Thursday Reads: An Utterly Self-Involved Exercise in Nostalgia
Posted: February 7, 2013 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Blizzard of '78, snow, weather 42 Comments
Summer Street in Boston’s downtown shopping district, Feb. 7, 1978
Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, Feb. 7, 1978
Good Morning!!
This is going to start out as a self-centered, nostalgic post. I hope it doesn’t bore you too much. I’ll post some current news links down below.
Thirty-five years ago today, the Boston area was buried under about four-and-a-half feet of snow in the wake of the Blizzard of ’78. When the storm started on Feb. 6, we already had at least 2 feet of snow on the ground. When it was over, amounts ranging from 29-36 additional inches of the white stuff had fallen, depending on where you lived. We didn’t even know it was coming. Famed Channel 4 weatherman Don Kent had predicted just a normal snowfall.
By afternoon it was clear that this was a “storm of the century” situation. Kids were sent home from school and workers left work early. Unfortunately, there were hurricane-force winds and the the snow was falling 1-2 inches per hour. Hundreds of commuters were stranded on Route 128 (AKA I-95).
Here’s audio from WBZ radio’s Gary LaPierre and Gil Santos talking about the storm, followed by Don Kent’s updated weather forecast. Love those Boston accents!
Governor Michael Dukakis declared a state of emergency on Feb. 6th and then renewed it on Feb. 7. Finally he ordered the entire state shut down for a week. No one was allowed to drive except for emergency vehicles. Employers were ordered to pay their employees for the lost time.
Here’s part of a local report on the storm toward the end of the week. Check out the cardigan on Governor Dukakis!
In those days, I lived on a narrow street in Somerville on the second floor of a two-family house. When the storm was over, you couldn’t even tell there was a street. The snow stretched straight across from the front porch of our house to the front porch of the house across the way. There was no way anyone was going to come and clear of our little street, so we all went out and dug out the street as best we could. Toward the end of the week, the plows came and then later the loaders came to cart the snow away. There was no place to put it.
Anyone who lived through the Blizzard of ’78 remembers where they were and what they were doing when the storm started. It was a disaster, especially along the coast; but for those of us who didn’t lose our power and got a week off work or school it was kind of fun in a way. As always in disasters, people pulled together and found things to laugh about.
The reason why I’ve been thinking about that long-ago storm is that there’s a nor’easter bearing down on New England on Friday and Saturday. We’re already under a blizzard watch beginning Friday morning and going through late Saturday afternoon. From AccuWeather.com: Blizzard to Bury New England at the End of the Week
Two storms will merge quickly enough to bring colder air, heavy snow and increasing wind to New England. Some areas will be hit with an all-out blizzard and a couple of feet of snow….
Strong winds will not only cause white-out conditions but can result in massive drifts.
At the height of the storm, snow can fall at the rate of 2 to 4 inches per hour and may be accompanied by thunder and lightning.
Of course you never know with these nor’easters. It could be a snowpocalypse or it could be a complete bust.
The intense snowfall rate anticipated is making the forecast especially challenging. A matter of an hour of intense snow versus 8 hours of intense snow will make the difference between a manageable few inches and a debilitating few feet of of snow. Nearby to the southeast of this intense snow, rain will be falling for a time.
It probably won’t be as bad as the one in ’78, but it could drop more than a foot of snow and possibly more than two feet of snow on the Boston area. So wish me luck!
Now for a little current news.
I’m not sure why there has been such a sudden furore in the corporate media about Obama’s having claimed the power to assassinate American citizens, since we’ve known about this for years now. But I guess once The New York Times decides to discuss it, the rest of the media automatically follows suit.
It was the topic of the day yesterday, and after massive pressure President Obama has said he will let Congress see the legal memos justifying the policy. The LA Times reports:
WASHINGTON — President Obama, who has championed lethal drone strikes as a major part of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, bowed to pressure Wednesday and agreed to allow the Senate and House intelligence committees to review classified legal memos used to justify a drone strike against a U.S. citizen in Yemen in 2011.
Senators had demanded for months to see the Justice Department opinions that provided the White House legal authority to order the targeted killing of Anwar Awlaki, a New Mexico native who became an Al Qaeda leader.
Complaints by several Democrats over not receiving the documents had cast a shadow on the Senate confirmation hearing Thursday of John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism advisor tapped to be CIA director.
An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified material, described the decision to release the classified Office of Legal Counsel material as “part of the president’s ongoing commitment to consult with Congress on national security matters.”
Oh really?
Joe Coscarelli at New York Magazine: Why the New York Times Outed a Secret U.S. Drone Base Now
When the New York Times revealed the location of the U.S.’s top-secret drone base in Saudi Arabia today, after months of keeping the information quiet, the other most important news outlets in the country sheepishly admitted they’d known about it, too. Along with the Washington Post, which said it had “an informal arrangement” with the government for more than a year, the Associated Press added last night that it “first reported the construction of the base in June 2011 but withheld the exact location at the request of senior administration officials.” Asked why the Times acted now, the paper’s managing editor Dean Baquet told public editor Margaret Sullivan it was simple: John Brennan’s big day.
“It was central to the story because the architect of the base and drone program is nominated to head the C.I.A.,” Baquet explained. Brennan’s confirmation hearings start tomorrow, and the Times decided it was important to discuss his pivotal role in U.S. operations in Yemen, where dozens of suspected terrorists have been targeted by drones, beforehand.
