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Sunday Reads: Glad-hand, Glad-hands, Glad-handing, Glad-handedPosted: January 25, 2015 Filed under: abortion rights, Africa, American Gun Fetish, Anti-War, Art, Black Agenda Report, Congress, Cuba, Discrimination against women, Egypt, ethics, Feminists, fetus fetishists, Fox News, Gaza, History, Human Rights, Israel, Journalism, Middle East, misogyny, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Political Affective Disorder, racism, Rape Culture, Republican presidential politics, the GOP, Violence against women, Yemen | Tags: hand gestures, political hand signals, Propaganda posters 19 Comments
Good Whatever it is…
Morning, Afternoon, Evening…ugh.
(That this post is getting published, finally, is something in itself. I don't know why, lack of motivation or enthusiasm…)
The images for today are hands used in political posters. I've gotten them from board on Pinterest: Affiche/Main – Poster/Hand on Pinterest | 1352 Pins
For a discussion on the use and symbolism of the fist in propaganda, take a look at this article from Lincoln Cushing:
A brief history of the "clenched fist" image
A persistent symbol of resistance and unity, the clenched fist (or raised fist) is part of the broader genre of "hand" symbols that include the peace "V," the forward-thrust-fist, and the clasped hands. The clenched fist usually appears in full frontal display showing all fingers and is occasionally integrated with other images such as a peace symbol or tool.
The human hand has been used in art from the very beginnings, starting with stunning examples in Neolithic cave paintings. Early examples of the fist in graphic art can be found at least as far back as 1917 [1], with another example from Mexico in 1948 [2]. Fist images, in some form, were used in numerous political graphic genres, including the French and Soviet revolutions, the United States Communist Party, and the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. However, these all followed an iconographic convention. The fist was always part of something – holding a tool or other symbol, part of an arm or human figure, or shown in action (smashing, etc.).
Then there are a few other articles to look at here:
AIGA | Not Your Grandparent's Clenched Fist
The fist of protest has its roots in the deep traditions of revolutionary imagery of 1848 and French Romantic painting. It became a staple of banners and logos of unions and political parties. Raised out of the crowd, the fist clenched in strength, anger and determination could serve groups of almost any ideological stripe.
If some of you have access to JSTOR: JSTOR: Journal of Design History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2000), pp. 319-339
This article focuses on the use of graphic signs in the political struggle between the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the German Communist Party during the 1920s. It first examines the Nazi swastika's relationships to a new 'abstract and primitive' style of trademark design that emerged in Germany during the First World War and to a discussion during 1919-20 about the Weimar Republic's new emblem.
As the NSDAP's sign grew more prominent in public discourse, John Heartfield, who was trained as a graphic designer, sought to counter it through satire and emblems that he designed for the KPD. The most powerful of the latter were a series of images in 1928 based on photographs of workers' hands, which drew both on past emblems of worker solidarity and recent Surrealist photography. The clenched fist soon stood opposite the swastika as signs of the violent political struggle between left and right that marked the last years of the Weimar Republic. The article explores how practices of commercial graphic design became instruments of mass politics during the 1920s.
To see more posters:
A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 36 – Art of Posters for Films – the Cuban School
Political Posters | OMCA COLLECTIONS
And for some articles on the actual use of hand gestures in political protest and such:
Choreography and Gesture Play an Important Role in Protests – NYTimes.com
"Hands Up! Don't Shoot!": Gesture, Choreography, and Protest in Ferguson – The Feminist Wire | The Feminist Wire
Thai protesters and The Hunger Games: what's in a three-fingered salute? – Al Arabiya News
Opinion: Political Gestures « ASHARQ AL-AWSAT
I'll connect the hand gestures to a situation that is getting heated in Egypt today.
What This Hand Gesture Means for Egypt's Future – The Atlantic
Astute observers of recent pro-Morsi protests in Egypt will note a new symbol cropping up in photos of the protesting crowds: Demonstrators are now holding four fingers in the air. Many carry yellow posters emblazoned with the same gesture.
This new hand sign refers to the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, the site of a violent confrontation between Morsi's followers and the Egyptian army. Reported deaths from the clash range from hundreds to thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. In Arabic, "Rabba" means "four" or "the fourth;" hence the new Rabaa symbol.
The new hand sign is important because it signals both a conscious shift in the Muslim Brotherhood's focus from a global audience to an Arabic one and a rejection of the ideals of the Arab Spring.
The Rabaa replaced a more recognizable sign in the Arab world: the two-fingered "V for Victory" salute, a gesture that transcends language and nationality. Many Americans know of the V as the peace sign after its widespread use by the anti-war and counterculture movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Invented by the BBC in World War II as a pan-Allied propaganda campaign — think a cigar-smoking, pinstripe-wearing Winston Churchill flashing the V and a grin — the sign came to the Arab world when Yasser Arafat popularized it in 1969. To this day, Palestinians have exhibited a two-fingered V upon their release from Israeli jails, and the sign is well represented at rallies in Gaza.
Now to the links for this Sunday:
A mess in Egypt as the anniversary of the revolution comes around:
Addicting Info – Egyptian Police Guns Down Female Journalist Carrying Flowers (IMAGES)
On the eve of the 4th anniversary of the Egypt's 2011 uprising, which was part of the Arab Spring, and which ultimately forced the overthrow of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, a female protester and reported journalist was shot by police near Tahir Square in Cairo.
Shaima Sabbagh was shot with birdshot as she was marching in remembrance of the Arab Spring and of the people killed during the revolution. She was shot at close range. Several people caught images of al-Sabbagh both before and after the shooting. Beware, they're heartbreaking. After Shaima was shot – her husband was arrested and their four-year-old son is without parents.
The AP is reporting 15 killed:
Egypt: 15 killed in clashes between Islamists, police – Houston Chronicle
However that number has risen according to Al-Jam:
Anniversary of Egypt's revolution turns violent | Al Jazeera America
Thousands of Egyptian protesters chanted "down with the military and the regime" and "Interior Ministry are thugs" at a funeral on Sunday for a young mother and activist who was shot dead by security forces during a peaceful protest marking the fourth anniversary of Egypt's Arab Spring revolution, according to local media reports.
Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, 32, was one of at least 20 people killed during protests over the weekend across Egypt, mainly in Cairo and Alexandria, commemorating the Jan. 25, 2011 ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak from office, according to the Ministry of Health.
The funeral took place in Alexandria, Sabbagh's hometown, where activists remembered the slain protester as an advocate for labor rights and children, independent daily Al-Shorouk reported.
Sabbagh was among dozens of protesters marching on Saturday to Cairo's Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of the revolution, to place wreaths of flowers there to commemorate more than 800 people killed during the 18 days of turmoil that sought to usher in a new era of democracy in Egypt.
Some disturbing images at those links.
This next link about the reaction to Boehner's outright "fuck you" to the President and protocol: Addicting Info – Fox News Actually Expresses Shock And Outrage Over Boehner And Netanyahu Undermining President Obama (VIDEO)
On Friday, the world watched in disbelief as Fox News actually defended the honor and office of President Obama in the wake of Speaker Boehner violating US protocol by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to Congress. In other news, pigs are flying.
During a segment on Fox, host Shepard Smith discussed the scandal with fellow host Chris Wallace, and both men were absolutely shocked and outraged by the actions of the top Republican in the House of Representatives.
On Wednesday, Boehner announced that he invited Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress. The problem is that Boehner did this without clearing the invitation with the White House, which is protocol.
"The protocol would suggest that the leader of one country would contact the leader of another country when he's traveling there. This particular event seems to be a departure from that protocol," said press secretary Josh Earnest.
Furthermore, Netanyahu is specifically going to speak to Congress in an effort to trash Obama's foreign policy in a deliberate attempt to wreck US nuclear negotiations with Iran, negotiations which a majority of Americans support.
You see, President Obama wants to use diplomacy to ease tensions between Iran, Israel, and the United States. That means securing an agreement that prevents Iran from developing a nuclear weapon while allowing them to use nuclear power as another source of energy in the Middle Eastern nation. But Republicans are literally trying to sabotage these efforts by seeking more harsh sanctions against Iran, which would be seen an act of American aggression at a time when the State Department and White House are seeking mutual peace.
Since the announcement, Beohner and Republicans have felt a major backlash. But the last place they thought they'd receive outrage from, if at all, is Fox News. Well, that shipped sailed on Friday.
Well, I would not go so far as to call this completely shocking, as it was Shep who called Boehner out. Y'all know he is the Black Sheep of the network.
For more on Israel, not just the Boehner invite.
Netanyahu defends planned Congress speech as anti-Iran strategy | Reuters
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended on Sunday a planned speech to the U.S. Congress about Iran, saying he had a moral obligation to speak out on an issue that poses a mortal threat to Israel.
His visit to Washington in March has opened up a rift with the White House and has drawn accusations in Israel that Netanyahu is undermining the country's core foreign alliance in an effort to win an election due two weeks after the trip.
Briefing his cabinet on the March 3 speech to a joint meeting of Congress, Netanyahu said his priority was to urge the United States and other powers not to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal that might endanger Israel.
Suzie Madrak makes a huge point here:
» Blog Archive » 'We'll pay non-Jews to leave Israel'
Gee, when people offered to send slaves back to Africa, we called that racist.
Addicting Info – Israeli Soldier Posed With Palestinian Woman For PR Photo, Then Shot Her In The Head (IMAGES)
And flowing into this news:
Jewish outrage as ship named after SS war criminal arrives in Europe | World news | The Guardian
Leaders of Jewish communities and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands have reacted with rage and despair at the arrival in Rotterdam of the world's biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, named after a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS.
The vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, said: "Naming such a ship after an SS officer who was convicted of war crimes is an insult to the millions who suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis. We urge the ship's owners to reconsider and rename the ship after someone more appropriate."
Esther Voet, director of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (Cidi), based in The Hague, said that the timing of the ship's arrival, shortly before Jews were targeted and killed in Paris and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was "a coincidence, I'm sure, but a sign of the times. We lost our battle to have the ship's name changed, and we are left eating dust."
Survivors of the Holocaust in Britain also spoke out. Ruth Barnett, a tireless campaigner who arrived from Nazi Germany as part of the Kindertransport, said: "I am outraged by the intensity and extent of denial and indifference that fails to challenge things like this ship, and allows the impunity for perpetrators to think they can get away with it."
The London-based Lloyd's Register dug in to defend its role in the ship's building and development, while the shipbuilder said it had been named in honour of the owner's father for his "great achievements in the offshore oil and gas industry".
Read the rest of that story at the link, especially the bullet points… it is obvious that the ship's name is something that could be seen as a slight. (To say the least.)
There is an op/ed over at the New York Times that should give you all pause…When Calculus of Loss Doesn't Add Up – NYTimes.com
Joseph Kahn, The Times's top-ranking editor for international news, told me that the Paris and Nigeria stories aren't comparable. "These were totally different challenges," he said, with the former happening in a major Western capital where The Times has a substantial staff.
He, and others, spoke of the difficulty of covering the Boko Haram story because of its remote location, the problems of verification, and the questions hanging over early reports. While Amnesty International was reporting as many as 2,000 dead, he told me, some trusted experts were cautioning against using the number. The Times needed to verify what had happened, something best done on the ground. But getting there is both difficult and time-consuming.
