times higher than those of conventional oil, due to more energy-intensive extraction and refining processes. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil into the United States daily, doubling our country's reliance on it and resulting in climate-damaging emissions equal to adding more than six million new cars to U.S. roads.

How risky would it be? Very.

The XL route touted by (Alberta Premier Ed) Stelmach also passes through an active seismic zone that had a 4.3 magnitude earthquake as recently as 2002. In spite of this danger, the proponent TransCanada has applied to the U.S. government to use thinner steel and pump at higher pressures, saving the company as much as a $1 billion.

Furthermore, the Keystone XL pipeline, if permitted, would put many of the native people living in the northern part of the continent at risk, as pipelines have, in the past, poisoned their sources of food and water which in turn led to spikes in certain cancers and other ailments within their populations; moreover, it would threaten a vast swath of the High Plains Water Table, on which nearly 2 million Americans depend for drinking water (er, Homeland Security? Can you put down the blue rubber gloves for a moment and pay attention to some real, documented threats to our safety?) From Futurism Now:

The State Department considers pipelines carrying the world’s dirtiest oil into the United States to be matters of paramount national interest. To this administration, as with the last, pretty much everything can be a matter of national interest or national security when it is about oil. Bombing Libya was also a matter of “national interest” to Hillary Clinton, and so have been other dirty tar sands pipelines, like the Alberta Clipper pipeline that she approved, to be built in my state. These pipelines are also matters of eminent domain, because the government seizes privately owned land and builds the pipelines across them. Homeowners, land owners have no choice in the matter. All for some of the world’s worst oil representing the world’s worst environmental degradation in Canada.

So where do plans for this pipeline stand right now? A bill supporting it, the North American-Made Energy Security Act of 2011, is currently being circulated in draft form and will be aired publicly when the House Energy and Power Subcommittee convenes on Monday. From yesterday's Reuters feed:

WASHINGTON— Environmentalists understand why so many House Republicans are gung-ho about upping imports of oil mined from the tar sands of Western Canada.

What puzzles them is why Michigan Rep. Fred Upton has emerged as one of the cause's lead GOP cheerleaders. [...]

No doubt the former centrist's embrace of fossil fuels has tightened ever since he took charge of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee in January. Even though the Democrat-led Senate is less likely to back such a measure, Upton's grip is alarming to conservationists who know how much power his panel wields on Capitol Hill.

"What this bill is doing is perpetuating myths about the tar sands that the Alberta government, the Canadian government and the oil industry want us to believe," Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, an oil sands specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council told SolveClimate News in an interview. "It's a way for them to promote their own products at the expense and well-being of the American people."

And then, toward the end of the article, one encounters that omnipresent Cerberus of high-ranking power, political campaigns, and lobbyists' influence. Weep along with me for a brief moment, gentle readers, and then waste no time in contacting your Congresscritters:

Upton and his committee, it turns out, aren't the only ones prodding the State Department to meet a specific deadline.

After waiting five months for department officials to release possible communications between TransCanada chief lobbyist Paul Elliott and Clinton, four environmental and ethics organizations sued the State Department Wednesday.

TransCanada hired the native New Yorker as its government relations director more than two and a half years ago. He served as a presidential campaign manager for Clinton in 2008.

Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, is representing Friends of the Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International in the lawsuit.

"This raises important questions of transparency and fairness," said Sarah Burt, an Earthjustice attorney. "If a decision to approve a transcontinental pipeline is made based on relationships and access to Clinton, while completely overlooking the significant environmental and public health dangers posed by the pipeline, the public needs to be aware of it."

To find your House reps, click here.

And please, sign the petition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to deny approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

(H/T--and thanks--to my Mum)

America's Worst Legislature? By a mile of rotting oranges, I'd say.

I've been having an interesting e-mail conversation with friends around the country, and the consensus so far is that Florida is definitely right up there (or down there, as it were), running neck-and-neck with Arizona for the honor of America's Worst Legislature. I am obviously biased, but I think we win this one. You have to admit, we've got some uniquely awful new stuff coming out of Tallahassee these days (and considering how much fun the tabloids and pundits have always had with Florida's general lunacy over the years, that's really saying something).

So far, in the Florida column, we've got:

Doctors will be prohibited from talking to patients about gun safety. Hey, a patient has the right to not hear about what a gun can do his, er, health and well-being.

