20 March 2007
20 March 2007
I CAN’T COMPREHEND THIS…
1557 by Jeff Hess
I understand that there are plenty of members of the United Nations that don’t like Israel. I understand that there are nations that will take any opportunity to show Israel in any bad light they can grab hold of. But I just cannot understand how it is possible to anything this blatant, this in your face, to have happened.
(Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.)
Last Friday, the UN surpassed itself as it finished its annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women by singling out Israel and only Israel (which actually has a very good record on women”s rights) as being the only state “found in violation of women”s rights.”
The hundreds of thousands of women who have been killed, raped, mutilated and displaced in Sudan, the women whipped in Saudi Arabia, hanged for “adultery” in Iran, forced to abort in China, murdered in honor killings in Holland, England and elsewhere, all these were ignored by the UN as it attacked only Israel.
The vote against Israel was 40 for and 2 against, with only the United States and Canada voting against. Amazingly (or perhaps not) Germany, on behalf of the European Union, voted against Israel.
This is so horrendous that you want to believe it’s a typo; that the list was truncated by a computer; that a dog ate it; anything.
The National Review has this to say:
The same week the commission focused specifically only on the state of Israel, 33 Muslim women engaging in peaceful protest outside a courthouse in Tehran were abruptly arrested on charges of “endangering national security.”
Their goal? To put an end to polygamy and to child-custody laws that strip mothers in Iran of the right to raise and protect their own children.
On March 8 – International Women”s Day – 700 women”s-rights activists again gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran, demanding fair trials for the women jailed a few days earlier. Iranian security forces and ranks of baton-wielding police once more descended on the women, driving them back with physical force, verbal obscenities, and threats of more to come.
In Saudi Arabia, during the first week of March, a 19-year-old girl who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped, and then beaten by her brother for having “allowed” herself to become the victim of a rape has been sentenced to 90 lashes.
Her crime? Meeting a young man who was not a family member. Indeed, one of her judges told this young woman she was lucky to have not gotten jail time.
But at the U.N., the Women”s Rights Commission adopted only one country-specific resolution on “Palestinian women.” Apparently, the members had missed the headlines about the arrests in Tehran and the teenager in Riyadh, emblematic of legal systems built on gross and systematic discrimination against women.
They also failed to notice the millions of vulnerable women and girls raped, displaced, dead or dying in Sudan, the millions of women forcibly aborted in China, and the thousands murdered or forced to commit suicide for the crime of “dishonoring” their fathers and brothers across the Arab and Muslim world.
Women around the World should rise up and toss all the pitiful wastes of human genome masquerading as men out of the United Nations.
20 March 2007
THE POWER OF A COLLECTIVE…
1526 by Jeff Hess
One of the tactics of government to end inconvenient investigations is the the data dump: release thousands or even tens-of-thousands of pieces of paper that no one will be able to pore through without going blind or crazy. And in the past it’s worked. when I heard this morning of the 3,000-page dump, I thought, here we go again.
Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo, however, realized he had the answer:
Josh and I were just discussing how in the world we are ever going to make our way through 3,000 pages when it hit us: we don’t have to. Our readers can help.
So here’s what we’re going to do. This comment thread will be our HQ for sorting through tonight’s document dump.
And to make it efficient and comprehensible, we’ll have a system. As you can see on the House Judiciary Committee’s website, they’ve begun reproducing 50-page pdfs of the documents with a simple numbering system, 3-19-2007 DOJ-Released Documents 1-1, then 1-2, then 1-3, etc. So pick a pdf, any pdf and give it a look. If you find something interesting (or damning), then tell us about it in the comment thread below.
I’m reading packet No. 1-10. Which one will you be reading?
Gawd I love the blogosphere.
20 March 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff Hess
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 to Search, Search With Time.
20 March 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff Hess
CAPT B. Tupper: On 26 June 2006, CPL Polanski, our Afghan National Army Company, and I spent almost four hours surrounded and under fire from a very tenacious and determined Taliban group in Andar District, Ghazni Province. It was only one of three separate combat engagements that we weathered that day. After nearly eight hours of ambush…,
20 March 2007
McJOBS ARE A GOOD THING…?
0830 by Jeff Hess
Long before there was Wal-Mart there was McDonald’s. And as the company grew it became a workforce gateway for our nation’s teenagers. And the mind-numbing insanity of counting pickles, measuring ketchup and being threatened with hell fire and damnation if you didn’t remember to ask: do you want fries with that? resulted in the term McJobs.
In the late ’90s the Oxford English Dictionary added the term despite reports of threats from McDonald’s. According to the OED, a McJob is: an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.
Four years ago Merriam-Webster added the term to the 11th edition of it’s collegiate dictionary as a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.
Having failed to sway anyone with lame legal arguments, McDonald’s now has the Orwellian chuzpah to believe it can force the world’s dictionaries to rewrite the defintion through a petition drive.
But where does it think that it will find people who haven’t either worked a McJob, known someone who worked a McJob, or been served by someone working a McJob? In Lower Slobovia perhaps?
20 March 2007
20 March 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff Hess
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.
20 March 2007
MY COMMENTS…
0644 by Jeff Hess
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.
0729 Wal-Mart…Opponents Should Be Careful What They Wished For
1159 Garrison Keillor: …a more genteel homophobe than Ann Coulter?
1152 Brunner to fire Bob Bennett? Asked all Cuyahoga BOE to resign
20 March 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff Hess
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 A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.
