December 2011
37 posts
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UNFAIR WORLD (THE GLOBAL 1%)
The child’s name is Mahag Geti Farah, from Dadaab, Kenya.
You think “We Are the 99 Percent” speaks to American society? Start thinking about the world, and who constitutes the “One Percent” globally. (Most all of us do.)
(Justice is complicated.)
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406
A few days ago I had 406 “followers,” and in recognition of that fact I wanted to post something about Ted Williams, the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived, but I got up to 407 before I could post it. Now I’ve lost a follower so I’m back down to 406! Excellent!
Serious citizens of Red Sox Nation recognize the importance of the number 406… it was Ted Williams’...
Newt Gingrich Compares His Failure To Make The... →
Scott Peck’s People of the Lie made the elemental point that narcisism is a constitutive component of evil. Gingrich’s amorality, opportunism, profiteering and hypocrisy are amply documented, but when was the last time you heard a more narcisistic statement than this? Pearl Harbor?
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RICK PERRY HATES CHRISTMAS
from kriso. i couldn’t figure out how to reblog her post. (But see my previous post “Pondering Christmas,” point # 5. kriso posted something which happened to illustrate the point perfectly. )
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PONDERING CHRISTMAS
Here are six things Christmas can mean.
1) First, Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, expressing the Christian claim that God became flesh and was born in an animal’s stable of Mary, a teenaged unwed mother, and her betrothed, a carpenter… the lowly manner of this birth being a divine repudiation of all who are powerful, prosperous, proud and self-righteously...
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O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
If American Christians went to church during Advent or on Christmas Eve, they likely sang a carol called “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
I wonder how many of them are aware that Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, is a long-time Arab city (largely Arab Christian) in the occupied West Bank.
I wonder how many realize that Bethlehem today resembles a prison, largely cut off from the rest...
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AT LAST (2011)
The first couple to receive a same sex marriage license in the Manhattan City Clerk’s office, (NYC, 2011)
BREAKING: Justice Department Blocks South... →
DOJ can do this because South Carolina is a “preclearance” state under the Voting Rights Act. Many other states where the GOP has restricted voting access are not, meaning the DOJ cannot block those state laws. It is DISGUSTING that in 2011 we still have to be vigilant about conservatives trying to lower turnout among poor and minority citizens.
Robert Creamer: Willard Mitt Romney Rails Against... →
Beautifully said.
The Post-Truth Campaign - NYTimes.com →
Daily Mainstream Media practices (e.g., the faux “balance” described here) serve the Right Wing (GOP) cause. Then conservatives cry “liberal media bias” again and the the media offer even more “balance” to prove them wrong. Repeat this ad infinitum.
Obama Called ‘Skinny, Ghetto Crackhead’ On Fox... →
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TIMES THEY WERE A-CHANGING (2011)
The first ever march by gay members of the armed services (2011)
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LOVE AND LOYALTY (2011)
A Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan lies in wake, attended by his dog.
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GOODBYE TO 2011 (again)
While FOX News and Republicans played the small-minded game of trying to give credit to Bush and even Reagan (the former having abandoned the search for bin Laden and the latter having armed him), the response from these guys was for real.
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GOODBYE TO 2011
Hurricane Irene
Dust storm near Phoenix
Volcano in Chile
After Japan’s tsunami, a girl in radioactive isolation is visited by her dog.
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THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION... A SUCCESS
If the 1960s saw America’s first tentative steps towards social equality and distributive justice, the Right-wing gained power in 1980 with the Reagan Revolution, determined to undo all that… and more.
They succeeded. Big time. Look at the numbers. They succeeded so well that the economy is imperiled by the inequality they sought and attained.
So thorough is their victory in...
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MILITARIZED POLICE
An 81 year-old got pepper sprayed at a peaceful protest in Seattle. She would have been knocked down but the protesters near her saved her.
It used to be the police in America were police and the military was military. When Viet Nam War protesters received a military-style beating, it was done by the National Guard.
Thanks to the opportunistic and overwrought response to 9/11, local law...
The Return Of Debtor’s Prisons: Thousands Of... →
The GOP agenda… drag us back to a Charles Dickens-like society. Back to America’s original Gilded Age… back to a time before the federal government got involved in protecting the human and political rights of all our citizens.