In retrospect, Mr. Kahn said, a story about the controversy over the numbers would have been one way to provide early and meaningful coverage — informing readers without falling prey to overstating what had happened. Such a story, especially if it had been prominently displayed and published quickly, would have been a valuable way to be transparent with readers about what The Times knew and what it didn't know.
Mr. Kahn also said that while the Paris attack had an intense and short news arc, the Boko Haram story would continue and that The Times would keep covering it with commitment. The editor on the International Desk who handles Africa coverage, Greg Winter, told me last week that Mr. Nossiter (who has also been a leading reporter on the Ebola story) was in Nigeria again working on a major Boko Haram piece.
"I understand readers' concerns about covering Nigeria, and I share them, which is why our correspondent has risked his life for years to cover the country and the turmoil in the north," Mr. Winter said.
I asked Mr. Kahn how, in general, the numbers of violent deaths figure into editorial decisions. "We don't cover everything equally," he said. "It goes to gut news judgment, as we ask: 'Is this a big deal? Are we going to deploy someone?' " Among the factors: "The circumstances, how unusual it is, the location, the relevance to American interests."
And, he said, The Times has to be careful not to overreport violent death.
"Not every incident of carnage is a major story for The New York Times. You have to put it in context, and not fill the news report with unlimited doses of terrible violent news from around the world."
But, speaking of the recent Boko Haram attack, he said: "It could have had more attention and emphasis."
I agree. I have no objection to the extent of the Paris coverage. But whatever the calculus of news judgments, these lost Nigerian lives surely were worthy of The Times's immediate, as well as its continuing, attention.
Overreport violent death?
And on that note:
Nigerian city under attack from suspected Boko Haram militants | World news | The Guardian
Escaping Boko Haram on the Road From Bama | Al Jazeera America
Notice, not from the NYT…
About Yemen: Yemen Civil War? Masses Rally in Capital & South Secedes | Informed Comment
And now back to the US:
The following links are dealing with the GOP…and the usual shit.
House GOP Aborts Dumb Anti-Choice Bill Because Ladies Vote Too, Huh | Wonkette
The GOP White Guy Club Vs. Gynecology | The Mahablog
Free To Be Dumb: The Republican Iowa Freedom Summit Lives Up To Its Billing | News Corpse
"20-Week Bans Are Devastating for Women Like Me" | Mother Jones
Jorge Ramos, Voice of Latino Voters on Univision, Sends Shiver Through G.O.P. – NYTimes.com
Weeping Christian men apologize for letting you have an abortion
Funny or Die Apologizes for That Christian Bro Abortion Apology Video
And while on the subject of coochies:
Teen poses as doctor for month before caught in Florida | WGN-TV
Police in Florida and officials at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach have agreed not to charge a teenager they caught posing as a doctor.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports police were called Tuesday after a patient alerted staff at the medical center's OB/GYN office that a juvenile dressed in a lab coat was inside an exam room. The patient said the lab coat had St. Mary's logo and "anesthesiology" stitched on the front.
A security guard told police he'd seen the teen around the hospital for a month. Another said the teen entered secured areas of the hospital this week.
The teen told police he's been a doctor for years.
The teen's mother told police he's under the care of a doctor and is not taking his medicine.
On to the Arts…Movies…etc.
Selma: Black History According to Oprah | Black Agenda Report
Julie Walters: lack of working-class actors is sad | Culture | The Guardian
Samuel L Jackson: 'I create characters – it keeps me from being me all day' | Film | The Guardian
Mission To Mars begins with some of the worst expository dialogue ever · Scenic Routes · The A.V. Club
Richard McWhorter, Legendary Assistant Director, Dies at 100 – The Hollywood Reporter
German scientists invent working teleporter, of sorts | Technology | The Guardian
Warner Bros' bold stance on Wonder Woman opens the door for Hollywood evolution – Comment – Voices – The Independent
And something that will probably make a film one of these days, have you seen this story out of Argentina:
Spies, lies and death: plot thickens in Argentine scandal | Reuters
Prosecutor in Argentina presidential case was shot point-blank in forehead: authorities
Journalist who broke news of prosecutor's death flees Argentina | Reuters
Gosh, what a lot of links for you today, and I've got a couple more:
Experts examine bones as Spain hunts for Cervantes' remains (Update)
Who was Chaucer? | Books | The Guardian
And end with two stories on women, journalism and internet threats.
Jezebel staffers express concern after Gawker Media seating chart is published | Capital New York
Wikipedia tacitly endorses GamerGate by blocking its opponents from editing gender-related articles | PandoDaily
That's all folks….
BTW, here is a gallery of images, some of which were not put up in the post here.
Is it Sunday? Reads: Yeah, I guess it is…Posted: January 4, 2015 Filed under: Africa, Art, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Egypt, Feminists, Foreign Affairs, History, legislation, Middle East, misogyny, morning reads, racism, Republican politics, Saudi Arabia, unemployment, Women's Rights, worker rights | Tags: catalogues of illuminated manuscripts 14 Comments
Good Morning All
I had completely forgot today was Sunday, and since my laptop is still giving problems…and my new one is not being delivered until Monday, this post is going to be brief.
Images will be from this blog…discarding images, if you have some time go and check that site out.I love the crossed eyes on the knight that is getting hit with the flaming fart…and the sad face on the bonnacon, like he is sorry but he can't help it…
Now the links:
AirAsia flight QZ8501: icing of engines was likely cause of crash, says agency | World news | The Guardian
Weather was the "triggering factor" in the crash of AirAsia flight 8501 with icing likely causing engine damage, Indonesia's meteorological agency said on Sunday, as bad weather continued to hinder rescue efforts.
The Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea a week ago carrying 162 people from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers are hunting for the "black box" flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.
The search teams from several countries including the United States and Russia recovered another body on Sunday, bringing the total to 31.
They also found another major part of the aircraft to add to the four discovered on Saturday but rough seas again forced them to abandon their efforts early.
In other aviation news: Saudi national airline may introduce gender segregation on its flights — RT News
You may remember I linked to a story recently about the delays caused by certain Orthodox Jewish men who refuse to sit next to women passengers on flights out of New York. This is on the other side of the coin…I mean religious coin, if you get what I am saying.
Saudi Arabia's national airline carrier is planning to introduce gender segregation aboard its flights following complaints from passengers who refused to have random males seated next to their wives, the Kingdom's media report.
Airline company Saudia will order its staff to keep men and women separated onboard, unless they are close relatives, the Emirates247 news website reported.
Meanwhile, sticking with the Mideast…North Africa a little longer:
Have you seen this? Egypt warned Amal Clooney she risked arrest | World news | The Guardian
More on this from Juan Cole: Why Egypt's Threat to Arrest Amal Clooney will hurt its Economy | Informed Comment
Patrick Kingsley of The Guardian reported on Friday that Amal Clooney was threatened with jail by Egyptian authorities last February if she released a report in Cairo on flaws in the Egyptian judiciary that had been commissioned by the International Bar Association. The report is available on the Web here.
Significant elements of the Egyptian judiciary are obviously arbitrary, conspiratorial to the point of paranoia, and a complete mess, as demonstrated by the opposite verdicts reached in the two cases against former dictator Hosni Mubarak; in the mass executions of Muslim Brothers ordered by a notorious provincial hanging judge; by the jailing of Aljazeera and other journalists for reporting the news; and by the jailing of protesters for protesting (the hero of 2011, Ahmad Maher of the April 6 Youth, among many others, is in jail for another two years).
Ms. Clooney and her colleagues wrote early last year,
"Three distinct prosecutorial trends are discernible. First, under the short period of military rule that followed the 2011 revolution, more civilians were prosecuted for 'crimes' against the military – such as the crime of 'insulting the military' – than had ever been prosecuted during 30 years of Mubarak rule. Secondly, under Morsi's Brotherhood presidency, those who insulted Islam or insulted the President himself were targeted. According to some sources, the number of prosecutions brought for 'insulting the president' in the Morsi period exceeded the number of such prosecutions brought over three decades under Mubarak and the number of persons who were sentenced to imprisonment for insulting Islam also increased dramatically. Finally, in the post-Morsi era during the second half of 2013, a startling number of prosecutions were initiated against Brotherhood figures, including the former President himself, the Brotherhood's entire senior leadership and thousands of others.
This record of selective prosecutions undermines the potential for a peaceful transition and reconciliation between communities in Egypt, as well as the right to freedom of expression in a new democracy. It is therefore suggested that a transitional justice process be put in place, ideally with international involvement to guarantee independence and impartiality. This would honour the rights of the many victims of serious crimes that have been committed in Egypt and combat impunity for government abuses."
So she probably wasn't surprised when they threatened to prosecute her, too.
One reason all this matters, beyond the thuggish threats of arbitrary imprisonment of people for thinking independently, is that Egypt's judiciary is an obstacle to the country attracting foreign investment.
More at the link.
To think that Clooney's wife may get more attention then him? hmmmm
Not that I think it is, as the title of this article puts it: The End of Men – Atlantic Mobile
Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women's progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn't the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences
Meh, you go and read the article and take it for what it is…it is a long winded piece of…well, it was written back in 2010, I guess the Atlantic felt the time had come to republish it? I don't know but they had it up at their site as if it was a recent post. The point is, things have gotten worse for women and I feel it ain't going to get better any time soon.
Example? Why activists and feminists get so many death threats – Salon.com
More than twenty years have passed, but Jonathan Huston still vividly remembers one specific day during his stint as editor of a New Hampshire weekly.
[I was] writing a series on the titans of trash — about racketeering by the nation's two largest garbage haulers. A lawyer came to my office one day to convey a warning about my latest investigative reporting.
"Jonathan, I hope I don't open up the pages of the Union Leader one day," he said, "to read that the editor of a certain weekly newspaper got into his car, turned over the ignition, and got blown sky high."
"That shall not happen," I said.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I don't own a car."
To some extent the specter of violent death hangs over us all, lurking at the edge of consciousness most of the time, perhaps brought into focus by a mass shooting in which victims remind us of our children or friends, or of ourselves. Or maybe we are shaken by a local story about domestic violence, a murder suicide, a drive by, or road rage turned lethal.
For women in particular, the threat never completely disappears. A cartoon that made its way around Facebook underscores the point. On one side a thought bubble above a male figure reads, "What if she gave me a fake number?" On the other, a bubble above a female says, "What if he rapes and kills me?"
Mercifully, for most of us most of the time, the risk of violence seems small and distant. Even so, it can shape how we live. It can make us hesitate to say no. Or yes. It can make us hesitate to stay home alone. Or go out at night.
Or speak our minds.
Fear has the power to paralyze and silence even strong, determined people, which is why threats of violence are such a potent, common, and toxic presence in political discourse. Consequently, it is a wonder, and a gift to us all, when engaged citizens like Jonathan Huston refuse to be silenced.
Threats of violence can be explicit or implied, verbal or behavioral. They can target a single individual like the president, or a class of individuals, like queers. And the intimidation can take many forms: the mob lawyer's casual comment about a car bomb; an assault weapon slung over a shoulder in a Texas restaurant; a Louisiana law forcing abortion providers to publish their names, addresses and photos; the body of a lynch or rape victim swaying from a tree.
