1/ The always excellent Frank Rich on the current stories of the week, just in case you needed to make sense of the news.....he covers ISIS and the Ukraine, immigration and the loathsome Eric Cantor......
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: Obama's restrained response to ISIS and Putin, the White House contemplates an immigration executive order, and the revolving door continues to spin.
The end of the summer has been a remarkably bleak time in international affairs. ISIS has beheaded two American journalists — James Foley and Steven Sotloff — and Russia has grown more brazen in its backing of separatists in Ukraine. President Obama has been criticized for his cautious reaction to the two crises, especially after he said last week that "we don't have a strategy yet" to deal with ISIS. Has Obama over-learned the lessons of the "shoot first, ask questions later" Bush years?I have my share of quarrels with President Obama. And, like most other Americans, I find the beheadings of Foley and Sotloff so savage on so many different levels that I fully concede there is an ugly part of me that would like to bomb any country that harbors ISIS terrorists back into the Stone Age, as the American general Curtis LeMay, the prototype for General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, once proposed for NorthVietnam. But Obama’s deliberateness in the face of ISIS’s provocations as well as Putin’s — his refusal to follow the trigger-happy foreign policy of the Bush-Cheney era — is to be applauded.
You will notice that the crowd of pundits and (mostly Republican) politicians insisting that Obama “do something” about these horrors never actually say what that “something” is.
2/ Here is a story that will make you think and question - what is the true nature of spirituality? This subject is almost never discussed rationally outside churches, so both religious types and athiests should give this column by Frank Bruni a chance, it's most interesting.
ALMOST midway through Sam Harris’s new book, “Waking Up,” he paints a scene that will shock many of his fans, who know him as one of the country’s most prominent and articulate atheists.
He describes a walk in Jesus’ footsteps, and the way he was touched by it.
This happened on “an afternoon on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, atop the mount where Jesus is believed to have preached his most famous sermon,” Harris writes. “As I gazed at the surrounding hills, a feeling of peace came over me. It soon grew to a blissful stillness that silenced my thoughts. In an instant, the sense of being a separate self — an ‘I’ or a ‘me’ — vanished.”
Had Harris at last found God? And is “Waking Up” a stop-the-presses admission — an epiphany — that he slumbered and lumbered through the darkness for too long?
Hardly. Harris is actually up to something more complicated and interesting than that. He’s asking a chicken-or-egg question too seldom broached publicly in America, where religion is such sacred and protected turf, where God is on our currency and at our inaugurals and in our pledge and sometimes written into legislation as a way to exempt the worshipful from dictates that apply to everyone else.
The question is this: Which comes first, the faith or the feeling of transcendence? Is the former really a rococo attempt to explain and romanticize the latter, rather than a bridge to it? Mightn’t religion be piggybacking on the pre-existing condition of spirituality, a lexicon grafted onto it, a narrative constructed to explain states of consciousness that have nothing to do with any covenant or creed?
3/ A mildly amusing Jon Stewart on the nude photos of celebrities recently released on the internet.......five minutes, with a decent follow-up - three minutes of Jordan Klepper nude.....
Jon Stewart tonight took on the celebrity nude photo hacking and (with the help of a Disney graphic that will ruin your childhood) mocked all the people saying these celebrities should just not have taken the photos in the first place.
Stewart mockingly asked, “Yes, why?! Why would a human being want to look at another human being’s naked body? It makes no sense? And why would people want to touch other people where they go to the bathroom?!”
Correspondent Jordan Klepper then came on, completely naked, to explain he’s just given up and is giving the hackers what they want. He shouted, “Dinnertime, you sick fucks!” Stewart did then have to explain to him that absolutely no one wants hisnaked photos in the first place.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
4/ Although this story by Robert Parry is a little overwrought, he is making a very important point - you can't believe anything written or televised in American media about the Ukraine "invasion" and Russia. It's all bullshit.
If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III – much as it did into World War I a century ago – all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.
