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Wednesday Reads: 10,000 Full Cavitity Searches…on Pigeons?Posted: October 1, 2014 Filed under: Africa, Barack Obama, China, Foreign Affairs, Fox News, Liberia, misogyny, morning reads, New Orleans, Political and Editorial Cartoons | Tags: Ebola in the US, Hong Kong Protest, Secret Service 49 Comments
Good Morning
That tweet is something innit?
It seems like a logistical nightmare to me:
China Subjects 10,000 Pigeons To Anal Exams Due To Terrorism Fears
On Tuesday, China's largest newspaper The People's Dailytweeted that thousands of pigeons had undergone "anal security checks" to ensure they weren't carrying anything harmful in their bodies. These rectal examinations were performed as a terrorism precaution for China's National Day on Wednesday.
Despite the fact that pro-democracy protests have been going on for several days in Hong Kong, China continues to aggressively censor news about the protests. This tweet served as a distraction and is just one example — albeit a ridiculous one — of China's media complying and avoiding coverage of Hong Kong's demonstrations. Additionally, China has also gone through social media to limit information being released about the protests — including removing protest-related posts from Twitter-like service Weibo and banning Instagram.
Seriously? Anal exams? On pigeons?
Ha…I couldn't resist.
Okay, getting serious now.
It is October 1st.
The bloody shit has hit the fan, or what I really mean to say is that the Ebola virus has come to America:
First Ebola case diagnosed in US; fears others may have been exposed | Al Jazeera America
A patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case of the disease to be diagnosed in the United States, federal health officials announced Tuesday.
Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital say the unidentified patient is being kept in isolation and that the hospital is following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations to keep doctors, staff and patients safe.
The hospital had announced a day earlier that the patient's symptoms and recent travel suggested Ebola. An outbreak of the killer virus has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa and infected a handful of Americans who have traveled to that region.
All the crazy talk before, when sick folks were coming to Atlanta and other US hospitals for treatment, that was nothing. Get ready for the mega news cycle that is sure to follow this story. (Not that is isn't big news…but it will eclipse many important things that are going on right now….that need media attention.)
Ebola now in the US, first case confirmed by CDC
The CDC has confirmed that a man in a Dallas hospital has Ebola, CBS News is reporting.
Apparently the man had been in west Africa recently — Liberia, to be exact — where there's been a rather large outbreak of Ebola. He's been in strict isolation as soon as the hospital suspected Ebola.
According to the CDC press conference, the man left Liberia on the 19th of Septemnber. Arrived in the US on the 20th of September. Had no symptoms, but then around the 24th of September, began to develop symptoms. Sought care on the 26th. And then Sunday the 28th admitted to a hospital and placed in isolation.
He was admitted into isolation on Sunday.
The CDC director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, says that Ebola is not contagious until you have symptoms.
CNN says that while this is spread through bodily fluids, if you shook hands with this man between the 24th and the day he went to the hospital, you would have to be put into isolation for three weeks. Wow.
The good news is that he had no symptoms until long after he arrived in the US, so at least people on his flight are safe.
More on the man's background, and how they are now investigating him: Health officials tracing Dallas Ebola patient's path
The patient, who is in an isolation unit at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, did not develop symptoms until four days after he arrived from West Africa, officials said at a hastily called press conference at the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta.
"He was checked for fever before getting on the flight," said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. "There is no reason to believe anyone on the flight was at risk."
The Ebola virus is not spread through the air, but through contact with bodily fluids of victims — sweat, blood, saliva and other secretions.
The patient, whom officials would not identify, flew to the United States on Sept. 20, and began feeling ill on Sept. 24, Frieden said.
He sought care at the Dallas hospital on Friday and was sent home with antibiotics, Dr. Edward Goodman of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said at a separate press conference in Dallas. Goodman said the hospital is looking into why the patient was discharged.
On Sunday, a Dallas Fire-Rescue crew transported the man to the hospital in an ambulance. This time, he was admitted to the hospital, Frieden said.
The ambulance crew has been quarantined, and the ambulance taken out of service, according to a statement from the city of Dallas.
Gov. Rick Perry is scheduled to stop in Dallas on Wednesday in response to the news, according to WFAA.com.
None of the officials at the news conferences would say whether the man is an American citizen. They said only that he was visiting family members who live in this country.
But a statement released by the city of Dallas said the man had "moved to Dallas from Liberia a week ago."
Frieden, along with Dallas County and Texas state health officials, emphasized that the patient did not become contagious until Sept. 24 when he began to display symptoms.
"There is zero risk of transmission" to other passengers on the overseas airplane flight, Frieden said.
Asked how many people may have been around the victim after he developed symptoms, Frieden said, "I think handful is the right characterization. Family members, and there may have been one or two or three community members. Our approach is to cast the net widely."
Those who may have been exposed will be monitored for 21 days, the incubation period for the Ebola virus, he said.
Officials would not release the name of the airline or the flight number.
A statement from American Airlines said: "American Airlines does not fly to Africa and we have been told the passenger was not on a connecting flight involving our aircraft. We follow the guidelines put in place by the CDC specifically for airlines and work with our crews to protect the health of our customers and employees."
The patient "is communicating and expressing hunger," Goodman said Tuesday evening.
He said the experimental vaccine that was used on two Americans who contracted Ebola in Liberia this summer is no longer available.
Hmmm, doesn't The Walking Dead season premier start soon? Talk about a great way to drum up some hysteria and publicity. And think about it, all those Ebola victim Halloween costumes! Damn what impeccable timing.
Sorry that I am so snarky/bitchy. I am in a mood.
This is really a drop dead serious thing. Go to that link above to see how the CDC is handling it, and more specifically how Texas is handling it.
The city of Dallas activated its Emergency Operations Center and went to "Level 2: High Readiness" although no one was available to explain what that means.
Oh my. I think the pigeons over in China wish they lived in the city of Dallas.
A Dallas County spokeswoman said, "Level 2 generally means department activities and personnel have extended beyond the regular work day."
President Obama has been briefed about the Ebola case by the CDC, according to the White House press office.
Good, the President should be briefed about something like this…right?
I mean, we want him to be ready to defend himself for the onslaught of blame:
And We Have Our First Conservative Pundit To Connect Barack Obama To the U.S. Ebola Case | The Daily Banter
If you had one minute in the over-under on how long it would take for a member of the conservative entertainment complex to connect President Obama to the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S., congratulations — you win.
This afternoon, literally immediately following the CNN tweet announcing that the CDC had confirmed the Ebola diagnosis, 26-year-old Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich tweeted out this:
Now if you don't know who Katie Pavlich is, that's precisely why she made sure she was the first to invoke the name of the Great Socialist Satan in the wake of today's Ebola announcement. She knew that, kind of like celebrity wedding pictures, the first one to get it out there is the one who gets all the free publicity.
Pavlich is one of the interchangeable conservative Barbie dolls that stake out the couch-of-shame on Fox News's Outnumbered. She's an editor at Townhall.com, which is a reliable online dispensary for the relentless stream of horseshit that comes out of the mouths of people like Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt. She wrote an entire book on the pretend Fast and Furious scandal and has a new book out called, amusingly, Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women. In other words, there isn't a damn thing special about her. She's your average, by-the-numbers conservative entertainment troll. She knows how the game is played and she's playing it for all it's worth.
Pavlich knows that once she brings Obama into this, she gets attacked by sane people — which just increases her street cred on the right — and the crazies rally around her because she just threw them a bunch of red meat. It doesn't even matter that she went on to deny she was specifically blaming Obama for Ebola in the United States, because the goal was never anything more complicated than getting some quick mileage out of dragging the president into the storyline.
You knew it was a Fox contributor, without even having to read about it…didn't ya!
Global nightmare by Political Cartoonist Olle Johansson
FENCE JUMPER by Political Cartoonist Bill Day
Those cartoons just seemed to be begging to be included in the post.
Ah, let's add one more.
And with that cartoon, a few links on the Secret Service's disturbing service or non-service:
I know I should be freaking out about Ebola, but I want to write about The Washington Post's appalling decision to publish an opinion piece by a former Secret Service agent that includes this recommendation:
[Secret Service director Julia] Pierson should be replaced and the next director should come from outside the Secret Service, with the deputy director remaining an agent. In this role, a true leader, not a bureaucrat, is needed. Someone like Florida congressman and retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Allen West would be perfect for the role. West has successfully demonstrated that he possesses the leadership skills of a combat officer as well as managerial and diplomatic skills of a congressman, exactly the traits needed in the next director. Highly competent and beholden to no one in the Secret Service, he would be a superb director.
Allen West? Seriously?
Let's ignore the fact that West resigned from the military a decade ago just as an investigation found probable cause to determine that he'd assaulted and mock-executed a prisoner in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Let's ignore the fact that West specializes in verbal hand grenades, so it's preposterous to credit him with "diplomatic skills." The reason this is an insane recommendation is that we really can't be certain that West would consider it his duty to protect President Obama from harm.
Just last month, West wrote:
Barack Hussein Obama is an Islamist in his foreign policy perspectives and supports their cause. You can go back and listen to his 2009 speech in Cairo, where Muslim Brotherhood associates were seated front and center.
All the circumstantial and anecdotal evidence points to that conclusion.
See, it makes me wonder if maybe there are people out there who should be getting other areas of their bodies probed and examined. I am talking about West's brain, because that…is just fucked up. (More crazy at the link.)
