That is what is really dangerous.

I remember the ramp up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and conversations I had with liberals here in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, about the likelihood of a war actually happening. For those unfamiliar with the Democratic Party fortress in the State of Ohio, I live in what is, in terms of politics, a near-gated community that the residents don’t realize exists. People simply can’t believe that the rest of the state is so insane as to ban gay marriage, force women to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop in order to exercise their right to an abortion or to elect the likes of John Kasich as governor.

Of course the rest of the state thinks that and worse of Cuyahoga County.

After the wars dragged into 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, apologists could be heard to say that no one could have predicted what happened, except for all of those people, not just lowly political wonks like myself, but people with international credentials who did predict the disaster that has become our Everwar.

Ralph Nader remembers as well and writes in Join Together to Mobilize Against Wars of Aggression:

Did you know that in the nine months leading to the criminal war of aggression against Iraq in March 2003 by the Bush/Cheney administration, at least 300 retired, high-level establishment military, national security and diplomatic officials spoke out against the looming invasion? The list included retired Generals Anthony Zinni and William Odom and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan. Even Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, two of President George H.W. Bush’s closest advisors, strongly opposed the invasion.

Unprecedented in U.S. history, these individuals and others wrote op-eds and letters to the editor, signed petitions, attended protests, and wrote to their members of Congress. Retired military, national security and diplomatic officials Continue Reading »

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap from China. On The Writing On The Wal—the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar—I continue my singular work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

YET MORE OF WALMART’S CORPORATE WELFARE… We’ve written much here at The Writing On The Wal about how the Bentonvile Behemoth sucks at the public tit, draining tax dollars into the corporate coffers and saving the company millions… Keep reading…

WALMART INSUFFICIENTLY GUILTY FOR JUDGE… Walmart is guilty, just not guilty enough, according to Chancellor Andre Bouchard of the Court of Chancery in Wilmington, Delaware. Bouchard. Bouchard dismissed a lawsuit by Wal-Mart Stores… Keep reading…

TIME TO STRIKE THE BANNERS AT WALMART…? The business world is all abuzz over Walmart’s announcement of a two-day shipping subscription service targeted directly at Amazon’s Prime service. I don’t like buying from Amazon anymore than I do… Keep reading…

WALMART BUILDING EIGHT RINGS OF HELL… Over the last few days the news feed has been filled with stories regarding Walmart’s decision to offer a two-day shipping subscription service in the Bentonvile Behemoth’s quest to take down Amazon. This… Keep reading…

SO, WHAT INTERESTS MY READERS… Occasionally I like to look back and see what readers of The Writing On The Wal find most interesting. The list below shows the top of the list for the past five years. I always get a chuckle at No. 1. Does Walmart… Keep reading…

MORE REPORTING ON WALMART’S TAX-THEFT… In the world of journalism, a television station repeating a story from the local newspaper is rare. The opposite is far more likely to happen. Occasionally, however, a team of reporters go deep—a rare… Keep reading…

BAD GOVERNMENT, BUT GOOD BUSINESS…? Way back in 2006 Walmart fired a serious shot across the bows of the Bentonvile Behemoths pharmacy competitors by announcing $4/month prices on a wide range of generic pharmaceuticals. Of course… Keep reading…

CAN YOU HEAR CUSTOMERS NOW WALMART…? The fight for basic human rights expanded in Connecticut when a woman, with short hair, glasses and wearing a baseball cap, was asked to leave a Walmart bathroom. The bathrooms… Keep reading…

Previously…

Lauren Dakeand Dan Roberts writing in Bernie Sanders takes Oregon primary* for The Guardian, report:

Bernie Sanders’ supporters handed him a win in the Oregon primary on Tuesday, adding to his run of late victories over Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

With 60% of the vote reporting, the Vermont senator was ahead of Clinton 53%-47%.

In Kentucky, which also voted on Tuesday, Clinton declared victory hours after polls closed, but officially the race was too close to call. With 99.8% reporting, Clinton had 46.8% to 46.3% for Sanders. [Emphasis mine, JH]

From the start, it seemed Oregon was destined to be Bernie Sanders country. When the Vermont senator first visited Portland, while still considered a fringe candidate, huge crowds of supporters forced his campaign to book a basketball stadium to accommodate the larger-than-anticipated crowd. During a later visit, a tiny bird landed on his podium in the midst of his speech, delighting the internet.