Previously, the government worried that the Saudis “might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,” so when the location “was a footnote,” the Times complied, Baquet said. “We have to balance that concern with reporting the news.” (Fox News, too, appears to have published the Saudi Arabian base location briefly in 2011 before switching to the more general “Arabian Peninsula.”)
Remember when the media was “the fourth estate?” Now they’re just part of the government. Amy Davidson has a thoughtful piece on the DOJ white paper: WHOM CAN THE PRESIDENT KILL?
About a third of the way into in a Department of Justice white paper explaining why and when the President can kill American citizens, there is a citation that should give a reader pause. It comes in a section in which the author of the document, which was given to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees last year—and obtained by Michael Isikoff, of NBC, on Monday—says that this power extends into every country in the world other than the United States, well beyond those where we are engaged in hostilities. The reference is to an address that John R. Stevenson, a State Department legal adviser, gave before the Association of the Bar in New York in May, 1970, to justify the Nixon Administration’s incursion into Cambodia. Does that make everyone, or anyone, feel better about what the Obama Administration has decided it can do, or the extent to which it thought through the implications, unintended consequences, precedents, and random reckless damage it may be delivering with this policy?
The white paper is a summary of something that had long been sought: the Obama Administration’s legal analysis of its killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen in Yemen who was hit by a drone strike in 2011. That memo has been described to reporters but never released. It needs to be. The question isn’t whether al-Awlaki, who worked with Al Qaeda, was an innocent—the question is at what point he crossed the line and became killable without any judicial proceedings, and when, by extension, the rest of us could be put on a “kill list.”
The whole article is well worth reading.
Here’s a little Karma for you: Go Daddy sued over revenge-porn site
Go Daddy has been named lead defendant in a Texas lawsuit filed by 17 women whose nude photos were published without their permission on a “revenge porn” website hosted by the Scottsdale-based company.
The lawsuit exposes an obscure Internet pornography niche that often involves jilted ex-boyfriends posting nude or semi-nude cellphone pictures of their former girlfriends, with each photo usually accompanied by personal information such as the woman’s name and city of residence.
Regardless of the lawsuit’s merits, legal analysts said, it’s unlikely the case will stand against Go Daddy, which merely hosted revenge-porn site Texxxan.com. Go Daddy hosts roughly 50 million websites.
What a shame. At least they’ll be inconvenienced by having to go to court and paying for legal representation.
John Nichols at the Nation discusses the Republican austerity agenda that is bringing down the Post Office.
The austerity agenda that would cut services for working Americans in order to maintain tax breaks for the wealthy—and promote the privatization of public services—has many faces.
Most Americans recognize the threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as pieces of the austerity plan advanced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the rest of the Ayn Rand–reading wrecking crew that has taken over the Republican Party. But it is important to recognize that the austerity agenda extends in every direction: from threats to Food Stamps and Pell Grants, to education cuts, to the squeezing of transportation funding.
But the current frontline of the austerity agenda is the assault on the US Postal Service, a vital public service that is older than the country. And it is advancing rapidly. On Wednesday, the Postal Service announced that Saturday first-class mail delivery is scheduled for elimination at the beginning of August—the latest and deepest in a series of cuts that threatens to so undermine the service that it will be ripe for bartering off to the private delivery corporations that have long coveted its high-end components.
“USPS executives cannot save the Postal Service by tearing it apart. These across-the-board cutbacks will weaken the nation’s mail system and put it on a path to privatization,” declares American Postal Workers Union president Cliff Guffey.
Obviously, it’s also another GOP effort to put labor unions out of business. Don’t they need to explain how they have the power to destroy a government entity that was enshrined in the Constitution by the founders of this country?
Have you heard about the crazy freak who’s running for the Senate seat in Georgia that will be vacated by Saxby Chambliss? Alex Parene: Paul Broun enters Georgia Senate race
You know that unfair caricature elite coastal liberals have of conservatives as a bunch of mouth-breathing idiot religious fanatic white Southern racists? Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., is that guy we’re all thinking of, and we’re about to see if that caricature can make it to the U.S. Senate….
If recent history is any indication, Broun and all of his primary competitors — very likely a bunch of extremely conservative white men — will fight to see who can out-true conservative the others. In that fight, Broun has some huge advantages, because he is loudly and proudly stupid and extremist.
A couple of Broun’s greatest hits:
That’s all I have for you today. What are you reading and blogging about?
Tuesday Reads
Posted: February 5, 2013 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Alliance for Affordable Internet, child abuse, drone attacks, Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Nordic Economies 62 Comments
Good Morning!
It’s amazing what people will do to children and it’s amazing what kind of people think assaulting children with belts is just okey dokey. This is one of those stories that’s actually hard to believe.
A Dollar General employee arrested in Wrightsville last week for hitting a child with a belt has now been charged with aggravated assault and cruelty to children. The charges were upgraded from simple battery because store video showed the woman hitting the 8 year old at least 25 times.
After initially saying they were looking into the details of the case before acting, Dollar General told 11Alive News Monday afternoon the employee, Emilia Graciela Bell, had been fired. “We are deeply shocked and saddened by the reported incident at our store in Wrightsville, Georgia,” read the statement, “And have expressed our sincere apologies to the child’s family.”
Investigators have not yet released the video, but the boy’s family told WMAZ Macon over the weekend it was more severe than a spanking.
“It was more or less a beating than a spanking the way she was hitting him,” said Logan Ivey’s father Jody. “I don’t know how to explain it, and I don’t want to think about it.”
