A place to enjoy good music, drink in some knowledge, and watch a little sports. Where there is always food for thought, topped with choice grillings of right wing talking points.
Yeah, I'm waking up from my coma, who wouldn't with all the things going on over in Egypt.
Speaking of Egypt, just have to post this map that was up on Fox News (h/t to Crooks and Liars). Seriously, folks, by now, if you don't know where the fucking countries are in the Middle East (where the United States has been up front and center for the past ten years), and if Fox News can't even put up a map that's correct ... You really have to wonder about the sanity of their viewers, not to mention where the fuck did they get that WRONG map to begin with?????? Well, the map is correct, but someone typing in the names of the countries has/had no clue!
Blog is dark. Feel free to use this space as an open thread for comments. If I should wake up from my coma, or someone realizes I am dead, they might figure out the password and communicate said fact. (ok, dark humor, but I did say the blog is dark.)
I haven't posted in a few days. I've been overwhelmed by the personal problems facing my family. My daughter has now been charged with criminal misdemeanor charges for battery on a minor (four counts) which is just ridiculous. She is supposed to be "arraigned" the day before her trial starts on the DCFS case, which, if she beats the charges, would tend to make the criminal prosecution that much harder (because in criminal cases, you have to prove beyond a "reasonable doubt" while in civil cases, it is by the "preponderance of the evidence").
I'm comfortable with my trial team. DCFS lawyers are re-drafting the complaint against my daughter to make it more palatable (which probably means they will drop it down to simple neglect, but I can't say for sure). So, instead of trial starting at 8:30 a.m. on 1/20, we will be looking at the new charges and deciding what to do. If we don't agree to the new charges, trial will start at 1:30 p.m. on 1/20.
I'm drained, emotionally and physically. Not seeing my grandson on our regular schedule just cuts me to the bone. When I'm on the bus and doing errands, I feel his absence. When I go to Johnny Rockets, I'm constantly asked "where's the little man?" I hurt for my daughter not seeing her son every day. I hurt for Zaire having to live somewhere he is not comfortable with and now having to attend a "new" school totally out of the blue. He misses his home, his kittens, his personal belongings, his toys, his grandma, his life.
At trial, though, both sides of my daughter's family will represent, on her father's side and her mother's side. We will be a formidable presence, to be sure.
The US government continues to exert its privacy violations to other countries and individuals of other countries. And, of course, we at home in America still have our right to privacy ... NOT!
"Icelandic officials have called for an explanation of the US Justice Department's move to access the Twitter account of Birgitta Jónsdóttir."
The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has said he believes Assange could be prosecuted under US espionage laws. Holder said the leaks had endangered US national security. "The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way," he said.
Someone PULLEEZZEE take off this man's blindfold and show him the eight year reign of terror begat by one George W. Bush. I do believe the quote: "The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way" seems far more relevant to the Bush Administration than it does in any way to WikiLeaks.
And this is on Obama's watch. Hope. Change. Not so much. Obama's record on violating individual personal rights is worse than Bush's. At least we knew Bush was stupid and manipulated by others, but Obama? What's his excuse?
Israeli bulldozers have demolished part a hotel in East Jerusalem to make way for 20 new homes for Jewish settlers.
The destruction of the Shepherd Hotel has angered Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said Israel was destroying any chance of returning to peace talks by carrying out the demolition.
Israel says it has a right to build homes in any part of the city.
The Shepherd Hotel was built in the 1930s and was once home to Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who became an ally of Adolf Hitler in WWII.
Its current ownership is disputed - Israel says it belongs to a Jewish-American property developer but Palestinians say it was seized illegally after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.
There will be no peace in this world until Israel gives back the land it took in 1967, and accepts the fact that it cannot just "erase" the identity of Israel's predecessors by simply plowing them under the earth.
Tough teams to pick someone to root for, given my Chargers were not one of them.
I picked Seattle over New Orleans, and the Jets over the dreaded Colts (despite how much I like Peyton). So, I'm batting 1,000 thus far. Let's see how tomorrow plays out.
While our "bought and paid for" main stream (or lame stream, to quote Sarah Palin) media hypes the ever (non) threat that Muslims are supposed to pose for we "freedom" (cough cough) loving Americans, Muslims in Egypt showed the world how to unite and deal with fundamentalism and tyranny from extremists.
On New Year’s Day, a devastating terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt killed 21 people and injured 79 others. Although the identity of the culprits was not known, it was assumed that they were Muslim extremists, intent on targeting those they saw as heretics.
[snip]
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea. Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole. “This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”
Modern America has endured such moments before. The intense ideological clashes of the 1960s, which centered on Communism and civil rights and Vietnam, were marked by a series of assassinations that changed the course of American history, carried out against a televised backdrop of urban riots and self-immolating war protesters. During the culture wars of the 1990s, fought over issues like gun rights and abortion, right-wing extremists killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and terrorized hundreds of others in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and at abortion clinics in the South.
What’s different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain. It wasn’t clear Saturday whether the alleged shooter in Tucson was motivated by any real political philosophy or by voices in his head, or perhaps by both. But it’s hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon.
The problem here doesn’t lie with the activists like most of those who populate the Tea Parties, ordinary citizens who are doing what citizens are supposed to do — engaging in a conversation about the direction of the country. Rather, the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins, employing whatever words seem likely to win them contributions or TV time, with little regard for the consequences.
[snip]
The more pressing question, though, is where this all ends — whether we will begin to re-evaluate the piercing pitch of our political debate in the wake of Saturday’s shooting, or whether we are hurtling unstoppably into a frightening period more like the late 1960s.