The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the “smart people” of Washington just “knew” it to be true.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo)
Yet, the once-acknowledged – though soon forgotten – reality was that the crisis was provoked last year by the European Union proposing an association agreement with Ukraine while U.S. neocons and other hawkish politicos and pundits envisioned using the Ukraine gambit as a way to undermine Putin inside Russia.
The plan was even announced by U.S. neocons such as National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman who took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post nearly a year ago to call Ukraine “the biggest prize” and an important interim step toward eventually toppling Putin in Russia.
Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress, wrote: “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
In other words, from the start, Putin was the target of the Ukraine initiative, not the instigator. But even if you choose to ignore Gershman’s clear intent, you would have to concoct a bizarre conspiracy theory to support the conventional wisdom about Putin’s grand plan.
There's another fact about the Ukraine they are not telling you in our media - Ukraine has huge reserves of natural gas.
Ukraine has Europe’s third-largest shale gas reserves at 42 trillion cubic feet,according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And guess who has a contract with the Ukrainan government to develop these fields? Chevron, whose oligarchs and lobbyists are driving the narrative in the media and the Obama administration..
Ukraine sits on 39 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. That's about one-quarter the world's entire proven reserves. One company that has bet big on Ukraine's natural gas is US-based Chevron.
Back in November 2013, the company signed a 50-year deal with Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovich. The deal involved developing the Olesska shale gas field with $350 million to $400 million spent on exploratory drilling. The total investment would then go up to $10 billion.
5/ One for the guys - a great commercial from Amstel titled "Why Women Stay Single"......lads, watch this and tell me why women are so unnecessarily sensitive!
6/ Ferguson has faded from the headlines, but the injustice blacks have to endure on a daily basis continues. This story is about a black man, sitting quietly on a bench waiting to pick his kids up from school in St. Paul, who is questioned, harrassed, tased and arrested for the crime of being black, sitting on a bench.
There is a five minute video of the incident that ends in him screaming while being tased......warning, it's a heartbreaking experience to listen to this....
Video of the confrontation (Credit: YouTube
The latest in police misconduct was captured in a cellphone video that surfaced earlier this week. The video depicts a black man, identified as 28-year-old Christopher Lollie, sitting in a public space waiting to pick up his young children from New Horizon Academy in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.
“I want to know who you are and what the problem was back there,” a female cop says to Lollie at the start of the video.
“There is no problem, that’s the thing,” he replies.
“So talk to me and let me know who you are and you can be on your way.”
Lollie explains to the officer that he has been sitting in a public area for 10 minutes and protests that he doesn’t have to tell her his name because he had not broken any laws.
“The problem was –” the officer says.
“The problem is I’m black,” Lollie interrupts. “It really is, because I’m not sitting there with a group of people. I’m sitting there by myself, not causing a problem.”
A second officer then approaches the two and attempts to touch Lollie. “I’ve got to go get my kids,” Lollie says, growing upset. “Please don’t touch me.”
“You’re going to go to jail then,” the second officer replies.
“Come on, brother,” he says. “This is assault.”
“I’m not your brother. Put your hands behind your back, otherwise it’s going to get ugly.”
Shortly thereafter, the phone gets knocked out of Lollie’s hands as the cops cuff him. One can then hear the sound of a taser charging and Lollie’s screams as the cops tase him.
7/ John Oliver addresses wage inequality between men and women, and it's very funny as well as socially relevant - he manages to mix comedy and reality very well.
Five minutes of hilarity.....
American CEOs, meet Ladybucks, the new dollar for those pushy female ladies. It’s a bill worth 83 cents to the U.S. dollar, so those ladies working for you will never complain that they’re making less than their male counterparts, ever again.
Ladies: You can either choose to your accept your Ladybucks silently, or change your name to John, stay single, never have children and don’t age, according to John Oliver. There are NO other solutions to address America’s wage gap.
