Stripping Down To 350 PPM
Another online campaign has thrown its creativity behind an effort to raise awareness of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark on Dec. 7. This ad — by 350.org — has “gone viral” in the last two weeks and is designed to aid Americans in visualizing the need to reduce global carbon emissions to 350 parts per million. The ad featured 11 young, skinny supermodels stripping from their multi-layers of heavy winter clothing.
Elites’ Carbon Emissions Far Surpass The Masses’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Another online campaign has thrown its creativity behind an effort to raise awareness of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark on Dec. 7.
This ad — by 350.org — has “gone viral” in the last two weeks and is designed to aid Americans in visualizing the need to reduce global carbon emissions to 350 parts per million.
The ad featured 11 young, skinny supermodels stripping from their multi-layers of heavy winter clothing.
As the young women remove their britches, a ticker in the upper left corner of the screen counted down from 390 parts per million, i.e. the “bad” number.
Once the models shimmy down to just their bras and panties, the voice-over said, “This is what 352 million parts per mission looks like. If you want to see what 350 — our natural state — you’ll have to get your politicians to act now.”
Joe Brewer, a consultant at Cognitive Policy Works, defended the ad’s effectiveness around theories espoused by fellow cognitive scientist George Lakoff in a recent piece called “How Stripping Supermodels Promote Action on Climate Change.”
“A major theme of this video is that solving the climate crisis is a natural compulsion… just like having a sex drive is an innate quality for human beings,” Brewer wrote. “It playfully asserts that engagement with the challenges we face in dealing with climate can be pleasurable and fun.”
He continued, “What’s more, the final moments of the video set up the pressure to ‘finish the job’ and get those last two parts per million out of the way. A clear and powerful objective has been set up (for those who find supermodels sexy) to get down to ‘bare essentials’ where these people most like to be.”
Adrian Ivakhiv, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, agreed with Brewer’s points, except his critique of the fashion industry. He recommended “playing up” the “highly sophisticated, complex pieces of science” behind climate change in future advertisements.
“I would argue that part of making that message broader is playing up its science (just to raise awareness of how we know about climate change) and, secondly, playing up its ethics and politics: its potential (and already claimed) victims, its costs, and the vested interests on both sides (old energy’ on one, new entrepreneurialism on the other),” he said.
As of deadline, over 500,000 people on YouTube have viewed the 350.org supermodel ad, which was inspired by the Global Day of Climate Action event referred to as “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.”
Not yet touched upon, however, were the carbon loads the superweathy class emits that brings about global change, as suggested by George Monbiot, a columnist covering climate change for The Guardian/UK.
As evidence, Monbiot pointed to a paper published by the journal Environment and Urbanization stating that “around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all.”
Monbiot explained the point from his own personal experience price-checking ultra-luxurious yachts known to scramble across the Mediterranean Sea.
“But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots. That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometrer,” he wrote in a piece called “The Population Myth.”
Monbiot also described the lavish accessories of these megayachts with their “teak and mahogany fittings,” “jet skis,” and “mini-submarine,” not to mention the transportation to get to the marina (private plane and helicopter) and food once on board (bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar).
“As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in 10 minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby,” he added.
While not savvy to Monbiot’s criticism of the elites’ emissions of carbon, the WorldNetDaily noted this superclass’ stated goal is to control the growth of the world’s population last May.
These “secret billionaire’s club” met last May at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and president of Rockefeller University to discuss how to curb population growth as a way of reducing carbon emissions.
Those in attendence, according to The London Sunday Times, included Bill Gates, David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg.
Bill Gates, the former head of the Microsoft computer software firm, had already indictated in February the goal to cap the world population at 8.3 billion people.
However, population observers, like the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, have noted that the world’s population is nothing to worry too much about.
According to the 2004 U.N.“World At Six Billion” report, the world’s population growth rate has declined from two percent per year (the peak) to about 1.3 percent.
The population will increase this century, but growth won’t last forever on its own due to “declining fertility and the aging of populations.”
“United Nations projections (medium fertility scenario) indicate that world population will nearly stabilize at just above 10 billion persons after 2200,” the report noted.
If anything needed to be curbed, it’s the West’s consumption of the planet’s resources, not the South’s population, Monbiot added.
“People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance,” he wrote.
Monbiot bemoaned the absense of protest movements taking direct action against the “stinking rich” this past September.
But he has friends in high places.
The Archbishop of Canterbury slammed the idea that economic growth will cure climate change; Dr. Rowan Williams told The Daily Mail last month:
“We cannot grow indefinitely in economic terms without moving towards the death of what is most distinctively human, the death of the habits that make sense in a shared world where life has to be sustained by co-operation not only between humans but between humans and their material world.”
Last week, in fact, the Archbishop suggested that the Copenhagen summit was insignificant compared to impact the world’s major religions due to their “deeper roots” in the world.
In a recent speech at Southwark Cathedral in London. Dr. Williams said, ‘Whatever we do to combat the nightmare possibilities of wholesale environmental catastrophe has to be grounded not primarily in the scramble for survival but in the hope of human happiness.’
Cheney Dodged FBI With 72 ‘No Recalls’
As vice president, Dick Cheney told criminal investigators 72 times that he could not recall his role in the outing of an covert CIA agent, according to a newly released FBI report.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As vice president, Dick Cheney told criminal investigators 72 times that he could not recall his role in the outing of an covert CIA agent, according to a newly released FBI report.
A 28-page FBI summary of the 2004 interview shined light on what the federal prosecutor described as “a cloud over the vice president” in the case involving the Valerie Plame affair.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, said “we’re one step closer” to understanding Cheney’s role.
