Friday Reads: A Sign of the Overlord Apocalypse
Posted: February 20, 2015 Filed under: income inequality, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: base salaries, discrimination in public accomodations, LGBT rights, religion and bigotry, same-sex marriage, shopping, Unemployment Rate, Walmart 18 CommentsGood Morning!
It’s been since at least November since I’ve had some time to myself when I wasn’t completely in need of tons of sleep so I’m enjoying spending some time in bed with my feet up getting my reads on. There’s not been a lot that’s intrigued me but it beats designing and updating an on line International Finance Class, believe me. So, imagine my sheer joy when I found out that Walmart broke down and upped its wages.
There are several reasons the America’s #1 corporation and chain store made the leap. It was probably a combination of fear of unionization and the incredible employee turnover rate. It really costs to hire and train new workers so upping the salary is really the required move for that one. There’s a lot of analysis on the deed so I’d thought I’d take a look at it. First up, Joe Pinsker at The Atlantic discusses the move.
The CEO of Walmart announced earlier today that all of the company’s employees will, starting in April, be paid at least $9 an hour, nearly $2 more than the federal minimum wage. That’s still far short of the $15 per hour pushed for by OUR Walmart, a union-like group of Walmart workers. Still, it’s a change for a company that has stubbornly opposed such a raise for years.
Walmart’s CEO framed the raise as an act of corporate benevolence, but the reason his company will inch closer to paying all its employees fair wages has little to do with goodwill (few business decisions do). If Walmart has determined that it’ll need to start paying higher wages to stay competitive, then other retailers might arrive at the same conclusion. This isn’t an isolated act of corporate social responsibility—it’s a response to the current realities of labor economics that will likely inform the behavior of other American employers.
This is a pretty good sign that the economy is doing well enough that workers are beginning to be able to trade up to better jobs. It’s the best sign that I’ve seen yet that the economy has really started to recover from the financial crisis.
Some companies have set even higher wage floors more in line with living wage expectations. Most recently, for example, Aetna set its floor for US workers at $16 an hour, twice the current federal minimum wage.
Higher wages are exactly what the financial doctors have ordered to cure America’s ailing economy. According to the Economic Policy Institute, it would take a wage growth of at least 3.5% to 4% for workers to feel the impact of the recovery. In 2014, the average hourly pay went up by just 1.7%.
“Raising wages among low-wage workers shifts income into the pockets of workers and families that are highly likely to quickly spend every additional dollar they earn,” says David Cooper, economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.
“So even though some businesses have to pay their workers more, they see more customers coming through the door because now there’s additional dollars rippling out through local economies in a way that doesn’t really happen if those dollars just go back into the bank accounts of corporate shareholders.”
It’s taken awhile for the plight of low income workers to attract any kind of attention from decision makers despite the huge amount of media attention focused on income inequality and the general lack of demand at stores that cater to the majority of Americans. Sooner or later, something had to give. It certainly wasn’t going to be any Republican-led legislature.
So what has changed? The simple answer is that the world for employers is very different with a 5.7 percent unemployment rate (the January level) than it was five years ago, at 9.8 percent. Finding qualified workers is harder for employers now than it was then, and their workers are at risk of jumping ship if they don’t receive pay increases or other improvements. Apart from pay, Walmart executives said in their conference call with reporters that they were revising their employee scheduling policies so that workers could have more predictability in their work schedules and more easily get time off when they needed it, such as for a doctor’s appointment.
The giant question now is not whether there will be some meaningful wage gains in 2015; beyond the anecdotal evidence from Walmart and Aetna, the collapse in oil prices means even modest pay increases will translate into quite large inflation-adjusted raises. The question is whether wage gains will be strong enough to create a virtuous cycle in which rising pay for the workers at the bottom three-quarters of the income scale, who are most likely to spend the money and get it circulating through the economy, will spur more investment and hiring.
To the degree their logic was, “We think we’re going to need to raise wages this much in the next couple of years anyway to retain good workers and maximize profitability, so we may as well get ahead of the curve and get a public relations bump out of it and announce the plans in a big splashy way,” that would be the best news for American workers. Because that would imply that it won’t just be Walmart workers getting a raise in 2015.
Other news this week is not as good. We continue to see people justify their bigotry through religious beliefs. Judges around the country aren’t buying it but the justification is popping up in some really odd places including a pediatrician who wouldn’t accept a 6 day old as a patient because her parents are lesbians. 
Sitting in the pediatrician’s office with their 6-day-old daughter, the two moms couldn’t wait to meet the doctor they had picked out months before.
The Roseville pediatrician — one of many they had interviewed — seemed the perfect fit: She took a holistic approach to treating children. She used natural oils and probiotics. And she knew they were lesbians.
But as Jami and Krista Contreras sat in the exam room, waiting to be seen for their newborn’s first checkup, another pediatrician entered the room and delivered a major blow: The doctor they were hoping for had a change of heart. After “much prayer,” she decided that she couldn’t treat their baby because they are lesbians.
• Doctor’s letter: Why she wouldn’t care for baby with 2 moms
“I was completely dumbfounded,” recalled Krista Contreras, the baby’s biological mother. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘Did we hear that correctly?’ …. When we tell people about it, they don’t believe us. They say, ‘(Doctors) can’t do that. That’s not legal.’ And we say, ‘Yes it is.'”
The Contrerases of Oak Park are going public with their story to raise awareness about the discrimination that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continues to face. There is no federal or Michigan law that explicitly prohibits discrimination against LGBT individuals.
For months, the couple kept quiet about what happened to them and their baby — Bay Windsor Contreras — at Eastlake Pediatrics last October.
But the pain and frustration wouldn’t go away. So they broke their silence.
“We want people to know that this is happening to families. This is really happening,” said Jami Contreras, 30, who was blindsided that fall day in the doctor’s office. “It was embarrassing. It was humiliating … It’s just wrong.”
A judge in Washington state has made a meaningful decision on a Florist that refused service to a gay couple seeking flowers for their wedding. The bottom line is that religion is not an excuse to refuse public accommodation under the law.
Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom rejected arguments from the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland that her actions were protected by her freedoms of speech and religion. While religious beliefs are protected by the First Amendment, actions based on those beliefs aren’t necessarily protected, he said.
“For over 135 years, the Supreme Court has held that laws may prohibit religiously motivated action, as opposed to belief,” Ekstrom wrote. “The Courts have confirmed the power of the Legislative Branch to prohibit conduct it deems discriminatory, even where the motivation for that conduct is grounded in religious belief.”
Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, sold flowers for years to customer Robert Ingersoll. She knew he was gay and that the flowers were for his partner, Curt Freed.
After Washington state legalized same-sex marriage in 2012, Ingersoll went to the shop the following spring to ask Stutzman to do the flowers for his wedding. At the time, floral arrangements for weddings made up about 3 percent of her business.
She placed her hands on his and told him she couldn’t, “because of my relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said in a deposition. As a Southern Baptist, she believed only in opposite-sex marriages.
People use just about anything to justify bigotry but religion seems to be a source of refuge for a huge part of the hate-based discrimination. You may want to take a look at a new documentary called “Hate in America” if you’d like to hear more about all the issues every one has with bigots.