The country labors still to recover from the memories of Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel, of Memphis and Birmingham and Watts. Tucson will either be the tragedy that brought us back from the brink, or the first in a series of gruesome memories to come.
Pretty good article in the Washington Post about today's shooting, the sadness attributed to it, and the atrociousness of the punditry and politicians that whet these peoples' appetite for violence.
My heart goes out to the parents of the little child that was killed in this shooting spree, as well as to the judge's family.
Are we headed to assassinations circa 1968? I sure hope not.
At least the Republicans are postponing any vote on the HCR repeal, one, out of respect for Rep. Giffords, and two, to try and reschedule their schedule.
Are we beyond the "can't we all just get along" dialogue?
What we're going to be saturated with for the next week or so are the inevitable false equivalencies. We'll hear, for instance, how there are "nuts on both sides." Undeniably true. But there is no ubiquitous liberal - much less, left-wing - network of talk-radio stations spouting Two Minutes' Hate 24/7. The collective voice of the right wing on radio and the Internet with its coded and uncoded calls to violence, of "2nd Amendment remedies," of cross hairs superimposed on states and on individuals simply has no visible counterpart on the left. When the right discusses the violent left, it must seek overseas examples or something from decades ago in America's past.
I was in a "family" frame of mind tonight. First, just a tad pissed off that the dad beat dad would even infer that my daughter would have aborted her child but for the fact that she found out the dead beat dad's father worked as a director on a successful television show.
I had to laugh. Most of my readers are well aware of how much show business and whatnot is in my family, since the generation before me, down to two generations below me. My family is abound with actors, actresses (movies, television, theater), musicians (just about every instrument, including the drums, which I still can't master, but can set up and tear down like a professional!), singers, songwriters, performers, producers, etc. such that we can easily say we are one degree of say, Quincy Jones, for example, or two degrees from Adam Clayton Powell (not in the music industry, look him up if you give a shit). So, to try and say "out loud" in your mindset that my daughter kept the "baby" because she wanted to shake the baby daddy based on his father's "job" as a director, really makes me laugh. Dude, how come your ass hasn't been sued yet? Eight years later, and no one in MY family is taking advantage of your supposed famous daddy (LOL).
My high school boyfriend and I (or maybe it was just after I graduated, I am not sure) took my younger girl cousin (Leslie) when she was 12, to her first concert. I believe it was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, with "Little" Stevie Wonder as the opening act, and The Temptations as the main act.
Hey, today was a step by step day, with all the drama surrounding Zaire. Good to know the attorneys are doing their jobs. No comment on the failure of DCFS personnel to even use "spell check" in their documents!
I am watching the outdoor hockey game which is supposed to evoke those "pond" hockey games of yore. Except, this is NOT pond hockey! It may be outdoors, and cold, but that's about the best of it.
I do remember back when I was six and living with my grandparents in Baltimore, we had a pond out back. Back then, I wore skates that were made for children with double blades that were doubled = four blades. Yeah, my first ice skating took place on a piece of frozen ice in my back yard. How about that, eh? (pass me the donuts, then the beer).
And it still is the same as 12-31-10. The bumpy ride is far from over. In fact, it looks more and more like the road will be full of more ruts and holes and bumps as we see the corporate tax break Obama thought was a good idea bring in more jobs, just not here. Over there. Yup. The rich aren't going to invest their tax break dollars here, are you nuts? Their bottom line doesn't get better by doing that. So they are hiring overseas with their tax break dollars, instead of investing in America.
I read a rather compelling piece from my favorite repository of truth telling and exposer of the lying media, Glenn Grenwald. An excerpt:
The bottom line from Hansen and Poulsen is that they still refuse to release any further chat excerpts or, more inexcusably, to comment at all on -- to verify or deny -- Lamo's public statements about what Manning said to him that do not appear in those excerpts. They thus continue to conceal from the public 75% of the Manning-Lamo chats. They refuse to say whether Lamo's numerous serious accusations about what Manning told him are actually found anywhere in the chat logs. Nor will they provide the evidence to resolve the glaring inconsistencies in Lamo's many public tales about the critical issues: how he came to speak to Manning, what Lamo did to induce these disclosures, and what Manning said about his relationship to WikiLeaks and his own actions. Every insult Wired spouts about me could be 100% true and none of it changes the core fact: Wired is hiding the key evidence about what took place here, thus allowing Lamo to spout all sorts of serious claims without any check and thus drive much of the reporting about WikiLeaks.
Lying is so mainstream now, it's no wonder that DCFS gives credence to what my 8 year old grandson lies about. There are no consequences to lying. I see it on cartoon shows for children. I see it on the tween shows made by Disney, for children. Of course, I see it on the news, on sitcoms, on dramas, in the movies, in advertising ... everywhere. No fucking consequences for not telling the truth, hence we are raising a generation of children that don't know how to be honest and take responsibility for their own lives.
And the new meme for the nutjobs that run our media is that we baby boomers are now responsible for the deficit because we are turning 65 (not me, but the first of our generation are) this year, and as such, there is sure to be a run on Social Security and Medicare. The voice of reason and sanity doesn't exist, except, in my opinion, on the blogs. Paid and bought for media just does not have any incentive to say anything other than what they have been bought and paid to say. Exposing truth is like not even on the radar, because truth is not a reality for most people. "If I can get away with it" is the rule of the world's thinking, and it will be its demise.