8/ Todays George Carlin award - "nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care" - is given to Southern Louisiana, which is disappearing fast caused by greed, stupidity and uncontrolled oil and gas corporations who have pillaged the coastal areas and wetlands for decades. Now the ecology is collapsing, and combined with the rise in sea levels could lead to an economic disaster if there is another Katrina.....
But this dirt poor state is run by Bobby Jindal and the crazy wing of the Republican party, who are wholly owned by the oil and gas industry, so you know what's going to happen - nothing.
Louisiana is drowning, quickly
Cross-posted from ProPublica and The Lens
28 Aug 2014 3:08 PM 41 comments
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In just 80 years, some 2,000 square miles of its coastal landscape have turned to open water, wiping places off maps, bringing the Gulf of Mexico to the back door of New Orleans and posing a lethal threat to an energy and shipping corridor vital to the nation’s economy.
And it’s going to get worse, even quicker.
Scientists now say one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters in the nation’s history is rushing toward a catastrophic conclusion over the next 50 years, so far unabated and largely unnoticed.
At the current rates that the sea is rising and land is sinking, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists say by 2100 the Gulf of Mexico could rise as much as 4.3 feet across this landscape, which has an average elevation of about three feet. If that happens, everything outside the protective levees — most of Southeast Louisiana — would be underwater.
The effects would be felt far beyond bayou country. The region best known for its self-proclaimed motto “laissez les bons temps rouler” — let the good times roll — is one of the nation’s economic linchpins.
This land being swallowed by the Gulf is home to half of the country’s oil refineries, a matrix of pipelines that serve 90 percent of the nation’s offshore energy production and 30 percent of its total oil and gas supply, a port vital to 31 states, and 2 million people who would need to find other places to live.
9/ A very good Stephen Colbert, which starts with the usual Fox News lament on why the President can't be more forceful and then they bring up the fictional Frank Underwood from "House of Cards", who just happens to visit the studio! A great segment, six minutes and three minutes, with lots of laughs....
Last week, Stephen Colbert joined Fox News is calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step for President Barack Obama for a few days in order to help eliminate ISIS. Since then, even more political talkers have been wishing for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“But even David Cameron pales in comparison to the man I’d like to see lead us: Frank Underwood from House of Cards,” Colbert said Wednesday night.
“Yes, Washington would run smoother if fictional Netflix characters were in charge,” the host said, answering Jake Tapper’s question. “I mean, who, ladies and gentleman, would dare pick a fight with House Majority Whip Crazy Eyes?”
Then, just as Colbert were lamenting the fact that House of Cards is “just a TV show,” Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood strolled out onto the set to correct his error. Asked if he thought Obama was watching, Underwood said, “Oh I’m sure he is, Stephen, The Colbert Report is tremendously influential. It’s like a Meet The Press that people actually watch.”
President Underwood also inquired about Colbert’s future plans after his shows ends later this year, offering to take the host “under his wing” if he decides to enter the world of fictional Washington. He then suggested a personal tour of D.C. — it starts on the edge of the train platform.
10/ A couple of excellent stories on aging in the Times this weekend, and if you are a Boomer you might want to read these......
The first is "growing old gracefully".....there are two ways to go - deny, deny, deny or accept and enjoy it.......your choice.....
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JOHNATHAN RODGERS, who is 68, knew that it was time to step down as president and chief executive of the cable channel TV One when he looked around the conference table. “I had almost always been the youngest through most of my career,” says the former media executive. “Now I was the oldest, and it caused great discomfort.”
Robert Krulwich knows the feeling. As co-host of WNYC’s popular science series “Radiolab,” he works with people many years his junior. “I try to be aware that whenever I think of myself as a peer, I mentally catch myself,” says Mr. Krulwich, who is in his 60s. “There is business to be done between us, but always from two different places. I used to forget it, but they never do.”
Yes, my generation, born between 1946 and 1964, has physical concerns: Friends are dying, joints are aching, and memories are failing. There are financial issues, with forced retirement and unemployment, children needing money and possibly a bed, and dependent parents. But for many of us, it is a psychological quandary that is causing the most unpleasantness: looking around and suddenly being the oldest.