Evidence already exists connecting Cheney to the leak of Plame’s CIA identity; his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby wrote handwritten notes referencing Plame and the CIA.
However, when Libby asked his boss about them in late September 2003 before handing over the notes to the FBI investigators, Cheney responded, “From me?” according to Libby’s federal grand jury testimony.
But according to the newly released FBI summery, Cheney told a different story to investigators: “the vice president has no specific recollection of such a conversation.”
Plame’s name was published in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003.
The leak of Plame’s identity was widely seen as to silence her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for reporting that the White House’s claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was making weapons of mass destruction from materials imported from Niger.
Libby was convicted for perjury, obstruction, and lying to the FBI.
While Libby’s 30-month prison sentence was commuted, Cheney prefered that his former staff member recieve a full pardon.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued under the Freedom of Information Act to have the FBI summery released.
INFO
www.citizensforethics.org
‘The Prosecution Of George W. Bush’ Documentary To Debut Feb. 2010
A documentary film based on the book calling for the prosecution of former President George W. Bush for murder will debut early next year.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A documentary film based on the book calling for the prosecution of former President George W. Bush for murder will debut early next year.
“I would not be doing what I’m doing unless I’m very confident that under the law he’s guilty of murder and should be prosecuted,” said Vincent Bugliosi the author and producer of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush” in the trailer.
Bugliosi is known for his prosecution of the Manson murders
In praise of the filmmaker, Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz said in the trailer:
“There’s no prosecutor I would want to have if I were innocent more than Vince, and there’s no prosecutor I would fear more if I were guilty. He will get at the truth.”
FBI Terrorist Watch List Tops 400,000 Names
The FBI’s so-called terrorist watch list has over 400,000 names, and in the last year, the agency says, about 1,600 people qualified for having a “reasonable suspicion.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FBI’s so-called terrorist watch list has over 400,000 names, and in the last year, the agency says, about 1,600 people qualified for having a “reasonable suspicion.”
The details of this list were revealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee through the FBI this past September.
The FBI noted that that each name might represent an alias of a person or group that was on a previous list.
More details came from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in answer to the committee’s questions, according to Steven Aftergood’s Secrecy News.
The list has been criticised because the FBI is not required, as it had prior to Sept. 11, 2001, to provide information that a person was indeed up to no good before the opening of an investigation.
The FBI, in response to Sen. Russell D. Feingold, said that the number of its “assessments” could only be released in classified form.
Food Stamps To Feed 90 Percent Of Black American Children
At some point in their lives, nine out of 10 black American children will eat foods bought through food stamps, according to a new study.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — At some point in their lives, nine out of 10 black American children will eat foods bought through food stamps, according to a new study.
Moreover, one of two American children will fall into the same category.
In other words, all of these children fed from food stamps live in poverty, said Mark Rank, a co-author of the study with Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University.
In the end, the study found that American kids are more likely to live in poverty than any children living in the Western world.
The study noted that $22 billion healthcare dollars a year is related to the lack of nourishment for chldren.
“Children in poverty are significantly more likely to experience a range of health problems, including low birth weight, lead poisoning, asthma, mental health disorders, delayed immunization, dental problems and accidental death,” it said.
The study based on a 32 years of research of about 5,000 U.S. households was published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan: Navy Wife
President Barack Obama received a new plea from the wife of a Navy fighter pilot. Withdraw American troops from Afghanistan now, said Lisa Leitz, a board member of Military Families Speak Out.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama received a new plea from the wife of a Navy fighter pilot.
Withdraw American troops from Afghanistan now, said Lisa Leitz, a board member of Military Families Speak Out.
“I think that after eight years of war it has become quite clear that especially to those of us who are the very few Americans who are really suffering in this war that the price is not worth it,” she told CNN last Tuesday.
Leitz added. “We have a corrupt Afghanistan government, and we have a number of people who are still trying to attack us, particularly not because they belong to the Taliban or terrorist organizations, but rather because we are occupying them.”
Leitz dismissed the idea that the U.S. military must wage war for the sake of honoring the reputation of dead soldiers.
“I don’t think that we honor sacrifice by continuing to make a mistake. I think that we should honor those lives by doing what’s right and what’s right is to leave Afghanistan,” she said.
Afghan Panel Declares Karzai President
Hamid Karzai is to serve as president of Afghanistan for a second term, according to an election panel.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Hamid Karzai is to serve as president of Afghanistan for a second term, according to an election panel.
The Indepedent Election Commission declared Karzai president a day after the only challenger pulled out of the run-off election.
Commission chairman Azizullah Ludin said Karzai had earned the most votes in the first round, though there were wide spread accusations that voting fraud has occurred.
The fraud had enveloped the nation in political chaos questioning the legitimacy of the Afghan government previously installed by the United States.
The threat of another round of fraud was the reason Karzai’s rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, removed himself from the race.
Violence had plagued the election; a suicide bomber destroyed a house for UN staff prior to the visit of UN chief Ban Ki-moon to push for a two-man run-off.
The IEC scrapped the run-off scheduled for Saturday even though the deadline had passed for the challenger to withdraw.
In the end after discounting the fraudulant votes, Karzai received 49.67 percent of the vote; Abdullah got 30 percent.
Obama, Pentagon Keeps Torture Secret
President Barak Obama signed a bill authorizing the continued concealment of photos depicting the torture of detainees under the U.S. military.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Barak Obama signed a bill authorizing the continued concealment of photos depicting the torture of detainees under the U.S. military.
The move was seen as a continuation of the secrecy that made the Bush administration infamous.