Sanders had tried to encourage turnout by promising to prevail if enough voters showed up to the polls. To win, he had to overcome the state’s closed primary, which allows only registered Democrats – not independents – to vote and heavily favored Clinton. The senator has had more success in states that allow independents to vote.

“This was not magic, this was hard work,” said Morgan Watters, Sanders’ Oregon field director.

In Portland, the state’s largest city, there are generally two types of Democratic voters, said Jim Moore, a political science professor and director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University in Oregon.

There are the older union backers who came of age during the Vietnam War era and are more likely to be Clinton supporters. “Then there’s the group under 40 to 45, they are recent arrivals to Portland,” Moore said. “They moved here for the lifestyle choices. They like bicycles, they are working in the high-tech industry, they’ve seen Portlandia on television … they are interested in quality-of-life and the environment.” The bulk of them likely handed Sanders his win.

*Yes, I shortened The Guardian’s headline by cutting the second part. The full headline read: Bernie Sanders takes Oregon primary while Clinton claims Kentucky. I take exception here to the use of the word claims. The Guardian’s own numbers show Clinton getting 46.8 percent to Bernie’s 46.3 percent. Yes, that is a win for Hillary, but I’d call that a tie. So sue me.

A friend was looking for an old clipping from a 1960 Newsweek story about the Plain Dealer.

To help I said I’d search some boxes of my old stuff. I didn’t find the clipping.

I did discover, however, a lot of memories. More than I’ll tell here.

But one I can’t resist. I reveal a few more, too.

At times you need a laugh, even if it has a cost.

I’d always been told that the Plain Dealer library (morgue) when it received a copy of my newsletter point of viǝw, to which it subscribed, would photo copy a dozen or so and place them where reporters (usually too cheap to subscribe) would pick one up to read.

In January, 1986, I got a $50 check from the PD to renew its annual subscription. That was the “institutional” price I charged.

Remembering what I’d been told about the copying, I had a friendly lawyer deliver a message of my unhappiness. With it he returned the $50 check.

And he wrote a lawyerly letter:

Enclosed please find the Plain Dealer‘s check for Fifty Dollars ($50.00). Roldo Bartimole, editor of point of viǝw, requested I return this check since it does not accurately reflect the correct subscription rate.

“Mr. Bartimole has been informed that the Plain Dealer has been making unauthorized copies of point of viǝw for free distribution to editors and others at the newspaper via your paper’s inter-department mailing system. He also has proof that additional unauthorized copies are made available to reporters and others in the Plain Dealer‘s library.”

Information provided to me indicates that these unauthorized and unlawful practices have been conducted for as long as seventeen (17) years. point of viǝw has lost considerable income through these years, and Mr. Bartimole demands that they stop immediately.

The letter, addressed to Patricia Graziano, the paper’s librarian, went on Continue Reading »

I have a very real fear that as the months tick along, these headlines are going to become inevitable and boring. The twisted image that comes to mind is that of a doctor telling a terminal cancer patient that the cancer has spread to a new organ and now occupies a higher percent of their body than was the case a month ago.

The difference, of course, is that for the Earth, treatment is still possible. We can turn this around.

Michael Slezak, reporting in April breaks global temperature record, marking seven months of new highs> for The Guardian writes:

Keep the fucking carbon in the ground!

Bernie writes:

My father Eli immigrated to America from Poland in 1921 after World War I at the age of 17. He was not a refugee fleeing war, although much of his family later became victims of the Holocaust. He came to America looking to make a better life. He never made a lot of money, but it didn’t matter because he was able to start a family and send his two sons to college. That meant the world to him and he loved this country.

While my father came here as an immigrant seeking economic opportunity, many immigrants arrived in our country fleeing war, oppression and violence. This is true today for thousands of women and unaccompanied children who came to our country in the last several years fleeing horrific violence in Latin America.

