Laura writes:

Now if Im honest, i dont believe that you have much if any control over the world or our lives, i think my future is pretty much down to me…but should you be there somewhere along the way, I’d like you to know that I am working bloody hard to try and get myself well and living a good purposeful life, and I dont really appreciate all the obstacles in the way or illnesses that I seem powerless to control. So if you are able to do anything to make this easier, please please work your magic.

Shalom Laura,

The magic is in those you love and who love you.

B’shalom,

Jeff

For once, I think this is much better without the sound.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Marietta, Ohio, (my hometown where my awesome sister-in-law Sherri Hess is running on the Republican ticket for City Auditor) provides a lesson on objections to regionalism and the socialist/centralist plans of Ohio Govenor John Kasich.

From this morning’s Marietta Times:

Members of Marietta City Council’s finance committee agreed Wednesday to consider a resolution of opposition to a proposal that would give the state authority to collect city income taxes.

City treasurer Val Holley said the Kasich administration has discussed the possibility of centralizing local income tax collection from Columbus then redistributing the revenue back to municipalities.

“The state is just in the talking stages of taking over income tax collections for the city but we would stand to lose revenue, so we’re asking council to send copies of this resolution to the governor, state auditor and our state representative,” Holley said.

“We could lose a couple of jobs in the city tax department and I don’t know how the state would handle delinquent taxes,” she added. “We currently take those directly to court.”

Under the proposal, the state would have to process income tax collections from 579 municipalities but would be unable to enforce local tax codes, according to information Holley provided the committee members along with the draft resolution.

She said the state would also not be able to process city income tax in a timely manner, which could hinder the city’s ability to pay its bills.

If I didn’t know Jimi Izrael I wouldn’t know Amber Cole either.

Here’s what Jimi had to say. Then Tracy Renee Jones jumped all over the story (read the comments, they blew my mind) along with Victor L. Williamson, Mark Anthony Neal and Latoya Peterson.

You won’t learn about Amber Cole on Slate or Salon, she’s off their radar.

Go, read, come back, build a community.

Thanks Jimi.

More from Harry Belafonte on #Occupy:

The Root: What are your feelings about Occupy Wall Street?

Harry Belafonte: First of all, I am encouraged by it. I think that its presence has done more to define the extent of social discontent than almost anything has done in the recent past. Where it’s going is, I think, a great question for everyone, even those that are involved in making the machine work.

As it begins to broaden its base and begins to look for a greater specific [goal], it also understands that it is embarking on a very complicated journey here. It’s one thing to protest; it’s one thing to target what it is you want to change and what are going to be the costs of changing it. And I think they are now at that place where it’s the protest everybody understands.

The fact that the banks have been unjust in the most extreme way is very clear. The question now is, how do you fix it? You’re certainly not going to get a volunteer admission on the part of the banks to say, “Well, we understand how wrong we’ve been; we’ll self-correct and we’ll give you results in 10 days.” And they are not going to be able to change the way in which business is done by a business institution unless they make business very uncomfortable with what’s going on with oppression.

I know that for a fact there are a lot of schemes on the table right now about investments and institutions divesting from places where the banking rules are the most offensive and the most punitive. But that’s such a hard thing to unravel. So somebody has to look at the whole system and say, “What can you fix in the system that makes all of this begin to take a corrective path?” And I think that that’s what they’re grappling with now, and I kind of like listening to that debate and being called upon from time to time to give an opinion.

Ralph Nader writes:

This vanguard of larger protests to come is building on the personal stories of desperate but failed attempts to find work; stories of heart-breaking inability to pay for healthcare for themselves or their families’; stories of being defrauded of their pensions, their tax dollars, their savings and their rights. They demand accountability for the culprits who lied, stole and got away with it destroying the economy. And they want Congress to never bailout the Wall Street crooks, swindlers and speculators with taxpayer dollars.

Shining the light of the 99 percenters on the operations base of the corporate supremacists and their Congressional minions in one location after another both empowers and further informs those Americans who are seeing that showing up is half of democracy.

Leo Jennings writes:

Let’s be serious, anyone who thinks the traders and financiers walking around in $5,000 bespoke suits in the offices overlooking the protests gives a damn about marches, chants, signs, or the invective that’s hurled at them as they arrive and leave in their limos and Town Cars each day is, in a word, delusional. I’ve dealt with people like them, they know they’re evil, they enjoy it, they revel in it, and believe me, they’re laughing at the protesters all day, every day, including on the weekends whether they’re at their Beach House in the Hamptons or flying off to the islands on their Gulfstream Vs.