It was also seen as a flip-flop by Obama who had promised to release the photos during his 2008 campaign for president.
The authorization was a part of the Homeland Security appropriations bill.
To release the photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001 and Jan.22, 2009, the Secretary of Defense must approve first, according to the bill.
However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon lobbied for the photos to be kept secret for fear that they would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Two federal courts, though, have already rejected their argument.
The Supreme Court is to hear the government’s appeal soon.
Ellsberg: Obama, Like Johnson, Plays Military Politics
The former military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers almost 40 years ago told a reporter that President Barack Obama is playing politics with the U.S. military if he moves ahead with sending more troops to Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON. D.C. — The former military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers almost 40 years ago told a reporter that President Barack Obama is playing politics with the U.S. military if he moves ahead with sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Daniel Ellsberg noted that Obama’s current situation is very similar to that of President Lyndon B. Johnson who escalated the Vietnam War so as not to bring down his own chances of re-election.
Obama will “go against his own instincts as to what’s best fo
r the country and do what’s best for him and his administration and his party in the short run facing elections, which is to avoid a military revolt,” said the whistleblower.
In other words, by not catering to Gen. Stanley McCrystal’s push for 40,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon could cast Obama as an “unmanly, indecisive” leader.
President Johnson faced the same decision with another unwinnable war in 1965, according to Ellsburg.
“Many Americans, many Afghans will die in order to protect the president from that kind of blame,” he said.
Ellsberg told The Real News Network, that Afghanistan for the top brass at the Pentagon after the botched occupation of Iraq is like the French occupation of Algeirs in the sense that the military believed that it could achieve a victory after the French snafu in Vietnam.
And in either case, “no victory lies ahead [for the US] in Afghanistan,” Ellsburg said.
Ellsberg explained that General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency methods to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan will not work because they didn’t work against the Vietcong in Vietnam either.
“The more troops we put in Vietnam, the more Vietcong were recruited,” he said.
Ellsberg worked in counterinsurgency while at the Pengaton. He leaked the sensitive details of the government’s plans for Vie
tnam to The New York Times in 1971.
Bank Of Fearica
Sen. Barney Frank is more afraid of the Big Bad Banks than of you.
Otherwise, his financial reform proposal would have called for Bank of America, for instance, to be atomized into billions of harmless, tiny nothings.
Instead, the Chairman of the House Finance Committee has opted to give the Federal Reserve more power over the financial sector.
That’s about it.
That power, however, was never earned through a review process aimed to get to the bottom of how the financial sector nearly collapsed into a black hole of its own making last fall.
After all, that would require the Federal Reserve and its private banking cadre to go against its nearly 100-year reputation of secrecy.
Moreover, since the wall between investment and commercial banking services has yet to be reconstructed in America, Goldman Sachs has free reign to abuse taxpayer dollars guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Frank’s tax on the Big Bad Banks — his so-called “pre-paying bailout fund” — won’t solve anything either; if anything, it’ll make things worse.
The next time Citigroup huffs, puffs, and dares to collapse, the federal government will collect its fee and look the other way as supposedly “healthy” banks fork over capital to save their unholy breatheren.
Actually, the Big Bad Banks are still very sick; GMAC, General Motors’ late financial arm, is preparing for a third round of government handouts, though it has already received $12.5 billion, and 35 percent of it is owned by the U.S. government.
Citigroup held out its hand last fall and got $45 billion in bailout cash; now it has stockpiled $244.2 billion in cash.
You think stockpiling that kind of cash instills confidence in creditors? Its stockholders didn’t think so, and Citigroup’s stock plummeted last week.
No one has confidence in the U.S. financial zone because Wall Street operates like the Afghanistan Election Commission; it takes our taxpayer money and assures us those billions of dollars went to a good place.
To Wall Street, that good place was the pockets of its lobbyists hell-bent on instilling fear in the heart of Frank.
As such, Frank’s plan will open the check ledger for Congress’ eyes only, not the American public-at-large.
House Democrats don’t like his plan. As Rep. Brad Sherman put it, “This is TARP on steroids.”
And House Republicans don’t like it either. Said Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer, “The legislation keeps the names of the ‘too big to fail’ firms secret. It allows the picking of winners and losers behind closed doors.”
Even former Federal Reserve Board chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan want to see the Big Bad Banks break up.
And good luck trying to get the Senate onboard. There isn’t a Senate version to speak of.
Until then, count on Goldman Sach to make money hand over fist as it dumps homeowners out of their mortgaged homes.
And it’s not like you haven’t seen it before.
It’s what the Big Bad Wolf would do.
— Nathan Diebenow
Bedtime Stories In The Dying Night
(Editor’s note: This column was written almost 30 years ago as a Veterans Day remembrance of a man who had been a soldier. The story is true, as nearly as my imperfect memory can regenerate it. I have tried to recall this tale again in an effort to remember the spirit of a man who fervently believed that we have forgotten too much.)
I don’t think it was November.
It was early fall, a little cooler than usual as the arctic edged south a bit, its first hint of seasonal death hanging in the air like the omnipresent drizzle stripping the hardwoods of their first brown leafy sacrifices to the approaching god of winter.
We sat bored, our mood damp as the wool and the weather, watching our Boy Scout camping trip soak unceasingly into the soggy, slick Oklahoma hills.
While I certainly think of it now, back then no one questioned how Mr. Norwood was able to keep a fire going under the tent fly with no dry wood and no scorched canvas. It was just one of those things you took for granted, like the extra clean socks, underwear and jeans in your pack. You would have known your mother put them there if you’d thought about it, but you didn’t. Certainly you didn’t talk about it.