Digby has another take on it…Hullabaloo
Now I'm worried about the president's safety #secretservicewingnuts
by digby
Ok, I'll admit I haven't been as freaked out about the incursion into the White House as some people. But if the fellow who wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post is indicative of the sort of people who are protecting the president, I am now truly afraid for him[.]
Oh you bet your ass sister!
If I was Obama, I would earnestly think about hiring his own body guards.
Report: Obama rode elevator with armed man | AccessNorthGa
The latest embarrassment for the Secret Service comes after agency Director Julia Pierson took full responsibility for a Sept. 19 breach of the White House. The Washington Examiner and The Washington Post report that the latest incident took place in an elevator during Obama's Sept. 16 visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The Post says agents questioned the contractor and discovered his criminal history after he refused to stop video recording the president with a phone camera.
Agents didn't know he was armed until a supervisor fired the contractor on the spot and the man turned over his gun.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
Damn. You know the people here in Georgia are nuts. Gun nuts that is.
Again, we see Fox News spreading the joy, they are loving it:
Fox News Analyst Wonders If Secret Service Purposely Didn't Do Their Duty: Did they wish or did they wonder? | Crooks and Liars
In other political news:
WASHINGTON: Study: In 2012, Florida voters waited the longest to cast ballots | Elections | McClatchy DC
(Not that it was really a big surprise.)
Voters in Florida waited far longer than those in other states to cast their votes in the 2012 election, hampered by long ballots and cutbacks in early voting options, according to a new report by congressional auditors.
Voters in the state stood in line more than 34 minutes on average, significantly longer than ballot-casters did in any other state reviewed by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' watchdog.
The shortest waits? Alaska, at just 1.4 minutes.
Three others states had wait times about 25 or more minutes: Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina. But most of the others fell somewhere between five minutes and 20 minutes, on average.
In Florida, the GAO estimated, 16 percent of voters waited 61 minutes or more to cast their ballots – tops among the states surveyed.
And from Dakinikat's home state, this long reads starts out like a horror story: Plaquemines Louisiana Environmental Disaster: The Land Is Vanishing | New Republic
In response to complaints some years ago about blocked plumbing along New Orleans' Claiborne Avenue, city workers opened up the sewer main and found a human nose. Following the line down the avenue, popping open manholes and looking inside, they discovered ears, fingers, fingernails, shriveled flaps of skin, viscera. Where had it all come from?
To solve this mystery, the Sewerage and Water Board turned to Warren Lawrence, a former plumber who served as the utility's inspector. Lawrence conducted his job with the perspicacity of a criminal detective. It wasn't enough for him to repair a drainage problem; he made a point of pursuing each disturbance back to its source and holding the perpetrator responsible. When, for instance, Lawrence encountered a section of corroded pipes, he traced the damage to a battery factory near the Superdome that had been illegally pouring acid down the drain. After finding a black-and-white jumpsuit in a sewer, he learned that inmates of Orleans Parish Prison had been stuffing their uniforms into the toilets in an effort to back up the jail's plumbing system. To increase their odds of success, every prisoner flushed their toilet at the same time. They called this a "Royal Flush."
Lawrence followed the trail of body parts to Charity Hospital. The manhole that led into the hospital's sewer line was clogged with flesh. Lawrence asked hospital administrators why they were dumping bodies into the sewer. They explained that, until recently, they had incinerated all unclaimed corpses. The stench was abhorrent, however, so they had installed a $1 million, 15-horsepower grinder pump. The machine ground the bodies into a slurry, but small parts escaped the blades. Lawrence ordered the hospital to remove the grinder. As he was backed by the force of City Hall, the hospital had no choice but to comply.
Take some time with that one.
On Jeopardy this week: – 'Jeopardy!' Category Titled 'What Women Want' Filled Entirely With Sexist Stereotypes
At a time when the country is struggling with serious issues regarding gender equality, Jeopardy! could have taken the opportunity to explore some of the things 21st Century women have been fighting for. How about equal pay? Or perhaps, access to birth control? Maybe greater legal protections against sexual assault?
Instead, the show offered such examples as "a new vacuum cleaner" and "Pilates." Yuck.
I know we have Jeopardy viewers here, anyone see this shit?
For your history/archaeology link of the day: Massive Roman Coin Hoard Unearthed in England – Archaeology Magazine
Archaeologists and conservators from the British Museum have announced that an amateur metal detectorist has found one of the largest hoards of coins ever discovered in Britain. The hoard is comprised of no less than 22,000 coins dating to between A.D. 260 and 350 that were in very good condition when they emerged from the ground, Devon County Council archaeologist Bill Horner told The Independent. Since the hoard was found ten months ago—its discovery was kept quiet to avoid looting at the site while archaeologists conducted a proper excavation—the coins have been cleaned, identified, and catalogued. Many bear portraits of the family of the emperor Constantine and of the emperor himself.
That is awesome, they are calling the find, the Seaton Down Hoard. (Sitting Down Hard…ha.)
Lastly, a review of a new DVD release…of a classic movie, that just so happens to be screening on TCM later this month:
Review: Just in time for Halloween, Criterion releases horror classic The Innocents · DVD Review · The A.V. Club
"I can't judge you, Miss. A body can only judge themselves." So Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), the housekeeper of a palatial country estate in the eden of rural England, concludes to Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), the new governess who's grown increasingly convinced that her two young charges are possessed by the sinister spirits of their deceased former caretakers. The exchange happens late in The Innocents, as Jack Clayton's formative but underappreciated horror masterpiece coheres into a ravishing neo-romantic takedown of Victorian repression, spooky and scathing in equal measure.
Miss Giddens, whom Kerr agreeably claimed was her best role, is a high-strung woman whose outspoken love for children may not be quite as selfless as it seems. Despite having no professional experience, Giddens is hired by an apathetic bachelor (Michael Redgrave) to care for his orphaned niece and nephew at his idyllic country home. Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens) are strange and cloistered children who were previously exposed to the kinky sexual relationship shared between Giddens' predecessor and the bachelor's valet, and Giddens pities the kids for that, taking it as her mission to restore and protect their innocence for as long as she can. But as she begins to see apparitions around the property—a robed figure sweeping across a dark hallway, a man emerging from the night to press his demented face against a first floor window—Giddens starts to suspect that the children may be more tainted than she feared.
If The Innocents isn't quite the oldest scary story in the book, it's certainly by now one of the most familiar. (But it's also damn old: The film was adapted from Henry James' 1898 novella The Turn Of The Screw, even though it takes most of its cues from the William Archibald play that inspired its title). Released in 1961 as a response to the somewhat schlocky Hammer horror films of the time, The Innocents is a comparatively restrained ghost story that owes far more to Jean Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast than it does Terence Fisher's The Curse Of Frankenstein. In fact, the case could be made that it's not a ghost story at all; Clayton's palpable use of the subjective camera ensures that the phantasms are almost never glimpsed from any perspective other than Miss Giddens'—a point cultural critic Christopher Frayling makes during the erudite commentary track included with Criterion's new edition of the film. The script, co-written by Truman Capote, doesn't spend much time entertaining the idea that everything is in Giddens' head. But Kerr's possessed performance as an unraveling woman nevertheless imbues each seemingly supernatural incident with the intimacy of a nervous breakdown.
Now I've never seen this flick, so I look forward to watching it: Thursday, October 23 @ 08:00 PM (ET)
TCM has a long article about the film: The Innocents (1961) – Articles – TCM.com
And Movie Morlocks has a few blog posts that mention the movie, here is one of them:
moviemorlocks.com – Do You Want to See Something REALLY Scary?
During the month of October I'm often asked to recommend my favorite horror films. But recommending scary movies can be a tricky business. What frightens me might make you merely shrug your shoulders and laugh out loud. And if you're a serious horror fan there's a high probability that you've seen a lot of well-regarded classic films such as THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), PSYCHO (1960) and Val Lewton's various movies as well as Halloween standards like THE SHINING (1980), CARRIE (1976), NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and HALLOWEEN (1978) so recommending movies can become rather redundant. Instead of simply suggesting some of my favorite horror films for you to watch I thought I'd share some of my favorite scary moments from films that have left a deep impression on me over the years. So pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable while I share something REALLY scary.
THE INNOCENTS (Jack Clayton; 1961) – The ghostly woman in black
THE INNOCENTS is one of my favorite films and in my not so humble opinion, one of the most frightening films ever made. Henry James' classic ghost story has been adapted for the screen many times but no film has come close to matching Jack Clayton's haunting retelling of "The Turn of the Screw." THE INNOCENTS tells the eerie story of Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), a governess to two young children who she believes are haunted by ghosts. The film has a lot of chill-inducing moments but nothing terrifies me more than the startling image of an unearthly woman dressed in black standing by the edge of the water surrounded by tall grass. Kerr only gets a brief glimpse of the ghostly figure of the long dead Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop) and if you blink you might miss her. But if you do see her, you'll never forget her.
So be sure to check it out.
Well, let's end today's post with another little clip from 1996's Beavis and Butthead. This one not only has another it cavity search bit, but gives Chelsea Clinton some ass kicking power in her teen years…and a jab at White House Security. Ah…life before 9/11…
Good times.
Sunday Reads: Street Art, Fine Art, Women's ArtPosted: September 28, 2014 Filed under: 2016 elections, Africa, Art, Big Pharma, birth control, child sexual abuse, China, Cuba, education, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, History, morning reads, public education, religion, Reproductive Health, Republican politics, Revisionism, science, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: ebola, Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, Hong Kong, Indie 184, Pope Francis, Vatican City, Women Street Artist 34 Comments
Good Morning
As you can see from the title, today's reads deal with women and art.