Eight-year-old Logan said it was very painful.
“I felt like I had five needles sticking in me; it really hurt, I was screaming ‘Momma,'” he said. “And I was crying real bad because she had actually hurt me…when she stopped whipping me my pants were actually a little bit warm.”
Wrightsville Police Chief Paul Sterling said Logan Ivey was running around in the store and got into a confrontation with 39-year-old store clerk. Bell told investigators the boy threw a cookie at her and that’s when she removed her belt, chased the boy down and spanked him behind the counter.
What’s even more interesting is that Eric Erickson seems to think it’s perfectly appropriate. Any one with children or small animals should keep them far away from the Red State Zombie Sadist.
Fox News contributor Erick Erickson wrote that a Dollar General employee deserves “a medal” for reportedly responding to an eight-year-old child who threw a cookie at her by hitting the child with her belt dozens of times.
What is wrong with these people?
A 16 page memo has been obtained by NBC and outlines the Justice Department case for drone attacks.
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director. Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.” In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.”
But the confidential Justice Department “white paper” introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches. It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.
You can watch Micheal Isikoff speak with Rachel Maddow on the white paper at the link above.
I’ve written a lot about some of the Nordic Countries–like Finland and Norway–that show strong economies while still maintaining strong social nets and a commitment to income equality. The Economist this week has a special on the countries and shows how they’ve carved a middle path between markets and government.
Denmark has one of the most liberal labour markets in Europe. It also allows parents to send children to private schools at public expense and make up the difference in cost with their own money. Finland is harnessing the skills of venture capitalists and angel investors to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Oil-rich Norway is a partial exception to this pattern, but even there the government is preparing for its post-oil future. This is not to say that the Nordics are shredding their old model. They continue to pride themselves on the generosity of their welfare states. About 30% of their labour force works in the public sector, twice the average in the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation, a rich-country think-tank. They continue to believe in combining open economies with public investment in human capital.
You can read more about these countries and their initiatives throughout the magazines pages.
Hillary Clinton may not be our SOS but she is still thinking about how to better the lives of people in the US and around the world. Here’s one of her initiatives that partners Silicon Valley with the developing world.
One of those new initiatives, the Alliance for an Affordable Internet, barely got a mention in Clinton’s speech. But it merits attention. If successful, the project—a public-private partnership among the State Department, the World Wide Web Foundation, and tech companies such as Cisco Systems (CSCO), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and Intel (INTC)—could end up helping many people in poor countries get onto the Web. It could also cement long-term ties between the State Department and the companies—while opening new markets and reaching new customers for Silicon Valley. “We’re going to help the next billion people come online,” said Clinton, quickly announcing the project before going on to talk about clean cook stoves for women in the developing world.
Only a quarter of people in developing countries are online, compared to three-quarters of those in developed nations. If the U.S. is to play a role in changing that equation, credit will go in part to a State Department employee named Ann Mei Chang.
Chang, a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley—most recently she was a senior engineering director at Google—joined the State Department in November 2011 to be an adviser on technology and women’s issues. Now she lives in Nairobi, Kenya, a city recently billed by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt as Africa’s soon-to-be Silicon Valley. Chang has been spending her time studying Kenya’s technological success and teaming up diplomats with U.S. tech companies to figure out how other countries can follow its example.
Chang says that in most developing countries, an entry-level Internet connection costs the equivalent of the average person’s monthly income. One reason is high taxes. In many places, computers, mobile phones, modems, and other software are taxed as luxury goods. “It’s one of the few things they can tax,” says Chang. The effect is that fewer people can afford to log on. “That’s short-sighted,” she says.
Here’s some interesting political speculation on Janet Napolitano. Would she run if Hillary chooses to stay retired?
So, what happens if Hillary Clinton doesn’t run in 2016?
It is hard to imagine the presidential field without a woman contender, and here’s one to keep your eye on: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Napolitano is quietly making it known that she is considering the race, and there is reason to take her seriously.
Before coming to Washington, Napolitano was a highly regarded and very popular governor in Arizona, a state not known as a hospitable one for Democrats. In 2005, Time Magazine named her one of the nation’s five best governors, noting: “Positioning herself as a no-nonsense, pro-business centrist, she has worked outside party lines since coming to office in January 2003 to re-energize a state that, under her predecessors, was marked by recession and scandal.”
While in Arizona, she was criticized for not being aggressive enough in dealing with the influx of illegal immigrants. But her more recent job gives her an opportunity to change that image. This week, for instance, finds her on a high-profile tour of the southwest border, where she will highlight the stepped-up resources that the Obama administration has been devoting to reducing the flow of illegal entrants to this country.
Still, running for the White House from the cabinet is not an easy thing to do. Not since then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover did it in 1928 has anyone successfully made the leap from the president’s cabinet to the Oval Office.
So, there’s a few things to get us started off today. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: Guns Galore and Other News
Posted: February 4, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: amygdala, Andre Cassagnes, AR-15 as fashion statement, Chad Littlefield, Chris Kyle, Chris Wallace, Eddie Ray Routh, Etch-a-Sketch, fear, Gun fetishists, Henry Wallace, NRA, Richard III, suffocation, Urbach-Wiethe disease, Wayne LaPierre 47 Comments
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C.S. Lewis
Good Morning!!