Sort of like Mr. Norwood.
He was just the old man who drove the bus for the Boy Scouts, kind of a sour old guy. Never said too much except to yell at us through the rearview mirror to settle down, sit down and quit all that hollerin’. We just figured he went with the bus, part of the loan to the Scouts like the school gave us the bus and the National Guard let us have the tents and the church let us have the groceries.
Except for the Hershey bars and cupcakes and ginger ale and stuff.
Nobody let us have that but us.
We never figured why old Mr. Norwood gave up his time and his summers to ferry a bunch of howling yard apes to camp. Like all a school bus driver has to do with his summers is haul more kids around.
We never wondered why old Mr. Norwood always slept in the bus instead of in the tents with us.
Until that night.
I guess he figured we were pretty much a mess, all of us running around in the rain, pitching mudball fights and water wars all day, and he took pity on us, starting a fire in one of the few tents still standing despite the weather-bound pranks.
Whoever said it regretted it.
But it didn’t matter. We all joined in it.
We’d heard that Mr. Norwood was in the war, so we chorused, and repeated the refrain, “Tell us some war stories.”
First he ignored us.
But we would not be ignored.
Like I said, we had a lot of war surplus equipment given to us.
He reached down and picked up an entrenching tool.
It was the first time I’d seen that look. I’ve seen it since, though I’m not sure I can describe it. It’s a hard, brittle look, like glass in a fire; a piercing stare halfway between tears and rage; a maddened searching, demanding look from someplace hidden within the soul, someplace raw, scarred and bloody.
It is the look of a man who sleeps little and dreams much.
“I onct beat a man to death with one of these. He was a mail carrier. Had a picture of his wife and little boys in his boot. I beat him ‘til we was both bloody and he just sat right down there in the trench and scratched his moustache with one finger ‘til he died.”
He fixed us all with that stare, and holding the entrenching tool toward us like a bitter accusation, went on; only now we weren’t sure we wanted him to.
“You want to hear a war story? All right, you little snots. Here’s a war story.
“They come in about three hours before daylight. Barrages. Tons of it. Hear? Hell, you couldn’t even think. Suck th’ air right out of you. Couldn’t draw a breath. Boys down the line from you just got blowed up. One secont they was there and then they wasn’t. Sometimes you’d git buried. Shells and bombs would just cover you plumb up with dirt. Two, three foot deep. You’d lie there and pray for it to stop, and when it did, you’d pray some more that it was just a letup. ‘Cause when it quit, that meant they was comin’.
“You’d get up and knock the mud out of the action best you could and lock out the box, git you a handful of rounds and start killin’ single-shot at five, six hundred yards. They kept comin’, us killin’ ’em the whole time. When they hit our wire, you unlocked the box and used them last five rounds fast as you could. Then it got down to whatever was handy.
“They jist kept on ‘til there wasn’t no more of ‘em to keep on. I seen ‘em come over them trenches with arms, heads blowed off, jist run over th’ top and fall down dead. Shovels was the best. We’d sit around and whet ‘em like a knife. Some boys used a pick axe, butcher knife or jist a good stout stick of stovewood. Bayonets wasn’t much good when a bunch of ‘em got in on you like that.
“Sometimes one of us would jist go crazy. Turn to water when they come over the top. Best thing when that happent was just to grab him quick as you could and shove him down in the trench and stand on him. Hope if it ever happent to you — and it happent to everbidy sometime — somebody’d do th’ same for you ‘cause if they ever seen you wallerin’ around like that, cryin’, screamin’, they’d stick you f’r sure. Like they couldn’t stand it. Skeert it would happen to them, I figgered, like it was catchin’.
“Then all of a sudden there just wouldn’ be nobidy there. Nobidy left to kill. Then you’d git your rifle, or somebody’s, and git ready. Whistles would blow most times and we’d go right back at ‘em. They’d commence to shellin’ us again when we hit no man’s land.
“It was like a warshed out cotton patch out there. But it was better for them barrages than in the trenches. They didn’t always git your range. ‘Course when they used gas it was worse. It run downhill. If you jumped in a shell hole, it was full of gas. If you didn’t you got shot or blowed up. Sometimes wind would come up and it blowed back on ‘em. We run up on their trenches an’ they was jist full of dead men, gassed.”
He stretched out a partially clenched, somehow imperfect but not scarred or misshapen hand, over the fire. It quivvered slightly, uncontrolled, suspended in the smoky dampness. Then he pronounced like some undeniable horror:
“Gas.”
He went on through the night to the soft stacatto on the canvas. He took us from the troopships to death’s quagmire, barely trained boys denied knowledge that could have saved them on the theory that, had they known what they faced, they might have deserted. Some units were not even taught how to clean their rifles on that same theory, reasoning that after the first action, only half would need to know how.
How little the theorists knew who they were.
Together we crawled back through the dark terrors of no man’s land after some aborted raid or ill-conceived assault. We learned the feel of fire in in our chests, Satan’s faith in a mustard seed. We heard a comrade’s cough that became constant by nightfall, fatal by morning. We thought how one should word a letter that a son died of a cold in a distant place where colds kill. We ate horses and rats and Christmas candy that tasted of cordite. Our teeth fell out. Our toes rotted. We shot, stabbed, strangled and were done the same. We learned it all.
Except why.
It was a long night.
But we had our war story.
None of us went back to our tents that night. We slept where we sat, huddled close in a crowded tent, often awakening to one another’s fretful stirrings, and each time, there, tending the fire, a man made old by time and events, sat at the edge of the night holding an entrenching tool like a crucifix.
