Global

By now, most people are aware of the US obesity statistics. In 2016, almost 70 percent of US adults were obese of overweight says the CDC. That means normal sized people are in the minority. (Some are even considered "anorexics.")

On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. 

From ancient religious figures to poets to today’s self-improvement gurus, observing the New Year has conveyed a forward-thinking sense of optimism and possibility. Of wiping the proverbial slate clean and starting over, leaving the past behind in order to go on to bigger, better things. Buddha extolled followers to believe, “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” T.S. Eliot noted: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” While motivational speaker Tony Robbins proclaims: “New Year = A New Life! Decide today who you will become, what you will give how you will live.”

Dr. Seuss wrote about “How the Grinch stole Christmas” – but is President Trump the Orange Ogre who will steal New Year’s? Since coming into office Trump has been the ultimate annual buzzkill, casting a pall and ominous shadow over January’s glad tidings, as if he’s determined to ruin the sensibility of hopefulness that usually accompanies the passage of the old year into the new.

he whole world is watching Georgia’s US Senate runoff elections. Set to finish January 5th, the elections will decide who controls the balance of power in the pivotal next US Congress.

With them comes a “hidden” down-ballot Georgia Public Service Commission race that hovers over America’s last two big nuke reactors … and that could upend the whole Senatorial outcome.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are pouring into the state. Every nanosecond of radio/TV time has been bought and overpaid for.

The preliminary battles have raged over voter registration and turnout, precinct closures, misinformation about where people can vote, intimidation of citizens waiting in line during early voting, rejection of “flawed” ballots, and much more.

But they all pale before one issue: will there be a fair and accurate vote count?

The answer depends on whether grassroots citizen groups can muster the expertise, the staff, and the clout to make sure ballots are correctly marked, properly scanned, and accurately counted — and then rightly recounted.

It’s a decisive undertaking.

Before Antony Blinken can become Secretary of State, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.

1. Second to the war on Iraq, which of the disasters you’ve helped facilitate do you most regret, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, or something else? And what have you learned that would improve your record going forward?

2. You once supported dividing Iraq into three nations. I’ve asked an Iraqi friend to draw up a plan to divide the United States up into three nations. Without yet seeing the plan, what is your initial reaction, and which state do you most hope to not end up with?

3. The trend from the Bush years to the Obama years to the Trump years is now one of moving away from ground wars in favor of air wars. This often means more killing, more injuring, more making people homeless, but an even higher percentage of that suffering on the non-U.S. side. How would you defend this trend if you were teaching children about morality?

Vermont’s only prison for women is, by all accounts, a ghastly place. The facility was never intended to be a prison. The facility was never intended to house women. Built as a men’s detention center in the 1970s, the facility is inadequate to provide what any reasonable person would consider adequate health and safety conditions for as many as 160 incarcerated women.

The Vermont women’s prison, formally known as the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF) in South Burlington, came into being in August 2011 as a political effort to reduce the state budget pushed by then Governor Peter Shumlin, a military-industrial Democrat who also supported basing the nuclear-capable F-35 in Winooski. Shumlin pushed both projects with grand promises of benefits that have yet to be fulfilled.

The resistance to the apparent election of Joe Biden as President of the United States is continuing to play out. Current President Donald Trump is continuing to fight against the presumed results of the November national election with his final card appearing to be a vote in Congress when it reconvenes on January 6th to throw out the results due to fraud in certain key states. Many have noted how the registration and electoral processes in the United States, varying as they do from state to state, were and are vulnerable to fraud. That, plus some eyewitness testimony and technical analysis, suggests that possibly systematic fraud did take place but it is far from clear whether it was decisive. This is particularly true of the vote by mail option, which was promoted by leading Democrats and which empowered literally millions of new voters with only limited attempts made to validate whether citizens or even real people were voting.

The ultimate argument to save our species can be made by a single symphony. The tortured genius who wrote it had been going stone-cold deaf for nigh on two decades.

It could’ve been no other way.

Beethoven’s 250th birthday (December 16th) has sparked a global eruption of shock and awe.

Amidst the ghastly demise of our deranged Caligula, the adulation for Ludwig edges into outright worship.

And rightly so. Each of Beethoven’s nine symphonies is a major masterpiece. His concertos, sonatas, overtures, rondos, quartets, and more are nearly all uniquely immense.

The fugues he wrote at the end of his life are complex, demanding, indecipherable … either centuries ahead of their time, or channeled — Jimi Hendrix style — from some other planet.

A humanist to his core, Beethoven thrilled to the original ideals of the French Revolution. He dedicated his Earth-shattering third symphony to Napoleon as their bearer, but angrily renamed it after Bonaparte declared himself “Emperor.” Beethoven’s one opera (Fidelio) is an ode to feminist empowerment that exalts a daring woman who defeats a brutal tyrant.

Vermont’s only prison for women is, by all accounts, a ghastly place. The facility was never intended to be a prison. The facility was never intended to house women. Built as a men’s detention center in the 1970s, the facility is inadequate to provide what any reasonable person would consider adequate health and safety conditions for as many as 160 incarcerated women.

The Vermont women’s prison, formally known as the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF) in South Burlington, came into being in August 2011 as a political effort to reduce the state budget pushed by then Governor Peter Shumlin, a military-industrial Democrat who also supported basing the nuclear-capable F-35 in Winooski. Shumlin pushed both projects with grand promises of benefits that have yet to be fulfilled.

It is essential that Democrats control the Senate. For that to happen Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff must win both the seats in the U.S. Senate in the run-off in Georgia on January 5, 2021. 

If Mitch McConnell remains as Majority Leader of the Senate, it will be impossible for the Biden administration to rescind many of the draconian laws passed during Trump’s administration and to pass progressive legislation. 

If both Warnock and Ossoff win the Georgia seats, Vice President Harris, who will be President of the Senate, will break ties.  Charles Schumer will be Majority Leader and Democrats will chair all of the Senate committees.