Duty to Warn
Let me start by saying that I am as patriotic as the next guy and I stand respectfully during the playing of the National Anthem before sporting events.
I also like the policy embraced by all the Major League Baseball teams following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks of playing God Bless America at the start of the 7th inning stretch.
But patriotism, like faith, is a personal issue. And while fans should be encouraged to stand during the playing of both, it is beyond the authority of the ball clubs and the police to force anyone to participate.
A federal lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union alleges that a fan was forcefully ejected from Yankee Stadium by uniformed cops when he decided to go to the restroom rather than remain in his seat for the playing of God Bless America.
Apparently the Yankees force this new tradition on their fans. And they use uniformed cops to enforce the rule.
What the Yankees, and the police, are doing, is actually unpatriotic. And runs contrary to what this nation is about.
I also like the policy embraced by all the Major League Baseball teams following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks of playing God Bless America at the start of the 7th inning stretch.
But patriotism, like faith, is a personal issue. And while fans should be encouraged to stand during the playing of both, it is beyond the authority of the ball clubs and the police to force anyone to participate.
A federal lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union alleges that a fan was forcefully ejected from Yankee Stadium by uniformed cops when he decided to go to the restroom rather than remain in his seat for the playing of God Bless America.
Apparently the Yankees force this new tradition on their fans. And they use uniformed cops to enforce the rule.
What the Yankees, and the police, are doing, is actually unpatriotic. And runs contrary to what this nation is about.
A cartoon in the Sunday comics shows that mustachioed fellow with monocle and top hat from the Monopoly game -- "Rich Uncle Pennybags," he used to be called -- standing along the roadside, destitute, holding a sign: "Will blame poor people for food."
Time to move the blame to where it really belongs. That means no more coddling banks with bailout billions marked "secret." No more allowing their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they've won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes. And no more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots.
Which brings us to Larry Summers. Over the weekend, the White House released financial disclosure reports revealing that Summers, director of the National Economic Council, received $5.2 million last year working for a $30 billion hedge fund. He made another $2.7 million in lecture fees, including cash from such recent beneficiaries of taxpayer generosity as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The now defunct financial services giant Lehman Brothers handsomely purchased his pearls of wisdom, too.
Time to move the blame to where it really belongs. That means no more coddling banks with bailout billions marked "secret." No more allowing their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they've won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes. And no more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots.
Which brings us to Larry Summers. Over the weekend, the White House released financial disclosure reports revealing that Summers, director of the National Economic Council, received $5.2 million last year working for a $30 billion hedge fund. He made another $2.7 million in lecture fees, including cash from such recent beneficiaries of taxpayer generosity as Citigroup, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The now defunct financial services giant Lehman Brothers handsomely purchased his pearls of wisdom, too.
I know several young men who entered or who are entering the armed services of the United States. Not out of patriotic fervor. But because they are desperate to find a job in this economy.
They figure that when they get out they'll also have VA health benefits (hopefully access to those services will have improved by then) and that the economy will have improved by the time they are discharged.
Because there are two wars ongoing, I worry about where they may be deployed. But I also know that if they are sent to Afghanistan or Iraq, if they safely return, they still will be casualties of war. For this is what happens when one returns from battle.
One of the young fellows is a Marine, and he got "extra-credit" and an upgrade just for recruiting more youngsters at the local high school while on leave. An easy sell, he said. The kids are looking for jobs and the Marines are hiring.
He was so successful at it that I thought, maybe they'll assign him to be a recruiter. If he's stateside, I thought, he'll be sheltered from the physical and psychological traumas of the wars.
But apparently that's not a fair assessment.
They figure that when they get out they'll also have VA health benefits (hopefully access to those services will have improved by then) and that the economy will have improved by the time they are discharged.
Because there are two wars ongoing, I worry about where they may be deployed. But I also know that if they are sent to Afghanistan or Iraq, if they safely return, they still will be casualties of war. For this is what happens when one returns from battle.
One of the young fellows is a Marine, and he got "extra-credit" and an upgrade just for recruiting more youngsters at the local high school while on leave. An easy sell, he said. The kids are looking for jobs and the Marines are hiring.
He was so successful at it that I thought, maybe they'll assign him to be a recruiter. If he's stateside, I thought, he'll be sheltered from the physical and psychological traumas of the wars.
But apparently that's not a fair assessment.
On March 30, Senator Patrick Leahy gave five Vermonters a half hour of his time. We were: Martha Hennessy, a peace activist from Weathersfield, John Nirenberg, a Brattleboro man who walked from Boston to Washington D.C. in 2007 to call for impeachment, Charlotte Dennett from Cambridge, who ran for Attorney General in Vermont in 2008 on a pledge to prosecute Bush, Kurt Daims, the author of the Brattleboro indictment resolution passed in 2008 and Dan DeWalt of Newfane, who has been active promoting impeachment and accountability. We were there to discuss the Senator's idea for a “truth commission” to investigate criminality by the Bush/Cheney administration, and our ideas about why only prosecutions of the culpable will give us a chance to prevent a recurrence of these crimes and abuses of the Constitution.
America, due to Bush/Cheney policy, has added torture to our standard operating procedure, even if it is now held in abeyance by the Obama administration. That morally reprehensible act, while now out of favor, is essentially legal and Constitutional because no Congressional objection has been made and no one has been held accountable.
America, due to Bush/Cheney policy, has added torture to our standard operating procedure, even if it is now held in abeyance by the Obama administration. That morally reprehensible act, while now out of favor, is essentially legal and Constitutional because no Congressional objection has been made and no one has been held accountable.