This week the media reported something that I find not just wrong, but inhumane: President Obama is currently planning “a month-long series of raids in May and June to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children” who came to our country fleeing that same violence.

Sending women and children back into harm’s way after they already fled horrendous violence in Central America is painful and inhumane, and must be stopped.

Sign my petition asking President Obama to stop these raids and to make sure that families fleeing violence in Central America are protected from deportation.

Donald Trump has of course called for building a “Great Wall” along the border with Mexico. Hillary Clinton previously said that these same children who fled violence in Latin America “should be sent back” in order to “send a clear message.”

I happen to see things differently. I don’t believe that the United States should turn away from our historic role as a haven for the oppressed.

I recently met a young Salvadoran woman who came to the United States on her own at the age of 15 to flee gangs trying to recruit her. I’ve also spoken with many children who have told me with tears streaming down their faces that they live in daily fear that their parents will be taken away.

The United States of America must continue to be a refuge for the poor, the tired, the oppressed, and certainly for women and children fleeing horrific violence.

I urge President Obama to use his executive authority to protect families by extending Temporary Protective Status for those who fled from Central America, and I ask you to join me.

Add your name to mine to ask President Obama to stop planned raids and deportations of families fleeing violence in Central and Latin America. Together, we can speak up to protect these families.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

I added my name, you should too.

Andrew Blake, reporting in Chelsea Manning honored with award, cash prize for WikiLeaks disclosures for The Washington Times, writes:

Chelsea Manning, the former Army soldier convicted of the biggest leak of classified documents in U.S. history, was honored in absentia Monday at a London ceremony for her role in providing Wikileaks with secret documents concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Manning, 35, was named the winner of this year’s Blueprint Enduring Impact Whistleblowing Prize during an event hosted by Blueprint for Free Speech, a Melbourne-based nonprofit, at the London offices of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The award recognizes the exceptional importance of the disclosures by Manning in revealing the illegal practice of torture and detention, and in increasing the public understanding of the impact of war on civilians,” Blueprint for Free Speech said in a statement obtained by teleSUR.

I sincerely hope that President Obama has Chelsea on the short list for Presidential Pardons on his last day in office. She is far more deserving, for her service to her nation and We The People, than any I can imagine under consideration.

[Update at 1300 on 12 May: As is to be suspected, Mano Singham perfectly expands on Oliver’s piece in Misunderstanding and misrepresenting science.

Originally published at 0300 on 9 May]

I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to the counters and I only noticed this morning that back on 5 May I passed another milestone at Have Coffee Will Write when I published post no. 15,000. I passed the 10,000 posts milestone back on 4 April 2010.

Just sayin’, cheers…

This week I read the final installment in the graphic novel version Stephen King’s Dark Tower books. (I read the books years ago.) Without going into great detail, King writes in eight volumes of an environmentally ravaged dystopia. When I was a young reader the fear of such futures were driven by atomic wars. Later, pollutions—water, air and soil—became the villains. The villains are no longer fictional, as Michael Slezak, writing for The Guardian in World’s carbon dioxide concentration teetering on the point of no return relates:

The world is hurtling towards an era when global concentrations of carbon dioxide never again dip below the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone, as two important measuring stations sit on the point of no return.

The news comes as one important atmospheric measuring station at Cape Grim in Australia is poised on the verge of 400ppm for the first time. Sitting in a region with stable CO2 concentrations, once that happens, it will never get a reading below 400ppm.

Meanwhile another station in the northern hemisphere may have gone above the 400ppm line for the last time, never to dip below it again.

“We’re going into very new territory,” James Butler, director of the global monitoring division at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Guardian.

When enough CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, the seasonal cycles that drive the concentrations up and down throughout the year will eventually stop dipping the concentration below the 400ppm mark. The 400ppm figure is just symbolic, but it’s psychologically powerful, says Butler.

Psychologically powerful only if the figure does not become the new norm.

Coal was in the news this week as Hillary Clinton’s comment about putting coal miners out of work came back to bite her in the ass. Bernie, of course, delivered essentially the same message without kicking the coal miners under the bus. Yes, we must stop mining and burning coal, but that doesn’t mean we just toss the miners and their families on the ash heaps.