BUT, a patient does not have the right to not hear about that which she is already well-aware of: "Hey, you're pregnant!" (or she wouldn't be seeking an abortion in the first place, but these are old white guys making the rules, and this is their sadistic idea of "logic"). In sum, doctors will be required by law to force women to submit to ultrasound imaging (sonograms) before abortions, even very early procedures and terminations induced via oral medication, which before the three month point means the ultrasound wand must be used vaginally. If it isn't clear already, let me point out that for a woman (or girl) who was raped and abused--and indeed may be seeking a termination as a result of said rape--this penetration would subject her to further trauma. Cruel and patently needless trauma. For SHAME, Florida.

AND...people who have the temerity to be poor and in need of access to Florida's miserly and wafer-thin safety net (aka "welfare") will be henceforth required to submit to drug testing via forced urinalysis. And pay for said testing themselves, up front. If your private bodily fluids are not acceptably drug-free for Rick Scott, no soup for you. Or your kids. (Stay away from poppyseed bagels and definitely hope and pray your submitted sample doesn't fall into that category the labs like to call "margin of error".) Oh, and you forfeit the money you spent on the drug test you were forced to take. Let them eat...what, exactly? Lab receipts?

No sex with animals. Hey, they're serious and they mean it.

(Next up: a proposed constitutional amendment to rework the species cladograms so as to give humans a brand new kingdom all our own. Ergo, Floridian biology classes will now teach kids about the three kingdoms: Plant, Animal, and now--brought to you by your friends at BP, Exxon Mobil, and Monsanto--a brand-new kingdom of creatures: Those Life-forms Who've Generally Fucked The Other Two.)

No already-several-years-out-of-fashion showing of the human bottom, or, as one legislator put it back in the day when they were busily banning thong bikinis on our beaches, "we must ban clothing that shows the anal cleft".

Somewhere out there in the cosmos, Charles Darwin is either weeping copiously or completely rethinking the notion of human brains being capable of evolving.

A poem for our day

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

-- Dylan Thomas

(H/T Minstrel Boy)

On balance

I am firmly against the death penalty, yet I am also keenly aware that not only could I kill someone in the defense of an innocent--or myself (a sometimes-innocent)--but also, that I would be deeply conflicted if I were to face an actual, flesh-and-bone version of the ethical quandary so often posed as a hypothetical to philosophy students: namely, Could you kill someone if (a) he or she was already shown, in no uncertain terms, to be a murderer AND (b) if it were proven, positively, that killing him or her would save many innocent lives in the future?

If I'm honest, I'll admit I don't know how to answer that. The death-penalty-qua-death-penalty situation affords a comfortable space between the lofty atmosphere of Deborah's ethics and the sometimes gritty concept of justice-not-delayed. However, if I am inserted into the equation in a real-world sense--if I must do the deed, if I am to be the executioner--it is nowhere near as simple.

And once again, I find that Mill smacks into Kant. Meanwhile, the faces of those potential innocents saved? They float before a mother's eyes like pale and disembodied dreams--partly remembered yet surely there.

I believe justice was served yesterday.

DNT
5/2/11


UPDATE: Roger Ebert feels likewise, and on Twitter, he invokes Walt Whitman:

I am against the Death Penalty. I rejoice that Bin Laden was killed. "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself." (Whitman)

"These are the things I know are true": Journey of the Bonesetter's Daughter on PBS May 8

Watch the full episode. See more PBS Presents.

Congratulations to my friend Amy Tan on the success of an epic project: turning her bestselling novel The Bonesetter's Daughter into an opera.

Posted above is a preview of the "making-of" documentary, to be aired on PBS next Sunday, which promises to tell the story-within-the-story (the operatic within the opera?) I can't wait!

In 2005, I was fortunate to have traveled to New York for my birthday; that weekend, over Mallomars and coffee at Amy's kitchen table, I got to observe Amy and Stewart working on the opera during its early creative phase. The Bonesetter's Daughter, performed by the San Francisco Opera, opened in that city to glowing reviews in 2008.

I didn't make it to San Francisco that fall, alas. But New York is a much quicker hop--perhaps Broadway next year, Amy?!

Florida radio journalist arrested for asking questions at Allen West's townhall meeting

This is fellow Floridian Nicole Sandler asking a followup question of Congressman Allen West at a townhall in South Florida yesterday.

West was reciting the party line, namely, that the Republicans have this brilliant idea--"Let's bring in the magic of the marketplace to run health care for seniors, because something something competition and lowered prices, oooh, look at the birdie!"

And Nicole had the gall to stand up and call it what it is: "You're PRIVATIZING Medicare!"

So they arrested her.