How I handle an anxiety-producing situation – either on the job, in the home or in the community – will depend on my own particular temperament, constitution, previous training and experience. Don”t resort to mechanical formulas to solve problems.
Find the method most compatible with my own personality and life style. I can learn from emulating other, but I should strive to conduct my life in ways suited to myself. New situations require new solutions. the more I look for my own solutions to new and problematic situations, the more likely I will find the best approach for me.
Don”t blame my inaction on others and take credit for sacrificing my goals on their behalf. This demeans them and creates insecurity about my “true feelings.”
19 March 2007
THUMBPRINT PLEASE… OR ELSE…
1619 by Jeff Hess
This is what six years of Republican, Neo/Theocon, Patriot Act BULL SHIT! has produced: a nation where someone is refused the purchase of a new car unless they relinquish biometric data — in this case, a thumbprint — based on no law but simply a company policy of a feckin’ automotive dealership. What will it take for the sheep to wake up?
Do they really have to line us up for tattoos before we balk?
19 March 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’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 Sleep. Consume.
19 March 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff HessRob: Below is a video that I put together for my friends and family to show them the story of my section’s time in hell. Lately, it has received a lot of attention from the media and others. It is just our story, told without restraint. And…that’s all. [And that, after all is said and done, ought to more than sufficient for any of us.]
19 March 2007
BUSH’S JANISARIES…
1140 by Jeff Hess
When I first heard of Blackwater I thought that someone was spoofing an ongoing plot line from The X-Files. But there was no irony there. And that’s scary. I heard about Jeremy Scahill’s book a couple of weeks ago and ordered a copy from the library. The Nation has a long article on the phenomenon it calls Bush’s Shadow Army.
Our service personnel swear an oath to the Constitution. By what do Blackwater’s troops swear?
To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld resigned he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine. In the Pentagon’s 2006 Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld outlined what he called a “road map for change” at the DOD, which he said had begun to be implemented in 2001.
It defined the “Department’s Total Force” as “its active and reserve military components, its civil servants, and its contractors–constitut[ing] its warfighting capability and capacity. Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions.” This formal designation represented a major triumph for war contractors–conferring on them a legitimacy they had never before enjoyed.
Blackwater was founded in 1996 by conservative Christian multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince–the scion of a wealthy Michigan family whose generous political donations helped fuel the rise of the religious right and the Republican revolution of 1994.
At its founding, the company largely consisted of Prince’s private fortune and a vast 5,000-acre plot of land located near the Great Dismal Swamp in Moyock, North Carolina. Its vision was “to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training.”
In the following years, Prince, his family and his political allies poured money into Republican campaign coffers, supporting the party’s takeover of Congress and the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency.
A citizenry that out-sources it’s most sacred obligation, to protect that which ensures it’s own liberty, has ceased to deserve the fruits of those who freely sacrificed all to ensure our nation’s existence.
19 March 2007
MY COMMENTS…
0814 by Jeff HessPart 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.
0809 Ohio Case May Define “Journalist” [UPDATED]
0627 And you wonder why they call Wal-Mart Orwellian?
0620 Why Wal-Mart”s New Computerized Scheduling Is So Frickin” Evil (Part 1)
19 March 2007
MONA’S MONDAY…
0800 by Jeff HessMy dad isn’t the only one who sends me fun stuff via email. A good friend and educational mentor also routinely passes along her share of chuckles — intermixed with not a few requests for veracity on things viral and outrageous. Don’t worry, there still plenty of stuff to come From My Dad but occasionally I’ll toss a few of Mona’s finds in as well.
During a service at an old synagogue in Eastern Europe, when the Shema prayer was said, half the congregants stood up and half remained sitting. The half that was seated started yelling at those standing to sit down, and the ones standing yelled at the ones sitting to stand up.
The rabbi, learned as he was in the Law and commentaries, didn’t know what to do. His congregation suggested that he consult a housebound 98 year old man who was one of the original founders of their temple.
The rabbi hoped the elderly man would be able to tell him what the actual temple tradition was, so he went to the nursing home with a representative of each faction of the congregation.
The one whose followers stood during Shema said to the old man, “Is the tradition to stand during this prayer?”
The old man answered, “No, that is not the tradition.” The one whose followers sat said, “Then the tradition is to sit during Shema!”
The old man answered, “No, that is not the tradition.”
Then the rabbi said to the old man, “But the congregants fight all the time, yelling at each other about whether they should sit or stand.”
The old man interrupted, exclaiming, “THAT is the tradition!”
19 March 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy 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 A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.
Focused and informed activity reduces fear and anxiety. Study of a task the actual testing of it lead to knowledge. Remembering this will take the sting out of failure, which, in fact, should be a source of new information that can assist me when I return to the task.
Criticism, however unpleasant, can provide valuable information about ways to improve. Make the most of the information and resources I now have, and don”t dwell on potential sources of difficulty that are beyond the limited amount of information available to me.
This will only magnify illusions of ear and anxiety. Postponement can become habitual and can lead to non-productivity. Don”t procrastinate by fantasizing about past failures or future problems; don”t allow myself to be distracted by opportunities for self-indulgence.
When I postpone an activity, I increase the chances of never accomplishing it, and I will left, in the future, with memories of past wishes rather than past deeds.
18 March 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’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 Tomb With A View.
18 March 2007
18 March 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff HessI 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.