The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl, 34-31. I completely ignored it, so I didn’t see any of the commercials or the game. I did find this review of the commercials at the WaPo. I’m very happy for Ravens fans though–especially Janicen. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s see what else is going on in the news.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the Navy Seal sniper who was shot in by a marine he may have been trying to help. The NYT reports:
From his perch in hide-outs above battle-scarred Iraq, Chris Kyle earned a reputation as one of America’s deadliest military snipers. The Pentagon said his skills with a rifle so terrorized Iraqi insurgents during his four tours of duty that they nicknamed him the “Devil of Ramadi” and put a bounty on his head.
The insurgents never collected, and he returned home to become a best-selling author and a mentor to other veterans, sometimes taking them shooting at a gun range near his Texas home as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars, friends said. One such veteran was Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old Marine who had served tours in Iraq and Haiti.
But on Saturday, far from a war zone, Mr. Routh turned on Mr. Kyle, 38, and a second man, Chad Littlefield, 35, shortly after they arrived at an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, Tex., about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, law enforcement authorities said Sunday. The officials said that for reasons that were still unclear, Mr. Routh shot and killed both men with a semiautomatic handgun before fleeing in a pickup truck belonging to Mr. Kyle.
“Chad and Chris had taken a veteran out to shoot to try to help him,” said Travis Cox, a friend of Mr. Kyle’s. “And they were killed.”
I’m sorry about these two meaningless murders, but I’m mystified as to why anyone would want to read a book about someone who shot hundreds of people from a distance in Iraq. Supposedly they were “insurgents,” but who really knows? All those innocent people at Gitmo and dead civilians in Pakistan suggest to me that the U.S. military isn’t so great at separating civilians from combatants.
I’m even more mystified as to why taking someone with PTSD from serving in Iraq and Haiti to a gun range for therapy would be a good idea. Anyway, I don’t mean to judge, just my two cents.
According to the Dallas News, Routh became aggressive in jail and was tasered by guards.
After eating dinner, Routh refused to return his food tray to jailers. He became aggressive and tried to attack them when they tried to get it back from him, said Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant.
Jailers tasered Routh and placed him in a restraining chair in his solitary cell. He is on suicide watch, Bryant said….Routh, a former Marine and Iraqi War veteran, is believed to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Investigators say that he shot Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield at point-blank range around 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
Please note Routh used a semi-automatic handgun to shoot the Kyle and Littlefield. Wayne LaPierre is outraged that there was no “good guy” with a bigger gun around to protect them. Sorry, I made that up.
Speaking of Crazy Wayne, he was on Fox News Sunday yesterday, and he managed to be so outrageous that Chris Wallace told him he was being “ridiculous.” From Business Insider:
Fox News host Chris Wallace and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre got into a heated exchange on “Fox News Sunday” this morning, as Wallace challenged LaPierre on a controversial ad involving President Barack Obama’s daughters.
Wallace played the clip of the ad, which called Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for sending his children to a school with armed protection while opposing it for other schools. (That ad has actually been proven false.)
Wallace asked LaPierre if he regretted putting up the ad. He avoided the question and said the point of the ad was “not to pick on the President’s kids.”
Here’s the most contentious exchange:
LAPIERRE: The President’s kids are safe, and we’re all thankful for that.
WALLACE: They also face a threat that most people do not face.LAPIERRE: Tell that to the people in Newtown! Tell that to the people in Newtown.
WALLACE: Do you really think that the President’s children are the same kind of target as every schoolchild in America? I think that’s ridiculous, and you know it, sir.
Here’s the video of the interview:
It seems as if the entire gun safety debate has boiled down to a huge argument over the AR-15 rifle. What is it about that gun anyway? The New York Times has a very long read about it headlined The AR-15: The Most Wanted Gun in America.
THE phone rings again at Pasadena Pawn and Gun, and a familiar question comes down the line: “Got any ARs?”
The answer is no. Pasadena Pawn and Gun, a gun retailer and pawnshop 15 miles south of Baltimore, is pretty much sold out of America’s most wanted gun, the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. Since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December, the AR-15, the military-style weapon that the police say was used in the shootings, has been selling fast here and across the nation.
Before Newtown, the rifles sold for about $1,100, on average. Now some retailers charge twice that. At Pasadena Pawn, on the wall behind glass counters of handguns, are three dozen or so AR-15-style rifles. Dangling from nearly every one is a tag that says “Sold.”
Is that sick or what? Basically, the gun has become a fashion statement–like an expensive handbag or pair of shoes.
“The AR-15, it’s kind of fashionable,” says Frank Loane Sr., the proprietor. His shop has a revolving waiting list for the rifles, and a handful of people are now on it. “The young generation likes them, the assault-looking guns.”
Sick. I don’t know how else to react to that.
As everyone knows, the White House released a photo of President Obama shooting a gun–supposedly he was skeet shooting at Camp David–in response to demands from wingnuts like Marsha Blackburn.
Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, expressed doubt about Obama’s skeet shooting.
“You know, if you don’t have the photos, if this is not something that’s a new hobby, then I think he should invite me out to Camp David and I’ll challenge him,” Blackburn said on CNN, according to a transcript.
Sunday Reads
Posted: February 3, 2013 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Bill Moyers, crazy Glenn beck, Drone Ranger, drones, Factory disasters in Bangladesh and Pakistan, female Eskimo Hispanic dwarf cross-dresser and some handicapable, Insurrectionists, junk food, mardi gras, Neoconfederates, New Orleans, Obama, Pamirs Plateau China infant graves, Racism, Sears, Super Bowl, transgendered breast cancer survivor, USDA school regulation on selling unhealthy snacks, Walmart 31 Comments
Good Morning!