That is correct: at a townhall meeting, wherein politicians are supposed to engage their constituents in debate and conversation about pressing topics of concern--and, I'd add, right here in the United States of America--a concerned, compassionate citizen and mother is ARRESTED and taken to jail for daring to point out that the dishonest puppet Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

More as details develop.

UPDATE:

Michael at Pushing Rope also has videos of Nicole's arrest, however in the second clip (not posted here) it's obvious the footage is edited. Not by Michael, it must be noted, but rather, by whoever shot that footage. Said cameraperson removed the parts shown in the first one (which *is* posted above)--that is, the part where Nicole stands up and calls West out on his Medicare-killing and asks if this isn't privatizing; she keeps repeating her questions. The footage then jumps straight from Allen's previous comments to Nicole being led out and then handcuffed. Her actual questions to Allen were removed so as to be able to use the smarmy title Allen West heckled; Heckler arrested. *sigh*

UPDATE II:

Nicole Sandler will appear on Cenk's show on MSNBC at 6:15pm this evening.

Frankly Saturday: Frank Zappa's Bogus Pomp; UCLA, 1975

Frank Zappa and the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra perform Bogus Pomp, from the album Orchestral Favorites. Set to video footage of the Other Famous and Relatively Recent Royal Wedding.

I'm somewhat torn between loving the visual spectacle and gorgeous costume of British tradition and loathing the silly notion of spending obscene amounts of public money on private people simply because they were born to one set of parents as opposed to another.

On balance, I submit that our finest crowns and heartiest accolades should go to the artists, musicians, teachers, and scientists among us--that we should celebrate those who make life on earth a happier, healthier, and more meaningful experience for their fellow humans.

I have a feeling Maestro FZ would agree. As would his famous forefather, Marcus Tullius Cicero:

Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex

(The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.)

What say you?

In honor of the many lives shattered and snuffed out by BP this time last year...

...I offer this beautiful and provocative video installation, by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

Rist created the work in 1997, and I first saw it in New York's MoMA back in 2000, while touring the latest featured collection with my co-author Linda Lindroth, herself an artist whose works can be seen there as well as the Met and other art museums.

It's a violent, beauty-destroying world out there. As they have since time immemorial, the corporations are acting all corporation-y, and as the saying goes, one can either conform, go crazy, or become an artist.

I took a good whack at the first option for, oh, the first few months of my life. (Or so I'm told. That particular time is immemorial, ha!) As soon as I could form words and choose colors, though, the second and third options seemed both inevitable and a whole lot more appealing.

As Robert gets ever-closer to his goal of running an all-wind-and-solar-powered farm, I hereby pledge that when it comes time to retire my current vehicle, the next one will be a hybrid or, better yet, a slick little electric car that I can plug into my solar-powered outlet.

Pass the sledgehammer.

Let America be America Again

This is America, yesterday* and today. What will she become?

Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

-- Langston Hughes, American poet

[H/T Rick Santorum, the possible Republican presidential candidate who lifted the theme--Let America be America Again--of Hughes' famous poem and used it in his campaign slogan. And then denied doing so, of course.

And many thanks to Lee Fang of ThinkProgress, who called him on it.]

* New Orleans, September 2005

A Postcard from Quantico

At the demonstration at Quantico, Virginia yesterday, peaceful protesters and supporters of the imprisoned (but as-yet untried) American citizen PFC Bradley Manning were met by a wide array of heavily-armed personnel.

Lisa Simeone participated in the demonstration and sends along this photo, taken by a fellow protester. It shows riot police arresting Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers, who is 80 years old--and for whom this arrest was his 83rd--and Ann Wright, a gray-haired grandmother and former career military colonel who resigned in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq.

Riot police.

There were also heavily-armed personnel everywhere, automatic rifles, police on horseback, you name it. Because of all those pacifists doing their peaceful, Constitution-respecting First Amendment thing and protesting the unconstitutional treatment of an imprisoned but as-yet untried (and therefore, under the law, still innocent) American citizen, Bradley Manning.

RIOT POLICE.

Peace protesters arrested at White House; Chris Hedges speaks: War promises to give us an identity...as long as we go along with the myth"

This is award-winning author and war correspondent Chris Hedges, speaking at a peace rally in front of the White House Saturday that marked the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.

I hope you'll take a moment to listen to this beautiful, thought-provoking speech, and that you'll share it, too. Rarely have I heard these clear, obvious truths--about not only war itself, but the culture that continues to fuel its very existence--so eloquently expressed.