At 11 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of each year, there is a special memorial that I have always recalled, a special tribute I always pay.
Norwood, Owenby
Sergeant
American Expeditionary Force.
Who once killed a postman with a shovel, and made sure a troop of would-be warriors never forgot it.
Spreading The Wealth Around
“Can we all get along?” — Rodney King. — So much of the “news” fed to us by the mainstream media is depressing sensationalism, leading we the public to believe that the end truly is nigh.
“Can we all get along?” — Rodney King
So much of the “news” fed to us by the mainstream media is depressing sensationalism, leading we the public to believe that the end truly is nigh.
Along with the collapse of our economic system has come the deterioration of our society in general.
Or has the erosion of societal mores caused the disintegration of our financial system?
Have we all become too concerned with the acquisition of lucre and the trappings associated with wealth?
We seem to be realigning ourselves into a society which mirrors that of the mythical Ferengi, a race (devotees of “Star Trek” know what I’m talking about) that worships the acquisition of wealth — holding up to veneration those who gather the most stuff.
Held in highest reverence among the Ferengi are those who amass the largest cache of “property” by any means whatsoever, the more deceitful the better.
We know full well that a Ponzi scheme is, at best, illegal while, at worst, likely to lose the entire investment of participants. Yet, many among us cannot stop themselves from tossing the savings accrued over an entire lifetime of work into an abyss of empty promises, only to cry foul, that it was someone else’s fault.
Yeah, the 30-percent return may have seemed like a good investment at the time, but one only has his own greed to blame for believing the ultimate outcome would be, as Martha Stewart says, “a good thing.”
We Americans are not nearly as pragmatic as folks in other countries, possibly because virtually every other nation has been ravaged by war or alien domination of some sort. With an insistence that our own personal agenda be conciliated, we demand total instant self-gratification, and engage in obstreperous bitchification when we don’t get our way.
Even the most staunch supporters of candidate Barack Obama are selfishly — and vociferously — impatient that in a mere nine months’ time President Barack Obama has not been able to reverse or correct all the damage done to our Nation by eight years of rule under the thumb of the Dick Cheney.
The rest of the industrialized world laughs at our collective naïveté and pre-pubescent inability to work together for the greater common good.
We can’t even get folks to agree to give a couple of almighty precious dollars toward making sure healthcare is extended to everyone, or fix roads, or repair bridges, or improve our schools, or assist the elderly…
When Barack Obama, whose background is firmly rooted in a commitment to community service rather than licking the boots of big business, suggested we reach out and help each other, he was roundly disparaged by the moneyed Righties — whose whiny criticisms are bought by the dullards who, despite possessing little themselves, willingly accede to the megarich directing them to march right off the edge of Lemming Cliff.
In Chicago, within Mr. Obama’s community, one small business has turned his call for sharing into active selflessness.
Mondays are traditionally a day off for haircare and makeup artists. Last week, 30 of these hardworking professionals gave up their time and talent to bring some dignity into the lives of those less fortunate.
Free makeovers were the theme of the day at Exotic Trenz Salon, located in the heart of “Obama country” at 2605 West 79th Street.
Offering a loving hand to 100 cancer patients and homeless women, event organizer Sharon Payton said, “We are reaching out to battered women who need uplifting, a confidence boost or extreme lift.”
The daylong event was in tribute to Sharon’s mother, hair stylist and community activist Jacqueline Payton, who had succumbed to breast cancer.
A suburban Mount Prospect company, Perfect Results, donated relaxers and hair care products; packages of hair along with “Sensationnel” wigs came from as far away as New Jersey, courtesy of Hair Zone.
Nicole Rogers, a popular makeup artist, spent the day giving ladies what, in many cases, was and would be their only opportunity at a professional treatment.
One 38-year-old woman said it was the first experience in her life wearing makeup.
Along with stylings that would typically have cost $85, the guests were treated to lunch. Adding to the party atmosphere, each woman left with a bag of goodies.
The President’s concept of “spreading around the wealth” seems like a pretty good idea. In the overall scheme of things, it’s really easy for us to all get along.
Rodney King would be proud.
Shalom.
(Erstwhile Philosopher and former Educator Jerry Tenuto is a veteran who survived, somewhat emotionally intact, seven years in the U.S. Army. Despite a penchant for late-night revelry, he managed to earn BS and MA Degrees in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. On advice from a therapist, he continues to bang out his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast — providing much-needed catharsis. Jerry is also licensed to perform marriage ceremonies in 45 states.)
Called For Jury Duty? Don’t Forget Your Tinfoil Hat
There comes a time when we, as U.S. citizens, are called to step forward and — just as Americans have been doing for over 200 years — devise a lame excuse to get out of jury duty. This time-honored tradition dates back to the very first jury pool, which John Handcock was excused from after complaining of hand cramps “of the severest nature.” As it stands, I’ve been excused from jury duty twice, despite expressing my willingness to serve.
There comes a time when we, as U.S. citizens, are called to step forward and — just as Americans have been doing for over 200 years — devise a lame excuse to get out of jury duty. This time-honored tradition dates back to the very first jury pool, which John Handcock was excused from after complaining of hand cramps “of the severest nature.” As it stands, I’ve been excused from jury duty twice, despite expressing my willingness to serve.
So when my latest summons came in the mail, my first instinct was to make a tinfoil hat with the words, Hello: My Name Is Quandar written across the front, which, along with my silver jump suit, can usually get me dismissed in under 30 minutes (depending on how quickly my tinfoil hat clears security). But this time something was different. Maybe because I’m older, maybe because my daughter is studying the U.S. Constitution, or maybe because we’re out of tinfoil — whatever the reason — I’ve decided to dress appropriately, show up for jury duty, and take a chance on being sequestered with 11 others to determine, by way of evidence and testimony, who is at fault when someone burns themselves with a hot pickle slice.