Minx is stuck in the snow and holed up in a hotel so I’ve got your reads this morning!
I was one of those earth mother types to Doctor Daughter and I tried to do the same with youngest daughter although the cancer thing got in the way and the grandparents had to step in for me. I still am an earth goddess wannabe. I admit, I’m a hippie at heart. I breast fed Doctor Daughter until she took her first step on her first birthday and weaned herself on the same day. I had to wean my second one to soy formula at 5 months because of the chemotherapy. Well, that and the shock of the stage 4 diagnosis just dried me up.
I was never away from Doctor Daughter’s side for well over a year. I actually joined the La Leche League because I wanted to be around other nursing mothers and bought their cookbook. I love to cook and so we made everything from the garden when possible and always by hand. The cookbook had a kid’s snack section and we used to make everything together. Making healthy food was part of our together time.
My daughter had really healthy snacks. I decided to turn to teaching at the college level rather than return to corporate life when she turned 18 months. She went to Montessori preschool while I taught in the morning. Her dad stayed with her for my one evening class. Montessori insisted on healthy snacks. It wasn’t until we moved from our condo to a newly built, two story house in a neighborhood with lots of stay-at-home moms that I had folks calling me up about her weird predilections. Did I know my daughter had no idea that kids ate Spaghettios and that pasta could come from a can? How come she’s never seen candy before? Well, she had, it was just my Dad’s homemade fudge that didn’t come in wrappers. How come she always asked for Apple Juice when offered Koolaid or Cola? My daughter didn’t eat or drink anything she hadn’t seen before and I guess they were shocked!
I always laughed a lot at this because I worked as a full time college instructor teaching finance and economics so I juggled all kinds of roles. But both my daughters had fresh, soft clean cotton diapers and home made meals. Both were introduced to junk food by stay-at-home moms who should’ve had time to find their inner earth goddesses too. I later learned that her friends spent more time in the local spa/salon’s childcare than she spent at Montessori with her pink tower, her sandpaper letters, and her healthy snacks. Maybe that explains why I’m the only one with the doctor, but hey, I really shouldn’t be judgmental, should I?
It wasn’t me that introduced Doctor Daughter to junk food. It was the local stay-at-home suburban moms who needed me to tell my daughter that what they wanted to feed her wasn’t weird and she should stop giving it the evil eye. I mean, wouldn’t you shriek if some one tried to serve you Spaghettios?
Youngest daughter went on a jag as a toddler–like toddlers frequently do–and became a vegan for about a year. She would only eat salads, vegetables, and carbs. It totally freaked my dad out but she loved tossed salads with blue cheese dressing better than anything and I never could figure out why wieners and mac were some how more filling and hence,better. She was two years old. That’s why I have no idea why eating healthy is controversial or considered an impossible dream for kids. My kids never missed this kind of crap and were, well, really wierded out when their friends moms tried to feed them anything we hadn’t prepared ourselves. They also couldn’t understand why only their Montessori friends didn’t leave their playroom a mess, but that’s another story. Believe me, kids will eat healthy food if that’s the only thing they are offered from day one. One of the things Doctor Daughter complains about in her ob/gyn practice these days is the number of moms who are so overweight and have diabetes that many of them are classified as high risk in their prime child bearing years. Unfortunately, these are also the moms that are on medicare and are least likely to get help.
The Obama administration proposed regulations Friday that would prohibit U.S. schools from selling unhealthy snacks.
The 160-page regulation from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) would enact nutrition standards for “competitive” foods not included in the official school meal.
In practice, the proposed rules would replace traditional potato chips with baked versions and candy with granola. Regular soda is out, though high-schoolers may have access to diet versions.
“Although nutrition standards for foods sold at school alone may not be a determining factor in children’s overall diets, they are critical to providing children with healthy food options throughout the entire school day,” the proposed rule states.
“Thus, these standards will help to ensure that the school nutrition environment does all that it can to promote healthy choice, and help to prevent diet-related health problems.”
The rules are a product of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which also overhauled the nutritional make-up of regular school meals. They would apply to any school, public or private, that participates in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.
Those rules saw a backlash from conservative lawmakers who said students were going hungry as a result of calorie limits. A GOP House member famously compared the rules to “The Hunger Games.” The USDA eventually relaxed some guidelines in response.
Believe me, kids that don’t eat junk food aren’t going hungry. They’re just not getting addicted to stuff that’s not good for them. My dad was always yelling at me to “give that kid some real food” when she was a few months old and only on breast milk. I dunno. That’s Dr. Daughter up there as a toddler with Arlo Guthrie Mousehound. Does she look like she was a neglected and starved child to you? Oh, and she got those glasses because she couldn’t read the music when I was teaching her to play piano. I caught her early on that too. I have no idea why so many adults underestimate kids but they do. I tried to get my children interested in everything when they were little. The deal was to let them find their thing and see what stuck. Both of them still play piano. Both of them still eat healthy. It wasn’t “The Hunger Games” at our house. Both my girls were off the normal growth charts so, I guess, congress thinks I’m a miserable excuse for a mother but really, I am glad they ate sushi in the high chair and never discovered the golden arches until some one turned the TV away from Sesame Street. Believe me, it wasn’t me.