As a psychologist turned writer, I found myself wanting to understand more about what life is like for activists who find themselves living—to borrow a biblical phrase—in the valley of the shadow of death. I wanted to understand also why some of them, instead of backing down decide to lean in. So, I started asking around. One of the first things I learned was how surprisingly many people within two degrees of separation from my own life had dealt with threats of violence at one time or another. The second thing—less surprising—was that staying centered and engaged in the face of even threatening innuendo is far from easy.
Read the rest at the link.
In strange as fuck news: Granite City man finds out what's been hidden in his arm for 51 years : News
Uh, here's the kicker…it was a piece of a car, a 1963 Thunderbird turn signal that got stuck in there from an accident years ago.
Anyway, there is a good article however over at the Atlantic about my home state of Georgia: What's Wrong With Georgia? – Atlantic Mobile
Throughout the economic downturn and subsequent recovery, there have been some usual suspects when it comes to the most pitiful state in monthly unemployment figures.
For awhile, Michigan took the prize for highest unemployment rate in the country, until Nevada knocked it off its perch in May of 2010. Nevada then held the title for most of the next three years, sometimes sharing the honor with California, until it ceded the top (more accurately, the bottom) spot to Rhode Island in December 2013.
But now, as the economy picks up steam, and consumer sentiment rises to its highest levels since 2007, a new state keeps appearing at the top of the unemployment list. Georgia, home to Fortune 500 heavyweights such as Home Depot, UPS, and Coca-Cola, had the highest unemployment rate in the nation in August, September, and October. With a November rate of 7.2 percent, the state was narrowly edged out by Mississippi's 7.3 percent (December statistics won't come out until mid-January).
This may seem surprising, since Georgia was named the best state to do business in both 2014 and 2013 by Site Selection magazine, largely because of its workforce-training program and low tax rates. Nathan Deal, the state's GOP governor, handily won reelection in November against Jimmy Carter's grandson by speaking about Georgia as a job magnet.
But those who follow the state's economy say the state's troubling economic figures are directly related to Georgia's attempts to paint itself as a good state for corporations.
"This is what a state looks like when you have a hands-off, laissez-faire approach to the economy," said Michael Wald, a former Bureau of Labor Statistics economist in Atlanta. "Georgia is basically a low-wage, low-tax, low-service state, that's the approach they've been taking for a very long time."
Oh it is low everything state…but then again, we all know that already.
I found this interesting, Cannonfire-Get the government off our tops!
Are they serious? Oklahoma may soon have a law banning hoodies in public. Apparently, this new piece of legilsation is an extension of an old law against wearing a hood during the commission of a crime — a measure originally designed to make life inconvenient for the KKK.
This is ridiculous. I used to wear a hoodie, during my first winter on the east coast. When you're a shaven-headed guy with no scarf, a hoodie can be a lifesaver. (My ears get cold, even in summer.) Eventually, I acquired some classier means of staying warm — tuques, hats, scarves, earmuffs, long winter coats.
But dammit, I'll wear a hoodie if I want to. It's my right. Besides, they offer cheap warmth.
Interestingly, this measure is taking hold in Oklahoma, which is nobody's idea of a blue state. How can the Republicans blame government intrusiveness on the Dems?
How the hell can the Republicans pass shit like this continuously, not to mention the crap they pull with women's right to choose…and still say they are against government interference? We are in for a shitstorm of GOP legislative fuckturds…I am telling you!
Oh, and since I brought up the subject of fuckturds: 2014 LIEBERMAN AWARD WINNER: BOB McCULLOCH | Gin and Tacos
(Editor's note: The Lieberman Award is given annually to the worst example of a human being over a twelve month period. Click the tag at the end of the post to review past winners.)
Gin and Tacos and its parent company, Nordyne Defense Dynamics, hold very high standards with respect to the final product you see published here four or five times per week. When we say someone is an asshole, we want you the reader to know that we have done our homework and vetted the subject thoroughly. We aren't going to give you people who are just kind of an asshole. You can rest assured that when we look back at a year and say "This person was an asshole of such magnitude that he defined 2014 with how rotten he is at being human," the honor is richly deserved and well earned.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch is everything wrong with America today, far more so than any cigar stealing Thug or even any trigger happy police officer could ever be. He is old, dying, white America incarnate, struggling mightily to control a country it is no longer capable of understanding and not even willing to try.
Bob McCulloch is every gun-hoarding authoritarian personality type who sees a threat in everything and everyone that does not look and behave like himself. Bob McCulloch is the America that is on its way being demographically irrelevant and is attempting to maintain a position of superiority by dominating the institutions of state power to such an extent that their privileges can never be taken away. You know, like white people did in Apartheid-era South Africa.
Bob McCulloch is your uncle who bitches constantly about big government and taxes while every paycheck he has collected in his life has been from the public teat. He is the public's mental caricature of an incompetent, corrupt civil servant, so protected and insulated from the repercussions of his professional actions that he is unwilling even to fake giving a shit if you can see how corrupt he is. Bob McCulloch is the old, bitter white people that dot major cities throughout the Rust Belt; everyone young and financially able has left and now he reigns over a poor, crumbling, crime-ridden corpse of a city and it makes him so bitter and angry, despite his job security and material comfort, that all he can do to make himself feel a little better is lash out at people he considers a rung (or two) beneath him on the social ladder.
You need to go read the rest. Y'all know I post links regularly from Gin and Tacos, be sure to check this one out.
There is a series going on now at the National Geographic: On the 'Grapes of Wrath' Trail, the Dust Bowl Still Resonates
Retracing the route Steinbeck described in his classic novel 75 years ago, a family finds parallels between today and the 'Dirty Thirties.' This is the first of three parts.
"The highway became their home and movement their medium of expression. Little by little they settled into the new life." —The Grapes of Wrath
Interesting indeed…
In another nostalgic look, this time cartoons: Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Dot and the Line
The 1950s were arguably the most successful decade of animator/director/overall creative genius Chuck Jones' career: he directed almost two dozen cartoons for the Warner Bros. studio during that period. Eight of these cartoons would eventually be voted to the Jerry Beck-curated 50 Greatest Cartoons list in 1994; four of them–What's Opera, Doc; Duck Amuck; Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century; and One Froggy Evening–appear in the top five of that list. In fact, Jones is the most-represented animator on the list–with ten total entries, his work comprises a full TWENTY PERCENT of what is considered the "best" animation of all time.
No other artist comes close.
Jones was undoubtedly the biggest asset to the Warner Bros. animation empire, and he was locked into an exclusive contract with the studio. But in the early 1960s, Jones collaborated with animators from UPA to produce the feature Gay Purr-ee (1962), which he co-wrote with his wife, Dorothy. Ironically, Warner Bros. won the distribution rights for the film; when Jones' role in its production was discovered, his now-violated contract with the studio was terminated in 1962. The Warner Bros. animation department was shut down the following year.
Jones subsequently formed his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, and rehired his old unit from Warner Bros. (which had been disbanded after Jones was fired). The studio was contracted to create new cartoons for the Tom and Jerry series for MGM; two years later, Jones' studio was purchased outright by MGM and renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts. All in all, Jones produced nearly three dozen Tom and Jerry shorts throughout the 1960s.
But his time wasn't completely consumed by the antics of the cat and mouse; he also worked on several other projects for the studio, one of which–The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1965)–won Jones his only competitive Academy Award as a producer.
The Dot and the Line, as its full title indicates, tells of the romance between a dilettante dot and the straight line that loves her. While the dot is initially enamored of a "wild and unkempt squiggle" (whose wildness is underscored by a clamorous rock-and-roll tune that sounds every time it is onscreen), the "stiff as a board" straight line tries to adapt himself into something else in order to entice the dot back to his side. After struggling a long time, the line finally learns to form himself into an angle, which then allows him to form an unending series of increasingly complex shapes that, in the end, are much more appealing to the dot than the "chaos" presented by the squiggle. The cartoon concludes with the tongue-in-cheek moral: "To the vector belong the spoils."
Read more about "The Dot and the Line" at the link and you can also see the full video of the cartoon here:
And since this post has been illustrated with doodles and drawings from Medieval manuscripts: New Images on the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts – Medieval manuscripts blog
Exciting news for those of our readers who might want to search for an image of a 13th-century devil with horns, an English drawing of a horse from the 10th century, rain over the Italian countryside, severed limbs or even Job afflicted with boils. More than 200 new images are now available online in our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. For those who have not yet used this catalogue, it has an advanced search page which allows you to search for key words combined with place of origin, date range and many other criteria: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/search2.asp.
Over 4000 illuminated manuscripts from 800 to 1800 have been catalogued to date and we have now added a new selection with images and descriptions that were not previously available online, mostly from the Additionals series.
I bet you can tell from the images below…the search keyword was "dwarf."
Finally, bits of childhood keep washing up on the shores of beaches…BBC News – Mapped: The beaches where Lego washes up
The story of millions of Lego pieces washing up on beaches attracted huge interest when first told by the Magazine. The list of places where the toys have been spotted is still growing.
Beachcomber Tracey Williams has been picking up Lego along the Cornish coastline ever since a container spill dumped millions of the toy pieces into the sea in 1997.
Since the curious tale was reported by the Magazine, dozens of people have contacted Williams to say they, too, have found parts of the much-loved toy scattered on shores.
They mostly got in touch via the Facebook page she set up about the drifting toy pieces from various Lego sets, many of which were nautical-themed.
Most of the people who've contacted her found Lego around Cornwall, she says. "From what I've been told, Perranporth is a hotspot for brooms, and the Lizard seems to be a hotspot for octopuses."
Brighton, East Sussex, some 300 miles away, is the furthest confirmed report she has received to the east along England's southern coastline. But some of the sightings have come from much further afield.
Nearly 4.8 million Lego toy parts fell overboard from the Tokio Express container ship in a storm off Land's End on 13 February 1997.
Williams says the pieces which now drift up on an "almost daily basis" in numerous locations are flippers, spear guns, seagrass, scuba tanks and life preservers.
There is a breakdown of parts that were lost and other pictures at the link…
Well, have a
wonderful day.
Sunday Reads: Housewife Bakery, Homeless Mother and More Wealthy PeoplePosted: April 6, 2014 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, abortion rights, Africa, Art, child sexual abuse, children, China, court rulings, Crime, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, History, Homeless, income inequality, Injustice system, morning reads, poverty, Psychopaths in charge, Real Life Horror, Reproductive Rights, Spain, Violence against women | Tags: amazonfresh, Black Death, Chase Elliott, Kansas City Public Schools, Kansas City school, measles Orange County, Medieval Shit Stinks, MH370, NY Subway, rape, Southwest Early College Campus, Vogue Italia, Ziguinchor Senegal 30 Comments
Good Morning All…
It was so distressing for to see one of our Sky Dancing family have such a traumatic reaction to one of our post a few days ago, I could somewhat understand, as my rape experience comes back in nightmares…and even in flashes of memory during times when I least expect it. But I could not think of anything to say, of any words to offer that would be consoling…it was like I froze up. I was afraid to even look at the comments yesterday. I did not want to face up to it.
Why couldn't I do that? What was making me recoil from the blog like that?
I feel so bad, and still do not know what to say to my dear one, who know who she is…
I'll try to keep from lingering on the issue, but there are a few disturbing stories I am bringing y'all today that will probably rub salt in old wounds.
First some good and happy news, on Friday Bill Elliott's son Chase Elliott won his first Nationwide Series NASCAR race: Dawsonville's Chase Elliott wins first Nationwide race at Texas
Hometown hero Chase Elliott used a strong move on the outside to pass Kevin Harvick for the lead at Texas Motor Speedway and then sailed away his first career Nationwide Series victory.