Every generation gets old, but for those who were told we’d be forever young, it just seems more painful. “It’s a huge issue,” says Dr. Anna Fels, a psychiatrist in New York. “I see so many who are trying to adjust their lives to this new phase, which for some reason none of us really pictured ourselves going through.”
Why didn’t we? We knew that eventually more people around us would be younger rather than older. But it still rankles. The image of a room filled with younger people is the perfect symbol.
“It’s an important marker for this generation because it reminds them that they are now the ones closest to obsolescence, the ones the world can do without,” says Dr. Roger Gould, a psychiatrist and the author of “Transformations,” a book about age-related adult problems.
11/ John Oliver was off this week, but he took four minutes to read some of the comments on his show on youtube....very funny......
John Oliver‘s HBO show is off this week, but in an online-only video posted last night, he did perhaps the single bravest thing any human can ever do: he read the YouTube comments. That’s right, Oliver got himself down in the muck and poorly-spelled outrage that is the YouTube comments section. And, rather specifically, he zoned in on the comments people have been making on his own YouTube videos.
Oliver started out the video by saying he’d read some fan mail. But seeing how this is the year 2014, he went directly to the YouTube comments section (the modern equivalent of fan mail).
For example, one YouTube commenter said Oliver’s face “does look like a parrot,” while another declared, in Spanish, that Oliver is a “son of a bitch mother fucking shit.”
12/ A most interesting story on appreciating doing the ordinary things in life, but experiencing them in a new way. This article is hard to describe but if you are a boomer, it's worth reading.....
Last month, I spent a day in a library for the first time in over 20 years. I was there to work, but I appeared to be the only one doing so. Everyone else lolled about as the rain fell outside, helping themselves to the endless shelves of newspapers and magazines or browsing the newest fiction.
My work brings me joy. But as I looked around at the older patrons especially, I was overcome by a single emotion: jealousy. It had been too long since I’d sampled the simple but profound pleasure of losing myself in the stacks. I wanted to feel it again.
That craving stayed with me, and it helped me recognize how important some research from the June issue of The Journal of Consumer Research could be for helping many Americans find peace of mind as they contemplate their retirement savings. Thelead article reported that older people often draw as much happiness from ordinary experiences — like a day in the library — as they do from extraordinary ones.
For people who have not saved enough or have broken into their savings because of lost jobs and health crises, the findings offer a glimmer of hope. If you can cover basic expenses, pursuing inexpensive, everyday things that bring comfort and satisfaction can lead to happiness equal to jetting about on international trips in your 70s and 80s.
13/ It's still the summer, so have a nostalgic look at this catchy song from the 70's - Mungo Jerry with "In The Summertime"......a bunch of guys with strange facial hair and acoustic equipment, pumping out a basic fun song......I always loved the name of this band, as it makes no sense whatever.....
14/ Scott Maxwell is the Orlando equivalent to Carl Hiaasen - funny, and right on point.......here he is talking about last week's primary and in Lake County it was the lowest turnout [17%] for 16 years, and the second lowest turnout ever.
And who didn't vote? Democrats......
And who did? Angry old white people.....
Here are 12 lessons from this week's elections. Some inspiring. Some depressing. Some funny.
1. You people lie. I know it's harsh for me to start off with such an ugly statement. But it's true. You folks lie. You claim you're sick of the status quo. You claim you're sick of incumbents. You claim you're going to send a message. But you don't — at least not when the incumbents are members of your own party. Congress and the Legislature both have approval ratings rivaling herpes. Yet all but one local legislative and congressional incumbents won Tuesday.
2. Democrats have big problems. Some Republicans are screaming: "I told you so!" Specifically, though, I'm referring to enthusiasm problems. Significantly fewer Democrats went to the polls Tuesday — even though there are more Democrats in the state and the party had a real gubernatorial primary. If this happens again in November, Democrats will lose, plain and simple.