For more than 30 years, Emmy-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and Al Jazeera America anchor Tony Harris has reported on senseless and vicious acts of violence, many fueled by intolerance, fear and hate. In the new Investigation Discovery one-hour special HATE IN AMERICA, Harris partners with The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit that has been tracking hate groups across the country since 1971, and NBC News’ award-winning production arm Peacock Productions, to examine the current realities of intolerance in America.
According to the SPLC, more than 900 active hate groups currently exist across the United States, from neo-Nazis to anti-government militias, targeting entire classes of people for their race, religion, and sexuality, among other immutable characteristics. Largely propagated by anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy and the diminishing white majority, that number has been on the rise for over a decade.
Traveling to communities torn apart by violence, Harris pulls back the curtain on what drives modern-day hate, and comes face to face with its victims to examine HATE IN AMERICA.
HATE IN AMERICA premieres on Investigation Discovery on Monday, February 23, at 8/7c.
I’ve often wondered why my attitude towards shopping has changed over time. I used to love going to the big stores downtown and the clerks all seemed so cheery and glamorous. The buildings were vast and had huge tall ceilings supported by ornate columns. The window decorations were incredible during the holidays and they were up such a short period that you had to rush down there just to catch them. It was fun to walk from store to store and each store had its on personality and personalities. This is so different from today’s megastore where every one is rude and seems to only care about low priced junk. The aisles are tight and packed with crap and the crap is hard to find. There is very little help and only cashiers in far off places.
I used to think I started disliking stores and shopping just because I’d worked so much retail in high school and college. But, I still love to hit little antique stores in quaint places and will take hours staring down some bargain. I figured I’d just burned out on the entire store experience from those years. But, I still love hopping around the big stores in NYC and I used to love hitting the Maison Blanche in downtown New Orleans when I first moved here. So much of the things I enjoyed about shopping as a customer are gone. Also, when I was small, even retail store owners and employees had civilized work hours. Now, all I can think about it how grumpy every one looks and how junky the merchandise has become since they work night and day on every day imaginable. I’ve taken to ordering a lot of stuff on line just to avoid the overall experience of the ugly buildings, merchandise and people. The thought of going to a Walmart stresses me out. It’s something I avoid if I can. So, I don’t know. What happened?
Whatever happened to a fun day at a store? Oh, well. Everything changes and now it’s just all about returning profits to a few at the inconvenience and dismay of the many.
So, those are the two interrelated topics that I’ve been investigating this week. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads
Posted: February 19, 2015 Filed under: Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 presidential race, antibiotic resistant bacteria, avalanche in Cambridge, Boston snow, Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, CRE, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, ERCP, Ferguson MO, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Loon Mountain, Mayor Marty Walsh, MIT Alps, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, snow diving, Superbug Nightmare 12 Comments
Mt. Rainier avalanche
Good Morning!!
Tales from the frozen Northeast
Yesterday evening in Cambridge, MA, five people were hit by an “avalanche” of snow that slid off the roof of the local skating rink.
The Boston Globe reports: Five trapped by snow falling from roof of Cambridge ice rink.
One man was completely buried and four other adults were briefly trapped Wednesday evening after snow fell from the roof of a Cambridge skating rink, a police spokesman said.
Four men and one woman were walking on a path between Gold Star Mothers Park and the Simoni Memorial Rink, just south of the McGrath Highway, when a “very compact” section of snow about 30 feet wide and up to 5 feet deep fell from the roof just past 6 p.m., said Jeremy Warnick, a Cambridge police spokesman.
A witness called police, who used snow shovels provided by people at the scene to begin the search for a 34-year-old Cambridge man, the twin brother of another man in the group, who was covered in snow, Warnick said.
His twin and other two men, ages 31 and 30, were briefly buried to the chest but were able to extricate themselves, Warnick said. A 20-year-old woman in the group was not completely buried but suffered injuries to her neck and shoulders, he said.
Cambridge firefighters came to assist the rescue effort, and the Somerville Department of Public Works provided two front-end loaders to remove remaining snow. All five who were hit by the snow had been accounted for by 6:23 p.m., Warnick said. He did not release their identities.
From WBZ (CBS Local Boston), Two People Buried By Falling Snow In Cambridge.
Two people were buried when a massive amount of snow fell off a Cambridge ice rink Wednesday night.
Cambridge Police say five adults were walking down the sidewalk next to the rink when the snow fell.
Dan Delongchamp was the first person on scene and started digging. “I want to say it was five minutes of terror,” Delongchamp said. “Digging in the snow trying to find somebody, it was terrible.”
Delongchamp, of Somerville, was riding his bike near the rink when the snow fell. He wants to be a professional bike driver. If you want to become a pro biker, you better read this review about bmx bikes first.
“We kept shoveling, kept shoveling, and finally I reached down and I felt something soft, and said this isn’t snow, and it was him,” Delongchamp said.
A 33-year-old man and 20-year-old woman, both of Cambridge – were stuck under the weight of five feet of snow.
Angelo Ciardiello and his crew were around the corner removing snow for the City of Somerville when they learned of the emergency at the nearby Simoni Ice Rink in Cambridge.
“I’d never seen anything like that,” Ciardiello said. “They were buried up to their chest. They were panicked, they were scared.”
Unbelievable.
The latest craze for younger adults in Boston is jumping or diving out windows and off balconies into deep snow. It has gotten so crazy that the Mayor felt he had to say something about this dangerous pastime.
USA Today reports: Boston mayor to snow daredevils: Chill out.
Think before you jump. Or, don’t jump at all.
That’s the message Boston Mayor Marty Walsh told snow-bound Bostonians at a press conference Tuesday.
Apparently, some of the city’s stir-crazy, thrill-seeking residents are taking to social media with videos of them jumping out of windows into massive snowdrifts.
“I’m asking people to stop their nonsense right now. These are adults jumping out windows. It’s a foolish thing to do, and you could kill yourself,” Walsh said, according to a video of his remarks from the Boston Herald….
“This isn’t Loon Mountain, this is the city of Boston, where we’re trying to remove snow off of the street and it becomes very dangerous. And the last thing we want to do is respond to an emergency call where somebody jumped out of the window because they thought it was a funny thing to do,” Walsh said.
FYI: Loon Mountain is a ski resort in New Hampshire. See more snow diving and jumping photos at The Daily Mail.
Check out this dramatic video of a snow dive:
At MIT, maintenance workers have piled up the snow removed from streets and sidewalks on campus into a huge five-story high “mountain” on Albany Street near classroom buildings and student dorms. There’s a fence around the area, but people are still getting in to climb the “MIT Alps” and slide down again. Here’s a photo posted on Twitter by Susie Blackmon (via Bustle)
“Superbug Nightmare” in Los Angeles
If you thought the measles outbreak in California was scary, “you ain’t heard nothing yet,” as Al Jolson used to say.
From the AP, via ABC News: 7 Infected, 2 Dead After ‘Superbug’ Outbreak at Hospital.
Contaminated medical instruments are to blame for infecting seven patients — including two who died — with an antibiotic-resistant and potentially deadly “superbug” at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, hospital officials said. A total of 179 patients may be infected.
They were exposed to Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, during endoscopic procedures between October and January when it was discovered during tests on a patient, said Dale Tate, a University of California, Los Angeles spokeswoman.