Now, I have been trying to write this post for a month…but something has kept me from digging in and getting the job done. The internet was down, the kids were sick, things were too busy…ugh.
Finally, I had the time and the inclination to do the damn thing and what do you think happened? All my saved links have disappeared. This happened earlier in the month when I wrote my Hollywood suicides post. It is very disheartening.
I really think it is a sign…what it means…I have no idea.
So, I was able to find two of the articles and I will post them at the end of the thread. As for the newsy links, some big shit went down in Ferguson overnight:
Police officer shot in troubled U.S. city of Ferguson | Reuters
A police officer from the strife-hit Missouri city of Ferguson was shot while responding to a burglary on Saturday and the suspects were still at large, law enforcement officials said.
The officer was chasing two suspects outside the Ferguson Community Center on Saturday night when one turned and shot him in the arm, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told a news conference.
The officer, who is expected to survive, returned fire but apparently did not hit either suspect, Belmar said.
Belmar said the shooting did not seem to be connected to peaceful protesting occurring elsewhere in Ferguson.
Well that is something…
"I wouldn't have any reason to believe right now that it was linked in any way, shape, manner or form with the protests," he said.
I wonder what other news outlets are saying?
Fox News makes no mention of the shooting being unrelated to the protest:
Ferguson police officer wounded in shooting, authorities hunt 2 suspects | Fox News
Authorities said a Ferguson (Mo.) police officer was shot and wounded while on patrol Saturday evening.
St. Louis County Police Sgt. Brian Schellman said the shooting took place at approximately 9:30 p.m. local time. KTVI reported that the officer was shot in the arm and sustained non-life-threatening injuries. At least a dozen law enforcement agencies responded to the shooting, and police helicopters canvassed the area, but no arrests were immediately reported.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters early Sunday that the officer was shot after approaching two men at the Ferguson Community Center, which was closed at the time. As the officer approached, the men ran away. When the officer gave chase, "one of the men turned and shot," Belmar said.
Belmar did not give further details about the officer's condition. He said the officer returned fire but said police have "no indication" that either suspect was shot.
The shooting comes amid a fresh flare-up of unrest following the deadly August 9 shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. The shooting sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in the predominantly black community. Some residents and civil rights activists have said responding police officers were overly aggressive, noting their use of tear gas and surplus military vehicles and gear.
Saturday's shooting occurred approximately two miles from where Brown died near his grandmother's apartment building. KTVI reported that dozens of protesters initially showed up at the scene in the mistaken belief that the officer had shot someone. By midnight, approximately two dozen officers stood near a group of about 100 protesters who mingled on a street corner across from the police department, occasionally shouting, "No justice; no peace."
The LA Times has more information on the speech Obama gave Saturday night at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's award dinner, as well as a few quotes from the Brown family regarding the "apology" from Ferguson"s Chief of Police:
Police officer shot in Ferguson, Mo.; police search for 2 suspects – LA Times
At one point Saturday night, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who oversaw police during last months' protests, appeared near the shooting scene and confirmed to the gathering crowd that "an officer has been shot." He told the crowd to disperse.
Anthony Gray, a Brown family attorney, said the Saturday night shooting was unrelated to the Brown case. Belmar also said the officer's shooting was unrelated to protests surrounding the Brown case.
A grand jury is examining evidence in Brown's shooting and will determine whether Wilson will face any charges. Some in the community, including Brown's parents, have called on Ferguson's police chief to step down. In a video earlier this week, Jackson said to Brown's family that he was "deeply sorry for their loss."
Brown's parents said they were unmoved by Jackson's apology in an interview with the Associated Press.
Lesley McSpadden, Brown's mother, said, "yes," when asked if Chief Tom Jackson should be fired, and his father, Michael Brown Sr., said rather than an apology, they want to see the officer who shot their son arrested for his Aug. 9 death.
"An apology would be when Darren Wilson has handcuffs, processed and charged with murder," Brown Sr. told the Associated Press.
President Obama, who spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's award dinner Saturday night, addressed the Brown shooting, saying that Brown's death and the unrest that followed exposed a "gulf of mistrust" between residents and police in many communities.
"Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness," he said, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong things are getting tense. Have y'all kept up with the situation over there?
Goggles at the ready as Hong Kong activists brace for crackdown | Reuters
Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators surrounding Hong Kong government headquarters braced for a showdown with police on Sunday after accelerating a plan to shut down the heart of the global financial hub.
Leaders and supporters of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement, many wearing plastic capes and goggles to fend off any police pepper spray attack, urged the public to join the protest to pressure Beijing to allow free elections in the former British colony.
Publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, a key backer of the democratic movement, said he wanted as big a crowd as possible, after a week of student demonstrations, to thwart any crackdown on a protest branded as illegal.
"The more Hong Kong citizens come, the more unlikely the police can clear up the place," said Lai, also wearing a plastic cape and workmen's protective glasses.
"I believe more Hong Kong citizens will show up later on Sunday."
Democracy Protests In Hong Kong Turn Violent
HONG KONG, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Violent clashes between Hong Kong riot police and students galvanized tens of thousands of supporters for the city's pro-democracy movement and kick-started a plan to lock down the heart of the Asian financial center early on Sunday.
Leaders and supporters of Occupy Central with Love and Peace rallied to support students who were doused with pepper spray early on Saturday after they broke through police barriers and stormed the city's government headquarters.
"Whoever loves Hong Kong should come and join us. This is for Hong Kong's future," publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of China's communist government who has backed pro-democracy activists through publications that include one of the city's biggest newspapers as well as donations, told Reuters.
Occupy demanded that Beijing withdraw its framework for political reform in the former British colony and resume talks.
Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a formula known as "one country, two systems." that guaranteed a high degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China. Universal suffrage was set as an eventual goal.
But Beijing last month rejected demands for people to freely choose the city's next leader, prompting threats from activists to shut down Central, Hong Kong's financial district. China wants to limit elections to a handful of candidates loyal to Beijing.
Look at this photo of the protest:
This demonstration, which has drawn thousands of protesters armed with goggles, masks and raincoats in preparation for a violent confrontation with police, is one of the most tenacious acts of civil disobedience seen in post-colonial Hong Kong.
Roads in a square block around the city's government headquarters, located in the Admiralty district adjacent to Central, were filled with people and blocked with metal barricades erected by protesters to defend against a possible police crackdown.
Some of Hong Kong's most powerful tycoons have spoken out against the Occupy movement, warning it could threaten the city's business and economic stability.
The latest protests escalated after demonstrators broke through a cordon late on Friday and scaled perimeter fences to invade the city's main government compound in the culmination of a week-long rally to demand free elections.
Student leaders said about 80,000 people participated in the rally. No independent estimate was available.
Read lots more at the link.
A little more world news: Losing the Race Against Ebola – NYTimes.com
The race to control the expanding Ebola epidemic in West Africa looks increasingly dire. Official projections of how fast the virus will spread have soared while pledges of help from advanced nations and global organizations have failed to keep pace.
On Sept. 22, the World Health Organization published estimates indicating that the epidemic could infect more than 20,000 people in the three hardest hit countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by early November, months before earlier estimates. Unless new measures can turn the tide, the number of cases and deaths could increase by thousands per week for months to come. It is possible that the virus will become permanently lodged in the West African population, posing a continuing threat of dispersal to the rest of Africa and other parts of the world.
On Sept 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta issued in a worst-case projection, based on computer models, showing that Sierra Leone and Liberia may have 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps spreading without effective containment. A best-case scenario showed that the epidemic could be brought to an end if 70 percent of the patients were treated in settings like isolation wards that reduce the risk of disease transmission and if burials were performed safely. Currently, only about 18 percent of the patients in Liberia and 40 percent in Sierra Leone are in such settings.
I posted a link about Cuba sending hundreds of doctors to Africa, I wanted to front page it here: Cuba sends 300 more doctors to fight Ebola – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Cuba says it will send nearly 300 more doctors and nurses to West Africa to help fight the Ebola epidemic.
The Cubans will work in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Regla Angulo, head of the Cuban medical relief agency, said in a statement on Friday.
The announcement means that up to 461 Cuban medical personnel would have been sent to help address the epidemic spreading across West Africa.
Angulo said the staff were currently undergoing intense training ahead of their deployment, working in a mock field hospital of the kind they expected to find in the region.
Cuba sending 300 more doctors, nurses to fight Ebola in West Africa – Yahoo News
A group of 165 healthcare workers is due to arrive in Sierra Leone in early October. The 62 doctors and 103 nurses have been training for their mission with international experts at a Havana hospital specializing in tropical diseases.
The second contingent of 296 doctors and nurses will head to Liberia and Guinea, the official news agency Prensa Latina said on Friday.
Cuba has more than 50,000 doctors and nurses posted in 66 countries around the world, including more than 4,000 in 32 African countries.
The overseas missions are part of a medical diplomacy and a leading export earner for the communist government. Cuba also educates foreign doctors for free at one of its medical schools.
Heading over to Vatican City, the latest details from an arrested Catholic's Archbishop are making headlines: Arrested Catholic Archbishop's computer contained over 100,000 images of children
Yeah, you read that right!