And Lauren Ritchie is Lake County's conscience, keeping the power structure in our little backwater from becoming hopelessly corrupt by exposing their stupidity.....thank you Lauren.......
In this column she looks at last week's elections, and what the Republican party's plan might have been to keep turnout low.....
During early voting in the recent primary election that marked the lowest turnout in 16 years, Lake County Republican State Committeeman Alan Winslow sent an email urging Republicansto cast ballots.
He warned that early voting was so light that a state legislator in House District 31 could be chosen from a field of five Republicans by only 6 or 7 percent of voters.
"I believe we as a party owe it to the community to do what we can to get out the vote! We owe it to our candidates to get out the vote!" Winslow wrote in the Aug. 22 email. "Please join me in putting a last minute push on our neighbors to get out and vote!"
- Lauren Ritchie
Standard stuff, right? Oh, so wrong. Not here in Lake County.
Immediately, the party's chairman and treasurer along with a state committeewoman blasted Winslow with excoriating emails for urging people to vote.
"This message is contrary to what our REC [Republican Executive Committee] board voted to do and speaks to the lack of understanding fundamentals of organizing effective political campaigns," party treasurer Doug Duerr wrote. "Your message puts at risk the campaign plans of each Republican candidate."
Todays video - "The Lumberjack Song" from Monty Python......a classic comedy skit that holds up 50 years later.....wonderful.....
Todays high school reunion joke
Jan, Sue and Mary haven't seen each other since high school.
They rediscover each other via a reunion website and arrange to meet for lunch in a wine bar.
Jan arrives first, wearing a beige Versace. She orders a bottle of PinotGrigio.
Sue arrives shortly afterward, in gray Chanel. After the required ritualized kisses she joins Jan in a glass of wine.
Then Mary walks in, wearing a faded old tee-shirt, blue jeans and boots. She too shares the wine.
Jane explains that after leaving high school and graduating from Princeton in Classics, she met and married Timothy, with whom she has a beautiful daughter. Timothy is a partner in one of NewYork's leading law firms. They live in a 4000 sq ft co-op on Fifth Avenue, where Susanna, the daughter, attends drama school. They have a second home in Phoenix.
Sue relates that she graduated from Harvard Med School and became a surgeon. Her husband, Clive, is a leading Wall Street investment banker. They live in Southampton on Long Island and have a second home in Naples, Florida.
Mary explains that she left school at 17 and ran off with her boyfriend, Jim. They run a tropical bird park in Kansas and grow their own vegetables. Jim can stand five parrots, side by side, on his penis.
Halfway down the third bottle of wine and several hours later, Jan blurts out that her husband is really a cashier at Wal-Mart. They live in a small apartment in Brooklyn and have a travel trailer parked at a nearby storage facility.
Sue, chastened and encouraged by her old friend's honesty, explains that she and Clive are both nurses' aides in a retirement home. They live in Jersey City and take vacation camping trips to Alabama.
Mary admits that the fifth parrot has to stand on one leg.
Todays Costco joke
"Listen, you don't have to spend that kind of money," Mike replies
"There's a diagnostic computer down at Costco. Just give it a urine sample and the computer will tell you what's wrong and what to do about it.
It takes ten seconds and costs ten dollars - A lot cheaper than a doctor."
So, Joe deposits a urine sample in a small jar and takes it to Costco.
He deposits ten dollars and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample.... He pours the sample into the slot and waits..
Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout:
"You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity.. It will improve in two weeks. Thank you for shopping @ Costco.."
That evening, while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Joe began wondering if the computer could be fooled.
He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and a sperm sample from himself for good measure.
Joe hurries back to Costco, eager to check the results.. He deposits ten dollars, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results .
The computer prints the following:
1. Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. (Aisle 9)
2. Your dog has ringworm.. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo.. (Aisle 7)
3. Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.
4.. Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours... Get a lawyer.
5. If you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better!
Thank you for shopping @ Costco!
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