Admitedly, I once found myself driving down the road with an 800-degree onion ring searing my flesh. I had just left a Burger King drive-through and, after maintaining my composure long enough to exit the parking lot, pounced on my combo meal like a hyena at a gazelle feed — laughing and eating, laughing and eating.
So, when I ripped into an enormous onion ring and felt the breading fall away into my lap, I had no one but myself to blame when my appetizer became a sizzling, onion-flavored chin strap that turned my frenzied laughing to screaming on I-5. But I never once thought of calling a lawyer in an effort to seek damages against Burger King (and the onion growers of America) for supplying me the means with which to do something stupid.
I believe stupid lawsuits are the reason a lot of people aren’t willing to serve as jurists. For example, a study conducted in California found that of the 4.4 million people summoned for jury duty in Orange County last year, only nine percent actually participated in the judicial process. Of course, this doesn’t include those who became part of that process after being fingerprinted.
In all fairness, I should mention that not every potential juror would’ve qualified for duty anyway. That’s because there are strict guidelines in place for the initial phase of the jury selection process — the first of which is that you actually have to be ALIVE in order to render a verdict. In spite of these stringent guidelines, a report commissioned by the American Tort Reform Association discovered that Los Angeles County not only summoned dead people for jury duty, but also people’s pets. While this is certainly shocking, there is some good news in that none of these pets were dead.
While the study was able to determine that absolutely no pets had played a part in the final outcome of any cases, according to the bailif in one case, “It was because that little cockapoo couldn’t read the verdict.”
The only way to increase participation in the jury process is to restore the respectability of the judicial system by eliminating stupid lawsuits that waste everybody’s time. How? By requiring the people who file them to serve as jurors.
In the meantime, I’ll be on my way to court next week.
Assuming I don’t burn myself on a hot pickle.
(You can write to Ned Hickson at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439, or at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com)
Singer’s Premonition Comes True On A Texas Highway
In the middle of the night on Nov. 5, 1960, Johnny “Battle of New Orleans” Horton’s premonition of dying at the hands of drunk came true on a dark highway in Central Texas.
In the middle of the night on Nov. 5, 1960, Johnny “Battle of New Orleans” Horton’s premonition of dying at the hands of drunk came true on a dark highway in Central Texas.
John Gale Horton grew up on the move with a family of migrant farm workers shuttling back and forth between the East Texas county of Cherokee, which they called home, and the produce fields of California, where he was born in 1925.
But the lettuce-picking gypsies did stay in one place long enough for their Johnny to finish high school at tiny Gallatin just up the road from Rusk. Then he did something that most young people in his circumstances only dreamed about — he went off to college.
According to Horton’s biographers, who disagree on various details of his life, he attended Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville to study for the ministry, to play basketball or both. Although one claim that he received two dozen scholarship offers is most likely an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that he was a gifted athlete. Other stops on his campus tour were Baylor and Seattle University, and he may have been a member of both schools’ basketball teams.
Deciding college was not for him, Horton wandered the West working odd jobs in California before winding up in Alaska in 1949. When he was not catching fish, a lifelong love, he was writing songs. Although he learned the guitar from his mother at age 11, this was the first time that he took a serious interest in music.
Returning to his roots in 1950, Horton got up the nerve to enter a talent contest in Longview held by a radio deejay named Jim Reeves. First prize gave him the necessary confidence to try his luck as a guitar-plucking singer at small venues around East Texas.
The promising newcomer soon caught the eye of Fabor Robison, a manager and promoter with a mixed reputation. But Horton needed the guidance of someone with inside knowledge of the music world, and the smooth-talker seemed to fill the bill.
When Robison landed a recording contract with Corman Records, Horton felt he had made the right choice. When the small label went out business before he cut a single record, he wondered whether it was bad luck or his manager’s bad judgment.
To placate the unhappy performer, Robison formed his own company for the sole purpose of putting Horton’s voice on vinyl. Then he convinced his client to reinvent himself as “The Singing Fisherman” and arranged appearances on radio and television in the Los Angeles area.
By 1952 Horton had come back from California and become a regular on the popular Shreveport-based radio program “The Louisiana Hayride.” In short order, his first wife left him and Robison dumped him to take charge of Jim Reeves’ blossoming career.
Horton filled the void with a new friend and mentor, the legendary Hank Williams who rejoined “The Hayride” after being kicked off the “Grand Ole Opry” for his drinking. After Williams’ death in the backseat of a Cadillac on New Year’s Eve 1952, his widow married his hero-worshipping protégé.
In spite of the exposure “The Hayride” provided, Horton’s recording career was dead in the water. All that changed in 1955, when he signed with Tillman Franks. By the end of the year, he was under contract to Columbia Records and on his way to stardom with the classic “Honky Tonk Man.”
Horton quickly proved he was no one-hit wonder. In less than a year, he followed “Honky Tonk Man” with “I’m a One-Woman Man,” “I’m Coming Home” and “The Woman I Need” which climbed to number seven, 11 and nine on the country-music chart.
Then the hits stopped coming. The drought did not break until the fall of 1958, when “All Grown Up” put Horton back in the Top Ten. But the best was yet to come.
With rock-’n-roll squeezing out traditional country on the radio, Horton took a chance on story-telling. The risky move paid off big-time with “When It’s Springtime in Alaska,” which not only reached number-one on the country chart but “crossed over” into the popular music ratings.