The potentially infected patients are being sent free home-testing kits that UCLA will analyze, the university said.
The bacteria may have been a “contributing factor” in the deaths of two patients, a university statement said.
From Mother Jones: A Superbug Nightmare Is Playing Out at an LA Hospital.
In today’s terrifying health news, the LA Timesreports that two medical scopes used at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center may have been contaminated with the potentially deadly, antibiotic-resistant bacteria Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). Two patients have died from complications that may be connected to the bacteria, and authorities believe that 179 more patients have been exposed.
Most healthy people aren’t at risk of catching a CRE infection, but in hospitals this bacteria can be quite dangerous: CRE kills as many as half of all people in whom the infection has spread to the bloodstream. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working with the CA Department of Public Health to investigate the situation, which is expected to result in more infections.
The problem isn’t just in Los Angeles, though. Last month USA Today reported that hospitals around the country struggle with transmissions of bacteria on these scopes—medical devices commonly used to treat digestive-system problems—and there have been several other under-the-radar outbreaks of CRE.
This is pretty scary stuff, considering that in the antibiotics arms race against bacteria, we are starting to fall behind. Due in large part to unnecessary medical prescriptions and overuse of antibiotics in our food supply, these superbugs are on the rise. In a study published last year that focused specifically on hospitals in the Southeastern United States, researchers reported that CRE cases had increased fivefold between 2008 and 2012.
CRE “superbug” backteria
This just reinforces my determination to stay away from antibiotics, doctors, and hospitals unless I’m really sick–like with a 103 degree temperature or something. A little more from the AP article quoted above:
The two medical devices carried the bacteria even though they were sterilized according to the manufacturer’s specifications, UCLA said. “We removed the infected instruments, and we have heightened the sterilization process,” Tate said.
The CDC said that national figures on the bacteria are not kept, but 47 states have seen cases.
Since 2012, there have been about a half-dozen outbreaks reaching as many as 150 patients, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the UCLA outbreak.
One outbreak occurred in Illinois in 2013. Dozens of patients were exposed to CRE, with some cases apparently linked to a tainted endoscope used at a hospital.
A Seattle hospital, Virginia Mason Medical Center, reported in January that CRE linked to an endoscope sickened at least 35 patients, and 11 died, although it was unclear whether the infection played a role in their deaths.
According to the LA Times, as many as 179 patients may have been exposed to CRE in the past several months.
UCLA said it discovered the outbreak late last month while running tests on a patient. This week, it began to notify 179 other patients who were treated from October to January and offer them medical tests. By some estimates, if the infection spreads to a person’s bloodstream, the bacteria can kill 40% to 50% of patients.
At issue is a specialized endoscope inserted down the throats of about 500,000 patients annually to treat cancers, gallstones and other ailments of the digestive system.
These duodenoscopes are considered minimally invasive, and doctors credit them for saving lives through early detection and treatment. But medical experts say some scopes can be difficult to disinfect through conventional cleaning because of their design, so bacteria are transmitted from patient to patient.
These instruments are not the same type used in more routine endoscopies and colonoscopies.
The procedure in question is known as ERCP, or endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. The superbug is carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.
Read much more at the link.
Jeb Bush meets the media
“I’m my own man,” Jeb Bush announced in a speech yesterday. From Reuters:
Republican Jeb Bush staked out a robust vision for U.S. foreign policy in line with party doctrine on Wednesday and sought to ease concerns that he might be influenced by his powerful political family by insisting, “I’m my own man.”
A frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Bush said he would back a global strategy against Islamic State that “takes them out.”
But he offered no specifics on how to do this and avoided military threats that could reawaken memories of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq launched by his older brother, former President George W. Bush, over weapons of mass destruction that were never found.
Speaking at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the former Florida governor struck a balance between respecting the service of his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and brother, while suggesting he would make decisions based on circumstances neither of them had to face.
“I’m my own man, and my views are shaped by my own thinking and my own experiences,” Bush said.
Bush’s claim was undermined by his list of foreign policy advisers. The Washington Post reports: Jeb Bush vows to set his own course while tapping longtime family advisers.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Wednesday promised to chart his own course on foreign policy — even as he announced a campaign brain trust associated, in part, with the most contentious policies of his brother’s and father’s presidencies….
In his prepared remarks, Bush mentioned Iraq, where his father and brother waged wars, only in passing — including once by mistake, when he meant to say Iran.
But in a question-and-answer session afterward, Bush addressed the troubled conflict in Iraq during his brother’s administration. “There were mistakes made in Iraq for sure,” he said….
The threat of Iran as a nuclear power is “the defining foreign policy issue of our time,” Bush contended, arguing that the Obama administration has shown itself “unequal to the task.” ….
Meanwhile, the 21 names announced by his campaign-in-waiting as supporters and advisers on foreign policy did not provide much indication of what direction Bush would take.
The list represents the full spectrum of views within the Republican foreign policy establishment — from relative moderates, including former secretaries of state George P. Shultz and James A. Baker III, to staunch neoconservatives such as Iraq war architect Paul D. Wolfowitz.
Yikes!
A few more Jeb links:
The Atlantic: If Jeb Bush Isn’t George W. Bush, Who Is He?
The Fix: Jeb Bush’s foreign policy team is eerily familiar, in one Venn diagram.
Think Progress: Jeb Bush’s Attack On Obama Over Iran Goes Horribly Wrong.
Buzzfeed: Jeb Bush Makes Vague First Foray Into Foreign Policy.
Washington Monthly: Politico Makes Case For Just Declaring Jeb Bush President Right Now.
More News Links
New York Magazine: Justice Department May Sue Ferguson Police Over Racial Bias.
Talking Points Memo: South Dakota Lawmaker says ‘Planned Parenthood Worse Than ISIS’
Undercover Michigan: Michigan Woman dies after accidently shooting herself while Adjusting Bra Holster.
The Missing Leak Sports Blog: Time for Goodell to Step Down?
Tom Curran at Comcast Sportsnet New England: Another black eye for NFL in Deflategate quest.
Politico: Rudy Giuliani says President Obama doesn’t love America (Giuliani supports Scott Walker.)
The Guardian: Chapel Hill ‘hate crime’ response criticised by Muslim lawmaker Keith Ellison.
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread, and have a tremendous Thursday!
Fat Tuesday Reads
Posted: February 17, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Ash Wednesday, Chapel Hill murders, Craig Hicks, Easter Sunday, fat tuesday, immigration, Islamophobia, Judge Andrew S. Hanen, krewes, mardi gras, misogyny, movement atheism, New Atheism, New Orleans, Pakzi Day, polish immigrants, Vernal Equinox, winter weather 34 Comments
Revelers toss confetti at float of Momus, patron god of Mardi Gras, in New Orleans in 1960.
Good Morning!!
Today is Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras in French, the last day to celebrate before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday fall on different days every year, depending on the date of Easter Sunday. It begins 46 days before Easter (Sundays aren’t counted). Lent in the Catholic Church was meant to be symbolic of the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert while enduring temptations from the Devil. Traditionally Christians gave up meat during lent and spent time in prayer and meditation. As kids, we gave up candy or chose some activity to perform during the Lenten season.