I have many friends from Bangladesh including my primary professor. It’s one of the reasons that I watch its economy and my heart breaks when I read how so many young women are dying in its clothing factories. Factory fires in Bangladesh and Pakistan have killed more than 400 people. These factories
primarily make clothing for WalMart, Sears and other U.S. retailers. A lot of these deaths might be due to the governments who don’t seem to care about the safety of the factories, but don’t these companies bear some responsibility too? Economist Mark Thoma debates colleague Jagdish Bhagwati who argues that its the fault of the local governments.
I agree that the Bangladeshi government should “step up to the plate to establish proper regulations and monitoring,” but companies have a role to play too (they may, for example, have political power that can be used to block or encourage regulation and monitoring, and there is the moral obligation to protect workers as well). If we assume the companies can’t do much, and don’t hold them accountable — if we brush it off as an inevitable response to market pressures in an environment with few constraints on this type of behavior — they’ll have no incentive to change.
I continue to despair on what I consider a rise in a neoconfederacy and insurrectionist movement in the country. Why is the so? Chris Hedges writes that “as Southern whites sink into economic despair, more and more are retreating into a fictional past”. Where does this leave our country as a nation divided that cannot not stand? Why do some people glorify the likes of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest to this day?
Forrest, who is buried in Forrest Park under a statue of himself in his Confederate general’s uniform and mounted on a horse, is one of the most odious figures in American history. A moody, barely literate, violent man—he was not averse to shooting his own troops if he deemed them to be cowards—he became a millionaire before the war as a slave trader. As a Confederate general he was noted for moronic aphorisms such as “War means fighting and fighting means killing.” He was, even by the accounts of those who served under him, a butcher. He led a massacre at Fort Pillow in Henning, Tenn., of some 300 black Union troops—who had surrendered and put down their weapons—as well as women and children who had sheltered in the fort. Forrest was, after the war, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He used his skills as a former cavalry commander to lead armed night raids to terrorize blacks.Forrest, like many other white racists of the antebellum South, is enjoying a disquieting renaissance. The Sons of Confederate Veterans and the West Tennessee Historical Commission last summer put up a 1,000-pound granite marker at the entrance to the park that read “Forrest Park.” The city, saying the groups had not obtained a permit, removed it with a crane. A dispute over the park name, now raging in the Memphis City Council, exposes the deep divide in Memphis and throughout much of the South between those who laud the Confederacy and those who detest it, a split that runs like a wide fault down racial lines.
Another thing that worries me is the current use of drones in our nation’s “war” against terrorist. Is Obama the “Drone Ranger” as Bill Moyers and guests suggest? Will any one criticize our policy at John Brennan’s confirmation hearing as proposed CIA director?
A key player in our government’s current drone program is John Brennan, who during the Bush presidency was a senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency and head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Reportedly, Barack Obama considered offering him the top job at the CIA in 2008, but public opposition — in reaction to the charges that the Bush White House had approved torture — caused Brennan to withdraw his name from consideration. Nonetheless, Obama kept him on as an adviser, and now, despite Brennan’s past notoriety, Obama officially has chosen him to head the CIA. This time, there’s been little criticism of the decision.
We hope Brennan’s upcoming confirmation hearings on February 7 will offer Congressional critics the chance to press him on drone attacks and whether the Obama administration in its fight against terror is functioning within the rule of law — or abusing presidential power when there has been no formal declaration of war.
Alright, so what would an electric post of mine be without a reference to my graves and graveyard interests? One of these days, I will find a place 
where I can plant a tent and dust off the remains of people past whose lives were lived in quiet desperation too.
A 1,300-year-old unidentified cluster of 102 tombs, 40 per cent of which were made for infants, have been unearthed in China’s restive westernmost province.
The tombs, found on the Pamirs Plateau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, contain wooden caskets with desiccated corpses, as well as stoneware, pottery and copper ware believed to have been buried as sacrificial items, said Ai Tao from the Xinjiang Archaeological Institute.
“The cluster covers an area of 1,500 square meters on a 20-meter-high cliff, an unusual location for tombs,” Ai told state-run Xinhua news agency.
He added that his team was also very surprised to find such a large number of infant corpses.
But further research is needed to determine why so many people from that tribe died young.
Archaeologists said they have also unearthed a large number of well-preserved utensils made from gourds, some of which were placed inside the caskets.
“The burial custom is the first of its kind to be found in Xinjiang,” said Ai.
It is believed that the cluster dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
At that time, economic and cultural exchanges between China and the West flourished via the ancient Silk Road.
“The shape of the felt-covered caskets show that sinic culture had a great influence on the lives of local people’s some 1,300 years ago,” said Yu Zhiyong, head of the Xinjiang Archaeological Institute.
I’m going to close with a quote from Glenn Beck that I propose is the MOST lunatic thing he’s ever said. I know, that’s a BIG statement, but judge for yourself. Brace yourself for unisex bathrooms and mothers dying in combat! Oh, wait, we already have that, yes?
“This is the dumbest idea I ever heard. Women now fight on the front lines? Democrats are hailing the move as another giant leap forward for equality. Progress, you know. Forward! And on the outside looking in it’s one of those feel good stories—oh great, women are great soldiers too, they deserve an equal chance, oh that’s great.
War is the act of killing each other. And to win, you have to kill people faster than the other team. That’s what war is all about. The enemy’s not going to cower in defeat because we have a female Eskimo Hispanic dwarf cross-dresser and some handicapable, transgendered breast cancer survivor as a soldier on the front line, ready to unleash an attack of unparalleled diversity.”