The 18-year-old won in his sixth career start and is the second youngest winner in series history. He's roughly four months older than Joey Logano, who was 18 years and 21 days when he won his first career Nationwide race in 2008.
Elliott won in a Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, driving the No. 9 as a tribute to his father, 1988 Cup champion Bill Elliott.
"I can't believe it, just to have the opportunity to race with these guys at JR Motorsports, just to have this opportunity is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any racer who wants to make it to the top," Elliott said. "It just means the word for me to be here."
Elliott became the fourth driver in Nationwide history to earn his first series victory at Texas, joining Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch and Trevor Bayne.
Chase is finishing his senior year of high school…my dad worked for Bill here in Banjoville when Chase was born…and it is a funny thing. See, Daddy put up the wallpaper in Chase's nursery, and now look at what the kid has done!
On another personal note, hurray: UConn beats Florida 63-53 to make NCAA final. (I went to UConn for my Paralegal degree…)
And…one more, the title of this post is referring to the Housewife Bakery in Tampa, Florida.
When I was a little girl we would drive by this bakery every day except Sundays. It was on the way to my ballet studio…and the name of the place always pissed me off!
I would always complain, "Why would they call that Housewife bakery, how sexist!"
Ugh, it still rubs me the wrong way.
Okay on with the rest of the links.
News on MH370: Second pulse detected in hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines plane
A Chinese ship searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has detected a pulse signal for a second time, Australian co-ordinators say.
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston called the discovery in the southern Indian Ocean an "important and encouraging lead" but warned that there was no confirmation of a link to flight MH370.
He told reporters that the second signal was monitored for about 90 seconds and was detected less than 2 km (1.2 miles) from the original.
Update on a case in China where the school children were poisoned to death: Chinese kindergarten head sentenced to death for child poisoning | The Raw Story
A Chinese court has sentenced the head of a kindergarten and an accomplice to death for killing two children with poisoned yoghurt in northern China, state-run media reported Sunday.
Kindergarten head Shi Haixia poisoned the children last year in a revenge attack aimed at a rival school in Hebei province which had higher enrollment, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A court in Hebei sentenced Shi and an accomplice to death, while another person was given a five-year jail sentence, the report said.
Two village girls died after their grandmother found the yoghurt, which was laced with rat poison and placed on a roadside along with several notebooks, state media reported earlier.
The children, whose ages were not given, were found "foaming at the mouth," the report said. One died before reaching hospital while the other died after receiving treatment.
China has a shortage of state-run kindergartens, and competition between private profit-driven institutions can be intense.
And in another horrifying news story dealing with a young girl: Senegalese law bans raped 10-year-old from aborting twins | Global development | theguardian.com
A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a neighbour has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion.
The plight of the girl, who is five months pregnant and lives in Ziguinchor in the south, highlights the heavy cost women and children are paying for a Napoleonic law on abortion that is still in force in the former French colony.
"She is going to have to go through with the pregnancy," said Fatou Kiné Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers' association. "The best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl gets regular scans and free medical care.
"Senegal's abortion law is one of the harshest and deadliest in Africa. A doctor or pharmacist found guilty of having a role in a termination faces being struck off. A woman found guilty of abortion can be jailed for up to 10 years."
It is sickening.
But there is more disgusting shit…this time back here in the US: 6 suspended amid Missouri school rape allegations – Yahoo News
Months after vowing to boost security at a Kansas City school where a student says she was dragged to a room and raped, district officials have suspended six employees amid new allegations from a 14-year-old girl who alleges a boy repeatedly raped her at school.
The girl in the latest case, who the police report describes as autistic, told authorities the 14-year-old boy raped her "on numerous occasions" over the last month at Southwest Early College Campus while a 13-year-old girl stood in the hall as a lookout. The boy and the alleged lookout were charged Wednesday in juvenile court with one count each of rape and sodomy and ordered to remain detained Friday.
The school district began its own investigation after learning of the new allegations Wednesday. Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent R. Stephen Green said in a statement released Thursday the district has placed "a number" of school employees on administrative leave and that other personnel could be put on leave depending on the outcome of the district's probe.
"Once the investigation is complete, a final decision will be made about whether they will continue as employees of KCPS or will be dismissed," Green said in his statement.
Please read more of the details of all these stories at the links.
I am going to move on to more newsy reads for you after the jump.
Wednesday Reads: Put up your dukes!Posted: March 26, 2014 Filed under: abortion rights, Accommodation and Compromise, Affordable Care Act (ACA), American Gun Fetish, Barack Obama, birth control, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, fundamentalist Christians, Gun Control, morning reads, NSA, National Security Agency, Religious Conscience, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Russia, SCOTUS, the GOP, U.S. Politics, Ukraine, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: China, Crimea, ebola, Guinea, Hobby Lobby, international space center, Justice Kennedy, Liberia, NASA 38 Comments
Good Morning
Oi! Put up your dukes and lets duke it out!
WordPress has fugged up with their editor, which means that the pictures and formatting may be a little off in this post. That said the images are all found on pinterest and are all various vintage picture of women boxing.
Because, the shit going on with the Supremes is something that makes me want to put on a pair of boxing gloves and kick some PLUB #HobbyLobby loving ass.
Justice Kennedy Thinks Hobby Lobby Is An Abortion Case — That's Bad News For Birth Control | ThinkProgress
"Your reasoning would permit" Congress to force corporations to pay for abortions, Kennedy told Verrilli. This was not the Anthony Kennedy that worried about conservatives imposing their anti-gay "animus" on others, this was the Anthony Kennedy that views abortion as a grave moral wrong. Shortly after Kennedy made this statement, Justice Kagan's face dropped. It appeared that she'd just figured out that she would be joining a dissenting opinion.
It's worth noting that Kennedy expressed a different concern than one offered shortly thereafter by Chief Justice John Roberts. Hobby Lobby objects to four forms of contraception on the mistaken ground that these contraceptive methods are actually forms of abortion — a brief filed by numerous medical organizations explains that they are not. Roberts, however, suggested that someone's mere belief that something is an abortion is enough to trigger an religious exemption to federal law.
More from :
SCOTUSblog: Birth control, business, and religious beliefs: In Plain English
Wednesday round-up : SCOTUSblog
Ugh….but that fucked up crap about the pill being "abortion" aside, last night Boston Boomer put up a tweet in the comments that I think needs to be shared up on the front page.
This brings up a good point, one of the tweets in this thread says that Hobby Lobby responded…
Some of the tweets mention the "myth" of infanticide and forced abortions…which is bullshit. Take a look at this from Telegraph:
Malaysia Airlines missing flight exposes tragedy of China's 'orphaned' one-child parents
Much has been written about the human rights abuses associated with China's notorious one-child policy: the forced abortions, sterilisations and even cases of infanticide as rural families sought to rid themselves of girls they thought were less useful than boys.
But the disappearance of MH370 has cast light a less well-known but equally devastating phenomenon: that of the "orphaned" parents who, through accident or illness, lost the only child the Chinese government allowed them to have.
There are an estimated one million so-called "shidu" families in China, with state media reporting that around 76,000 new families are "orphaned" each year.
"When you lose your only child, it feels like the sky has fallen in," said one bereaved Shanghai mother, who lost her only daughter and her husband to a 2012 car accident.
"Because of the one-child policy a million families have lost their offspring forever," added the woman, who requested anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the subject. "It is an ethical tragedy. Nobody can take away the pain."
Recent months have seen several major Chinese cities and provinces including Beijing and Shanghai start to change the controversial birth control policy, relaxing family planning rules so parents who are both only children can now have two children.
On the subject of lost children…grown children…the numbers have gone up in the death toll over in the Washington state landslide claims up to 24, more than 100 missing.
The number of dead climbed to as high as 24 with the recovery Tuesday of two more bodies and another eight believed to have been located in the debris.
Authorities did not immediately release the identities of the dead nor did they provide details about where the bodies were found.
At least 176 people are unaccounted for. Officials have stressed those unaccounted for are not necessarily all victims of the disaster. They say they believe many names have been duplicated.
Three sheriff's deputies who specialize in missing persons cases have begun reviewing the lists to get a more accurate count, Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said.
And if death from plane crash or mudslide is not depressing enough, how about Ebola: W Africa scrambles to prevent Ebola spread
West African nations scrambled to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus suspected to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea, with symptoms of the disease reported in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia as well.
The spread of Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases known, has spooked nations with weak health care systems. In Guinea's southeast, home to all the confirmed cases, residents are avoiding large gatherings and prices in some markets have spiked as transporters avoid the area.
Health authorities in Liberia said they had now recorded eight suspected cases of Ebola, mainly in people who crossed the border from Guinea.
Five of these had died but tests were still being carried out to check if the cases were indeed Ebola, the Reuters news agency reported.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said a total of 86 suspected cases, including 59 deaths, had been reported in southeastern Guinea near the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia.
This next quote is very scary:
"People are really frightened. They have seen people die in a matter of just two or three days. They are constantly worried who is going to be the next fatality," said Joseph Gbaka Sandounou, who manages operations for aid agency Plan International in Guekedou.
On to more "newsy" link goodness. Major Garrett has a piece up over at National Journal: Obama Tries to Put Putin in His Place—Again
Moments after deflecting a question about his diminished influence on the world stage, President Obama described Russia as a "regional power" operating in Crimea out of weakness, not strength.
Noting Russia's long-standing influence in all of Ukraine, Obama said Russian President Vladimir Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea "indicates less influence, not more."
I guess that's why Ukraine's defense minister resigned and Ukrainian troops bugged out of Crimea, leaving it to Russian forces. This is the only "off ramp" that matters in Crimea. Ukraine and its rhetorically florid Western allies took it. Not Putin.
Even as the White House insists Crimea is not "lost" (Putin can find it without satellite imagery, after all), the grudging language of concession seeps from every corridor of Ukrainian talks here.
"It's not a done deal in the sense that the international community by and large isn't recognizing the annexation of Crimea," Obama said, before acknowledging the "facts on the ground" favored Russia. "It would be dishonest to say there is a simple solution to resolving what has already taken place in Crimea."
Obama and European leaders are rattled and resentful, thunderstruck that the wispy bonds of international "norms" could be so easily shredded. Fearful of the precedent they appear incapable of reversing, and desperate to limit Putin's ambitions to Crimea, the G-7 nations have effectively conceded Crimea. They threatened "sectoral sanctions" if Putin further bulldozed international law by gobbling up more of Ukraine or plowing into Moldova. Weak or strong, Putin enforces the new Crimean status quo. All he's lost is Russia's G-8 membership pin and decoder ring.
One of our astronauts hitched a ride yesterday. Leaving politics behind, Russian-U.S. crew blasts off for space | Reuters
Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut blasted off for six-month stay aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday, a partnership unaffected by the political rancor and economic sanctions triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson lifted off at 5:17 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The trip to the space station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles above Earth, was scheduled to take about six hours. However, an unknown problem caused the crew's Soyuz capsule to skip two planned steering maneuvers, delaying the crew's arrival until Thursday.
"The crew is in no danger. The Soyuz (is) equipped with plenty of consumables to go even beyond the next two days, should that be become necessary. Nobody expects that that will be the case," mission commentator Rob Navias said during a NASA Television broadcast.