So how is the date of Easter determined each year? You guessed it, it depends on the date of the Vernal Equinox–one more example of how Christians absorbed Pagan holidays into their calendar. Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is the culmination of the celebration of the birth of Jesus, beginning on The Epiphany, January 6–the day of the supposed arrival of Three Kings (or Wise Men) bearing gifts of frankincense and myrrh for the newborn child. This year Easter falls on April 5.
The time between Epiphany and Mardi Gras is commonly referred to as Carnival, during which parades take place in Catholic strongholds like Brazil, Venice, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and New Orleans.
Like many Catholic holidays, Mardi Gras bears resemblances to ancient pagan rituals, particularly Saturnalia and Lupercalia. The former honored the god Saturn, an agricultural deity, and was marked by gift-giving, revelry and gambling. The latter was conducted in mid-February to honor Faunus, the god of fertility, which involved feasting, drinking and debauched behavior.
When Rome was Christianized, the Catholic Church adapted popular pagan holidays into the new faith. Mardi Gras season became a time to celebrate before the 40 days of Lent marked by prayer, repentance and atonement. As Christianity spread throughout Europe and the New World, so did Mardi Gras traditions. The pre-Lenten festivals continue to be marked by drinking, dancing and feasting on fatty foods containing meat, eggs, milk and cheese – ingredients that are restricted during Lent.
Shrove Tuesday falls on the same day as Fat Tuesday. It is the day before Ash Wednesday when Christians are reminded they will soon enter a season of penance. “Shrove” comes from the word “shrive,” which means to confess. In the Middle Ages, Catholics began marking Shrove Tuesday as a time to confess their sins before Lent.
Rasberry pakzi
In places where many Polish immigrants settled in the U.S. Fat Tuesday is celebrated as “Pakzi Day.” From Michigan Live, Fat Tuesday means paczki: One generation prepares the next for the biggest day of the year at Davison Home Bakery.
DAVISON, MI — Lydia Herron is a bit nervous. And excited.
After about five months of working at Davison Home Bakery, she’s preparing for the biggest day of the year: Fat Tuesday.
“They tell me it’s going to be pretty insane,” she said, standing in the bakery the morning of Monday, Feb. 16, wearing a white baker’s apron.
Fat Tuesday is the day before the Christian tradition of Lent, when practitioners give up something for 40 days and 40 nights. Sweets are a common thing to give up, and for many, Fat Tuesday is one last chance to splurge. And the favorite way to splurge on Fat Tuesday?
Paczki.
Paczki are like doughnuts, if you’re the kind of person who thinks there just aren’t enough calories in cream- or jelly-filled doughnuts as it is.
Diane Henson, a baker at Davison Home Bakery, has been making paczki since 1972. The morning of Feb. 16, she and baker Mitch French had already made 200 dozen, having been there since 9 p.m. the night before. They plan on having 600 dozen baked by the time Fat Tuesday rolls around.
She said to make paczki,they use their doughnut batter but add more sugar, butter, and eggs.
Of course the biggest celebration of Mardi Gras is in New Orleans. Here’s a schedule of activities for today that includes links to watch video of the parade. I’m sure Dakinikat can also fill us in on what’s happening down there.
Time Magazine has an interesting article about how Mardi Gras was liberated from being a celebration only for the rich and influential people in New Orleans.
A float in the Krewe of Proteus passes down Napoleon Avenue during their Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Monday, Feb. 16, 2015.
These days, Mardi Gras in New Orleans — which falls on Feb. 17 this year — is a party for all. But, not that long ago, Mardi Gras celebrations were more exclusive affairs.
As TIME reported in the Feb. 9, 1948, issue, balls and “krewes” were for the city’s elites only, and that situation lasted for decades after the first Mardi Gras parade was held in the 1850s. In the 20th century, however, the celebration expanded:
For half a century, New Orleans’ fantastic Mardi Gras balls were strictly for the upper crust. Nobody without money, blue blood, or both gained membership in the secret men’s clubs or “krewes” which staged them. Before 1900 there were only five clubs: Comus, Momus, Twelfth Night, Rex and Proteus. They culled guest lists with pernickety care, asked only the fairest of debutantes to serve as carnival queens. But times changed. The socially ambitious began forming their own krewes.
In 1928 New Orleans had 16 Mardi Gras balls. In 1946 there were 36. This year, a record-breaking total of 49 are being held. Last week, with Carnival Day (Shrove Tuesday) fast approaching, New Orleans’ social whirl had assumed the proportions of a maelstrom.
By the 1940s, there were krewe options galore. “Italian krewes, Irish krewes, German krewes… krewes for college men, businessmen, professional men,” TIME wrote. “To the horror of New Orleans’ old guard, there are even krewes for women.”
But that didn’t mean Mardi Gras was an all-inclusive celebration. The krewes may have multiplied, but they were still separated along racial and gender lines.
As recently as 1991, the relative exclusivity of the Mardi Gras krewes was a source of controversy in New Orleans. That December, the city council voted to require the krewes to integrate by 1994, or else lose the right to hold parades. (The krewes are private clubs, but the city controls the streets.)
Read more history at the link. The photo at the top of this post is from Time in 1960.
In winter weather news . . .
The latest winter storm hit the South hard yesterday. NBC News reports, Ice Storm Coats South from Oklahoma to Carolinas, Heads to Northeast.
A band of snow and ice sliced across the South on Monday from Oklahoma to the Carolinas, cutting off power for more than a quarter of a million customers and threatening to paralyze major cities on its way to the Northeast.
For once, Boston wasn’t the center of the winter weather. Instead, New England-like snow fell on parts of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia: 17 inches near Coleman, Kentucky; 15 inches in Logan, West Virginia; 14½ inches near Oceana, West Virginia; and 12 inches in Dickenson County, Virginia.
At 3:45 a.m. ET, The Weather Channel reported that 26 million Americans were under winter storm warnings — with three million in Tennessee and South Carolina under an ice storm warning.Ice coated power lines in Georgia where 174,000 customers were without power early Tuesday.
I sure hope JJ, RalphB, and Mouse are doing OK. Beata too–my sister reports that southern Indiana has been hit hard for the past couple of days.
At least 55,000 customers were without power in Tennessee, the state Emergency Management Agency said late Monday. It also declared a state of emergency late Monday.
Trees and power lines came down in Arkansas, where Entergy Corp. said about 17,000 customers were without power, and in Mississippi, where the state Emergency Operations Center said 10,000 customers were in the dark.
Power failures were affecting nearly 62,000 early Tuesday in South Carolina and an additional 19,000 in North Carolina.
The hardest hit areas, according to NBC today:
About 22 million people across parts of the South and the Mid-Atlantic are under winter storm warnings as a band of ice and snow continues its assault. More than 330,000 people across 13 states and Washington, D.C., are without power, according to The Weather Channel. Parts of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia got the brunt of the snow Monday, including more than a foot in several areas. Now, as the system starts to pull away, forecasters say D.C. could see about 8 inches of snow, New York could get 3 inches and parts of New Jersey, 7 inches.
Take care, Janicen, Delphyne and Joanelle. For once, it wasn’t Boston in the eye of the storm. A man came to my door last night and offered to shovel my car out and clear off my sidewalk for $40, and I took him up on it. I don’t know if I can actually get out. He didn’t shovel down to the pavement, but at least I don’t have to deal with that wall the plows left at the end of my driveway. I’ll go out and look at it later on.