Another coal story, related to a piece I wrote last Friday, involves the now bankrupt Peabody Coal Company. Dana Nuccitelli, reporting in Coal made its best case against climate change, and lost for The Guardian writes:

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal company (now bankrupt), recently faced off against environmental groups in a Minnesota court case. The case was to determine whether the State of Minnesota should continue using its exceptionally low established estimates of the ‘social cost of carbon’, or whether it should adopt higher federal estimates.

The social cost of carbon is an estimate of how much the damages from carbon pollution cost society via climate change damages. In theory, it represents how much the price of fossil fuels should increase to reflect their true costs.

The coal company called forth witnesses that represented the fringe 2–3 percent of experts who reject the consensus that humans are the primary cause of global warming, including Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen, while their opposition invited witnesses like Andrew Dessler and John Abraham who represent the 97 percent expert consensus.

I don’t believe in either heavens or hells, but I certainly can understand the emotional utility of doing so. In a universe that contained such, there would be a special place in hell for the Francis Peabody and his minions.

Keep Carbon In The Ground…

The time has long gone by for the consideration, debate on and passage of Rep. John Conyers HB 40.

Previously…

How desperate in the early 2000s was the Cleveland Establishment to get a new convention center and thus shoot for the 2016 Republican Convention?

As desperate as anyone could possibly be. Mouth-wateringly.

However, to squeeze out new revenue for a convention center—atop the huge mounds of money already spent on sports venues—posed a problem. Even for our Big Boys. How to get the dough.
They wanted it so badly. And not from themselves, of course.

How can we add another tax, the corporate leaders had to ask themselves. Certainly not by going to the voters.

It would take the skill of making a pool table shot that slams one ball that clinks another that bumps a third, then caroms off a fourth. And finally goes in the pocket.

Clumsy maybe. But a score.

You may remember that Tim Hagan with thoughtless Jimmy Dimora came to the rescue with an added sales tax—the most regressive tax of them all—in 2007 Continue Reading »

Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs, reporting in Bernie Sanders takes West Virginia for The Guardian, write:

A defiant Bernie Sanders refused to go gently into the night on Tuesday with another last-minute primary win over Hillary Clinton that comes despite her commanding lead in the national race for delegates.

In a fundraising email sent out soon after polls closed, the leftwing senator hailed his victory in West Virginia and said: “Every vote we earn and every delegate we secure sends an unmistakable message about the values we share, the country’s support for the ideas of our campaign, and a rejection of Donald Trump and his values.”

He added: “There is nothing I would like more than to take on and defeat Donald Trump, someone who must never become president of this country. But I believe that it is not enough to just reject Trump – this is an opportunity to define a progressive vision for America.

“Voters agree: just today, three new polls showed that we are the best campaign to defeat Trump.”

Yes he is.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap from China. On The Writing On The Wal—the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar—I continue my singular work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

MR. MCMILLON: OPEN THOSE DOORS… The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union wants transparency when Walmart hauls in non-union (i.e. all Walmart) employees for disciplinary hearings that result from worker strikes. Given… Keep reading…

WALMART GETTING AHEAD OF TRUMP’S WALL…? Much of the news concerning Americans not living in the United States of late has been focused on the Republican obsession illegal immigration: Donald Trump and the mythical idea that a Game-Of-Thrones… Keep reading…

WALMART: AMERICA’S TOWN SQUARE… Senator Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.)—whose name sounds strangely like Benghazi—Facebook Manifesto/Anti-Trump rant isn’t all that interesting. The reaction of the headline writer at The Guardian, however, caught… Keep reading…

TARGET IS RIGHT ON TRANS CUSTOMERS… Let Walmart know that you think Target (and others) are right in not discriminating against transgender customers’ use of their bathrooms and that you support Target’s stance by informing Walmart headquarters… Keep reading…

ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO ALWAYS PAY CASH… One of the ways that thieves exploit the electronic economy is by using simple devices that look like ATM/Debit card readers at cash machines and retail checkout card readers to collect both account… Keep reading…

WALMART GREETERS MAKING A COMEBACK… When Sam Walton instituted the practice of hiring, often kindly and retired, people to stand at the doors of his stores and greet people, he found a way to take the most impersonal edifices imaginable—a big… Keep reading…

