It all started with this photo. And stretched out to a comment thread where I was accused of misogynistic undertones and shackling… professional women… with the same old pair of cuffs.
So linking to this New York Times story is probably going to result in pitchforks and torches at midnight.
Such is the price of Free Speech.
It’s worth it.
It is impossible to know now how many hundreds of thousands, millions?, will die from malnutrition and starvation in the coming months as the full effect of the military dictators criminal obstruction becomes manifest. Because the Irrawaddy Delta is the rice basket for the region, their actions condemn people far from the borders of Myanmar.
From a U.S. Government report:
Tropical cyclone Nargis struck the heart of Burma’s rice growing region in the low-lying Ayeyarwady delta on May 2nd, causing extensive damage to agricultural lands, infrastructure, livestock, and stored food grains.
A 12-foot storm surge (tidal wave) accompanied the cyclone, reportedly penetrated 25-30 miles inland along the storms path. A nearly 2000 square mile area of prime farmland was inundated with salt water and/or heavy rainfall. The affected region normally accounts for roughly 60 percent of the nation’s rice production. Continue Reading »
From the Associated Press:
Exxon Mobil is getting out of the retail gasoline business, a market where profits have gotten tougher because of high crude oil prices.
The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said Thursday it will sell its 820-company owned stations and another 1,400 outlets operated by dealers to gasoline distributors across the U.S.
Reads to me like somone doesn’t want to own the targets of fill-up rage.
In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows – when the country faces rebellion or invasion.
This is good news. But the underlying fact that Habeas squeaked by 5:4 is monstrous.
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Time Striping: A Different Approach to Time Management.
Practically no writer exists now who does not intersect as some point with the university system-this is unquestionably the chief sociological fact of modern American literature.
The benefits of sugar in your coffee: I had a Cuban this morning at Phoenix.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright doesn’t think that humanitarian intervention in a Post Iraq world has a chance. Writing in the New York Times, Albright — who oversaw humanitarian interventions in Haiti and the Balkans — writes that the military dictators of Myanmar are enjoying the return of a world were national sovereignty is inviolable.
The Burmese government”s criminally neglectful response to last month”s cyclone, and the world”s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world”s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion – in places like Haiti and the Balkans – would seem impossible in today”s climate.
The first and most obvious reality is the survival of totalitarian government in an age of global communications and democratic progress. Myanmar”s military junta employs the same set of tools used by the likes of Stalin to crush dissent and monitor the lives of citizens. The needs of the victims of Cyclone Nargis mean nothing to a regime focused solely on preserving its own authority. Continue Reading »
I feel a bit like a man breaking the surface of the water after a too-long immersion. A few minutes ago I cleared a back log of comments on both Have Coffee Will Write and The Writing On The Wal that reached back to feckin’ late March.
April and May were very hectic for me, with a glut of students packing my schedule from 9 a.m. (and earlier) to 8:30 p.m. Don’t get me wrong. I like being able to pay my bills. But in this business it’s feast or famine so I can’t turn down any students I can possibly fit in.
I only have one student this week and I’ve been using the suddenly free time to catch up.
The first part was the comments; I had about a hundred or so of them to respond to. Out on the long tail my comments are scarce enough that I still like to give that personal touch. I can’t imagine how the big names manage it. They probably don’t.
That’s a challenge I’ll gladly deal with when it arises.
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Hard Drive Zen with the Humble Folder.
It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
ONLY PEOPLE CAN HAVE MORAL OBLIGATIONS… [Update 0851, Trina at The Big Box Colaborative has just emailed me the final copy of the Consensus Standards For Big Box Retailers. My reservations notwithstanding, the standards represent reasonable goals as a matter of political and social justice to fight towards.]
Yesterday Martha left a comment on one of my posts concerning Consensus Standards For Big Box Retailers. On the website there is a link to a 3 June document. A final document is promised for today or tomorrow, so it”s unclear what version this might be. Keep reading…
FORGET THE SCORPION IN THE WATERMELLONS… Look…
EIGHT PROPOSALS… EIGHT REJECTIONS… It”s party annual-meeting week in Bentonville, Arkansas, as tens of thousands of executives, shareholders and employees pack into the town to hear the word from on on high. As David Nassar writes, there are eight shareholder proposals on the agenda. Keep reading…
WAL-MART GAINS $591 MILLION CASH INFUSION… One of the consistent business strategies at Wal-Mart is that the company follows the advice of Andrew Carnegie by putting all of its eggs in one basket and then keeping a close eye on that basket. So the news out of Great Britain this week is no great surprise. Keep reading…
HOW MANY LIES BEFORE CREDIBILITY IS LOST…? Twice in as many days I have come across the argument that critics should engage those they wish to critique on the facts and not dismiss arguments based upon their source. The first was from blogger Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish. Keep reading…
ANGUS, ANGUS, ANGUS (NOT THE BEEF)… Rick Aristotle Munarriz deserves a trophy or a sound thrashing for the most bad allusions to AC/DC songs in a single blog post. Writing at The Motley Fool, Munarriz starts with Wal-Mart”s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and goes down hill from there. Keep reading…
MIGHT THE QUESTION BE ANSWERED BETTER…? Every time I think I”ve heard of the biggest blunder I can imagine involving a Wal-Mart store manager, some brilliant piece of work proves me wrong. This time it involves a law student spending two days in jail over two suspected forged money orders. Keep reading…
DO YOU OWN THIS SWINGSET…? The good side of being only one of two companies selling something is that people have to come to you to buy it. The bad side of being only one of two companies selling something is that when it goes bad, people know where to find you. Keep reading…
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is
High School’s Worst Year?
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