Vatican detectives analyzing a computer used a by an archbishop arrested earlier this week discovered over 86,000 pornographic photos and 160 sexually explicit video files of children, reports the International Business Times.
According to investigators, another 45,000 pictures had been deleted.
Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was arrested at the Vatican earlier this week on charges that he paid to have sex with minors when he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic from 2008 to 2012.
Wesolowski is the first Vatican official to be arrested within the city state on charges of pedophilia.
The former archbishop was recalled to Rome by the Vatican last year while still a diplomat in Santo Domingo and relieved of his duties following accusations from Dominican media that he was paying for underaged sex partners.
Until earlier this week, he had been free to roam Rome, but is now being held in in a small room in the basement of the Collegio dei Penitenzieri, which hosts the Vatican's court and military police.
Vatican authorities are now investigating if Wesolowski was part of a network of pedophiles and whether he abused children in other posts during his career.
Wesolowski previously served in South Africa, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India and Denmark.
If convicted, Wesolowski faces 12 years in jail in the first trial for sexual abuse to be held inside the Vatican City.
12 years? That is it? I have nothing to say…because if I start, I won't get to the rest of the day's links. As it is…Pope Francis revisits 'punishing' Catholics who get divorced . Pfffft! Divorce? Now that is a real crime.
This next article discusses a new form of male birth control, and how the Big Pharma may get their knuts in a knot because it will cut into the Pill profits. Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017 – The Daily Beast
Vasalgel, a reversible, non-hormonal polymer that blocks the vas deferens, is about to enter human trials. How will rhetoric change when male bodies become responsible for birth control?
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
Hot diggity dog…finally!
Does this still go against the Church I wonder? (Yeah…of course. Damn. Yet another thing to be punished for…but is it a worse sin than say, kiddie porn on a computer?)
Since we are on the subject of Dicks…Breitbart Writer: Men Who Support Feminism Are "Sexually Frustrated Dickless Wonders" – Little Green Footballs You will just have to go to the link yourself to find out what LGF is talking about. ;)
Not to be outdone…yes, I am still on the "Church's" ass a little while longer. Stephen Hawking comes out: 'I'm an atheist' because science is 'more convincing' than God
Stephen Hawking clarified this week that he was an atheist because science had provided him with a "more convincing" explanation of the origins of the universe.
According to NBC News, Hawking made the comments to the Spanish-language paper El Mundo during the Starmus Festival at Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
El Mundo's Pablo Jauregui pointed out that Hawking had written in his book "A Brief History of Time" that scientists could "know the mind of God" if a unifying set of principles — or theory of everything — was discovered to explain the physical universe. But Hawking later wrote in "The Grand Design" that God was no longer necessary because science had provided a better understanding of the universe.
"Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe," the world-famous theoretical physicist told Jauregui. "But now science offers a more convincing explanation."
"What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn't," he added. "I'm an atheist."
But Hawking does believe that humans are not alone in the universe, and that meeting extraterrestrial life could be like Christopher Columbus coming to the Americas.
"Which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans," he warned.
"The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant," Hawking told the paper. "Considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life."
Video at the link.
This thread is getting long, so here are the rest of today's stories on the quick:
The Young Turks: Michele Bachmann's Frenzied Bloodlust Delights Values Voters – YouTube
"Michele Bachmann took the stage at the Values Voters Summit today, and fired up the crowd with shots at President Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as a firm call for the U.S. to keep killing ISIS terrorists until they surrender.
Bachmann cracked a few jokes at the top, including a dig at MSNBC and a wonder of whether Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner would miss her more.
She talked up her strong stand against the Obama administration, especially on foreign policy. Bachmann said Obama is "the first anti-Israel president in history." And as for Clinton, Bachmann recommended another goal for the former Secretary of State to accomplish: "permanent retirement!"
Bachmann also talked about how to combat the threat of ISIS."* Ben Mankiewicz, Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show), John Iadarola (TYT University) and Brian Unger break it down.
You may have seen the shit going on in Texas earlier in the month: Don't Mess With Texas History | BobCesca.com
The imagined slight of an Advanced Placement U.S. History curriculum that is "anti-American" has swept the state of Texas and the state Board of Education has taken steps to eliminate it.
From the Associated Press
The Board of Education approved a measure declaring that the history curriculum its members set trumps that covered by the AP history course created for classrooms nationwide. That class concludes with an exam that can earn college credit for students who score high enough.
The board must still take a final vote, but the measure's content isn't expected to change.
Critics contend that the revised Advanced Placement curriculum is anti-American because it has narrowed the amount of content students are required to memorize but, rather than omit events that paint America in a less-sympathetic light, it excluded events that are more endearing.
In other words, critics contend that it's anti-American because it does not whitewash our history.
Well….The Conservative War on History Continues | BobCesca.com
the Advanced Placement U.S. History curriculum because it was "anti-American," has spread to the Denver, Colorado area where the local school board is following suit.
The Jefferson County school board appears to be going a step further, however, by dropping negative events in our history and discouraging civil disobedience.
via ThinkProgress
According to the curricula proposal, students would only be taught lessons depicting American heritage in a positive light, and effectively ban any material that could lead to dissent. Under the proposed policy, a review committee would regularly read instructional text and course syllabi to ensure that educational materials do not stray from subject matter that complies with the policy.
There was also protest in Colorado last week: CO Students Walk Out To Protest Wingnut Plan To Censor History Curriculum | Crooks and Liars
Be sure to read all those links in full to get the whole story. The Koch Brother's are involved. Nuff said.
Since the protest is about History, how about some links that deal with history…okay, it isn't American History, but one of the links deals with uprisings.
From Medievalist.net:
'Shame on him who allows them to live': The Jacquerie of 1358
In the eyes of the chroniclers, the Jacquerie of 1358 was the most important peasant revolt in late medieval France. Yet despite this, the uprising has not generated the quality of scholarship that other revolts from the late medieval period have encouraged, such as the Ciompi of 1378 in Florence or the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. In popular perception, the Jacquerie remains a violent spasmodic riot typical of the so-called 'pre-industrial revolt', itself a model forwarded thirty years ago and never rigourously examined.
By surveying the remissions systematically, and returning to the full population of documents available, this thesis offers 'a wholly new view of the revolt its leadership, its geographical dimensions, duration, organisation and ideology. Moreover, it challenges many old theories about the medieval 'crowd' as mindless, doomed to failure and dominated by the clergy and other elites. In their place, it constructs a new model around communal ties in the medieval village, sophisticated organisation within the revolt itself and participants' identities as the defining factor of the crowd's ideology.
'Appropriate to Her Sex?' Women's Participation on the Construction Site in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Until recently, studies in the architectural history of medieval and early modern Europe have assumed an all-male labor force on the construction site and in the related building trades. Historical chronicles and manuscript illuminations of construction sites support this notion, purporting the total exclusion of women from this complex industry. This chapter demonstrates the true nature of women's contribution to construction sites from the 13th to the 17th centuries in western Europe, uncovering a wide range of occupations in which they engaged: poor women hired for manual labor, women working as slaves, women working with their husbands and fathers in the building trades, widows continuing the workshops of their deceased husbands, and women supplying building materials for particular sites. There is a history to be told of women's repeated participation in and subsequent denial from working in the building trades that echoes a theme between towns and across language barriers and indicates a common experience shared by women in this era.
This is an interesting look at copyright law: Copyrights and Property Wrongs — Crooked Timber
Ugh…unfortunately: New movie adaptation of All Quiet On The Western Front in the works · Newswire · The A.V. Club
This next blog post from Movie Morlocks…damn I wish they would show this film on TCM again: moviemorlocks.com – This is Not a Post About Gone With the Wind.
With all the hoopla and conversation here over the last week regarding Gone With the Wind, I thought it might be fun to take a glance at GWTW's evil twin, Edgar G. Ulmer's 1946 The Strange Woman.
It starts in 1945 when 20th Century Fox released a film called Leave Her to Heaven, based on Ben Ames Williams' novel of the same name. A glorious Technicolor prestige picture with Gene Tierney, Cornell Wilde, and Vincent Price, it was a huge commercial success, nominated for several Oscars of which it won one. In Hollywood, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Bring on the clones!
Go…go and read the rest.
Now the last couple of links, that deal with art and women:
This Is How Much The Female Portrait Has Evolved In The Last 500 Years
Art history books have a reputation of showcasing dead, white, European males — DWEM — and the (mostly white) women they handpicked as muses. Portrait after portrait reveals a woman's face through a man's gaze, casting a rather unsavory light on the tendency of artists to eroticize, objectify or idolize the female form.
Artists in the 21st century have made strides to rectify art history's mistakes — and critics and historians have begun to give women artists and artists of color their rightful place in the canon. But it's difficult to forget the centuries of whitewashed paintings that still reign supreme. Case in point: artFido's three-minute survey of 500 years of female portraits.
Names like Leonardo, Raphael, Hans, Peter, Pablo and Edouard dominate the list of featured paintings. Sure, the likes of Mary Cassatt and Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun attempt to break up the monotony, but the portrait images expose the real story. Art history just didn't really evolve in the last 500 years.
You can catch a bit of change in the last 30 seconds of the video above, as the (still very white) faces become more and more abstract. But the takeaway from this montage: the art world needs more diversity, and quick.
10 Women Street Artists Who Are Better Than Banksy
Well, the title is a bit strange…but the work of these women is amazing. Some of them are way more incredible than Banksy. The print up top called Own Your Power is by an artist name Indie. I bought that print for my daughter Bebe on her 16th birthday, it just said so much…
Indie was chosen by MAC as one of the graffiti artist to design a collection for them in 2013.