While it’s a commonly held belief that “everyone has a nonbiological twin somewhere in the world,” I wonder if we all have an antithetical “anti-twin” as well. Because I recently met someone who could easily be mine. Ironically enough, it was at the public library, one of my favorite haunts.
It’d been a particularly cold winter and the mercury had finally inched up to where it was light jacket weather, so I decided to spend a day prowling around an area called The Country Club Plaza, a Kansas City “landmark.”
Picture the Plaza as a physical incarnation of the spiritual realm where all the souls of the “good” members of the bourgeoisie will transcend once they’ve run themselves to death in the race to acquire the most toys.
It’d been a particularly cold winter and the mercury had finally inched up to where it was light jacket weather, so I decided to spend a day prowling around an area called The Country Club Plaza, a Kansas City “landmark.”
Picture the Plaza as a physical incarnation of the spiritual realm where all the souls of the “good” members of the bourgeoisie will transcend once they’ve run themselves to death in the race to acquire the most toys.
I took a month-old parsnip out to the compost pile yesterday, and I could tell it came from the supermarket because of the thick coating of wax that covered it. Without thinking about what I was doing, I started peeling the wax off. It was as if someone had decided, for some odd art project, to turn the parsnip into a candle, proceeded to put a few layers of wax on it, then changed their mind, and decided to sell it as a parsnip anyhow. My hands now covered with wax, I realized that I didn’t even find this waxy parsnip suitable for putting in the compost, much less eating. “Here,” I said to myself, “is another reason many people like to get their food fresh from local farms.”
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
The battle is joined as they say - and here's the headline that framed it: "High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs." The headline is in one of the most informative new sites in the blogosphere called: baselinescenario.com. Here's the quote that grabbed me:
"There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that - they say - will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?"
And here's the man who asked that question. Simon Johnson is former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches global economics and management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute. He is co-founder of that website I quoted - baselinescenario.com - where he analyzes the global economic and financial crisis.
The battle is joined as they say - and here's the headline that framed it: "High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs." The headline is in one of the most informative new sites in the blogosphere called: baselinescenario.com. Here's the quote that grabbed me:
"There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that - they say - will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?"
And here's the man who asked that question. Simon Johnson is former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches global economics and management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute. He is co-founder of that website I quoted - baselinescenario.com - where he analyzes the global economic and financial crisis.
Portland, Oregon -- Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 290 has endorsed HR
676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John
Conyers (D-MI). The 4,000 member local has jurisdiction in Northern
California, Southwest Washington and Oregon.
Eric Fanning, who introduced the endorsement resolution, said after it passed: "The membership of United Association Local 290, Plumbers and Steamfitters, is fully aware of the crisis in health care where profits trump patient care. The Massachusetts plan has proven to be a failure. Senator Ron Wyden's proposed plan would tax our health and welfare contributions, and this does not benefit organized labor. Health Care for America Now (HCAN) would create a two-tiered health care system. HR 676, we believe, is the best solution to our health care crisis."
HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.
Eric Fanning, who introduced the endorsement resolution, said after it passed: "The membership of United Association Local 290, Plumbers and Steamfitters, is fully aware of the crisis in health care where profits trump patient care. The Massachusetts plan has proven to be a failure. Senator Ron Wyden's proposed plan would tax our health and welfare contributions, and this does not benefit organized labor. Health Care for America Now (HCAN) would create a two-tiered health care system. HR 676, we believe, is the best solution to our health care crisis."
HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.
SEATTLE, WA. Feb. 17, 2009 – A 57-year old Seattle coffee bean
entrepreneur hopes he just brewed a pot of trouble for former
president Bush and others in his administration.
On February 7th Bob Alexander his wife, Arminda and local volunteers, mailed a copy of legendary prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi's book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, to 2,200 local district attorneys across the US. Each of these prosecutors has had at least one soldier from their district killed in Iraq.
Bugliosi is best known for his prosecution and conviction of Charles Mason. As a Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney, he successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several other members of his "family" for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. He lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor, which included winning 21 out of 21 murder cases
While Bugliosi's name may be familiar to some, Bob Alexander's is known only to customers who purchase premium coffee from his SuperBeans.com Web site. Bob and his wife were motivated to take personal action after reading Bugliosi's book.
On February 7th Bob Alexander his wife, Arminda and local volunteers, mailed a copy of legendary prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi's book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, to 2,200 local district attorneys across the US. Each of these prosecutors has had at least one soldier from their district killed in Iraq.
Bugliosi is best known for his prosecution and conviction of Charles Mason. As a Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney, he successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several other members of his "family" for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. He lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor, which included winning 21 out of 21 murder cases
While Bugliosi's name may be familiar to some, Bob Alexander's is known only to customers who purchase premium coffee from his SuperBeans.com Web site. Bob and his wife were motivated to take personal action after reading Bugliosi's book.
My fellow Americans. We face extraordinarily difficult times on a number of fronts. My Administration has inherited difficulties unprecedented in the adult lifetime and memory of anyone younger than about 90. Tonight I plan to discuss with you the interrelated challenges facing our economy and our financial system and our plans for dealing with these challenges.
During the campaign, I said that instead of telling you what you wanted to hear, I would tell you what you needed to know. Tonight I plan to tell you what you need to know at some length.
During the campaign, I said that instead of telling you what you wanted to hear, I would tell you what you needed to know. Tonight I plan to tell you what you need to know at some length.