I dunno, I would find a female Eskimo Hispanic dwarf cross-dresser and some handicapable, transgendered breast cancer survivor on my team, woudn’t you?
Have a great Sunday! Oh, and I will be waving to you when those blimps cross my front porch today. All the Dakinis!!! Please save my city from these crazy celebrities and billionaires!! Here’s a primer on this gross interruption to Mardi Gras. Don’t forget to take a gander at the photo over there because my tax dollars paid for that giant multicolor egg just waiting to be fertilized by a black helicopter sperm.
Q: What is the Super Bowl?
A: It’s a football game! It’s the last one that gets played in the NFL until next season, meaning the winners get to be Best Football Guys for a year, and the losers are only Second Best Football Guys, which is way worse. It’s also a big event where famous musicians play and fireworks shoot off and so on.Q: Fun! But what’s football?
A: Football is this game where one team tries to move a ball up a field by carrying it or throwing it and the other team tries to stop them by hitting them. Every time the guy carrying the ball falls down or the ball hits the ground play stops for a bit, then the players reorganize themselves and play starts up again. If one team doesn’t do a very good job moving the ball up the field, they give the ball to the other team. This goes on for three hours. The teams also kick the ball through a big yellow Y sometimes.Q: That sounds terrible and boring. Why do people play this game?
A: Because they love it! Hahahahaha! No, actually many of the men playing in the Super Bowl get paid millions of dollars to do football.Q: Whoooooaaaa! How did that happen?
A: Well, it turns out that people really, really like watching men play football on television. So many people watch football that companies pay the television folks a lot of money to show their commercials during the games, and that money trickles down to the NFL’s owners and then their players.
Yeah, and something tells me that we probably could’ve made more money off of not disturbing Mardi Gras had our Mayor not wanted to be on National TV so very much. What’s on your reading and blogging list this morning?
Groundhog Day Reads: Gun Fetishists, Fetus Fetishists, and Other News
Posted: February 2, 2013 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: Birth Control, contraception, Groundhog day, Punxsutawny Phil 29 Comments
Punxsutawney Phil and friend
Good Morning!!
It’s Groundhog Day, and Punxsutawny Phil says spring will come early this year.
An end to winter’s bitter cold will come soon, according to Pennsylvania’s famous groundhog.
Following a recent stretch of weather that’s included both record warm temperatures and bitter cold, tornadoes in the South and Midwest and torrential rains in the mid-Atlantic, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair Saturday in front of thousands but didn’t see his shadow.
Legend has it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2 on Gobbler’s Knob in west-central Pennsylvania, winter will last six more weeks. But if he doesn’t see his shadow, spring will come early.
United States of Guns
Do you ever get the feeling the U.S. is becoming an armed camp? On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on gun violence at which two loony right wingers–Crazy Wayne LaPierre of the NRA and attorney Gayle Trotter–were permitted to dominate the proceedings with their bizarre defenses of assault weapons.
Meanwhile, news was breaking about two more shocking shootings, one in Midland City, Alabama and the other in Phoenix, Arizona.
Three days later, the gunman in Alabama is still in his homemade bunker with his 5-year-old hostage. CNN: Authorities tight-lipped as standoff over child hostage enters 5th day
As an armed standoff entered its fifth day Saturday, authorities negotiated through a ventilation pipe with a man accused of barricading himself and a 5-year-old hostage in an underground bunker in southeastern Alabama.
Police have been tight-lipped about a possible motive since the hostage drama began unfolding in Midland City with the shooting of school bus driver and the abduction of the 5-year-old.
In a sign of perhaps how tense negotiations are between authorities and the suspect, officials have refused to detail what, if any, demands have been made by the suspect.
On Friday, the Dale County sheriff did confirm what neighbors have been saying and news outlets around Midland City have been reporting since the standoff began — the suspected gunman’s identity.
He is Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran and retired truck driver who moved to the area about five years ago.
One of Dykes’ next-door neighbors said the suspect spent two or three months constructing the bunker, digging into the ground and then building a structure of lumber and plywood, which he covered with sand and dirt.
Neighbor Michael Creel said Dykes put the plastic pipe underground from the bunker to the end of his driveway so he could hear if anyone drove up to his gate. When Dykes finished the shelter a year or so ago, he invited Creel to see it — and he did.
“He was bragging about it. He said, ‘Come check it out,” Creel said.
He said he believes Dykes’ goal with the standoff is to publicize his political beliefs.
“I believe he wants to rant and rave about politics and government,” Creel said. “He’s very concerned about his property. He doesn’t want his stuff messed with.”
The kindergartner whom Dykes is holding hostage has been heard crying for his parents, who say he has Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. Dykes’ neighbors say that he has enough supplies to stay in the bunker for an extended period of time.
In Phoenix, a second shooting victim has died of his wounds. New York Newsday reports:
Mark Hummels, 43, had been on life support at a Phoenix hospital after Wednesday morning’s shooting that killed a company’s chief executive and left a woman with non-life threatening injuries.
Hummels died Thursday night, a publicist for his law firm told The Associated Press early Friday.Colleagues of Hummels described him as a smart, competent and decent man who was a rising star in his profession and dedicated to his wife, 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.
Hummels had worked as a reporter until 2001 when he returned to school to become an attorney.
Hummels worked with the Phoenix law firm Osborn Maledon with some support from the Hastings law firm in Houston and focused on business disputes, real estate litigation and malpractice defense. He died Thursday night, publicist Athia Hardt told The Associated Press early Friday.