My son has a sinus infection, and was home from school yesterday…so he watched the launch live.
At Least Russia and the U.S. Still Get Along in Outer Space – NationalJournal.com
NASA, however, is not worried about the Ukraine crisis taking a toll on space exploration.
"We do not expect the current Russia-Ukraine situation to have an impact on our long-standing civil space cooperation with Russia, which goes back decades, including our partnership on the International Space Station program," said NASA spokesman Joshua Buck in a statement to National Journal. "We are confident that our two space agencies will continue to work closely as they have throughout various ups and downs of the broader U.S.-Russia relationship."
The International Space Station has indeed weathered terrestrial political storms in the past. "It doesn't appear that we are affected by what's going on diplomatically with the Russians," Al Sofge, director of NASA's human exploration and operations division, has said of the conflict in Syria and Russia's protection of American whistle-blower Edward Snowden. "I don't know that we've ever even discussed it."
After 16 years in orbit, the International Space Station is truly a bilateral effort. The station, divided into American and Russian segments, uses American solar arrays and power systems, Russian life-support systems, and a navigation system that comes from both nations.
The U.S. and Russia first collaborated in space in July 1975, when a Soviet Soyuz capsule carrying two cosmonauts docked with a U.S. Apollo module carrying three astronauts. In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. asked Russia to join its work on the International Space Station. Russia was too financially strapped to build a program of its own, BBC's Melissa Hogenboom explained in 2012, and the U.S. was behind schedule on the project and needed help.
This "reluctant codependency," as NBC space analyst James Oberg dubbed it, persists to this day. At the International Space Station, Russia depends on NASA's electronics and communications technology, which are more advanced. The U.S. depends on Roscosmos, the Russian federal agency, to send its astronauts to space. After NASA retired its space-shuttle program in 2011, Russia became the sole nation with the capability of carrying astronauts and cargo to and from space. Even U.S. national security satellites are powered into orbit on an American rocket with a Russian-built rocket engine.
While Jake was watching that rocket take off, I told him the Russians would not mess up that arrangement, they are getting paid. How much?
Right now, NASA pays $70.7 million per seat to send its astronauts to space on Russian Soyuz capsules, $8 million more than a previous agreement. But by 2017, NASA officials say the U.S. should be able to send its astronauts to the International Space Station on its own, thanks to private American spaceflight companies.
I will put this other link here for you, Zandar Versus The Stupid: Last Call For One Hell Of A Coincidence, where an article in the Business Insider by Michael Kelley is asking the question:
U.S. officials think that Russia recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine's border.
The revelation reportedly has the White House "very nervous," especially because it's unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency's snooping on digital and electronic communications.
One interesting fact involved is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.
In July, primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald told The Associated Press that Snowden "is in possession of literally thousands of documents that contain very specific blueprints that would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."
So it's either a crazy coincidence that the Russians figured out how to evade NSA surveillance while hosting the NSA-trained hacker, or else it implies that Snowden provided the Russians with access to the NSA's blueprint.
No doubt Kelley's article is going to draw a massive screed from Double G and the usual suspects. But as the people who support Snowden's actions remind us, we need to have a serious debate about American intelligence capabilities, and that includes debating the consequences of someone with the vast knowledge of these capabilities defecting to a foreign country.
I've said on a number of occasions that the actions of Snowden and his partners are not consistent with the goal of reigning in the NSA through existing means, but very consistent with the goal of taking it upon themselves to irreparably damage our intelligence-gathering abilities as a lesson to the Unites States government.
The threats have been made that if anything happens to Snowden, the full trove of information would be leaked.
Zandar asks…
It's a reasonable question to ask if that's already happened.
So, over at CNN they are looking for news since their 24/7 coverage of MH Flight 370 is coming to a close….Two CNN Producers Arrested in Sad Attempt to Break into the WTC Site
Two CNN producers were arrested today after trying—and failing miserably—to break into the World Trade Center site for a story about people who successfully broke in.
A CNN spokesperson said that producers Connor Boals, 26, and Yon Pomrenze, 35, were on assignment "but were not asked to sneak onto the WTC site."
According to reports, the pair first tried to talk their way past security guards into the heavily guarded construction site. When that failed, they tried scaling a nearby fence. Both times officers merely turned them away.
The tipping point came on their third attempt, when they tried to forcibly push their way through a security checkpoint.
That coup de grâce got Boals and Pomrenze cuffed and booked on criminal trespass, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct charges.
Sad…sad…sad…when all they had to do was head on over to Jersey: Body parts injure 4 after man killed by train
A man was struck and killed by a train Tuesday in a gruesome scene that left others on the New Brunswick Station platform injured.
Preliminary eyewitness accounts suggest that the man was struck after leaning into the path of the oncoming train while standing on the station platform.
As a result of the collision, at least four other people waiting on the platform were struck by parts of the man's body, officials said.
The incident happened at about 5 p.m. EDT and involved a New York-bound Northeast Corridor train carrying about 300 passengers, NJ Transit spokesman John Durso said.
Three of the four people who were hurt went to the hospital with injuries…eek! Now that is a "story" those producers could have gotten into…dirty laundry there. Literally.
Back to the MH370 for a moment: Families of Flight MH370 Victims Issue Blistering Statement | Vanity Fair
The families on the receiving end didn't take kindly to the message or the manner in which it was delivered. Families gathered in Beijing read a blistering rebuke of Malaysian Airlines and authorities on Monday:
"At 10pm on March 25, the Malaysian prime minister sent a statement to the families of MH370 passengers without any direct evidence that MH370 crashed in the south Indian ocean and no people survived.
From March 8 when they announced that MH370 lost contact to today, 18 days have passed during which the Malaysian government and military constantly tried to delay, deceive the passengers' families and cheat the whole world.
This shameless behaviour not only fooled and hurt the families of the 154 passengers but also misguided and delayed rescue actions, wasting a large quantity of human resources and materials and lost valuable time for the rescue effort.
If the 154 passengers did lose their lives, Malaysia Airlines, the Malaysian government and military are the real executioners who killed them. We the families of those on board submit our strongest protest against them.
We will take every possible means to pursue the unforgivable crimes and responsibility of all three."
Malaysia Airlines claims a representative for the company told the assembled families in person, and that phone calls and SMS messages were only sent to relatives who were not in the family-support center.
The rest of the links are in quick dump fashion:
What happens when a female student in a hot pink top walks through Cairo University? – News – Student – The Independent
Wearing a pink top and tight jeans, the young woman is whistled and shouted at as she makes her way through the site amongst a growing group of men following her.
University guards are seen in the clip, which has gone viral on social media, escorting her off the premises after she hid in a toilet to escape the group, who were allegedly trying to remove her clothes.
The school Dean blamed the girl of course…video at the link.
From the fuckwads in my state, In Georgia, Carry a Gun, Just Not in the Capitol – NYTimes.com
There's a lot of concern about new legislation in Georgia that expands how people can buy, carry and use guns. It reduces some licensing requirements and provides Georgians with a stronger "Stand Your Ground" defense should they feel threatened and decide to open fire. Some critics were calling it the "guns everywhere" law. That's so unfair. Georgia's lawmakers are not allowing everyone's safety to be endangered by gun-slinging people. They are deeply concerned, for example, with their own.
The bill, passed on Thursday and awaiting the governor's signature, will, among other things, allow people to carry concealed weapons into more places — including ones, like bars, which conveniently enough are spots where they are likely to be put to use.
They may also be carried in unsecured areas of airports. Even toting a gun in secured areas will merely be a misdemeanor in Georgia as long as you did it by mistake. After all, who among us has not had the embarrassing experience of forgetting they were carrying their Glock semiautomatic through airport security?
Republican lawmakers in the Georgia House tried — and failed — to require colleges and churches to allow concealed weapons. The law bans them on college campuses (thank goodness for that, at least) and requires armed Georgians to get permission from their church before they go to Sunday services packing heat.
But, while patting themselves on the back for protecting the Second Amendment rights of their fellow citizens and dismissing any notion that guns could be a danger to the public, Georgia lawmakers were careful to continue to ban the carrying of weapons in government buildings with security checkpoints, like the Capitol itself, though guns are welcomed in buildings without screening.
Barbara Boxer: Why no Viagra complaints? – Tal Kopan – POLITICO.com
As the Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday about the Obamacare mandate on birth control coverage, Sen. Barbara Boxer questioned why those up in arms about the requirement have no problem with most insurance covering Viagra.
"I have never heard Hobby Lobby or any other corporation, I could be wrong, or any other boss complain that Viagra is covered in many insurance plans, practically all of them, or other kinds of things, you know, for men, which I won't go into," Boxer said Tuesday on MSNBC's "Jansing & Co."
Yeah, isn't every sperm sacred?
After 27 years, Burger King Baby finds birth mom, feels pure joy
A woman who, as a newborn, was abandoned in the bathroom of a Pennsylvania fast-food restaurant said Tuesday she has found her birth mother just three weeks after launching a search that garnered worldwide attention.
Next…another blast from 80s' past, an interview with Boy George: Boy George Discusses New Album, Gender Identity, Madonna And More
If you're ever given 60 minutes to sit down with Boy George, one of the most beloved pop icons of the 20th century, in a private club on the west side of Manhattan in the middle of February, take them.
In the course of that hour, you'll not only be treated to stories about how as a teen, his brothers would cross the street so they didn't have to be seen with him and find out if he ever considered transitioning to the other end of the gender binary, but you'll also quickly realize that he is one of the most thoughtful — and refreshingly honest — interview subjects you've ever had the pleasure of encountering.
Next, tales of animals…remember that zoo in Copenhagen? The one that killed the young giraffe and butchered it then fed it to the lions?
Look what the zoo did to the lions: Danish zoo that killed giraffe puts down four lions
Two lions and their two 10-month-old cubs, all from the same family, were put down on Monday to make way for a new male after the zoo failed to find a new home for the felines.
Copenhagen Zoo said in a statement: "Because of the pride of lions' natural structure and behaviour, the zoo has had to euthanise the two old lions and two young lions who were not old enough to fend for themselves".
The cubs "would have been killed by the new male lion as soon as he got the chance," it added.
On the case of inbreeding and genetic defects…no I am not talking about Banjoville, Birth Defects In Last Woolly Mammoths Suggest Inbreeding May Have Led To Species' Extinction
Scientists studying 12,000-year-old mammoth fossils unearthed near the North Sea discovered that many of them had extra ribs along their neck vertebrae. Cervical ribs, while innocuous on their own, are usually a sign that something went wrong during the animal's development and are associated with chromosome abnormalities and even cancer.
Researchers found that cervical ribs were 10 times more common in woolly mammoths from the North Sea than in modern elephants. Scientists were stunned to find such a high rate of cervical ribs among European woolly mammoths.
"The high incidence and large size of the cervical ribs [in woolly mammoths] indicates a strong vulnerability, given the association of cervical ribs with diseases and congenital abnormalities in mammals," the researchers noted in a study published in the journal PeerJ. "The vulnerable condition may well have contributed to the eventual extinction of the woolly mammoths."
Scientists theorized that there are two possible explanations for the high frequency of cervical ribs in the last of the mammoths. The first is that there was rampant inbreeding among the last mammoth populations. This theory fits nicely with the idea that climate change fragmented the woolly mammoth's habitat, isolating small pockets of the animals from each other. These groups would have lost their genetic variation through inbreeding, which would have made them susceptible to abnormalities and disease.