And here is footage of the protesters marching and getting arrested yesterday. These included civilians as well as veterans of numerous wars--Americans who have experienced war first-hand and who now work to promote the cause of its opposites: Peace. Life. The building of things as opposed to the tearing down of them. You'll note they are peaceful and respectful, as are the police who begin quietly handcuffing (and arresting) everyone at the White House fence, including my heroic friend, co-blogger, and role model in standing up for what is right, Lisa Simeone (seen at about the 2:27 mark, to the right of the screen and wearing a leopard-print trench coat and sunglasses; when this was filmed, Lisa had not yet been apprehended).

Beauty for a Saturday afternoon: Federico Mompou; Preludio from the Suite Compostelana

Frederico Mompou is one of my favorite composers. This Preludio is part of the Suite Compostelana, which he created in 1962 for fellow Spaniard Andres Segovia. Guitarist Thomas Rouw's obvious talents, and his faithfulness to Mompou's complex but nonetheless weightless--almost airborne--progressions, really honor this exquisite piece.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

"Ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid": State Dept.'s P.J. Crowley, prior to forced resignation, on Pentagon's treatment of PFC Bradley Manning

On Sunday, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley resigned, just days after his remarks to a BBC journalist--at an informal lecture--about the abusive treatment of long-detained whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning:

And then, inevitably, one young man said he wanted to address “the elephant in the room”. What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, “torturing a prisoner in a military brig”? Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He paused. “None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place”. And he went on lengthening his answer, explaining why in Washington’s view, “there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made”.

But still, he’d said it. And the fact he felt strongly enough to say it seems to me an extraordinary insight into the tensions within the administration over Wikileaks.

A few minutes later, I had a chance to ask a question. “Are you on the record?” I would not be writing this if he’d said no. There was an uncomfortable pause. “Sure.” So there we are.

The next day, a group of residents and activists, including Code Pink, mounted an impromptu protest march that began at the State Department and concluded outside the White House. They applauded P.J. Crowley's candor and urged President Obama to put a stop to the unconstitutional pre-trial treatment of Manning.

Former C.I.A. analyst and present-day peace activist Ray McGovern--who last month attended a speech by Secretary Clinton and was bound and physically dragged from the room after merely standing and turning his back in silent protest--was among those who gathered peaceably in protest of the Obama administration's amplification of Bush-era detention and torture policies.

And so was Lisa Simeone (between the 1:20 and 1:30 minute mark, in black coat and sunglasses). Lisa reports that the group included both ordinarily-dressed citizens and some prison-garb-wearing activists and that, despite having been organized at the last minute, the mood among (and surrounding) the protesters was upbeat and positive, with onlookers saying things like "God bless you".

-----

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

-- Hermann Goering

I'm back! From my mailbox: Alan Grayson reminds us why unions are vital

Five years (whoa) (yes, it has been that long) after starting litbrit, it has sort of established itself as a formula: life intervenes; reality contravenes; blogging retrocedes. Yet here I am, back at my digital stomping grounds once again: receiving this note from ex-congressman Alan Grayson this morning inspired me. (And with all that's going on right now, both globally and locally, little has been able to inspire me very much lately.)

Given that it hails from the Committee to Elect Alan Grayson, I assume he is aiming to be elected to something? Because if so, hooray! Anyway, reprinted in its entirety:

On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.

On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.

On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.

Here and around the world, many people have fought and died, so that you and I would have the right to organize.

And so that 250,000 public workers in Wisconsin would have that right, too.

This is not exactly a new idea. Six months after the Ludlow Massacre, President Wilson signed the Clayton Act, prohibiting the prosecution of union members under Antitrust Law. That was almost a century ago.

Two decades later, during the Franklin Roosevelt's first term as President, he signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. It protects the right to organize. That was over 75 years ago.

The right to organize also is a fundamental principle of international law. Over 150 countries have ratified the "Right to Organize" Convention, an international treaty. It was adopted in 1949, over 60 years ago.

So why are we even talking about this, 11 years into the 21st Century?

Because the teabaggers want to "take back America." They want to take it back, all right – take it all the way back to the 19th century. When there was no right to organize. When people worked for a dollar a day. When grown men competed against children for jobs. When women were barred from most jobs entirely. When you worked until you died. Not to mention slavery.

I want to see an America that is healthy and wealthy.

They want an America that provides cheap labor to our corporate overlords. An America where the middle class is chained by debt.

We didn't ask for this fight. But we have no choice except to fight back. For the survival of the middle class in America. For us, for our children, and for our grandchildren. And so that the victims in Haymarket, in Homestead and in Ludlow did not die in vain.