He was a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican before he left to go to law school in 2001. He graduated first in his class at the University of Arizona’s law school.
Santa Fe New Mexican editor Rob Dean said in a statement Friday that Hummels “was an accomplished journalist and an even better person. He had the intelligence to understand difficult problems and a hunger to do important work.”
Hummels was admitted to the Arizona bar in 2005.
The body of the alleged shooter, Arthur Douglas Harmon was found dead on Thursday, apparently having shot himself with a handgun.
Meanwhile, two more shootings have been reported in Phoenix.
Mayor Greg Stanton vowed Friday that the bloodshed will not define his city.
“This is not the norm,” Stanton said hours after the latest of three Phoenix shootings that, combined, left at least four people dead. “It’s a tragic set of circumstances. These incidents are an aberration. But these tragedies will not define the city of Phoenix.”
The three days of bloodshed left Stanton more convinced than ever that a comprehensive approach to gun control is needed, combined with stronger mental-health laws and improved community policing.
The three incidents and the motives behind the violence were unrelated: a dispute over a civil lawsuit, a possible drug transaction and a drive-by shooting that may have been gang-related.
Details at the link. Good luck to the Mayor of Phoenix getting any gun regulations passed in Arizona.
Yesterday President Obama handed more ammunition to Republicans in their ongoing war on women. From Wonkblog: The White House’s contraceptives compromise.
The Obama administration proposed broader latitude Friday for religious nonprofits that object to the mandated coverage of contraceptives, one that will allow large faith-based hospitals and universities to issue plans that do not directly provide birth control coverage.
Their employees would instead receive a stand-alone, private insurance policy that would provide contraceptive coverage at no cost.
This is a really bad idea, because it lends credence to Republicans’ efforts to separate women’s reproductive health needs from health care in general.
It could also breathe new life into lawsuits filed against the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive requirement, some of which were put on hold until the Obama administration clarified its policy on the issue.
Under this proposal, objecting nonprofits will be allowed to offer employees a plan that does not cover contraceptives. Their health insurer will then automatically enroll employees in a separate individual policy, which only covers contraceptives, at no cost. This policy would stand apart from the employer’s larger benefit package.
The faith-based employer would not “have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.”
Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Besides, the fetus fetishists aren’t satisfied, and they never will be satisfied until women’s bodies are under complete control of the state and women’s lives are reduced to breeding, child care, and housework. From LifeNews.com: “Pro-Life Groups Blast Revisions to Obama Abortion-HHS Mandate” (I’m not going to link to the story because I don’t want a bunch of fetus trolls coming over here):
Leading pro-life groups don’t have much good to say about the proposed changes the HHS department announced today to the Obamacare mandate that forces religious groups and religiously-run companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs.
The Christian Medical Association (CMA), the nation’s largest faith-based association of physicians, today called the administration’s policy announcement regarding its contraceptives and sterilization mandate “unacceptable,” noting that the ruling still flouts the First Amendment.
CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens said, “This latest version of the contraceptives and sterilization mandate remains unacceptable. Since when does the government get to pick and choose which groups will get to enjoy First Amendment protections? Our founders intended the First Amendment to protect every American’s freedom to act according to one’s conscience. They didn’t specify that only groups deemed religious will be afforded this protection; freedom of conscience applies equally to all Americans.”
You can find many more quotes from men who hate women by googling the headline.
But wait a minute… Amanda Marcotte says the HHS contraception mandate is “Exactly What It Was a Year Ago.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has just released the proposed rules for handling religious objections to a new mandate requiring employer-provided insurance to cover contraception without a copay. The New York Times, at least, is covering this release as if it were a new and exciting “compromise” between the Obama administration and employers who believe their God wants ladies to be perma-pregnant. First the Times announced it in a “Breaking News” banner, and now the home page headline reads: “Birth Control Rule Altered to Allay Religious Objections.” Click on that and you’ll get to: “White House Proposes Compromise on Contraception Coverage.” The problem is that the proposal isn’t new, and nothing’s been altered since the Obama administration announced a clarification of the plan a year ago….Nothing has changed in the proposal.
OK, now I’m really confused. All I know is that the war on women has expanded from outlawing abortion to ending birth control. American women are quickly being reduced to a separate category of beings who are seen as less than human. We need an Equal Right Amendment, stat!
Here’s another wacky example of the right-wing anti-woman, anti-science pontificating we’ve been subjected to for the past couple of years from Right Wing Watch: Wombs of Women on Birth Control ‘Embedded’ with ‘Dead Babies’
Well, here’s some medical research we hadn’t heard about. Generations Radio host Kevin Swanson, who last week delved memorably into feminist theory, tells us this week that “certain doctors and certain scientists” have researched the wombs of women on the pill and found “there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb…Those wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.”
Shades of Todd Akin. Where do these crazy ideas come from anyway?
I’ll wrap this post up with some link-dump-style reads:
Wall Street Journal: Interview: Axelrod on Hillary Clinton’s Political Prospects
Wall Street Journal: Clinton’s Exit: Either Epilogue or Prelude
The Spokesman-Review: Idaho senator compares health exchange to Holocaust
Alternet: Exposed: How Whole Foods and the Biggest Organic Foods Distributor Are Screwing Workers
The Boston Globe: Mass. GOP scrambling to find US Senate candidate
The Boston Globe: Scott Brown’s finances may influence ex-senator’s next step
Now it’s your turn. What’s on your reading list for today? I look forward to clicking on your links!
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