More news links
Judge Andrew S. Hanen
NYT, Obama Immigration Policy Halted by Federal Judge in Texas. Sigh . . .
The White House responded with a statement explaining why the policy is constitutional.
The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws—which is exactly what the President did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system. Those policies are consistent with the laws passed by Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as five decades of precedent by presidents of both parties who have used their authority to set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws.
The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C. have determined that the President’s actions are well within his legal authority. Top law enforcement officials, along with state and local leaders across the country, have emphasized that these policies will also benefit the economy and help keep communities safe. The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision.
IB Times, via Raw Story, Who is the Texas judge obstructing Obama’s immigration plan?
CNN, Poll: Most disapprove of Obama handling of ISIS.
Frankly, I doubt that “most” Americans have the slightest idea of what is going on with “ISIS” or a clue about how Obama his “handling” the “threat.”
Karoli at Crooks and Liars, The Islamophobia Fear Factory And The Billionaires Who Pay For It.
NBC News, The Chapel Hill shooter, Craig Hicks, has been indicted for murder.
Outspoken atheists Penn Gillette, Neill Degrasse Tyson, Bill Maher, Lawrence Krauss, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Aayan Hirsi Ali
And speaking of Islamophobia, what’s with the supposedly intellectual “movement atheists” who are so obsessed with Islam? Amanda Marcotte, an atheist herself, writes: Time for atheists to take a hard look at ourselves.
One of the reasons that I was attracted to movement atheism was I believed that, by rejecting the gods-and-masters idea, it was inoculated against that knee-jerk tribalism that characterizes so many religions. Without a supernatural cover story for why we’re the chosen people/the righteous/the holy ones, I thought, we would have to rationally accept that we are nothing special. I thought it was protection against the special pleading you often see from people who are wed to conservative movements and institutions and identities. That hope of mine is being sorely tested in the light of Craig Hicks shooting, execution-style, his three Muslim neighbors that witnesses say he had an ongoing bug up his ass about. Hicks was an outspoken and aggressive New Atheist sort, but that’s all we really know about him, alongside his apparent gun-loving tendencies.
Yes, yes, I know we don’t know if it was over religion or a parking space, but it’s clear as hell that many in the atheist world are hoping—dare I say praying—that there’s some kind of exonerating evidence to show that he barely even noticed the headscarfs on the heads of two of his victims. To which I say, why? If we are, as we purport to be, rational people who are above the knee-jerk tribalism of our religious brethren, then we should be open, without any defensiveness, to an open and honest discussion about how the rhetoric of some of the big names in atheism—Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher—treads past the ordinary criticisms of faith and turns into ugly and demonstrably silly arguments about how Islam is somehow uniquely poisonous as a religion. While claiming to oppose Christianity, these men have allowed themselves to be useful idiots for the cause of the Christian right, giving them an “even the atheists agree!” cover for their desire to stoke religious animosity and drumming up support for even more unnecessary wars in the Middle East.
Read the rest at the link.
Furthermore, what about the misogyny among these (mostly) male atheist obsessives? Here’s an earlier post by Marcotte: Atheism’s shocking woman problem: What’s behind the misogyny of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris?
At first blush, it would seem that an atheist movement would be exactly the sort of thing that would attract many women. After all, much of the oppression of women—from forced veiling to restricting abortion rights—is a direct result of religion. Unsurprisingly, then, feminism has a long tradition of outspoken atheists and religious skeptics within its ranks.Suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton preferred “rational ideas based on scientific facts” to “religious superstition.” Major feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir argued that belief in God exists in part to “repress any impulse toward revolt in the downtrodden female.” Modern feminist writer Katha Pollitt received the “Emperor Has No Clothes” award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 2001, where she said that religion is dangerous because “it connects with very terrible social energies that have lain in civilization for a very long time.”
But despite the natural and cozy fit of atheism and feminism, the much-ballyhooed “New Atheism” that was supposed to be a more aggressive, political form of atheism has instead been surprisingly male-dominated. The reason has, in recent years, become quite apparent: Many of the most prominent leaders of the New Atheism are quick to express deeply sexist ideas. Despite their supposed love of science and rationality, many of them are nearly as quick as their religious counterparts to abandon reason in order to justify regressive views about women.
Atheism needs some new spokespeople. These guys are nearly as ugly and nasty as their fundamentalist christian counterparts. I nominate Dakinikat.
So . . . what stories are you following today? Please share your links and storm updates in the comment thread, and have a great Fat Tuesday!!
Lundi Gras Lazy Reads
Posted: February 16, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: lundi gras, mardi gras, mean people suck 9 Comments
Bonjour! C’est Lundi Gras ici!
Today is the day all good locals in New Orleans rest up for the big Mardi Gras Festivities tomorrow! I’ve been laying low and have to work tomorrow afternoon so I’m just enjoying watching every one else have fun. There was a spontaneous parade in front of my house about an hour ago. It was some nice people from Austin dressed like Bees with the bat symbol on their capes. Austin folks are generally the only Texans that behave around here so I’m always glad to see them. Oh, If you can explain the costumes, you’re doing better than me.
My sister and brother-in-law came for their first Mardi Gras and went back to Seattle today. He rode on a Bacchus float which is a first class and very expensive way to do your first Mardi Gras! His picture is down towards the middle of the post. My sister took it yesterday. I’ve picked up these pictures from my local friends. The first ones here on top come from Muriel’s NOLA’s instagram. The food at this French Quarter restaurant is wonderful and the family business is run by the nicest people. Thanks for the great photos Denise Bellknap Gratia! The last few pictures are from my friend Farrar Doc Hudkins who is a UNO student and one of my favorite WWNO radio station announcers. That’s the UNO NPR station here. I can’t claim ownership over any of the pictures! Only complete awe of some talented fingers and eyes!!!
I’ve actually been reading a lot about my friends uptown and all the grief they’ve been getting this year. There was a double shooting/murder one night. One of my friends got punched in the eye over a t-shirt. Another has had random people just walk into her house to use her bathroom and take food and beer. Where on earth did all this rudeness and such come from ? I tend to stay in my own little freaky corner of New Orleans where it used to be mostly working class locals but not much any more. Still, who can imagine being so drunk and obnoxious that you’ve got to punch a 47 year old woman in the eye over a t shirt? And this was a drunken local Garden District Lady! It’s not like it was some out of town drunk frat kid!
I think we are beginning to see the frustration play out of living in modern America where it’s difficult to get ahead, worse to try to get any kind of satisfaction from a job or even an experience as a customer, and the realization that we’re not as entitled and special as we’ve been told we are. I don’t remember have to struggle so much for so little prior to the the Dubya Bush years’ fruition in a full blown series of endless wars and financial crises where huge corporations got bailed out but so many people were and still are left to suffer. Then there’s the Grover Norquist and Koch Brother’s agenda played out in every state with a Republican Governor. The shameless raping of public assets for the rich is just over the top. Then, there’s a lot of sadness in the news recently showing how intolerant of others people are becoming. Here are two such examples.
First, up is a rather local and sad example of the way we treat religious minorities here in this country. This is from Houston where some one deliberately set fire to a mosque and a fire fighter tried to block the hydrant and shouted “let it burn to the ground”. There are so many hate crimes these days that it’s hard to see much else.