But it was “The Battle of New Orleans,” which in 1959 sold a million copies in seven weeks, that cemented Horton’s unique stature as the first country artist to bust the pop charts. “Johnny Reb” and “Sink the Bismarck” were also historical ballads and also dual Top Ten hits.
“North to Alaska” was released in early November 1960, but Horton would not be around to see it sell a million records too. In recent months, he had become obsessed with the haunting certainty that a drunk would end his life and in the early hours of Nov. 5 that bad dream came true on highway 79 near the town of Milano.
The car driven by Johnny Horton was hit head-on by a pick-up with an intoxicated college student at the wheel. Horton and his two badly injured passengers were rushed to the hospital in nearby Cameron, but the singing sensation was dead on arrival. And, as usual, the drunk driver walked away with nothing worse than a few bumps and bruises.
(“Secession & Civil War” — brand new “Best of This Week in Texas History” collection available for $10.95 plus $3.25 postage and handling from Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX.)
Face Book
OK, so I admit it. I’m on Facebook. My kids made a page for me so we could post pictures for each other to see when we’re far apart, which is most of the time. My son travels the world for his work, so I’m able to see pictures of him in amazing places —as soon as he posts them from his cell phone. I love it!
OK, so I admit it. I’m on Facebook. My kids made a page for me so we could post pictures for each other to see when we’re far apart, which is most of the time. My son travels the world for his work, so I’m able to see pictures of him in amazing places —as soon as he posts them from his cell phone. I love it!
My daughter also added the names of kids she and her brother grew up with. Although it’s been fun to see what their friends are doing now, I’m not all that interested in the lives of most of these twenty-somethings and the club scene in Miami or wherever. So I’ve blocked most of them. I remember them as little children. Seeing pictures of them 10 or 15 years later is rather shocking in most cases. I think I might rather remember them as they were.
I got on some list from my old high school, and another one from my undergraduate college, so suddenly I was being asked to “be a Face Book friend” of people I hadn’t seen or thought of in over 30 years. It was fun to hear what they’re doing now and to see what they look like. But after viewing pictures of children and grandchildren I’ve never met and probably never will meet —and hearing about their vacation homes and travels and daughters’ weddings, I blocked most of them.
I’ve become Face Book friends with people I know who live right here in town. Now this seems a little silly. I don’t really need to look at the computer to see what they’re up to. I can pick up my phone or run into them at the grocery store. All this electronic communication is removing us from REAL HUMAN contact!
A couple of old friends or acquaintances are using Face Book to try to push their business interests or to find investors for projects. I blocked them immediately. There are a few who post things like, “going to the gym now” or “just baked zucchini bread”. I mean, does anyone really CARE? I mean —BOOOOOOOOORRRRRRING! And is it a brilliant idea to announce to the world that one is leaving one’s home for an hour or so -—or for a week-long trip? I think NOT. So I blocked them too.
I discovered that there are hundreds of games and other “additions” on Face Book that people become involved in. I can’t tell you how the games work because I don’t’ play, but the other activities include sending imaginary gifts or “pokes” (whatever that means) or supporting causes, or saying that you agree or disagree with this or that. I figure all this activity is putting money in some person or advertiser’s pocket—and definitely NOT mine. So I blocked all the game nonsense and most of the people who play them. I don’t have time for this.
My daughter put all our little cousins on my Face Book friends’ list. So I get a lot of banter about music groups and what’s going on in high school. I’m just too old for it. Am I a bad person because I don’t CARE about prom? I already survived my own and lived through those of my kids. I’m done. Blocked ‘em. (I left on the cousin who just started Stanford. THAT should be interesting).
Someone mentioned recently that there are people who use Face Book to spy on people, who pore over pictures of one’s friends and family and all the written exchanges. Rather voyeuristic. That certainly creeped me out. I thought I was pretty careful about whom I “befriended” on Face Book. Maybe I’ll block some more.
I was “friended” by an old college beau whose Face Book friends’ group included folks like Hugh Hefner, Morgan Freeman, Brittany Spears, Ron Howard, and dozens of other sports figures and celebrities. I checked a few of them out, and they were legit. That was indeed pretty weird. So although it seems a little sleazy on some level that I can’t quite put my finger on or explain, I didn’t block that one. I’m just curious enough to watch for a while. Call me a voyeur.
I think we may have reached the point where Big Brother is watching us. And we knowingly let him right in. It makes me uneasy, but like a train wreck. I just can’t look away. Lately I seem less and less interested in peeking into the lives of others, even old friends and family. I keep thinking if I were really smart, I’d have only two “friends” on Face Book, my two children. That was the whole point of my being part of it in the first place.
Dogs Versus Toddlers
Just about everybody who owns a dog thinks their dog is smart. I’ve never really felt that way about any of the dogs I have had. I found the dogs were lovable, cute, loyal, cuddly, and great company, but I never thought of them as that smart. I used to tell people that I never met a dog who could beat me at chess.
Just about everybody who owns a dog thinks their dog is smart. I’ve never really felt that way about any of the dogs I have had. I found the dogs were lovable, cute, loyal, cuddly, and great company, but I never thought of them as that smart. I used to tell people that I never met a dog who could beat me at chess.
On the other hand, I had to admit that dogs did seem smarter than people in some ways: a dog would never bomb a country killing hundreds of thousands of people. A dog would never accidentally send out an e-mail to his boss, bad mouthing the boss. And a dog would never tell a woman that she “looks thinner in the other dress.”
The New York Times recently reported that Stanley Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia has done some interesting work with dogs and intelligence. He found that dogs can do pretty well on language learning and other tests devised for infants and toddlers. He went so far as to say that the average dog is about as intellectually advanced as a 2-to 21/2 year old child. That’s where I feel he went too far.