The second theory is that woolly mammoth mothers suffered prenatal stress due to outside factors like famine and disease.
And finally, Goats are far more clever than previously thought
Goats learn how to solve complicated tasks quickly and can recall how to perform them for at least 10 months, which might explain their remarkable ability to adapt to harsh environments, say researchers at Queen Mary University of London.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Zoology today, the scientists trained a group of goats to retrieve food from a box using a linked sequence of steps; first by pulling a lever with their mouths and then by lifting it to release the reward.
The goats' ability to remember the task was tested after one month and again at 10 months. They learned the task within 12 trials and took less than two minutes to remember the challenge.
"The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10 months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory," said co-author Dr Elodie Briefer, now based at ETH Zurich.
Before each learning session, some of the goats had the opportunity to watch another goat to demonstrate the task.
Dr Briefer added: "We found that those without a demonstrator were just as fast at learning as those that had seen demonstrations. This shows that goats prefer to learn on their own rather than by watching others."
Wow, I wonder if a goat could learn that the birth control pill does not = an abortion? Yeah, they sound like they are smarter than some of the Supremes sitting on the bench.
Have a great day, and let us know what you are reading and thinking about today.
Saturday News PotpourriPosted: January 25, 2014 Filed under: Civil Rights, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Russia, U.S. Politics | Tags: apps, artisanal toast, banks, Booz Allen Hamilton, Brian Glyn Williams, Chechnya, China, Dagestan, discrimination, diva test, Don Graham, Dr. Strangelove, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Edward Snowden, Eric Holder, Erik Prince, glamour shots of elderly people, guns, Jeff Bezos, Marijuana, Pink, Sochi Olympics, Trove, Ukraine protests, Volograd bombings, vote id laws, voting rights, Washington Post 53 Comments
Good Morning!!
I have quite a few articles to share this morning, a real Saturday potpourri! So let's get started. First up, on Thursday Attorney General Eric Holder gave a wide-ranging interview to Ari Melber of MSNBC, and quite a bit of breaking news came out of it. Here are some of the resulting headlines: NY Daily News: Eric Holder: Could talk deal with NSA-leaker Edward Snowden, but no clemency
Holder told MSNBC that the Obama Administration "would engage in a conversation" about a resolution in the case, but said it would require Snowden acknowledge wrongdoing…. At a University of Virginia forum, where Holder was asked about Snowden, he elaborated on his position, saying, "If Mr. Snowden wanted to come back to the United States and enter a plea, we would engage with his lawyers. We would do the same with any defendant who wanted to enter a plea of guilty, so that is the context to what I said." But he stressed that the NSA leaker would not walk. "We've always indicated that the notion of clemency isn't something that we were willing to consider."
Seattle PI: Holder: Marijuana banking regulations on the way
Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama administration is planning to roll out regulations soon that would allow banks to do business with legal marijuana sellers. During an appearance Thursday at the University of Virginia, Holder said it is important from a law enforcement perspective to enable places that sell marijuana to have access to the banking system so they don't have large amounts of cash lying around. Currently, processing money from marijuana sales puts federally insured banks at risk of drug racketeering charges. Because of the threat of criminal prosecution, financial institutions often refuse to let marijuana-related businesses open accounts.
There's a good piece about this at Forbes, but they won't even let you copy their headlines anymore. Mediaite: Eric Holder: Voter ID Used to 'Depress the Vote' of People Who Don't Support GOP
Attorney General Eric Holder sharply criticized state-level voter identification policies and said that he believes those policies are a "remedy in search of a problem." He added that, while some may be arguing for voter ID in good faith, he believes that most are advocating for this policy in order to "depress the vote" of those who do not support the "party that is advancing" voter ID measures. "I think many are using it for partisan advantage," Holder said of voter ID. "People have to understand that we are not opposed to photo identification in a vacuum," he continued. "But when it is used in — certain ways to disenfranchise particular groups of people, whether by racial designation, ethnic origin, or for partisan reasons, that from my perspective is problematic." He added that "all the studies" show that in-person voter fraud "simply does not exist" at a level that requires a legislative solution.
Politico: Eric Holder: Timing of Robert Gates book release 'a mistake'
Attorney General Eric Holder waded into the controversy over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates's new book Thursday, calling it "a mistake" for Gates to have published his recollections before President Barack Obama left the White House. "It's my view that it's just not a good thing thing to write a book about a president that you served while that president is still in office," Holder said during an appearance at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "From my perspective I think the world of Bob Gates, but I think that the publication of that book — at least at this time — was a mistake." [….] In the course of offering his critique of the timing of Gates's book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," Holder twice praised the former defense secretary for his leadership. "I like Bob Gates a great deal. He was a good secretary of defense," the attorney general said.
LA Times: Holder says no bank 'too big to indict,' more financial cases coming
"I think people just need to be a little patient," Holder said, according to a transcript of an interview with MSNBC to air at noon Pacific time Friday. "I know it's been a while. But we have other things that are in the pipeline." [….] Holder has taken heat for telling a Senate hearing last year that some financial institutions were "so large that it becomes difficult to prosecute them" because criminal charges could hurt the U.S. and even world economies. Since then Holder has tried to emphasize that the Justice Department is not intimidated by the size of a financial institution and would bring any charges it believed it could prove.
As I said, quite a bit of news out of one interview. Good job by Ari Melber.
In other news . . .
The Economist has a brief article that provides some background on the situation in Ukraine: On the march in Kiev –The protests turn nasty and violent, but the president is not giving ground.
JANUARY 22nd was meant to mark Ukraine's unity day, a celebration of its short-lived pre-Soviet independence. Instead, it was a day of civil unrest and perhaps the biggest test of Ukraine's post-Soviet integrity. After two months of largely peaceful encampment on the Maidan in Kiev, the protests turned violent. Five people were reported killed and hundreds were injured. An armoured personnel carrier pushed through the streets. Clouds of black smoke and flames mottled the snow-covered ground. Never in its history as an independent state has Ukraine witnessed such violence. It was triggered by the passage of a series of repressive laws imposing tight controls on the media and criminalising the protests of the past two months. One law copied almost verbatim a Russian example, including stigmatising charities and human-rights groups financed from abroad as "foreign agents". If Russian human-rights activists denounce their parliament as a "crazy printer" churning out repressive legislation, says Oleksandra Matviichuk of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Kiev, Ukraine has a "crazy photocopier". The clashes show vividly the refusal of the protesters to heed such laws.
Brian Glyn Williams, the U. Mass Dartmouth professor who interacted with Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and recommended some sources of information on Chechnya for a report Tsarnaev was writing, has a post up at HuffPo on how the history of Chechya and Dagestan is coming back to haunt the Winter Olympics in Russia: The Dark Secret Behind the Sochi Olympics: Russia's Efforts to Hide a Tsarist-Era Genocide. Here's the conclusion:
The twin bombings in Volgograd in late December 2013 and an earlier one in October are clearly meant to show the Russians that the Chechen-Dagestani terrorists have reignited their terror jihad. They are also meant to remind the world of the tragedy that befell the Circassians of the Caucasus's Black Sea shore exactly 150 years ago this winter. This is the dark secret that Russia's authoritarian leader, Putin, does not want the world to know. Putin has thus far been very successful in conflating Russia's neo-colonial war against Chechen separatists with America's war on nihilist Al Qaeda Arab terrorists. Any attempt to remind the world of Imperial Russia/Post-Soviet Russia's war crimes in the Caucasus is a threat to Putin's pet project, the whitewashed Sochi Olympics. This of course not to excuse the brutal terroristic acts of the Caucasian Emirate or the Chechen rebels, but it certainly provides the one thing that Putin does not want the world to see as he constructs his "Potemkin village" in Sochi, and that is an honest account of the events that have made this the most terrorist fraught Olympic games since the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Remember Erik Prince, the Michigan millionaire who founded Blackwater? Guess what he's doing these days? The WSJ has the scoop: Erik Prince: Out of Blackwater and Into China. Erik Prince —ex-Navy SEAL, ex-CIA spy, ex-CEO of private-security firm Blackwater —calls himself an "accidental tourist" whose modest business boomed after 9/11, expanded into Iraq and Afghanistan, and then was "blowtorched by politics." To critics and conspiracy theorists, he is a mercenary war-profiteer. To admirers, he's a patriot who has repeatedly answered America's call with bravery and creativity.
Now, sitting in a boardroom above Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, he explains his newest title, acquired this month: chairman of Frontier Services Group, an Africa-focused security and logistics company with intimate ties to China's largest state-owned conglomerate, Citic Group. Beijing has titanic ambitions to tap Africa's resources—including $1 trillion in planned spending on roads, railways and airports by 2025—and Mr. Prince wants in…. "I would rather deal with the vagaries of investing in Africa than in figuring out what the hell else Washington is going to do to the entrepreneur next," says the crew-cut 44-year-old. Having launched Blackwater in 1997 as a rural North Carolina training facility for U.S. soldiers and police, Mr. Prince says he "kept saying 'yes' as the demand curve called—Columbine, the USS Cole and then 9/11." In 100,000 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, he says, Blackwater contractors never lost a U.S. official under their protection. But the company gained a trigger-happy reputation, especially after a September 2007 shootout that left 17 civilians dead in Baghdad's Nisour Square. At that point, charges Mr. Prince, Blackwater was "completely thrown under the bus by a fickle customer"—the U.S. government, and especially the State Department. He says Washington opted to "churn up the entire federal bureaucracy" and sic it on Blackwater "like a bunch of rabid dogs." According to Mr. Prince, IRS auditors told his colleagues that they had "never been under so much pressure to get someone as to get Erik Prince," and congressional staffers promised, "We're going to ride you till you're out of business."
Awwwwww…..Poor little rich boy. Where's my tiny violin?
Speaking of entrepreneurs, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos' plans for his latest acquisition–The Washington Post–are becoming clearer, as he hires more right wing libertarians for the op-ed page. Now Pando Daily reveals what Don Graham is up to now that he's dumped the family business: The company formerly known as WaPo moves into tech apps.
Today, the company formerly known as WaPo — now called Graham Holdings – has announced a new business endeavor in journalism. Surprisingly, said endeavor doesn't have much to do with actual journalism at all — it falls squarely in the tech camp. It's a content discovery app called Trove. Trove fits in the now-torrential trend of such applications. Companies like Flipboard,Prismatic, Rockmelt, and N3twork have all tread this ground long before Trove. They're all convinced that places like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and RSS readers are not good enough for finding the best stories…. The two men behind Trove have rich and storied histories. Vijay Ravindran, the CEO of Trove, served as The Washington Post's Chief Digital Officer before the sale, and ran ordering at Amazon for seven years before that. Reuters oped columnist Jack Shafer even divpredicted (incorrectly) that Ravindran would be named the new WaPo publisher after the sale. The other Trove heavyweight is product lead Rob Malda, who is also the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Slashdot — the predecessor of every user-focused news aggregator since, from Digg to Reddit to Hacker News.
Read all about it at the above link.
A few short takes:
In other tech news, CSM's Security Watch reports that Booz Allen, Snowden's old firm, looking to help US government with 'insider threats'. Author Dan Murphy asks, "Are defense and intelligence contractors the best choice to manage a threat they've contributed to?" Read it and weep.