Arson police at the scene now say an accelerant was used in a fire that broke out at an Islamic community and education center in southeast Houston early Friday morning, and now a group is calling for an investigation into whether the fire was the result of a possible hate crime.
Houston fire officials say the fire at the Quba Islamic Institute started around 5am. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but we’ve learned HFD says the accelerant was used, which usually points to a purposeful act. Those same investigators met with leaders at another Islamic center just miles away, letting them know that this was an act of arson and to be on alert.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on state and federal authorities to investigate the fire as a possible hate crime.
That call comes as Ahsan Zahid, assistant Imam at the institute, says he spoke with the Houston arson investigator about their preliminary results.
Zahid said, “They said their dog went through and he hit on some substances inside the place, and he said, ‘From what I see right now at this point, I have to say it was an incendiary fire which means that it was started on purpose.’ That’s all we can go on at this point. I don’t want to speculate.”
Though we don’t know officially if the cause was accidental or deliberate, the FBI is now monitoring the situation.
You can see the hateful tweet from a then–but no longer–volunteer firefighter here at the orange place.
There are signs that anti-antisemitism is making a horrible come back in Europe. This is a story from France where a French Jewish cemetary was desecrated with swastikas. 
France’s interior minister said Sunday several hundred tombs had been defaced at a Jewish cemetery in the east of the country, in what he called “a despicable act.”
“The country will not tolerate this new injury which goes against the values that all French people share,” said Bernard Cazeneuve without giving further details of the incident in the town of Sarre-Union.
“Every effort will be made to identify, question and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this ignominious act,” he added.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, writing on Twitter, also condemned the desecration, calling it “an anti-Semitic and ignoble act.”
It is not the first time that a Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union has been targeted.
In 1988, around 60 Jewish steles, stone or wooden slabs often used for commemorative purposes, were knocked over while in 2001, 54 tombs were wrecked.
News of the latest incident comes just over a month after an Islamist gunman shot dead four Jews in a supermarket siege in Paris.
A lot of people have been enjoying the 40th anniversary special of SNL. I especially liked the part where Jane Curtain did the news with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. Her funny line was how that she used to be the
only blonde reading fake news on TV at that time and now there’s an entire News channel dedicated to it. No kidding! I still maintain that that Fox News and the rise of Rush have a lot to do with the rise of the Asshole class. It’s like they give permission for people to hate on other people and take revenge for perceived damages to their exceptionalism. Here’s a link to a thought provoking essay on why most political satire comes from the left and never the right. Is it the differences in personalities that let one side laugh at irregularities in thinking while the other side takes offense? The Atlantic‘s article is titled “Why There’s No Conservative Jon Stewart” and it’s worth the read.
One explanation is simply that proportionately fewer people with broadly conservative sensibilities choose to become comedians. Just as liberals dominate academia, journalism, and other writing professions, there are nearly three times as many liberal- as conservative-minded people in the creative arts according to a recent study. Alison Dagnes, a professor of political science at Shippensburg University, argues that the same personality traits that shape political preferences also guide the choice of professions. These tendencies just get more pronounced in the case of comedy, which usually requires years of irregular income, late hours, and travel, as well as a certain tolerance for crudeness and heckling.
There are, of course, high-profile conservative comedians in America, such as the members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. But these performers, who include Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, tend carefully to avoid politicized topics, mocking so-called “rednecks” in the same spirit as Borscht Belt acts mocked Jewish culture.
When it comes to actual political satire, one of the most well-known figures nationally is Dennis Miller, a former Saturday Night Live cast member who now has a weekly segment on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor. On a recent show, O’Reilly brought up the Democrats’ election losses, and Miller took the bait. “I think liberalism is like a nude beach,” Miller said. “It’s better off in your mind than actually going there.” His jokes are sometimes amusing, but they tend to be grounded in vague ideologies, not the attentive criticism to the news of the day that has given liberal satires plenty of fodder five days a week. The real problem, Frank Rich wrote about Miller, “is that his tone has become preachy. He too often seems a pundit first and a comic second.”
It’s weird to me that conservative entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly take to the air in preachy, mean, screaming tones while The Daley Show folks tend to be poke holes in things with humor based in facts and logic and pointing out inconsistencies in thinking.
So, here’s another one of those hate things where the hater says “Huhn? I’m a nice guy”. This guy is an elected official too and of course, a Republican saying racist things isn’t uncommon at all these days. Why do people feel the need to express such hateful feelings and then act surprised when some one calls them out on it?
State Rep. Gene Alday, R-Walls, who came under fire after his racist comments appeared in a Clarion-Ledger article Sunday about public education, said today his remarks were out of context and that he’s a nice guy.
“I’m not a bad person, and that makes me look like an evil person,” Alday said Monday. “I didn’t do anything wrong. The guy made me look like a fool.”
The comments in question refer to African-Americans in his hometown of Walls, a small community in Desoto County. Alday, 57, said that he comes “from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”
He also said that when he went to the emergency room one time, “I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots.”
Since then, people around the state have condemned the remarks with some calling for his resignation.
“Rep. Alday is solely responsible for his remarks,” said Gov. Phil Bryant. “I strongly reject his comments condemning any Mississippian because of their race. Those day are long past.”
But the former mayor, former police chief and current first-term legislator said he had no idea his remarks would appear in a story and, if he had, he wouldn’t have made them.
“It was late at night and he called me,” Alday said of his earlier interview with Clarion-Ledger investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell. “He asked me a question back to when I was in law enforcement … I have a way of talking and saying, ‘take this off the record.'”
Instead, Alday said, Mitchell used his casual, off-the-cuff comments as an official statement without providing the full context of his feelings on the matter.
Mitchell said he contacted Alday about education funding last week and that the legislator steered the discussion toward race. The comments appeared as they were given and within the context of the discussion, Mitchell said.
But Alday said the reporter failed to write about the numerous times Alday has helped people of all races in his community, whether that meant giving them rides to the doctor or providing credit on merchandise at the store run by his family.
“Yes, it’s true that most of the blacks in my hometown are on welfare,” Alday said. “But they’re good people. I don’t have anything against anybody. I’m a straight-up guy. In my little town they had little civil rights walks and I was with them. I’m with everybody.”
In spite of the prevailing stereotypes and assumptions about who uses SNAP Food Stamp benefits the most in the United States, the highest usage is not in Compton, Queens, nor the South Side of Chicago. Instead, a city that is 99.22% white and 95% Republican comes in the lead. Owsley County, Kentucky is a community of about 5,000, residents earning the lowest median household income in the country outside of Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. Census.
The decline in the profits from coal, tobacco and lumber industries led to a harsh toll being taken on the community.
Cale Turner, county executive of Owsley County told ABC back in 2010 that economic hardships have led to a high incidence of drug addiction.
“Those with drug addictions end up in prison without effective treatment. And it happens over and over in this community. The drug problem continues to get worse every year.”
Strangely enough, the residents of Owsley County are almost entirely Republican, in spite of the traditional opposition to the Food Stamp program by the GOP. In fact, just last November, residents of Owsley saw their SNAP benefits reduced drastically as a result of Republican opposition to funding the program.
This might rank among the greatest of ironies in history: the Food Stamp Capital of the U.S. is almost entirely white and Republican.