The Makeup Museum: MAC Illustrated, part 2: Indie 184
MAC's 2013 Illustrated collection features the work of graffiti artist Indie 184. Born in Puerto Rico to Dominican parents and raised in New York, her style combines vivid colors with a contemporary take on old-school New York City graffiti. Her indomitable spirit is fittingly expressed in her tag, a riff on the movie adventurer Indiana Jones, while 184 comes from the street she grew up on in Washington Heights.
She seamlessly translates her style from walls to canvas, weaving together images of famous women and phrases that convey their power. In her artist's statement, she writes, "My creative process usually starts by pouring out conflicting ideas or emotions using words, images and color. When I create a painting, it's like a page of my personal diary – all the pieces are worlds of personal declarations. Constant use of word play, found scraps of paper, stencil, graffiti, graphics and photographs mixed with vivid colors…I use iconic female imagery provoking mood and expression embellished with dripping paint juxtaposed with words…The composed painting reflects power, motivation and with an undeniable twist of feminism in my paintings." The feminist angle, I believe, comes partially from her struggle to be fully accepted as a genuine graffiti artist in a male-dominated environment. She says in an interview, "[A]s I got more into the culture, I learned that NYC in the 80's produced few active girls in graf. So any new girl in the scene would stand out. But of course, that did not mean free rides. I had to push harder to get down on walls. Most male writers don't take females writers, especially new ones, seriously. I did not want to stand out only because I was a female writer. I wanted to make my mark and represent for myself. Even now, on occasions, when I'm painting in the streets, some guy comes along and acts surprised when he sees me working with spray paint."
The titles for some of these paintings – Powerful Creation, Call the Shots, Fearless, Knock 'em Out and Own Your Power, combined with Indie's signature hearts and stars – further drive home the idea of feminine strength. Some of her work is also a tribute to Latina women and a demonstration of allegiance to her cultural heritage, as she references figures such as Frieda Kahlo, Jennifer Lopez and Marquita Rivera.
Call the Shots, 2012 (I love the nod to Warhol represented by the soup cans):
Powerful Creation, 2012:
Fearless, 2012:
Knock 'em Out, 2012:
Own Your Power, 2013:
(images from indie184.com)
Looking at the dizzying array of flashy colors, it's no surprise to find that Indie's heroines include Jem and Rainbow Brite. I also find her work to be a true expression of her outspoken, feisty personality and thoroughly unselfconscious attitude. In an interview regarding her recently launched clothing line named Kweenz Destroy, she states, "Kweenz Destroy is for ladies who hold their own and make an impact with what they do. They love to get their hands dirty and don't give a shit what people have to say…I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone…I am fulfilling my own desires, not living other people's ideal of what a graffiti writer should be, because at the end of the day people are going to talk shit regardless."
Overall, I like Indie's work – it's brash, highly personal and has an exuberance and freshness to it while remaining forceful.
I love it…I hope you all do too!
Have a great Sunday and leave some thoughts in the comments below.
Oh Yeah…I almost forgot!
At 7:03 PM on September 26th, we finally met Charlotte. We're in love. http://t.co/9ZCkoa6BPU—
Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) September 27, 2014
Charlotte, your grandmother @HillaryClinton and I couldn't be happier! http://t.co/omu6ncg54e—
Bill Clinton (@billclinton) September 27, 2014
And my favorite:
.@BillClinton and I are over the moon to be grandparents! One of the happiest moments of our life. http://t.co/Cww4r8C9Zt—
Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 27, 2014
Godspeed little Charlotte.
Wednesday Reads: Serenity When?Posted: June 18, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, Drone Warfare, education, Foreign Affairs, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Iraq, morning reads, The Right Wing, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: Airstrikes, Glenn Beck, Sunni Militants 33 Comments
Good Morning
Things are heating up all over, in a literal, political and actual sense.
Meanwhile I feel as if I am stuck inside a glass tube of Vaseline…where I cannot move or see and I feel trapped in a situation were everything is close around me. Yesterday, my mom found out she needs to take insulin shots…she is now diabetic. But the Medicare does not cover her prescription for the shots. It is 300 bucks a month. WTF? I don't understand this crap at all.
There's ther stuff going on that I can't get into now, so just letting you know that things are real shitty here, and I may need to take a break for a few days to get my bearings.
Now for today's links…
I don't know what to make of this headline from the New York Times:
Obama Is Said to Consider Selective Airstrikes on Sunni Militants
President Obama is considering a targeted, highly selective campaign of airstrikes against Sunni militants in Iraq similar to counterterrorism operations in Yemen rather than an aerial bombardment, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.
Such a campaign, using either drones or fighter jets, could last for a prolonged period, the official said. But it is not likely to begin for days, until the United States gathers adequate intelligence about the location of the militants, who are intermingled with the civilian population in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities north of Baghdad.
Even the most ambitious aerial campaign envisioned by administration officials would be far more limited in scope than the one conducted during the Iraq war, this official said, because of the relatively small number of militants involved, the degree to which they are dispersed throughout militant-controlled parts of Iraq and fears that using bigger bombs would kill Sunni civilians.
It all makes my head hurt.
But what deserves a laugh is the latest from Glenn Beckistan: Glenn Beck: 'Liberals, You Were Right,' We Should Never Have Gone into Iraq | Mediaite
Glenn Beck led off his radio show on Tuesday morning with a stirring monologue about all the ways he believes the left and right can come together to "heal" America. As part of that, Beck suggested that perhaps all Americans can come together to recognize the blunder that was invading and occupying Iraq in 2003 — an act that he now regrets having supported.
After listing the Veterans Affairs Department scandal and the fight against Common Core standards as two ways in which the left and right can unite, Beck asserted that "maybe we could come together now on this nightmare in Iraq."
He then took a contrite tone and admitted [emphasis ours]:
From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn't. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn't much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.
[…] Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn't get involved. We shouldn't nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn't force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn't have.
Well, blow me down!
Here's another shocking bit of right-wing reactions to scratch your head about…first the news bit: U.S. captures suspected ringleader of 2012 attack in Benghazi | Reuters
The United States said on Tuesday it had captured a suspected ringleader of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador and ignited a political firestorm in Washington.
President Barack Obama said in a statement he had authorized the operation in Libya on Sunday, in which U.S. special operations forces captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah. He told an audience later in Pittsburgh that Khatallah was being transported to the United States.
"Since the deadly attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, I have made it a priority to find and bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans," he said in a statement. He said Khatallah would "face the full weight of the American justice system."
Khatallah's capture was a victory for Obama, who has been accused by Republicans of playing down the role of al Qaeda in the 2012 attacks for political reasons and being slow to deliver on promises of justice.
Which is all well and good, but as Maddow made clear on her show last night: U.S. Got the Suspect and 'Benghazi Central' Fox News Doesn't Care? | Mediaite
For the past 21 months in a row, conservative media outlets have kept hammering away at Benghazi, saying the Obama White House covered something up, accusing the president of dredging up other issues to distract from Benghazi, and crying foul that no one has been brought to justice for the attack. Well, today one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack was captured by U.S. special forces, and so Rachel Maddow was absolutely bewildered to see the reaction on conservative media from Drudge Report to "Benghazi Central" Fox News, ranging from either ignoring the big news or furiously spinning it as a negative for the administration.
Maddow reminded viewers that the "all-Benghazi, all-the-time Fox News Channel" is the network that basically started ignoring President Obama's speeches and press conferences unless he starts talking about Benghazi. And the reaction on Fox News today to the news was to question the suspicious timing of the capture.
Maddow was amused that "the take on Fox News is that's not actually news" after all the time and space they've devoted to hammering away at Benghazi, and now "they have to make it bad news, they have to make into maybe a scandal itself."
Damn Fox News.
One more Foxy link for you, only this time it deals with Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton on FOX News with Greta Van Susteren and Brett Baier | Still4Hill
Hillary walked right into the mouth of the dragon and shot her fire extinguisher all over the flames.
In fact I did not expect Greta to be hard on her, and she was not except that once the record got a little stuck on a Fourth Amendment question. Later, Greta admitted that despite all prior interviews with Hillary she did feel stressed and later wished she had had more time. For my money they could have given Greta Brett's time.
In response to something from Brett, she suggested that people read the unclassified ARB Report.
Still4Hill has a link to the report at her blog, go and check it out. There are also video clips of the Greta and Bret interviews there as well…
Another Hillary link: Hillary Clinton notes distance from Obama on Syria rebels | Reuters
Potential Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pointed out her differences with President Barack Obama on Tuesday over his decision not to arm moderate Syrian rebels, as neighboring Iraq struggles to cope with extremist spillover from Syria.
"We pushed very hard. But as I say in my book, I believe that Harry Truman was right, the buck stops with the president,"
Clinton said in a CNN interview.
The former secretary of state said she, along with the then heads of the Pentagon and CIA tried but failed to persuade Obama to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but that the White House resisted.
Clinton said it was not clear whether arming moderates in Syria would have prevented the rise of the al Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has swept toward Baghdad aiming to build a Muslim caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian border.
"It's very difficult, in retrospect, to say that would have prevented this," she said. She said it is too soon to tell whether American policy in Syria was a failure.
The countdown is began and ended here in Georgia as the BBC is picking up on the story: Georgia in first US execution since botched attempt
The US state of Georgia is set to execute the first person in the US since a botched lethal injection in Texas in April.