Take, for example, what happened to Robin Sanders in Illinois. She was driving home when an officer pulled her over for having a loud muffler. But...
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ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIMS
Congratulations to the American Family Council and all their Christian Patriot allies who got Lowe’s to stop advertising on the TLC reality show All-American Muslims. They never said what was objectionable about the show, only that its producers had been “misleading” about its content… and they never said what anyone had been “misled” about.
Well played.
A...
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WAR IS OVER WHEN WE SAY IT IS
I give Obama credit for this. The Iraq War was bogus from the beginning. Entered into under false pretenses — pliable news media, no WMD. Not to mention the Bush/Cheney administration’s criminally incompetent planning for the war, the occupation, and the post-war reconstruction.
Sadly, bogus wars and cheap patriotism are not new in our history. Check out President Polk’s...
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CORPORATE PERSONHOOD PUT TO THE TEST
We all know about the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision in which our conservative, five-member unelected majority defined corporations as “fictional persons” to exempt them from campaign finance restrictions, leaving them free to spend as much money as they want controlling our elections. People who believe in a functioning democracy can’t restrict...
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Perhaps, I was born with curiosity.: I Am Not A... →
Perhaps even sadder is that these same “not black enough” stereotypes can come from other black people as well as from whites. It’s all internalized confusion
deepwithfuture:
Not that there is anything wrong with being a white girl and not that I disdain the part of me that is white. I will shout it from the mountain tops that I am half white and my momma is white and so is...
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REAGAN REVISIONISM
The cartoonist makes a point about the deification of Ronald Reagan — but his message is aimed at liberals. Conservatives don’t care about Salvadoran death squads, raped nuns, or supporting apartheid. They applaud Reagan for the Star Wars boondoggle and for crushing labor unions. They’ve agreed to forget arms for hostages, Iran-contra and Reagan’s massive...
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HOORAY!
HOORAY! Sentient beings everywhere are celebrating! Thanks to Amir-Javed, this humble blog now has 400 followers.
We sat at 399 for quite awhile, so as you can imagine, the celebration is a bit intense.
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FORGIVEN NEWT
Did she mention that Newt served his first wife her divorce papers while she lay in a hospital cancer ward? (Later, of course, he would cheat on this wife and ditch her for a much younger woman… wife # 3.)
He was attacked over his appalling personal life in the debate the other night, and his answer was: “I’ve had to go to God for forgiveness.”
What a line. And lie.
...
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THE WHORE ON CHRISTMAS
Which is most pathetic? (Choose one)
A. Right-wing TV news demagogues so shameless as to use a phony “Christmas crisis” to peddle their books and boost ratings… year in and year out.
B. American Christians so weak and insecure that they can be so easily riled up about a “threat” to their faith while living in a culture which practically drips Christianity out...
Gingrich Slams ‘Invented Palestinian People’ Who... →
Shame.
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COMMON SENSE ABOUT VOUCHERS
It’s a little known fact that when the Bush administration first sent its No Child Left Behind bill to Congress, its priority was not reforming schools but privatizing them. NCLB initially set up an impossible set of testing standards (e.g., a kid speaking no English arriving in school the day before testing would literally have to take the test the next day in English) so parents could...
The Muppets Are Communist, Fox Business Network... →
Blame the Occupy protestors on those red Muppets!
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WALL STREET BAILOUTS
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REPUBLICAN ECONOMICS
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NEWT BAGGAGE
As per two recent posts, the GOP frontrunner’s divorces are just the beginning of it.
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NOT OK
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THE SHAMELESS FRONTRUNNER (PART I)
Remarkably, Newt Gingrich is now the frontrunner for the presidential nomination in the GOP — the Party of God and Family Values.
You probably know his marital history. Had an extramarital affair with an aide who later became wife # 2… and served wife # 1 her divorce paper as she lay in a hospital cancer ward. Then, while married to wife # 2, he had an affair with another aide...
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THE SHAMELESS FRONTRUNNER (PART II)
It’s one thing to be a serial political hypocrite (see Part I). But you’d think the Righteous Christian GOP might notice when its frontrunner becomes like the moneychangers Jesus himself drove from the temple — people cynically using God’s name and the piety of the masses to promote themselves and make money in the process. But look at the above endorsement of...