Look at this story and this guy was a judge!!
Nine months after a Madison County Justice Court judge was accused of striking and yelling a racial slur at a mentally challenged young man, a grand jury served an indictment for simple assault on a vulnerable adult.
Justice Court Judge Bill Weisenberger turned himself in to the Madison County sheriff Thursday, according to a spokeswoman with the Attorney General’s office. He was released on $10,000 bond.
According to witnesses, Weisenberger struck 20-year-old Eric Rivers, an African American, and yelled “Run, n—–, run” at the Canton Flea Market on May 8 of last year.
If convicted, the charge of simple assault against a vulnerable adult carries a fine of up to $1,000 or up to 5 years imprisonment, or both. The charge against him is a felony.
“From the beginning of this matter, Judge Weisenberger, has cooperated with each law enforcement and investigatory agency that wanted to know what actually occurred at the Canton Flea Market last spring,” an emailed statement from Weisenberger’s lawyer, Bill Kirksey, said. “Judge Weisenberger has denied and continues to deny any wrong doing or the commission of any crime against any person.”
Kirksey, along with Madison County officials, has taken issue with the slowness of the process. The incident in Canton occurred on May 8 of last year.
Kirksey said the AG’s office allowed four grand juries to come and go before presenting the case.
Madison County Supervisor Karl Banks said last month the slowness was costing taxpayers as Weisenberger is still being paid his annual salary of $45,700, though he voluntarily stepped down from the bench.
A judge may only be forced to step down if he or she has been convicted of a felony or if the Supreme Court removes the judge.
Those last two stories were from Mississippi where things still appear to be burning despite modernity and civil rights laws. It’s scary to think that we’re talking elected officials acting like it’s still Jim Crow days and they don’t appear to have a thought about how absolutely hateful their words and actions truly are.
So, how have so many people lost their “polite” and “nice” filter? Is it because we can troll people on the internet and hide behind monikers allowing us to be anonymous then forget we’re not in real life? Is it because work and life is beating us down so much we’re all angry? Is it because anger is the new right wing entertainment mode and it allows a lot of them to think they’re entitled to shit on any one that gets in their way? What do you think?
I’d just like to add a thanks to BB for what she did for me on Saturday and for my friends who helped. I was doing my taxes and year end look see on Friday and was completely shocked by what I found. I’ve just had so many expenses recently that my meager salary isn’t covering them all at all. I guess I’m really not alone in that any more. I’ve just got to try to figure out what I can do about it.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: Valentine’s Day Blizzard Edition
Posted: February 14, 2015 Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2015 blizzards, Alabama, Boston weather, Cylvia Hayes, Halifax mass murder plot, John Kitzhaber, Kate Brown, movies, Oregon, same-sex marriage, Ukraine crisis 21 Comments
Computer simulation of the wind field associated with the New England storm on Feb. 15, 2015 (image from Earth Simulator at earth.nullschool.net.
Happy Valentine’s Day!!
To anyone who aren’t jaded by past relationship experiences, I wish you a wonderful, romantic day. For the rest of us, it’s Saturday, and that’s nice too. For millions of people in the upper Midwest and New England, it’s just one more blizzard. Ho-Hum {yawn}.
Michigan was in the eye of the storm last night, and later today it will hit the Boston area. Once again, the storm is going to be at its worst along the coast, including in the Greater Boston area. From NBC News: Northeast Braced for Blizzard as Another Winter Storm Looms.
Fifty million Americans were braced for another punishing winter blast Saturday – even as the Northeast was digging out from three major storms in as many weeks.
Twenty-six states were under weekend winter weather warnings, with no sign of an end in sight to the freezing conditions.
Some of the coldest air in the past 20 years will be accompanied by winds approaching hurricane force — and, for the snow-battered coast of New England, what could be a paralyzing blizzard.
A blizzard watch was in effect from the Maine-Canada border south to Long Island and a winter storm watch was in place for New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
We’ve been under a blizzard warning her since yesterday afternoon, but we’re not supposed to get the really high winds until tomorrow. From Mashable: The upcoming Boston blizzard may be equivalent to Category 2 hurricane.
UPDATED 4 p.m. ET: The National Weather Service upgraded the blizzard watch to a blizzard warning for Boston, which is in effect from Saturday at 7 p.m. ET to Sunday at 11 a.m. ET. The blizzard warnings and watches stretch from Cape Cod all the way to the border between Maine and Canada. The NWS is forecasting between 10 to 14 inches of snow in Boston on top of the three to four feet already on the ground, and is also warning of a life-threatening combination of powerful winds and cold temperatures during and in the wake of the storm through Sunday.
The powerful Valentine’s Day storm set to blast eastern New England this weekend with roaring, frigid winds, heavy snow and pounding surf will be so strong that it can be compared in some ways to a Category 2 hurricane.
Fortunately, though, it will not bring the same impacts as a hurricane of that intensity, but its effects on multiple locations — from Providence and Boston to Portland and Bangor, Maine — will be similar to a winter hurricane, with power outages, tree and structural damage, and coastal flooding. Depending on the storm’s exact track, it could dump a foot or more of additional snow in the Boston area, with even more snow in coastal New Hampshire and Maine.
Yup. The good news is that we’re only expecting about a foot of snow this time. After I managed to dig myself out of the last storm all by myself (a little bit at a time), I’m feeling pretty confident I can handle one more foot of snow. Of course there are predictions of more snow for Tuesday and next weekend, but those are puny little 3-5 inch storms. I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I’m all stocked up. I know I won’t get out again for several days, but I’ll deal with it.
Meanwhile how much snow will the Boston area have gotten if the predictions for this storm hold true? Check out this image from the National Weather Service, via Mashable:
So what should I do while I’m trapped in the house today, tomorrow, and who knows how many days after that? I could watch some of these “kickass sci-fi/fantasy” movies at The Mary Sue blog (I found it by following one of JJ’s links from last night’s post).
10 Kick-Ass Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movies on Netflix to Celebrate Valentine’s Day With
For some, Valentine’s Day is a day for love, sex, ’n’ romance. For others, it’s… not. Options include: Be Bitter About Your Love Life Day! Be Defensive About Your Lack of Love Life Day! Day Before Discount Candy Day! Or… drumroll…SATURDAY! Regardless of how you choose to live your life, not all of us will be sopping up the rom-com vibes come the fourteenth. For you lovely bastards, I present this list of ten kick-ass action movies to stream on Netflix while all your be-coupled friends are off being all lovey-dovey.
Or, hey, how about some of you watch one of these with your equally-badass significant others? Screw The Notebook. Definitely screw 50 Shades of Grey. (Or don’t screw 50 Shades of Grey. That shit’s gross.) BE BOLD!
Check out the list at the link and see what you think.
Or I could catch up on the latest political and foreign affairs news. Here are just a few of today’s top stories.
BBC News, Ukraine crisis: Poroshenko says peace deal in danger.
The Ukrainian president has warned a deal to end the war in the east is in “great danger” after heavy fighting ahead of Saturday night’s ceasefire.
Petro Poroshenko also accused Russia of “significantly increasing” its offensive in spite of the peace agreement reached in Minsk on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the US said it was very concerned by reports of heavy weapons coming across the border from Russia.