VOLUNTARILY EAT FOOD FROM WALMART…? I’ll say up front that Tim Worstall has found a better way to make a living with his journalistic skills than I have. He managed to turn his blogging skills into a regular gig for Forbes while there are moths circling… Keep reading…

WALMART HAS ANOTHER ASK FOR VENDORS… When Walmart needs to slash costs the Bentonvile Behemoth turns first to the serfs who till the fields vendors that supply product for the company’s shelves. Why divert any of the stockholders’ profits… Keep reading…

WALMART OUT SHINES THE HEAVENS… I attended Colorado State University back in 1975 and I have fond memories of the brilliant night skies once you got away from the light pollution of Fort Collins. Seeing those stars gets more difficult with each… Keep reading…

IF ONLY WALMART CONTROLLED THE MESSAGE… The wet dream of any individual in the public arena, or any corporation desirous of only good press, is to own a media outlet that people trust: think NBC and General Electric or Rupert Murdoch and Fox… Keep reading…

Previously…

I’m old enough to have learned to write on a manual typewriter and remember the experience of retyping whole pages when I reworked a draft. Few people—possibly the better writers, I don’t know—still engage in this kind of second- or third-pass at a manuscript. The rest of us edit on the screen and only change the words we’re focused on. Perhaps we ought not to do that so much.

[John Cage] said that it’s a very good idea that after you write a little bit, stop and then copy it. Because while you’re copying it you thinking about it, and it’s giving you other ideas. And that the way I work. And it’s marvelous, just wonderful, the relationship between working and copying. —Morton Feldman (1926-1987), page 15..

From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

I never met Elanor Roosevelt. I trust that she was a wise woman who spoke and wrote much that arose from that wisdom. I’m confident, however, that she never said: Do one thing every day that scares you.

I did meet Maggie Kuhn once while I was attending Ohio University and I am equally confident that she did say: Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind–even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants. (There’s another famous (disputed) quote by another famous woman I also find germane here.)

The quotes attributed to all three women, however, are all about actions over words. In the second decade of the 21st century we need much more of the former and much less of the latter as The Yes Men opined in Technology supports movements. But only risk-takers make political change for The Guardian:

Technology has always been instrumental to movements for social and political change, but recently, it’s been getting too much credit for the success of those movements.

People talk about how Egypt’s revolution was due to Facebook, or how none of today’s activism (Ferguson, the Keystone XL protests, Occupy) would be successful without social media. That’s all hogwash. Hosni Mubarak had no reason to fear a website, only what people might do when they stopped looking at it; shutting down Facebook only got people into the streets that much faster.

Electronic technologies can be important and useful, but they’re never revolutionary in themselves. Like engravings, the printing press or other technologies that have appeared over the centuries, electronic media do help activists get the word out. Even “clicktivism” – tweeting, liking, or adding your email to online petitions, which is ultimately just a much less impactful version of writing to your congressperson – has its place. But policy shifts and paradigm shifts require more than a click. Even Wikileaks and Anonymous,which put technology to truly revolutionary uses, have garnered the most attention when people like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden have stepped out of the shadows, willingly or not.

We all hide in some shadow, some more than others. What’s casting your shadow?

What follows stands alone in my experience as the most odd writing ritual I have yet learned of. I suppose there are stranger rites out there, but I have my doubts.

…Standing naked at his hotel-hotel room window, Wolfe found that his weariness had suddenly evaporate and that he was eager to write again. Returning to the table he wrote until dawn with, he recalled, amazing speed, ease and sureness. Looking back, Wolfe tried to figure out what had prompted the sudden change—and realized that, at the window, he had been unconsciously fondling his genitals, a habit from childhood that, while not exactly sexual (his penis remained limp and unaroused, he noted in a letter to his editor), fostered such a good male feeling that it had stoked his creative energies. From then on, Wolfe regularly used this method to inspire his writing sessions, dreamily exploring his male configuration until the sensuous elements in every domain of life became more immediate, real and beautiful. —Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), page 9.

From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry.

Found in my electronic chapbook.