Marcus Wellons, who raped and killed a 15-year-old in 1989, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday evening.
A last-minute appeal over the source of the drugs is with the US Supreme Court.
Wellons is one of three set to die in the next 24 hours, after nine executions were stayed since one in Oklahoma went wrong seven weeks ago.
Officials in Oklahoma halted the execution of Clayton Lockett after he began making noises, and he died of a heart attack less than an hour later.
Like Oklahoma, Georgia refuses to say where they are obtaining drugs for lethal injections, or if they are tested.
Lawyers for Wellons, as well as others on death row, have challenged such secrecy in court.
Well, the execution went on as expected: UPDATE: Marcus Wellons has been executed | www.ajc.com
Since I am writing this post only a few minutes after his death has been confirmed I will update this story in the comments below.
One thing all these stories have threaded together is a subject of hard news…Why Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending Otherwise – Derek Thompson – The Atlantic
You may not realize this, but we can see you. Yes, you. The human reading this article. We have analytics that tells us roughly where you are, what site you've just arrived from, how long you stay, how far you read, where you hop to next. We've got eyeballs on your eyeballs.
Why is it so important that digital news organizations track which articles you're reading on our websites? The obvious answer is that it teaches us what you're interested in. The less-obvious, but equally true, answer is that it teaches you what you're interested in.
If we merely asked what you wanted, without measuring what you wanted, you'd just keep lying to us—and to yourself.
Here's what I mean by lying. This year, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism asked thousands of people around the world what sort of news was most important to them. The graph below shows the responses from Americans. International news crushed celebrity and "fun" news by a margin of two-to-one. Economic and political news finished even higher.
It is an interesting thing…as far as what is most important compared to what the people actually read.
Ask audiences what they want, and they'll tell you vegetables. Watch them quietly, and they'll mostly eat candy.
Audiences are liars, and the media organizations who listen to them without measuring them are dupes. At the Aspen Ideas Festival last year, Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations for Al Jazeera America, shared survey data suggesting that 40 to 50 million people were desperate for in-depth and original TV journalism. Nine months later, it averaged 10,000 viewers per hour—1.08 percent of Fox News' audience and 3.7 percent of CNN. AJAM, built for an audience of vegetarians, is stuck with a broccoli stand in a candy shop.
The culprit isn't Millennials, or Facebook, or analytics software like Chartbeat. The problem is our brains. The more attention-starved we feel, the more we thirst for stimuli that are familiar. We like ice cream when we're sad, old songs when we're tired, and easy listicles when we're busy and ego-depleted. The Internet shorthand for this fact is "cat pictures." Psychologists prefer the term fluency. Fluency isn't how we think: It's how we feel while we're thinking. We prefer thoughts that come easily: Faces that are symmetrical, colors that are clear, and sentences with parallelisms. In this light, there are two problems with hard news: It's hard and it's new. (Parallelism!)
Okay that is taking some choice paragraphs here and there…just go and "read" the whole thing at the link. It has graphs and list too.
Since we are talking about people who lie about reading news stories, what about something dealing with handwriting. What's Lost as Handwriting Fades – NYTimes.com
Does handwriting matter?
Not very much, according to many educators. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.
But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it's not just what we write that matters — but how.
"When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated," said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. "There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.
"And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn't realize," he continued. "Learning is made easier."
Could there be a connection be handwriting, news reading habits and education development?
A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, lent support to that view. Children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer. They were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again.
The researchers found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex.
By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker.
Dr. James attributes the differences to the messiness inherent in free-form handwriting: Not only must we first plan and execute the action in a way that is not required when we have a traceable outline, but we are also likely to produce a result that is highly variable.
That variability may itself be a learning tool. "When a kid produces a messy letter," Dr. James said, "that might help him learn it."
Finally, the last "news read" I have for you today could fall in the "fun" category. Stamp sells for record $9.5 million in New York
An incredibly rare 19th century postage stamp, a tiny one-cent magenta from British colonial Guyana, sold for $9.5 million in New York on Tuesday, setting a new world record.
Bidding began at $4.5 million and it took just two minutes to sell the stamp to an anonymous bidder on the phone, although the auction house Sotheby's had valued the tiny specimen of British colonial memorabilia at $10-20 million.
"With the premium the stamp has just sold for approximately $9.5 million, which means it has set a new world record price for a stamp," David Redden, Sotheby's director of special projects, told a packed room in New York.
Can you believe it? 9.5 million dollars? Wow…
So what "candy" are you reading about today?
Although I know most of you here read "vegetables" all day long.
Thursday Reads: Freedom Fried EditionPosted: April 24, 2014 Filed under: corporate greed, Fox News, Hillary Clinton, morning reads, right wing hate grouups, Rush Limbaugh, the GOP, Women's Rights 65 Comments
Good Morning!
BB is having internet problems this morning so I'm going to try to get this quick post off this morning!
I've really come to believe that the Republican Party is basically the victim of the success of the Southern Strategy. The coupling of neoconfederates and religious fanatics with big business interests seems to be coming full circle. A new poll seems to broadly indicates this as we continue to see the educated, women, minorities, the young, and most states out of the deep south turn away from Republicans. But you know, it's all about white,straight, christian male freedom, so every one else can just go sit at the back of the bus or be thrown under the bus.
While white Southerners have been voting Republican for decades, the hugeness of the gap was new. Mr. Obama often lost more than 40 percent of Al Gore's support among white voters south of the historically significant line of the Missouri Compromise. Two centuries later, Southern politics are deeply polarized along racial lines. It is no exaggeration to suggest that in these states the Democrats have become the party of African Americans and that the Republicans are the party of whites.
The collapse in Democratic support among white Southerners has been obscured by the rise of the Obama coalition. Higher black turnout allowed the Democrats to win nearly 44 percent of the vote in states like Mississippi, where 37 percent of voters were black. But the white shift is nearly as important to contemporary electoral politics as the Obama coalition. It represents an end, at least temporarily, to the South's assimilation into the American political and cultural mainstream.
There are many reasons for this, but the role of right wing media is undoubtedly important. Fox eagerly jumps on the story of "beleaguered white man" only to find their new hero is a secessionist, a misogynist, a homophobe, almost violently anti-modernity and law, and terribly racist. JJ had a great post yesterday about Clive Bundy. Well, here's the latest interview with the old coot who thinks black folks were better off as literal slaves than they are today.
Republican politicians began backtracking on their support of Nevada anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy after the New York Times caught Bundy making racially-inflammatory remarks blaming African-Americans for willingly submiting to dependency on federal assistance.
"They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton," Bundy was quoted as saying to a group of supporters last Saturday. "And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom."
Bundy's statements about "the Negro," published on Wednesday, were made during his daily speech to supporters outside Bunkerville, Nevada, where a crowd gathered to support him in defiance of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) during an attempted round up of his cattle. The confrontation was the result of Bundy's refusal to pay grazing fees on federally-owned land for more than 20 years, in spite of multiple court rulings against him. Bundy has stated on several occasions that he does not recognize the existence of the federal government.
During the speech, Bundy said he remembered driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, which he called a "government house" with "always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch" with nothing to do.
These dudes clearly hate and misunderstand women too. And, it's not just southern white men.
A New Hampshire lawmaker found himself being heckled by his colleagues on Wednesday during a state House speech, which asserted that women lacked the work ethic of men so they should be paid less.
During a floor debate on Wednesday, state Rep. Will Infantine (R) argued that the "Paycheck Equity Act" was not necessary to prevent wage discrimination based on gender because women deserved to make less.
"Men, by and large, make more because some of the things that they do," he opined. "Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don't mind working nights and weekends. They don't mind working overtime or outdoors."
At that point in the video clip uploaded by Granite State Progress, other lawmakers began to loudly object to Infantine's remarks.
"It's not me!" he exclaimed, insisting that his facts came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Men work five or six hours longer a week than women do," he continued. "When it comes to women and men who own businesses… women make half of what men do because of flexibility of work, men are more motivated by money than women are."
The poster boy for TV Ugly is Erick Erickson. He's the Rush Limbaugh of the internet and FOX and here's what he's saying about Hillary.
Red State and Fox News' Erik Erickson makes believe he's a big time Christian conservative politico, but when he opens his mouth about the left, he almost always sounds like nasty degenerate. I guess he is a Christian conservative active in politics after all.
Here he is on Rush Limbaugh's airwaves, discussing the upcoming election and Charlie Cook's analysis when he went into his goatf*&king child molester routine on Hillary.
Erickson…it's very, very hard for incumbent parties to win three in a row no matter how it goes. Look at Bill Clinton going into 2000. I could be wrong. All my Democratic friends are salivating, yea, I have a couple of them.
They're all salivating at the idea of Hillary Clinton running in 2016. She's gonna be old. I don't know how far back they can pull her face, can I say that on the air? I don't know…There's gonna be an age factor there and does she wanna go out and be like John McCain in 2008, the Democrats were playing up the old card
Oh, my God. This is what qualifies as top notch Conservative policy analysis. This is what Hillary has to look forward to when she runs for 2016. It's not about her policy ideas or issues, but her face, her age, her clothes, her smell, her bitchiness, her sexual preferences, her ____ (Fill in the blank)
It's really difficult for me to understand how these men can live with all this anger, rage, and pent up hatred. What's worse is that they all seem to come equipped with guns. It also is beyond me how these guys can be so completely duped into supporting the very people that are picking their pockets daily. Here's a great interview with Michael Lewis on the nature of our Wall Street billionaire problem.
