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 How to Create a Customized Tickler File System.
The difference being that ignorance is curable through education; stupidity is forever. And why do I ask the question? Because the senator seems to have forgotten that Iraq is a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government put in place by elections that the United States sanctioned.
We planned, organized and implemented the election of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. We do not get to take a do-over just because we don’t like the result.
From this morning’s Washington Post:
Declaring the government of Iraq “non-functional,” the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq’s parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
“I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.
I’ll say up-front that I don’t disagree with Sen. Levin. We’ve made a right cock-up of Democracy in Iraq through our ignorant blunderings, but now we have to dance with the one we brought. This isn’t 1963. This isn’t Vietnam. We’re not dealing with Ngô Dinh Diêm. There is no Nguyen Van Thieu waiting in the wing.
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For by Alice Walker.
He was someone who, in a sense, was living, consciously, toward his death. p. 171
[Last Thursday I wrote: I”d also want to ask O”Donnell if he observed the first rule of journalism and followed the money. Not the panhandlers, the Alliance”s.
And I asked:
Who are the major contributors to the Alliance? Who sits on the boards of the foundations that are financing it?
The whole idea has set my Lemmings Meter ticking and I have to wonder if the not-for-profit organization might not be just another Astroturf front for the same folks who want to tax us more to line their pockets with the cash from building a convention center?
Well, here’s the answer.]
Ordinary panhandlers need not apply.
For example, Marinucci”s Downtown Partnership got gifts of $25,000, $10,000 and $7,500 from the Gund Foundation. It got gifts of $48,512 (for Public Square so let”s keep panhandlers and homeless out), $5,000, another $5,000, $36,000 and $6,000 from the Cleveland Foundation. (All these figures of non-profits – meaning tax dodgers – are from 2005 tax returns, the latest available.)
In his new operation, Marinucci got $208,750 from Gund for the Downtown Alliance.
These foundations are part of the apparatus that works to wheedle money from government for private interests. Their bosses are well paid for the effort. Ronald Richard, president of the Cleveland Foundation gets an annual $305,000 salary and a $63,118 contribution to his pension. One guesses he won”t be panhandling when he retires.
Dave Abbott gets a $236,808 salary and $54,284 pension contribution from the Gund Foundation. No panhandling in his future either.
The slogan given for the attack on panhandlers by Downtown Alliance is “Don”t Give Where it Can”t Help.” I”d suggest another panhandler catchphrase: “Don”t Give to Those Who Can Help Themselves.”
That could get us right into the Medical Mart Trojan horse these same folks are pushing as a means to get an unnecessary new convention center. Roldo Bartimole
And, oh yeah, why the feck isn’t there a single journalist worth the title on the Plain Dealer able to stand up and tell the truth?
Perhaps it’s time for Pee Dee editor Susan Golberg to follow the example of her predecessor Doug Clifton and have a sit down with Bob Garfield at On The Media and talk about what’ not going on, i.e. news reporting, in Cleveland.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the folks at the Columbia Journalism Review were turning their eyes on Cleveland, again.
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 Eating For Energy Or For Stress Relief?
In other words, the Fed has to bail out the speculators because we”ll all suffer if it doesn”t. That doesn”t mean, though, that the irresponsibilities now so clearly revealed in American financial markets should be excused or forgotten when the crisis ends. Wall Street has been living in an anything-goes world for too long. It has been widely – and wrongly – assumed that investors, creditors, and borrowers are smart enough to take care of themselves, especially if they”re big. That”s wrong. Robert Reich
The standard Bushbot defense for this is going to be that Jose Padilla was a terrorist, whereas Conrad Black was just a criminal. That”s not the point. We, as Americans, enjoy certain rights. Unalienable Rights. There is no asterisk next to these rights in the Constitution.
Joe Padilla, an American citizen arrested on American soil, was not just denied his rights, he had them violated in an obscene and clearly illegal manner. Conrad Black, who is not American but was arrested on American soil, was afforded those rights, as should anyone arrested for an offense in a civilized democracy.
(Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people, was afforded all his constitutional rights, convicted, and eventually executed.) National Review seems to think that violating the Constitutional rights of one person is perfectly acceptable, whereas with the other, gee, isn”t it a shame that our good friend is going to prison for stealing millions of dollars. Pity about that.
Utter, rank hypocrisy, the kind that unfortunately defines the GOP these days. Lee
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
That’s the headline on this story from the Associated Press and it pisses me off. Not because it’s incorrect, it’s not. But because at best it’s lazy and spins information in such a way that doesn’t represent what the the information the story has to tell. If I were on the copy desk I would have written the headline this way:
ISRAEL FACES FLOOD OF DARFURIAN REFUGEES FROM EGYPT.
That better tells the story that you find in the lede of copy.
Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow refugees from Darfur to stay after they sneak across the border from Egypt, drawing criticism from those who say the Jewish state is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder.
Israel has been grappling for months over how to deal with the swelling numbers of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have been crossing the porous desert border.
Notice that the original head says nothing about Egypt’s moral obligation to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder, even though the Darfurians have traversed more than 750 kilometers of Egyptian soil to reach the Israeli border.
And where are these rejected refugges being sent? Back to Darfur to be slaughtered? No, back to Egypt which allowed them to travel from Sudan to Israel.
On Sunday, a government spokesman said some 500 Darfurians already in Israel would be allowed to stay, but all new asylum seekers would be sent back to Egypt, with no exception.
“The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur,” spokesman David Baker said.
Overnight, Israel returned 48 Africans to Egypt. An Israeli government official said Egypt had guaranteed that any Darfur refugees would not be forced to return to Sudan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release that information to the press.
No country is capable of absorbing an unlimited influx of immigrants. Look at how states surrounding Iraq are dealing with refugees attempting to escape the civil war in that country.
At best the AP copy desk is guilty of inept or lazy writing. At worst it’s a blatant attempt at discrimination.
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For by Alice Walker.
When he died by the gun, for many, many people, in the Movement and out of it, there was a feeling of release. We can”t do it, many felt; we can”t live as nonviolently as Martin Luther King Jr., did (and once again the white man – in the person of King”s assassin – has demonstrated why). p. 169
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 A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer: 15 Practical Tips.
Helped are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long. p. 135
In honor of Terry Kanago, the most loving person I know, and her comment that inspired me, I present a daily passage from Shug’s gospel. It is my hope that readers will contribute their own Helpeds so that we’ll never run out of reminders that as Alice Walker wrote: to bless means to help.
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For by Alice Walker.
May you be happy
May you be well
May you be peaceful
May you know joy
May you also know
Your student
Of so long ago
Gratefully
Remembers
You.
p. 163
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 How To Keep Your Creative Flow.
The colonization of silence is complete. Its progress was so gradual that even those who watched it with alarm have only now begun to take stock of the losses. Reflection, discernment, a sustainable sense of tranquility, of knowing where and how to find oneself-these are only the most obvious casualties of marauding noise’s march to the sea. Much more insidious has been the loss of music itself. Andrew Waggoner
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