According to Fox News, gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Ruger will no longer do business in California because they don't want to comply with a new CA law that allows law enforcement to trace bullets to the individual gun they came from. After all, why would gun companies want to help police catch murderers? Unbelievable!
Did you know that this month is the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's brilliant satire, Dr. Strangelove? IMHO, it is one of the funniest movies of all time. Well, Eric Schlosser has a not-so-funny article about it at The New Yorker: ALMOST EVERYTHING IN "DR. STRANGELOVE" WAS TRUE. Don't miss this one; it's a must read!
Apparently the latest food craze to emerge from San Francisco is "artisanal toast." How did toast become the latest artisanal food craze? Ask a trivial question, get a profound, heartbreaking answer. John Gravois writes about it at Pacific Standard: The Science of Society. Weird.
A silly test to take at Buzzfeed: Which Pop Diva Are You? I got Pink. I know nothing about her…but she looks kinda cool.
Finally, I posted this link in the comments recently, but I don't know if anyone looked at it. I'm posting it again, because I think it's absolutely adorable. It's some glamour shots of elderly people having fun dressing up and posing as various movie heroes and heroines. Here's just one example:
I hope you found something to tickle your fancy in this potpourri of articles. Now it's your turn. Please post your recommended links in the comment thread, and have a wonderful weekend!
Wednesday Part One: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.Posted: December 18, 2013 Filed under: Art, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, History, morning reads | Tags: George Zimmerman, Joan Fontaine, Mohammed Morsi, Peter O'Toole 38 Comments
Good Morning
What a sad month this has been…we lost such legendary, tremendous actors and actresses. Yes, in a matter of hours, it seemed like the news hit us, one after another…as we lost…
Film Noir Star Audrey Totter Dies at 95
'Billy Jack' Star Tom Laughlin Dies at 82
'Lawrence of Arabia's' Peter O'Toole Dead at 81
Legendary Actress Joan Fontaine Dies at 96
After losing Eleanor Parker last week, I have to admit the post I wrote with all those beautiful pictures was an enjoyable tribute to her, partly because I felt a strange connection to her. The passing of Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine are again personal to me…so it seems fitting to me that I will focus today's post on two of the four actors above that passed away within the past few days.
Well…ladies first?
All the photos on this post will be of Joan Fontaine…images that I have found or collected along the way via Pinterest or Google.
Legendary Actress Joan Fontaine Dies at 96 – The Hollywood Reporter
The star of the Hitchcock classics "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" famously won an Oscar in 1942 over her bitter rival — her older sister, Olivia de Havilland.
Joan Fontaine, the polished actress who achieved stardom in the early 1940s with memorable performances in the Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion — for which she earned the best actress Oscar over her bitter rival, sister Olivia de Havilland — and Rebecca, has died. She was 96.
The Hollywood Reporter awards analyst Scott Feinberg spoke with Fontaine's assistant, Susan Pfeiffer, who confirmed the actress' death of natural causes Sunday at her home in Carmel, Calif.
I think because news of Fontaine's death came on the heels of the announcement of the loss of Peter O'Toole, she did not get the kind of press "notice" she deserved.
It was Hitchcock, with his penchant for "cool blondes," who brought Fontaine to the forefront when he cast her as the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940), the director's American debut. Her performance as the new wife of Laurence Olivier in a household haunted by the death of his first wife earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress.
A year later, Hitchcock placed her opposite Cary Grant in Suspicion, and she won the Oscar for her turn as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth, a shy English woman who begins to suspect her charming new husband of trying to kill her. She thus became the only actor to win an Oscar in a Hitchcock film.
Among those Fontaine beat out at the 1942 Academy Awards was her older sister, de Havilland, up for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Biographer Charles Higham wrote that as Fontaine came forward to accept her trophy, she rejected de Havilland's attempt to congratulate her and that de Havilland was offended. (There may have been another similar incident after de Havilland won her first Oscar for To Each His Own in 1947.) The sisters, who never really got along since childhood, finally stopped speaking to each other in the mid-'70s.
More on that rivalry in a bit…for now just a few more Obits for Fontaine:
Joan Fontaine, star of 'Suspicion' and 'Rebecca,' dies at 96 – LA Times
She gave her Oscar-winning performance as the threatened wife in "Suspicion," opposite Cary Grant, in 1941, the same year for which De Havilland was nominated for "Hold Back the Dawn" — a head-to-head sibling competition that had the Hollywood press buzzing.
"Now what had I done!" Fontaine wrote in her 1978 autobiography, "No Bed of Roses," of her reaction at the awards ceremony when Fontaine's name was announced. "All the animus we'd felt toward each other as children, the hair-pullings, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia tried to fracture my collarbone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery."
Career totals for the sisters would be: Fontaine, three Oscar nominations and one win; De Havilland, five nominations and two wins. De Havilland, partly because of her role as Melanie in 1939's classic "Gone With the Wind," would be the one with the more enduring film legacy.
"My sister was born a lion, and I a tiger, and in the laws of the jungle, they were never friends."
Fontaine spent several years doing B movies and minor roles before one night, sitting at dinner next to producer David O. Selznick, she conversed with him about the book she had just read, Daphne du Maurier's romance "Rebecca."
Selznick eyed the young actress and said, "I bought it today. Will you test for it?"
"Would I!" Fontaine replied.
Fontaine was pitted against such stars of the era as Vivien Leigh, Susan Hayward, Virginia Mayo, Margaret Sullavan, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young. But the casting process was so protracted that by the time Fontaine got the part, she was thoroughly demoralized. This suited Hitchcock in preparing her for her role as "the second Mrs. de Winter."
"Hitchcock built up his power over Fontaine while keeping her nervous and vulnerable enough to enhance the nervous, vulnerable character she was playing," Patrick McGilligan wrote of Hitchcock in his 2003 biography of the director.
Fontaine was further humiliated when her costar, Laurence Olivier, treated her with disdain, in part because he was angry that Leigh, his then-fiancee and later wife, had not gotten the role.
"Hitch said that Larry had just come to him, saying Fontaine was awful and that Vivien was the only one who should play opposite him," Fontaine wrote in "No Bed of Roses." "I could hardly be friends with [him] after that."
Fontaine played the part perfectly. As the reference to a review in this obituary from HuffPo states: Joan Fontaine Dead: Academy Award-Winning Actress Dies At 96
"Miss Du Maurier never really convinced me any one could behave quite as the second Mrs. de Winter behaved and still be sweet, modest, attractive and alive," The New York Times' Frank Nugent wrote upon the film's release.
"But Miss Fontaine does it not simply with her eyes, her mouth, her hands and her words, but with her spine. Possibly it's unethical to criticize performances anatomically. Still we insist Miss Fontaine has the most expressive spine — and shoulders we've bothered to notice this season."
That has to be one of the best descriptions of her performance…because if you watch her, it is so true…she does speak with her shoulders.
You can see it when you watch her in Jane Eyre, I think the film she stars in with Orson Welles is the best movie production even made. Maybe it is the film itself, the look of the black and white and the master cinematography by George Barnes…(who won an Oscar for his work on Rebecca.)
I don't know, as with Eleanor Parker, Joan Fontaine got me interesting in reading the classics. So those expressive shoulders have carried so much more of my childhood imaginations and dreams…they led me into a world of books and words.
But, back to the LA Times obit:
Her next role was also for Hitchcock, in "Suspicion," playing the frightened wife of Cary Grant whom she suspects of trying to kill her. The film was given a Hollywood ending — her suspicions turn out to be a misunderstanding — because the filmmakers believed that Grant's fans would not accept him as a murderer, as originally written. But Grant was quoted as saying that the casting was perfect because "anyone who knows me realizes that I couldn't be married to Joan Fontaine for more than 24 hours without wanting to wring her neck."
The book this film is based on originally ends when Fontaine's character finds out she is pregnant…and realizing she is married to a murderer, she drinks the poisoned milk…killing herself and her baby, rather than to bring this murderer's child into the world.
Film historian David Thomson wrote that after her Oscar, Fontaine "went after stately, romantic parts, lacking the real emotional sophistication of a Lombard or a Loy, and entered into weepies without the conviction of a Joan Crawford."
In Hitchcock's movies and later in Max Ophuls' "Letter From an Unknown Woman," Thomson said, she "was so good as to leave us baffled by her general indifference."
Her last lead film performance was in "The Devil's Own" (1966), in which the actress, who was nearing 50, became the latest aging star consigned to making a horror movie, joining contemporaries such as her sister and Bette Davis.
From the HuffPo link above, Fontaine is quoted as saying:
"You know, I've had a helluva life," Fontaine once said. "Not just the acting part. I've flown in an international balloon race. I've piloted my own plane. I've ridden to the hounds. I've done a lot of exciting things."
Now, about that sisterly rivalry…Joan Fontaine-Olivia de Havilland Feud: New Details Revealed
Getty ImagesJoan Fontaine, left, and Olivia de Havilland
At a luncheon earlier this month, I was seated beside the actresses Laura Dern and Meg Ryan and we began chatting about classic movies, a shared passion of ours. Eventually, the conversation led us to Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, the legendary Oscar-winning sisters. Within the last nine months I had interviewed both of the nonagenarians for a book that I am writing about old movies for young people; I spoke with Joan, who was living in Carmel, by telephone in March, and Olivia in-person at her home in Paris after the Cannes Film Festival wrapped up in May. Laura and Meg were anxious to know the answer to the same question that every person with whom I spoke after those interviews had asked me: Was "the feud" — a supposed decades-long cold war between the two sisters — finally over?
The answer was not so simple.
If that does not make you go and click the link to read the rest…I don't know what the hell will!!!!
TCM will be showing Joan Fontaine films on December 29th:
TCM Remembers Joan Fontaine (1917 – 2013)
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo, Japan on Oct. 22, 1917, she was the daughter of British patent attorney Walter de Havilland and Lillian Augusta Ruse, a former stage actress; as both she and her father would often recount, the family counted two English kings in their lineage. Plagued by illness as a child, including bouts with anemia and measles, Fontaine was sent with her sister and mother to live in Saratoga, CA, while her father remained in Japan. Her parents' marriage was already in trouble prior to the move to the States, and the separation preceded a divorce, which became final when Fontaine was two. Academic tests proved Joan to be an exceptionally bright child with an IQ of 160, and she excelled at school. Home life, however, was a different story; she had an uneasy relationship with de Havilland, who was reportedly favored by her mother. The feud eventually became the stuff of Hollywood legend, and by all accounts, was alive and well when both sisters had entered their ninth decades.
Now, we turn to Peter O'Toole…and since this post has taken longer than I expected it to…Peter will be in Wednesday Reads Part Two: What shall we hang…the holly, or each other? a little later today.
Quickly a few headlines:
Mega Millions: Winners in California, Georgia to split jackpot – latimes.com
Bipartisan Budget Agreement Nears Final Passage – ABC News
Egypt's Ousted President Mohammed Morsi To Be Tried Over Conspiracy With Foreigners
And one last thing…I was very busy yesterday, in fact I did not get online at all until early this morning when I started to write this post…Is this shit for real? CNN Art Critic Calls Zimmerman Painting 'Psychotic,' Compares Him with Manson and Gacy | Mediaite
Neighborhood watchman-turned-painter George Zimmerman is headed for a big payday, but instead of being the toast of the art world, he's getting roasted over his initial effort, a flag-themed homage to Picasso, stock photography, and concrete poetry. On CNN's New Day Wednesday morning, host Chris Cuomo tapped the expertise of New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, who blasted Zimmerman's effort, and was beside himself at the thought that the "travesty" puts Zimmerman in the price range of artists like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.