As Cardinal Spellman said 45 years ago, "it is a war thrust upon us, and we cannot yield to tyranny."

I'm ready to fight for what's right. What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

CPAC, where mythmaking is a piece of cake!

As I said in my e-mail to Blue Gal* a little earlier (and since this is a Republican event, I will issue a Republican apology beforehand and say, I'm sorry if any southerners take this the wrong way):

Check out this CPAC Reagan cake, via Media Matters. Of course they misspelled Berlin. Of course.

Robert said it was probably a case of "Hey, Billy Joe Bob, I'm frostin' the cake--should ah spay-ell that Yoo-ro-peen place lahk Mama spay-ells her name--L-Y-N-N-E--or is it jes' plain ol L-Y-N after the BER. Also, d'ya think ah made his eyebrows too bushy and furriner-lookin'?"

*P.S. Some joyful news on the Professional Left front: Blue Gal and Driftglass--friends of litbrit since, well, forever--are tying the knot. (How's that for burying the lead?!)

Wednesday Frank: Regyptian Strut

I hold good thoughts for the brave citizens of Egypt. May the world learn from their example.

Frank Zappa was a strong believer in the creative and political power of a free people, as well as an outspoken advocate for freedom of speech and of the press. What's more, he was an Italian-American with Arab blood. I have a feeling he would be applauding the latest developments in the Middle East.

(H/T Rumproast)

A battle lost: Countdown to Plutocracy

In case you hadn't yet heard, last night's broadcast was Keith Olbermann's last Countdown. It seems, once again, that a strong and passionate liberal voice is muffled (I won't say "silenced", because I have a feeling he'll be back very soon, somewhere, somehow). What's clear, at this point, is that the Comcast takeover has begun in earnest. And that Olbermann won't be the only newly-unemployed MSNBC journalist, although he will be among the wealthier members of that subset. Here's Greg Sargant at the WaPo:

So Keith Olbermann is out. As best as I can tell, none of the news accounts about his departure have gotten to the bottom of what happened here. But Olbermann himself offered enough clues in his final broadcast for us to reasonably speculate that he abruptly got the ax, perhaps even as late as last night.

A "knowledgeable official" at MSNBC told Howard Kurtz that the separation was "mutual." But it's hard to see how that squares with this, from Olbermann's last words on Countdown last night:

"I think the same fantasy has popped into the head of everybody in my business who has ever been told what I have been told, that this is going to be the last edition of your show. You go directly to the scene from the movie 'Network,' complete with the pajamas, and the raincoat, and you go off on an existential, otherworldly journey of profundity and vision...

"When I resigned from ESPN 13 and a half years ago, I was literally given 30 seconds to say goodbye at the very end of my last edition of "Sports Center." As God is my witness, in the commercial break just before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and he said, `uh, can you cut it down to 15 seconds, so we can get in this tennis result from Stuttgart? So I'm grateful that I have a little more time to sign off here."

Between this and the shell-shocked look Olbermann had last night, it seems clear that he may have been abruptly informed that he was history, perhaps even during last night's show. That would also square with the experience of Josh Marshall, who was actually on Olbermann last night and had no sense that anything was amiss.

I am an unabashed Olbermann fan and have been for years. Yes, he's passionate and fiery, but while I'm well aware that plenty of folks prefer a calmer take on politics and current events, I'd argue that Olbermann's tone was exactly what was called for when Countdown hit the air, considering the fresh hell that flowed forth on a seemingly daily basis during those dark Bush II years. Olbermann is an honest man who ran a fact-based operation--albeit one that was sometimes a bit heavy on the hyperbole--but unlike the vast majority of television personalities (and pretty much all conservative public persons), he was not afraid to admit a mistake and sincerely apologize for it. He was fair, and he listened.

I loved his literature-infused take on life in these United States; I loved his wordiness and his long, acrobatic compound sentences; I loved (and related to) his genuine anger; I loved his kind and very soft heart, evident to anyone with a soul.

Keith Olbermann clearly pissed off all the right people.

Good.

"All the perfumes petrodollars of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand..."

Memo to ex-governor Palin and her ghostwriters and puppetmasters:

History and literature--not that you've ever demonstrated any understanding of, or respect for, either of those things--would suggest that you may as well save your energies, because the scrubbing never works.

Never. Ever.

For those who suffered the unimaginable yesterday

From this day forward, may they know only the best and most beautiful of things of which humans beings are capable.

May they know amazing grace.

And may they know peace.