IC: How much has Wall Street behavior sparked the inequality conversation that is going on now?
ML: They are very connected. If you go back and look at the boom in CEO pay, it is tied directly to Wall Street compensation. Social norms changed. And they changed first on Wall Street. This bothers me a lot. What do I want to tell people coming out of school? I want to tell them about noblesse oblige, which has just died. There is an absence at the top of the culture.
IC: Have you read the new Thomas Piketty book?
ML: I just downloaded it because it's impossible to get copies of the hardcover any more. It is sold out.
IC: I had the same experience. You would have more luck getting The Satanic Verses in Iran. The reason I ask is because Piketty and others talk less about noblesse oblige than things such as higher tax rates. The government has to step in.
ML: I feel such despair at how the government responded to the financial crisis. It did a lot of good things to prevent a depression. But the Wall Street firms ended up even more of a problem. They got bigger. I thought they should be broken up in one way or another.
IC: So you think they are worse now?
ML: Probably not worse in the sense that they are probably more afraid to do bad things. More skittish. But as a market problem they are worse because they are bigger. The effect of a lot of the regulation has made it harder on would-be-competitors who could challenge them. And Dodd-Frank throws decisions to the regulators, and then that discussion ends up being run by banks. I just hate it. I have given up on the government. I wrote this book because I feel like these guys in my book have figured out a market version of Occupy Wall Street. This may be the way we have to deal with this. People ask me what the SEC should do. Well, there are things I'd like them to do, but for now they may ned to just get the hell out of the way. Maybe they can force some transparency. People at the SEC have said that they are counting on these market solutions.
IC: What are your thoughts about the culture on Wall Street? I don't know if you saw Wolf of Wall Street, but it seemed to me that the movie was arguing that the culture there inspires bad behavior.
ML: I did see it. I know too many people there and love too many people there so I have mixed feelings about this. They are not all bad people. The problem is that the incentive system is really screwed up and that screws up the behavior.
Meanwhile, SCOTUS is still working very hard to make sure that our political system is rigged.
There's a first amendment case going in front of the Supreme Court right now that's very, very dangerous. Why? Because it might allow religious opinion to become legal fact, corrupting the intent of our constitutional rights, if not the specific wording. As you're probably well aware, the decisions handed down by SCOTUS as of late have shown remarkable intention to broadly change United States law to fit a conservative, activist agenda, that of the five right-wing justices (seen below). The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), an anti-choice and anti-family planning group, is suing because they believe they have a right to publicly advertise lies if they have sufficient reason to hold the advertised opinion. Paradoxical, yes, but if you're familiar with American culture, you'll completely understand. Cognitive dissonance and bold denial in the face of proof are defining characteristics.
So, let's be very clear again that the Republican "Freedom" agenda seems to be very clearly aimed at a few people.
Any way, that's it for me this morning! Let me know what's on your reading and blogging list while I brew up some coffee!
Sunday Reads: NY Underground Library and GOP Aboveground DumbasseryPosted: March 9, 2014 Filed under: 2014 elections, Afghanistan, Fox News, Israel, morning reads, racism, Real Life Horror, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, right wing hate grouups, the blogosphere, the GOP, the internet, U.S. Politics | Tags: undergroundnewyorkpubliclibrary.com 19 Comments
Good Morning
Well, perhaps "dumbassery" is being a little forgiving, since dumbass is not what I would call the two GOP examples below…more like assholes, yeah that is it.
But I don't think "assholery" would have passed as part of the title so, there it is.
This tweet from CPAC should set the mood…
Aaaaand it goes down from there…one person who should be in attendance at that minority seminar: Conservative leader caught on live mic: 'The Jews are the problem' | The Raw Story
Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (retired), the executive vice president of the conservative Family Research Council, was caught on a "hot mic" on Thursday joking that "the Jews are the problem" to an Israeli reporter and pitching his theory about President Barack Obama using "subliminal messages" to signal support for al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, in audio posted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Friday.
"If you understand anything about Islam, there are subliminal messages," Boykin can be heard saying. "His message, really, I believe was, 'I understand you, and I support you.'"
Boykin's remarks were captured after an online broadcast of a panel at the National Security Action Summit. The SPLC reported that the event is held as a counter to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and features speakers who, like Boykin, have not been allowed to participate there.
(Emphasis mine.) Guess even CPAC has some kind of standards.
Though the panel's video feed shut down, the audio continued broadcasting, enabling Boykin to be heard as he argued that, as a result of the "messages," al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood saw that "that they have a president that identifies with them, that has been supportive of them inside the United States and is unwilling to go against them."
According to the SPLC, Boykin was then approached by someone about doing an interview with Henry Schwartz, a reporter for Israel National News, described as a "right-wing" publication.
"The Jews are the problem," Boykin can be heard saying. "The Jews are the cause of all the problems in the world." An unidentified person responds, "I know, I know, that's why we're trying to fix everything."
The event's organizer, Frank Gaffney, has accused CPAC's organizers, the American Conservative Union, of having ties to the Brotherhood.
I don't know, this guy Boykin must be best friends with Mel Gibson?
Video at the link.
After something like that, we need to laugh. So take a look at this asshole, who gets the Aasif Mandvi treatment: 'Fox Business' Commentator Tells 'Daily Show' Correspondent, 'If You're Poor, Stop Being Poor'
After watching Aasif Mandvi's segment on Thursday's "Daily Show," two things are clear: 1) America has the greatest healthcare system in the world (if 37th place is considered the greatest), and 2) some people shouldn't do interviews with "Daily Show" correspondents.
Case in point, "Fox Business" commentator and NYSE Euronext Managing Director Todd Wilemon has a couple of jaw-dropping moments in this interview about "third world" healthcare conditions in Knoxville, Tennessee, not the least of which is his statement right at the end: "If you're poor, stop being poor."
Watch the clip above, and keep an eye out for one of the more awkward pauses in "Daily Show" history.
I wish I could embed the video, so please go and watch it in full. It is one of the best things Aasif has done on the show.
You can also see the video here: Third World Health Care – Knoxville, Tennessee Edition – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – 03/06/14 – Video Clip | Comedy Central
By the way, pictures for today are from the blog Underground New York Public Library…which is not affiliated by the New York Public Library.
The Underground New York Public Library is a visual library featuring the Reading-Riders of the NYC subways.
The photos come together as a visual library. This library freely lends out a reminder that we're capable of traveling to great depths within ourselves and as a whole.
The blog work is done by Ourit Ben-Haim who says he:
…make the pictures and the posts. I'm fascinated by how we apply ourselves to stories and discourse. In so doing, we shape who we understand ourselves to be.
What a neat site to lose yourself in…enjoy it.
On Friday, Dak had a fabulous post about New Orleans…well, this next link is about the latest fashion "craze" is a perfect complement. In fact, I am sure those folks singing the traditional 'shallow water, your mama,' song were wearing the #normcore look and Dak must see the "mallclothes" "'90s-era dads" "anonymous" style as these young urbanites look for kale in that "Chocolate City." (Ugh…yeah, I could not help myself. 10 years ago, wow.)
What is #normcore and Why Has it Taken Over the Internet?
You may have noticed a new hashtag invading the internet this week: #normcore. It has everyone dusting off their stonewashed jeans and athletic socks and hopping on the bandwagon.
But just what is normcore exactly? In short: it's a trend of young urbanites dressing like bland '90s-era dads. Articles of clothing involved include athletic shorts, New Balance sneakers and fleece zip-ups. Basically, anything that will allow you to stand out by looking anonymous.
Nothing is more sexy than looking like a 90's dad.
Why is normcore a thing? It seems to be a way for adherents to counteract stereotypes by dressing mundanely in order to stand out. Theories abound regarding why millennials are attracted to the trend, but the prevailing theory suggests that it's a way for them to reject the idea of "buying in" to a particular style.
Basically, dressing like your parents did 20 years ago is cooler than shelling out money to assume another identity. Of course, it only works if you're doing it on purpose.
Seriously, look at the tweets from this fashion twitter The Cut New York Magazine:
Here is the actual article: Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They're One in 7 Billion – The Cut
K-HOLE describes normcore as a theory rather than a look; but in practice, the contemporary normcore styles I've seen have their clear aesthetic precedent in the nineties. The editorials in Hot and Cool look a lot like Corinne Day styling newcomer Kate Moss in Birkenstocks in 1990, or like Art Club 2000's appropriation of madras from the Gap, like grunge-lite and Calvin Klein minimalism. But while (in their original incarnation) those styles reflected anxiety around "selling out," today's version is more ambivalent toward its market reality. Normcore isn't about rebelling against or giving into the status quo; it's about letting go of the need to look distinctive, to make time for something new.
The demographic leading the normcore trend is, by and large, Western Millennials and digital natives. Stylist-editors like Hot and Cool's Alice Goddard and Garmento's Jeremy Lewis are children of the nineties, teens of the aughts. The aesthetic return to styles they would've worn as kids reads like a reset button—going back to a time before adolescence, before we learned to differentiate identity through dress. The Internet and globalization have challenged the myth of individuality (we are all one in 7 billion), while making connecting with others easier than ever. Normcore is a blank slate and open mind—it's a look designed to play well with others.
And what is more disgusting? Check out the price of these shorts…and t-shirt.