A dog as smart as a toddler? Show me a dog who is smart enough to always spit up on his mother’s outfit right before she’s supposed to go out.
But all of this discussion of who’s smarter, a dog or a human isn’t looking at things right. I was guilty of the same thing until recently. Perhaps like most people, I was thinking of dogs’ intelligence as the same kind of intelligence that humans have. It’s like people who feel that if there is life on other planets, those beings will have the same kind of thoughts and feelings that we have. Dogs don’t need to be smart the same way we are in order to be smart.
Service dogs have been demonstrating this more and more. Not only can they smell drugs in a suitcase — or that salami you thought you’d be able to sneak in, but they help all kinds of people with various medical needs. We’re all used to seeing dogs helping the blind. Lately, dogs have been paired with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with posttraumatic stress disorder. Somehow, the dogs seem to know how to calm down these veterans when the vets need it most. Some small studies have even indicated that because of their good sniffers, dogs have been able to sniff out lung and other cancers before doctors have been able to detect them.
Dogs also work with epileptics. They become anxious before their human buddy has a seizure. Then they bark and lick his or her face and arm. Nobody knows how a dog could know this in advance. Perhaps it’s a kind of intelligence we just don’t have.
Rather than just appreciating what wonderful minds dogs have, I fear that there will always be some people who compare their intelligence with ours. I used to be the same way, like when I’d say my wise guy line about dogs not being able to play chess. So I believe there will always be people who will mock their intelligence by saying that “obviously humans are smarter than dogs in every way.” To them, I’d just like to present an image that most of us see every day. An owner and a dog are walking down the street. The dog does, well, what comes naturally, while the owner cleans it up. Which one is the smarter one?
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and he can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com
Veterans Day: Time To Recognize And Honor Efforts Of Our Veterans
It’s also time to meet their needs. Veterans Day is approaching. The population of our veterans is increasing steadily. While we show our respect and hold them in esteem, do we recognize their needs after returning home?
It’s also time to meet their needs.
Veterans Day is approaching. The population of our veterans is increasing steadily. While we show our respect and hold them in esteem, do we recognize their needs after returning home?
Often one of the unspoken truths is that Veterans are hit hard by suicide.
The media tells us little regarding suicide unless it occurs to a famous Hollywood personality. It doesn’t seem to mean much to us until it happens within our own family.
The truth is that suicides occur all too frequently within our society. There has been an increase of teenage suicides and among our elderly population, but the most dramatic increase in suicide has occurred with our returning veteran population — but we don’t hear about it on the news.
The media was all too quick to jump on the last year’s possible suicide of actor David Carradine when he was found hung in a Thailand hotel. Too quick because authorities now believe it looks like the actor may have been murdered. Unfortunately, no one is notified that many of our veterans are having problems reentering our society after serving our nation. Many can not cope with reentry. Many do not fit in. We should provide better support.
Why aren’t the media writing about the increasing high rate of suicide by our returning veterans? The suicide rate is the highest among the Veteran population than ever before. It’s time we recognize the problem and do something about it.
The increase of suicide by our veteran population is not just a problem for the federal government, it is a local problem as well and state lawmakers should be doing everything possible to provide needed services, including counseling, to help our returning veterans in readjusting to civilian life. As a Disabled Veteran myself, I can tell you that it is not an easy task to acclimate back into our society after being in a war zone for long periods far away from civilization and loved ones. It is a heck of a return journey.
Reentry is especially difficult during these hard economic times, where Veterans especially have a tough time finding employment. Outsourcing, layoffs and cheaper immigrant labor have taken a toll on available, well-paying jobs for Americans. It is no secret that Americans need work, and it should not take this long to generate jobs for those who need and want them.
Perhaps the dismal job market is hardest for our returning Veterans because in addition to readjusting to civilian life, there are fewer jobs available for them. While many return to schools under the GI Bill, many find it difficult to sit still in classroom situations and there is no guarantee of finding work after completing the program.
Isn’t it time we provide our Veterans with the services they need, along with a viable means to follow-up on their reentry into American communities? Suicide is a painful alternative, and it hurts everyone in our community.
Notes on Veteran suicides….
People commit suicide for many different reasons.
It is at best overly simplistic to say, “As usual suicides are related to personal problems, usually involving someone of the opposite sex.” and it discards the mountains of case studies on many veterans who feel they have no other choice.
In 2008 there was a report documented for Congress on Preventing Suicides Among Veterans: (It is a .pdf file)
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34471_20080505.pdf
Certainly, prevention is a key and some scientists believe that many Veterans may have a predisposition to suicide before they enter military service.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071030160938.htm
There are cases of men and women who return from war zones who can not forgive themselves for their own actions and those of others who served together.
Many have dreams they can not escape from. Some can not find peace.
There are many reasons returning Veterans consider suicide. It is not a simple issue and the public remains unaware of the problems, issues and possible solutions.
My main hope in writing about this is:
– To make the public more aware of the issue.
– That there are many factors involved re: the reasons for depression which lead to suicidal determination.
– To recognize the need for preventative services.
– That the number of Veteran suicides is high in number and on the increase.
The suicide rates of returning Veterans is much higher than that of the general population.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/11/vets.suicide/index.html
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/2007/07/returning-veterans-and-suicide-alaskas.html
Fortunately, studies are being considered and others already approved to review treating this urgent issue.
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfmar09/nf031009-3.htm
However, studying about Veteran depression and suicides needs to be a quick study. We need to do something about it and start to trim the numbers.
(Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood.)