Bidding on Zimmerman's painting now stands at $110,100.00 on eBay, despite the revelation that the piece, entitled "America," is a derivation of an arguably superior work: "American Flag" by Shutterstock.
Oh my fucking gawd! Are you kidding me?
Zimmerman's painting is a multi-layered homage/commentary on 20th century art. He cleverly inverts the artistic conceit of Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Cans," instead taking a meaningful symbol of American culture and turning it into a cheap object of commerce. Zimmerman also pays subtle homage to Picasso's Blue Period, which was inspired by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. It might also be a dig at the paltry selection at his local Michael's craft store. Finally, Zimmerman's placement of the words "one nation" physically beneath the word "God" is a clear reference to the grade-school pictograms of Salvador Dali, particularly his famous "Man Overboard."
Cuomo brought Saltz in to explain "How can someone like this, assuming you believe the worst about George Zimmerman, how could someone ever want art from someone like this?"
"Mass murderers have made art, and people have tried to buy it, have bought it, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy," Saltz noted, adding that "In my humble opinion, this person got away with a crime and in that sense, that is the only reason that anybody would want to buy anything that he made."
"What have we seen in terms of why, what is the fascination?" Cuomo asked. "What is the desire to buy the artwork of someone who's been connected to, or convicted for, a horrible crime?"
That's when Saltz delivered his blistering critique, telling Cuomo that Zimmerman's painting is "a travesty, a placard, a poster, something you might see in protest," but also opining that "It's a bit of confession to me."
"It's talking about liberty, justice for all," Saltz continued, marking up the painting with a telestrator. "Well, you know, it's almost like none of this ever happened. And then also, you have this is his funny little — he's almost trying to be a cause. And the cause is that I think he is is a travesty of justice, a crime. It's insipid, it's not — there's no thought in it. It's needing to be the center of attention. I think it's a bit psychotic."
Saltz also noted the similarities to the Shutterstock photo, and added that Zimmerman "Just needs attention. It's just the beginning. This guy is, I think, a kind of person heading for a fall."
Uh, you don't need to be some expert art critic to come to that conclusion there…this guy is living out some kind of Mike Judge satire, but it is real life, and that is the horror of this story.
Treat this as an Open Thread…
Monday ReadsPosted: November 4, 2013 Filed under: 2016 elections, Egypt, morning reads 41 Comments
Good Morning!
I thought I'd start the day with some uplifting reads! This one from Seattle is wonderful!
A large pod of orcas swam around a Washington state ferry in an impressive display as it happened to be carrying tribal artifacts to a new museum at the ancestral home of Chief Seattle, and some people think it was more than a coincidence.
Killer whales have been thrilling whale watchers this week in Puget Sound, according to the Orca Network, which tracks sightings.
But they were especially exciting Tuesday when nearly three-dozen orcas surrounded the ferry from Seattle as it approached the terminal on Bainbridge Island. On board were officials from The Burke Museum in Seattle who were moving ancient artifacts to the Suquamish Museum.
The artifacts were dug up nearly 60 years ago from the site of the Old Man House, the winter village for the Suquamish tribe and home of Chief Sealth, also known as Chief Seattle. The Burke, a natural history museum on the University of Washington campus, is known for Northwest Coast and Alaska Native art.
Also on board the state ferry was Suquamish Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman who happened to be returning from an unrelated event. As the ferry slowed near the terminal, it was surrounded by the orcas, Forsman said Wednesday.
"They were pretty happily splashing around, flipping their tails in the water," he said. "We believe they were welcoming the artifacts home as they made their way back from Seattle, back to the reservation."
The city of Heracleion sank into the ocean in the 6th or 7th centuray AD and has recently been uncovered. This blog writer has a round up of some pretty amazing pictures and stories. This city is known as the city of Cleopatra.
I can't imagine how cool it must be to be an underwater archaeologist. If I'd have known this was a possibility when I was a teenager I would have had a different life. I started diving at about 14 and Egypt has always thrilled my imagination. I've written about this before but it seems that a lot more has been accomplished.
Thonis-Heracleion (the Egyptian and Greek names of the city) is a city lost between legend and reality. Before the foundation of Alexandria in 331 BC, the city knew glorious times as the obligatory port of entry to Egypt for all ships coming from the Greek world. It had also a religious importance because of the temple of Amun, which played an important role in rites associated with dynasty continuity. The city was founded probably around the 8th century BC, underwent diverse natural catastrophes, and finally sunk entirely into the depths of the Mediterranean in the 8th century AD.
Prior to its discovery in 2000 by the IEASM, no trace of Thonis-Heracleion had been found. Its name was almost razed from the memory of mankind, only preserved in ancient classic texts and rare inscriptions found on land by archaeologists. The Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC) tells us of a great temple that was built where the famous hero Herakles first set foot on to Egypt. He also reports of Helen's visit to Heracleion with her lover Paris before the Trojan War. More than four centuries after Herodotus' visit to Egypt, the geographer Strabo observed that the city of Heracleion, which possessed the temple of Herakles, is located straight to the east of Canopus at the mouth of the Canopic branch of the River Nile.
The Senate vote on making discrimination against GLBT in the workplace is really going to show the split in the Republican party. The discussion is about as bad–if not worse–than it was around the ERA. Drag Queens in Christian Book Stores! Federally Subsidized Sex Change Operations! Dogs and Cats having sex in the street!!!!
The anticipated vote comes four months after the Supreme Court invalidated a federal ban on recognizing same-sex marriages, and nearly a year after some conservative leaders warned that losses in the 2012 elections exposed the party as being out of touch with much of the country on social issues.
With the bill apparently just one vote short of the threshold to prevent a filibuster, the Republican senators believed to be the most persuadable — Rob Portman of Ohio, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Dean Heller of Nevada — were keeping their positions private.
Political strategists and congressional aides who have been lobbying for the bill say they have received private assurances that there will be enough Republican votes to move the measure forward on Monday, but none of the senators who plan to support it want to say so publicly out of concern that they could become targets by groups opposing the measure.
In the House, the best chance for passage this year seems to be to tack the measure onto a larger piece of legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act and hope that conservatives do not revolt.
"If you've been told your entire career that Republican primary voters are hostile on these issues, and people have only just started to educate you otherwise," said Jeff Cook-McCormac, a Republican lobbyist who has been pushing to get the bill enacted, "it takes a little while for that to sink in."
While opposition appears less organized than in previous gay rights debates in Congress, senators of both parties said the emotion surrounding the issue had complicated efforts to break a Republican filibuster attempt.
One senator recalled having to explain to a colleague that the legislation would not require insurance companies to pay for sex-change operations. Another spoke of phone calls from constituents who were convinced that their children could be taught in school by men wearing dresses. And conservative groups like the Family Research Council are warning their supporters that the bill would force Christian bookstores to hire drag performers.
We continue to learn exactly how important appointments to the judicial branch are as we see women judges–appointed by Dubya–vote to place women in involuntary servitude to the state.
It's been a day of body blows for reproductive rights. On Thursday night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed a lower court's decision to temporarily block a provision of the omnibus Texas abortion law that requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The appeals court found that it's constitutionally OK for the requirement to trigger the closure of fully one-third of the reproductive health clinics in the state, because the Supreme Court has found that "the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate it." The ruling will be catastrophic, measured in access for women to a procedure they have the constitutional right to obtain. The decision was written by Judge Priscilla R. Owen, a George W. Bush appointee, and joined by two other judges who are women—oh how the right is crowing—and also Bush appointees.
Similar admitting privileges provisions have been struck down by courts in Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. Judges in each of those cases saw these abortion restrictions for what they are—unconstitutional burdens on the right to access—and blocked them.
On Friday, morning, it was the turn of another extremely conservative woman chosen for the bench by Bush, Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Brown handed down a similarly dramatic decisionholding that the provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires companies to provide health care coverage that includes contraception "trammels" the religious freedom of an Ohio-based food service company, Freshway Foods, through its two owners, who claimed that the mandate violated its Catholic faith. This is a company we are talking about, not its owners. But following headlong in the wake of the Supreme Court's wrongheaded finding in Citizens United that corporations are people, too, Brown found that the mandate violates the company's strongly held religious convictions. To make the company provide a health care plan—from an outside insurer—that offers contraceptive coverage is a "compel[led] affirmation of a repugnant belief," Brown wrote. The argument that a for-profit secular company has a religious conscience—separate and apart from the religious beliefs of its owners—is a notion that vaults the concept of personhood from the silly ("corporations are people, my friend") to the sublime (also they pray).
It's hard to overstate how radical these two decisions are. So it should be especially dispiriting for the left that the other really big thing that happened Thursday was the filibuster by Senate Republicans of Patricia Ann Millett, Obama's centrist nominee to fill a vacancy on the D.C. Circuit, despite her exemplary credentials. Millett is no radical—no lefty retort to Owen and Brown. She's a partner at Akin Gump who worked in the solicitor general's office for both Clinton and Bush and has represented the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She's a military wife. That didn't stop Republicans from claiming that simply by putting up a judicial nominee of his choosing, President Obama was attempting the "pack the court."
Please Mr. President!!!! Pack the Court with less theocrats!!!
Governor Chris Christie is "tired of you people!" "You people" would be teachers trying to do right by their students. He called schools "failure factories".
New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, has a long history of teacher bashing – not just teachers union bashing, but teacher bashing. Even when he's clearly in the lead, he can't help himself: he has to take a swipe at teachers whenever he can. It's almost pathological: even when he's up by a sizable margin, Chris Christie just can't turn down a chance to bash a teacher who gets too uppity – as he proved today"
Just think! He's the one they all think is mainstream!!! Go read the interview with the teacher at the receiving end of his bullying.
Senator Charles Schumer has just endorsed Hillary Clinton for 2016. Wow! That's getting things started a little early.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, used a speech to Iowa Democrats on Saturday night to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, another indication of how quickly the party is coalescing behind the former secretary of state.
Speaking in the state that helped lift President Obama's campaign and dashed Mrs. Clinton's hopes in the 2008 caucuses, Mr. Schumer said the time was right that year for Mr. Obama.
"2016 is Hillary's time," Mr. Schumer declared at the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson Dinner. "And our nation will be all the better for it."
While Mr. Schumer's support for his former Senate colleague was not surprising, his endorsement one year after the 2012 presidential election underscores how much the Democratic Party elders want Mrs. Clinton to enter the race.
With Mr. Obama's popularity waning, many party officials also want to try to clear the field for the former first lady in 2016. Last week, it was revealed that every Democratic woman in the Senate had signed a letter supporting Mrs. Clinton, a former senator from New York. She has not yet indicated her 2016 plans.
An aide to Mr. Schumer said his endorsement in such a high-profile venue had not come at Mrs. Clinton's request.
"Run, Hillary, run," Mr. Schumer said. "If you run, you'll win and we'll all win. With a strong platform and with Hillary leading the charge, we will vanquish the Ted Cruz Tea Party Republicans in 2016."
Whoa! So, that's it for me this morning! What's on your reading and blogging list today?