Dolce & Gabbana – Regular-Fit Washed-Denim Shorts | MR PORTER
Dolce & Gabbana nods to vintage summer style with these washed-denim shorts, treated for an aged appearance. This pair is constructed in Italy for a laid-back fit and broken-in feel.
Sunspel – Striped Cotton-Jersey T-Shirt | MR PORTER
The secret to Sunspel's superb T-shirts is in the cotton: fine, long-staple yarns are used to create a soft and durable jersey that will hold its shape after repeated wear and washing. This version, striped in blue, grey and white, is a reliable choice that will remain stylish for years to come. Add it to your weekend repertoire as a go-to for relaxed days off.
What was that last sentence from The Cut?
Normcore is a blank slate and open mind…
Blank slate and blank mind. Well, all I got to say to that is, "Shallow water, Yo Mama".
In addition to that ridiculous fashion trend of Normcore, did you see this sad story from Michigan? Woman's car payments hid her death for 6 years, body found mummified in backseat of car
For years, the payments went out of the woman's bank account.
Nobody batted an eyelid. Bills were paid and life went on as normal in the quiet neighborhood of Pontiac, Michigan.
Neighbors didn't notice anything unusual.
The woman traveled a lot, they said, and kept to herself.
One of them mowed her grass to keep things looking tidy.
At some point, her bank account ran dry.
The bills stopped being paid.
And guess what happened then…
After its warnings went unanswered, the bank holding the mortgage foreclosed on the house, a common occurrence in a region hit hard by economic woes.
Still, nobody noticed what had happened inside the house.
Nobody wondered out loud what had become of the owner.
Not until this week, when a worker sent by the bank to repair a hole in the roof made a grisly discovery.
The woman's mummified body was sitting in the backseat of her car, parked in the garage.
The key was halfway in the ignition.
Authorities say they believe the woman died at least six years ago.
They're still trying to figure out what happened.
There is so many things wrong with this…on so many levels. Fuck it is disturbing!!!
The woman, who authorities aren't identifying until they've informed her family, paid her bills from her bank account through auto-pay, according to McCabe.
Neighbors said they didn't know much about the dead woman, describing her as in her 40s and of German descent.
"She really kept to herself. We never really heard anything from her," neighbor Caitlyn Talbot told CNN affiliate WXYZ.
Talbot said she wasn't aware of anyone having seen the woman, who traveled a lot, in about six years.
"She was probably there for a couple of days, then she'd leave for a week, then she'd come back. Then she'd leave for a month and come back," Talbot said.
McCabe says neighbors chalked up the woman's absences to her returning to Germany for long periods of time.
Despite years without a living owner, the house was never broken into, he said.
Authorities told WXYZ that the house appears to have black mold inside it, and that detectives entered the building Thursday wearing hazardous material suits.
The mail never piled up, the cops came by the house once back in 2007 when one neighbor said she was not seen for a little while, but when they checked the front door, no sign of foul play so they left…and they never went back.
It seems completely unimaginable to me, how alone, for no one to miss her?
I am going to move on to something else. Prison. (talk about alone)
A&M's Alcatraz research continues to reveal underground forts, tunnels – Houston Chronicle
What started as repair of a tripping hazard at Alcatraz Island led to research that is revealing an old network of underground tunnels and fortifications.
Early results appear to indicate that a "caponier," or part of an original fortified wall, still lies buried underground on the notorious island in San Francisco Bay.
More at the link…
And, another article on U.S. prisons seen through the eyes of 'Birdman of Alcatraz' | Reuters
The pages are brown, faded and stained, but the handwriting is meticulous and the words detail a 150-year history of the U.S. prison system through the eyes of one of its most famous inmates.
Robert Stroud, known as the Birdman of Alcatraz for his painstaking study of birds while in federal prison, wrote a four-part book about brutality, sex, bribery and what he saw as the monumental failure of prisons to rehabilitate inmates.
Part I "Looking Outward, A Voice from the Grave," has recently been published in E-book form.
Stroud's book about prison life, totaling more than 2,000 pages, languished in a basement long after his death in 1963, with publishers concerned about libel balking at a book that named brutal guards and supposedly on-the-take wardens.
"To sadistic-minded persons, helplessness is always an invitation to cruelty," Stroud wrote.
The stacks of manuscripts stored at Stroud's former lawyer's house in Springfield, Missouri, have been converted into the book "Looking Outward: A History of the U.S. Prison System from Colonial Times to the Formation of the Bureau Prisons."
That should be interesting…
One more story on prison life, but this is from a different vantage point…the camera lens: Family historians can now view Victorian criminal records online – Telegraph
Records of more than 67,000 Victorian criminals, detailing crimes ranging from petty theft and drunkenness to arson and murder, are published online for the first time today.
Family history website Ancestry.co.uk said its collection also tells the stories of local peacemakers of the time, including jury candidates and members of the local militia.
The Dorset, England Prison Admission and Discharge Registers 1782-1901 and Dorset, England, Calendar of Prisoners 1854-1904 also includes mug shots of 19th century convicts.
The records include the criminal's name, place and date of conviction, sentence, physical description and details of previous crimes.
Criminals listed include Samuel Baker, aged 73, who was sentenced to nine months hard labour after breaking into a house to steal two brushes, some vests, and a pair of stockings in 1893; Charles Wood, an unemployed local drunk who was sentenced to one month in prison for "refusing to quit the beer-house" in 1872, and 18-year-old George Pill, who stole a donkey from a neighbour in 1894, resulting in a punishment of six weeks hard labour.
Cool innit?
But crimes during the Victorian Age is not the only historical thing I've got for you this morning, oh yes, I am getting medieval on your asses today: How to defraud your lord on the medieval manor
In the 1260s, Robert Carpenter, a freehold farmer and former bailiff living on the Isle of Wight, wrote up a formulary – a collection of form letters and legal texts that would be useful for local administration. In the middle of these texts, however, he added detailed instructions on six ways you could commit fraud.
This work has been translated and analyzed by Martha Carlin in her article 'Cheating the Boss: Robert Carpenter's Embezzlement Instructions (1261×1268) and Employee Fraud in Medieval England'. Carpenter does not provide any introduction to these texts, nor does he give a hint on why he decided to include it in this work. Some scholars suggest he was bragging about his past exploits, others that he wrote it to warn his readers of ways they could be defrauded. Carlin adds another possibility – that it was "simply as a form of wry recollection or humour with which to entertain himself and his intimates."
Give those "hints" a read through…I love it!
Here is something that should be criminal: Group warns almost 500 products contain chemical found in yoga mats – CBS News
Subway made news earlier in February when the sandwich chain announced it was removing a chemical called azodicarbonamide (ADA), which is used to make yoga mats, from North American formulations of bread. But now, a consumer advocacy group is warning people that almost 500 more food items on the market have this same compound.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a list Thursday of all the foods that have listed ADA as an ingredient. Large companies like Ball Park, Country Hearth, Jimmy Dean, Kroger, Little Debbie, Marie Callendar's, Pillsbury, White Castle and Wonder are just a fraction of the 130 brands that used the chemical in their products. Most of the items are bread, croutons, pre-made sandwiches and snacks.
Nothing is more appetizing than yoga mats.
ADA is used to bleach flour and help make dough stronger and more rubbery. The Food and Drug Administration currently approved the use of the chemical as long as it is used in quantities less than 0.0045 percent of the weight of the flour used.
But, the World Health Organization raised concerns about the compound. Case reports have shown that some workers who come in contact with the product on a regular basis have developed asthma, respiratory symptoms and skin problems. Very few studies have been done on ADA, but animal research has shown that if the compound is inhaled or consumed it tends to not be absorbed and is easily eliminated with the body's waste.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest pointed out that ADA forms semicarbazide and urethane when baked, and both have been linked to cancers in mice. They have called for the FDA to ban the chemical since many other breads do not use the compound.
More info at the link…along with a link to the list of products that use ADA.
Last link for you is from Wisconsin Public Radio and includes a story on Weaving, in Afghanistan:
Not every story about Afghanistan involves guns and soldiers. We see the country through art, poetry and games – from the ancient sport of Buzkashi to Afghanistan's famous hand-woven carpets. Also, Charles Yu on living safely in a science fictional universe.
"Buzkashi Boys" – Sam French
The film "Buzkashi Boys" is a coming of age story set in Afghanistan's national sport, Buzkashi. It's a game of horse polo played with a dead goat instead of a ball. Plus, a coda from novelist Khaled Hosseini.
Afghan Carpets – Anna Badkhen
Anna Badkhen spent a year in the remote Afghan village of Oqa. She got to know the master weavers, who make some of the world's most beautiful carpets.
Landay Poetry – Eliza Griswold
Eliza Griswold went to the Pashtun region of Afghanistan to gather landay poems – a tradition of secret poems spoken by Pashtun women.
Sonic Sidebar: Khaled Hosseini's "Mountains"
Afghan-born writer Khaled Hosseini, author of "The Kite Runner," reads from his latest novel, "And the Mountains Echoed."
BookMark: Hanan Al-Shaykh
Hanan Al-Shaykh bookmarks "Season of Migration to the North" by Tayeb Salih.
On Our Minds: Science Fictional Universe
Charles Yu on quantum parenting, time travel and other science fictional paradoxes. Yu is the author of the acclaimed novel "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe."
So, I hope you enjoyed those links. Sorry that there are no "newsy" news updates for you today. Please use the comment section below to add anything you find newsworthy…Have a wonderful day.