In fact, when they hear words like these from the occupiers they literally laugh so hard that Dom Perignon flies out of their noses:

In Boston, Meghann Sheridan wrote on the group’s Facebook page, “The process is the message.” In Baltimore, Cullen Nawalkowsky, a protester, said by phone that the point was a “public sphere not moderated by commodities or mainstream political discourse.” An Occupy Cleveland participant, Harrison Kalodimos, is even writing a statement about why demands are not the answer.

Yup, I can see the boys at City Bank reading this stuff in the NYT and then saying: “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh we’re so scared of a public sphere not moderated by commodities” Give me a break.

Via Bridget D. Ginley…

Via PolitiFact:

Alan Grayson, an Orlando Democrat and former U.S. Representative running to reclaim a seat in 2012, emerged a big-time supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement after appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Oct. 7, 2011.

A couple of Maher’s panelists, and even Maher himself, mocked the protesters for their worrisome bathroom situation, lack of media spokesperson, name choice, and proficiency (or lack thereof) in economics. Saying he was a former economist, Grayson jumped in, saying he had no problem understanding the protesters’ grievances.

Grayson’s defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement earned him praise from the left-wing blosophere and pundits for its pith. No pundit or official in the movement’s first month had quite articulated the protesters’ qualms — high unemployment, expensive health care, poverty and underwater mortgage payments — as Grayson did in 20 seconds on Maher’s show. We examined each of his economic claims and found them accurate, point for point. We rate his claim True.

This is my favorite bit:

These issues are always tough campaigns where every single vote counts. For instance, Legacy Village was approved in an election in Lyndhurst–winning by 47 votes. Avon Commons was approved by only 67 votes–after losing an initial election. So every vote counts and I would appreciate your help.

Yes they do Mitch, especially when the 1 percent is so numerically outnumbered by the 99 percent.

I am asking you to help even if you don’t live in South Euclid…

Wait, what? I thought you opposed people from outside of South Euclid getting involved? Now you’re telling us that you’re OK with carpetbaggers and scallywags as long as they’re your carpetbaggers and scallywags?

…because we are all so interconnected…

By wealth and power, Mitch? What else could be interconnecting you to the carpetbaggers and scallywags you’re pitching to?

…and this is an opportunity for economic growth in our region…

Oh come on Mitch, at best you’re shuffling jobs among Northeastern Ohio communities and at worst your killing existing jobs tied to the community, all to line your pockets. The only economic growth going on here will be in your bank account.

…and an innovative project…

Innovative? Really Mitch, how do you get innovative from big-box retail and drive-through fast food franchises?

…incorporating best practices in new sustainable design concepts–right in our own backyard.

Whose backyard Mitch? Can you even see South Euclid from your backyard? The backyards we’re talking about are the homes on the east side of Andrews Road and Wood Road and Revere Road. The people who live in houses on the north side of East Antisdale Road and the south side of Bainbridge Road. How many of those people did you send your email to Mitch?

Click for a larger, more easily read copy…

…extraordinarily sad.

From CNet News:

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the credit card companies are currently trying to work out a system whereby purchases consumers make in a brick-and-mortar store can be used to deliver more effective ads online.

A MasterCard document obtained by the Journal outlines some of the company’s plans, which included linking Web users with purchases. According to document, the credit card provider said it believes “you are what you buy.”

However, MasterCard told the Journal that the plans included in that document have been shelved because it would have revealed too much information about individual buyers. Instead, the company told the Journal, it is exploring ways to anonymously group a person’s purchase history with others to create marketing “segments.” That data would then be sold to marketing firms.

Citing a source, the Journal said that Visa is planning a similar service, which would aggregate its customers’ purchase history into segments, including location, to make ads more effective at appealing to people in a respective area.

Yes, cash is king…!

Matt Taibbi writes:

I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with a salesman in the media business. The subject turned to Zucotti Park and Occupy Wall Street, and he was chuckling about something he’d heard on the news.

“I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO,” he said. “I think that’s funny.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Why is that funny?”

“Well, I heard they’re trying to decide what bank to put their money in,” he said, munching on hors d’oeuvres. “It’s just kind of ironic.”

Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.

“Listen,” I said, “where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s just, they’re protests are all about… You know…”

“Dude,” I said. “These people aren’t protesting money. They’re not protesting banking. They’re protesting corruption on Wall Street.”

“Whatever,” he said, shrugging.

These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer. Earlier that same day, I’d taped a TV segment on CNN with Will Cain from the National Review, and we got into an argument on the air. Cain and I agreed about a lot of the problems on Wall Street, but when it came to the protesters, we disagreed on one big thing.