Big surprise, right? CNN has more details, Shelling in Ukraine cities ahead of midnight ceasefire.
Mariupol, Ukraine (CNN)Shelling could be heard in two eastern Ukrainian cities Saturday morning ahead of a midnight ceasefire deadline, raising fears that the deal to end a bitter 10-month-long conflict may be in jeopardy.
Both incoming and outgoing artillery could be seen in the vicinity of the coastal city of Mariupol, and there was significant shelling in rebel-held Donetsk through the morning, CNN teams reported….
Poroshenko said that after the agreement reached Thursday by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, the offensive against Ukrainian troops by the separatists had intensified.
The separatists may be trying to take control of strategic locations, such as the railroad hub of Debaltseve to the north, before the ceasefire lines are drawn. Pro-Kiev militia have also been pushing forward around government-controlled Mariupol.
Much more at the link.
Canada says they have prevented a serious attack that didn’t involve Islamic terrorists. CBS News reports:
TORONTO — Canadian authorities said Saturday that a foiled Valentine’s Day mass murder plot in Halifax was not related to Islamic terrorism.
“This appeared to be a group of murderous misfits that were coming here, or were living here, and prepared to wreak havoc and mayhem on our community,” Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay said. “It would have been devastating. Mass casualties were a real possibility.”
MacKay said all the suspects have been arrested or are dead. He said police would release more information publicly later Saturday. He credited police for their quick action.
A senior police official told The Associated Press that the two suspects were planning to go to a mall and kill as many people as they could before committing suicide.
According to the Globe and Mail,
Mr. MacKay [said that the] group’s motivation…seemed to be “quite random”. “It didn’t appear to be any specific philosophy that motivated this,” he said. “So there is no clear line … there is a very grey area in terms of anyone who would do this for any reason,” he said.
Police have yet to say what was motivating the four young people – three men from Nova Scotia and a woman from Illinois.
Referring to today being Valentine’s Day, Mr. MacKay said: “A day known to represent love and affection would have taken on a much different meaning today.”
“Based on what we know so far it would have been devastating,” he said. “Mass casualties were a real possibility.”
Just a short time ago today, there was an attack on a “free speech event” in Copenhagen. NBC News reports:
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish media say several shots have been fired at a cafe in Copenhagen where a meeting about freedom of speech was being held, organized by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced numerous threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad in 2007. The TV2 channel said Saturday there were some 30 bullet holes in the window of the Krudttoenden cafe and said at least two people were taken away on stretchers, including a uniformed police officer. NBC News has not immediately confirmed the details.
Helle Merete Brix, one of the organizers of the event, told The Associated Press that Vilks was present at the event but not injured. When the artist is in Denmark, he receives police protection. The cafe in northern Copenhagen, known for its jazz concerts, was hosting an event titled “Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression” when the shots were fired. Niels Ivar Larsen, one of the speakers at the event, told the TV2 channel that he saw two wounded people.
I guess we’ll be hearing more about that later today.
Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon resigned yesterday in the wake of a scandal involving his fiancee, who has been acting as the state’s first lady.
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned effective Wednesday, Feb. 18, in a letter submitted to Secretary of State Kate Brown.
“I am announcing today that I will resign as Governor of the State of Oregon,” he wrote in a statement released just after noon Friday.
Brown, also a Democrat, will be sworn in as Oregon’s 37th governor, but the timing of that ceremony is uncertain.
In just four months, a public corruption scandal involving Kitzhaber and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, has hobbled one of Oregon’s most durable politicians. Kitzhaber, a public official for 37 years, was sworn in for a historic fourth term as governor just a month ago. Facing not only a state criminal investigation and an ethics review, Kitzhaber watched his support from fellow veteran lawmakers crumble this week.
The governor’s resignation does not end either the criminal investigation or ethics review.
The Oregonian has more details on the scandal, Massive FBI investigation targets Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, Cylvia Hayes, and the Washington Post has a profile of Kitzhaber’s successor, This woman will soon become the first openly bisexual governor in American history.
In Alabama, the fight against allowing same sex couples to marry appears to be failing, according to The Washington Post, A majority of Alabama counties are now issuing same-sex marriage licenses.
Two-thirds of Alabama counties have agreed to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, according to gay rights groups, a dramatic turnaround from earlier this week when all but a handful were holding the licenses back.
The change in policy came after a federal judge on Thursday ordered officials in Mobile County to comply with her ruling striking down the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The decision led a number of probate judges to conclude that the ruling also applies to them, even though they got conflicting orders from the state’s chief justice, Roy Moore.
“Once that was done yesterday, [the probate judge] was satisfied we wouldn’t end up in a lawsuit or in trouble, so we’re doing it,” said a woman who identified herself as a manager in the Cherokee County probate office, one of at least 42 counties where same-sex marriage licenses are now available in Alabama, according to Equality Alabama, a local gay rights group. The manager declined to give her name because she wasn’t authorized to speak for the office.
“It wasn’t ever a thing of us not wanting to, morally or religiously, we were just kind of waiting for clarification,” she said.
Several counties indicated they would begin issuing the licenses next week. Still, that left about 20 of the state’s 67 counties as apparent holdouts.
And The New York times has a nice profile of an Alabama gay couple who have “tr[ied] to wed, early and often.”
Finally, an Appeal for Help from Sky Dancers
Before I sign off, I need to ask our readers for some help for my dear friend Dakinikat. Although she rarely complains, Kat has struggled for the past 4-5 years with chronic pain and an inability to walk or stand for any length of time because of untreatable dermatitis on her feet. At times her feet bleed and she has to go through multiple changes of socks in the course of a day. She has tried every possible treatment for the condition, but nothing seems to work for any length of time.
For the past 3 years Kat has essentially been disabled. Frankly, just getting out of the house to buy groceries is a painful process for her. It is even difficult for her to do daily tasks around the house like laundry and loading the dishwasher.
Kat has been doing her best to support herself with an on-line teaching job that she can do at home, but the work pays so poorly that IMHO, it amounts to slave labor. It hasn’t been enough to cover her mortgage and other basic expenses. As a result, Kat was forced to dip into her savings and at this point the money she had saved for retirement is nearly gone.
The three of us writers work very hard to produce interesting posts 7 days a week. All three of us are struggling financially and in other ways, but we take pride in this blog and the work we have done to sustain it for quite a few years now. But this blog would be nothing without Dakinikat. I well remember what a relief it was to come here after the difficulties many of us experienced at another place. I’m sure a number of you also recall those days. Kat is the one who opened her personal blog to us and who has taken responsibility for maintaining and improving the blog design over the years.
Right now, Kat is truly in desperate straits. I suggested that we should ask for contributions to help tide her over until she can either find more work or figure out what else she can do to make ends meet–perhaps by moving to a state that isn’t being bankrupted by its own governor.
If you have appreciated this blog over the years and you can afford to give something, I would be eternally grateful. We seldom ask for donations at Sky Dancing; we do this because we love to write and we’re fascinated by politics and current events. But this is a special case. Kat has been a wonderful friend to me–and to others here as well–and I hate to see her struggling like this. Please help if you can afford it–if you can’t, I totally understand. But I had to ask. Thanks so much for reading this and for whatever you can do to help.
What stories are you following today? Please share your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great weekend!
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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