Global
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The authoritarian leader of an increasingly
violent anti-government protest met Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra
on Sunday (Dec. 1) and told her to resign so a dictatorial provisional
regime could run Thailand and stop voters electing "bad politicians".
Hours earlier, the government advised Bangkok residents on Sunday (Dec. 1) to stay indoors overnight after three people died and police battled protesters, while mobs swarmed government ministries, TV stations and police headquarters, escalating their week-long clashes to topple the prime minister.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban "told the prime minister that dissolution of parliament, and her resignation paving the way for new election, could not resolve the underlying deep-rooted problem because bad politicians" could return to power, Thai Public Broadcasting Service (ThaiPBS) reported.
"He said the problem could be resolved only when she returned the power to 'the people' to form the 'people's council' [which could] appoint a 'people's government' to rule the country," the report said.
Hours earlier, the government advised Bangkok residents on Sunday (Dec. 1) to stay indoors overnight after three people died and police battled protesters, while mobs swarmed government ministries, TV stations and police headquarters, escalating their week-long clashes to topple the prime minister.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban "told the prime minister that dissolution of parliament, and her resignation paving the way for new election, could not resolve the underlying deep-rooted problem because bad politicians" could return to power, Thai Public Broadcasting Service (ThaiPBS) reported.
"He said the problem could be resolved only when she returned the power to 'the people' to form the 'people's council' [which could] appoint a 'people's government' to rule the country," the report said.
For 50 years defenders of the Warren Report have claimed that JFK conspiracy theorists simply cannot accept that a little man killed a great man.
Really?
Let’s see now. John Lennon was a great man. Oh sure, he was monitored and spied on by the U.S. national-security state but that was only because national-security state officials were convinced that anyone who opposed what the national-security state was doing during the Cold War was a communist or communist sympathizer and part of the world-wide communist conspiracy to take over the United States, not to mention, of course, a grave threat to “national security.”
Yet, despite how the national-security state viewed Lennon, most everyone would agree, I think, that Lennon was great man and that his assassin, a man named Mark David Chapman, was a little man.
Yet, I don’t see a huge number of people saying that Lennon was the victim of the U.S. national-security state and that Chapman was nothing more than a “patsy” for the assassination. In fact, I don’t see many assassination researchers saying that about the assassination attempts against Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.
Really?
Let’s see now. John Lennon was a great man. Oh sure, he was monitored and spied on by the U.S. national-security state but that was only because national-security state officials were convinced that anyone who opposed what the national-security state was doing during the Cold War was a communist or communist sympathizer and part of the world-wide communist conspiracy to take over the United States, not to mention, of course, a grave threat to “national security.”
Yet, despite how the national-security state viewed Lennon, most everyone would agree, I think, that Lennon was great man and that his assassin, a man named Mark David Chapman, was a little man.
Yet, I don’t see a huge number of people saying that Lennon was the victim of the U.S. national-security state and that Chapman was nothing more than a “patsy” for the assassination. In fact, I don’t see many assassination researchers saying that about the assassination attempts against Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.
Thanksgiving Day — a day of family gatherings to give thanks for our many blessings — has evolved into a day of turkey and football, as the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day rivalries fill the TV. Now, it threatens to be taken over by a shopping spree. This year, Wal-Mart has announced it will open its stores at 6 p.m. on Thursday to begin its “Black Friday” sales. Macy’s, Target, Kmart and others are all moving up their opening times on Thursday. Suddenly, Thanksgiving dinner itself is at risk.
This lust for stuff is a stark contradiction to the origins of Thanksgiving. Days of thanksgiving were celebrated in England from the 1500s as part of the Protestant Reformation. This country traces a thanksgiving feast back most famously to 1621, when the Puritans in Plymouth Colony gave thanks for a bountiful harvest. In 1789, President George Washington issued the first national proclamation declaring a day of “thanksgiving and prayer.”
This lust for stuff is a stark contradiction to the origins of Thanksgiving. Days of thanksgiving were celebrated in England from the 1500s as part of the Protestant Reformation. This country traces a thanksgiving feast back most famously to 1621, when the Puritans in Plymouth Colony gave thanks for a bountiful harvest. In 1789, President George Washington issued the first national proclamation declaring a day of “thanksgiving and prayer.”
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The small business movement is a valuable counter to the corporate landscapes of big-box stores and their accompanying lifeless parking lots that have taken over some parts of our city. There are dozens if not hundreds of shops throughout Columbus where you can buy everything from knit caps to vintage furniture from small and local businesspeople and keep your money in the community and out of the hands of labor-exploiting billionaires.
Geek culture has been a welcome home to small businesses for decades, and while the internet makes it easy to order things that you may have never hoped to see for sale in person in the past, Columbus still has plenty of great stores to help you do your holiday shopping without crossing the picket lines at Walmart.
If you know someone with graphic novels on their wish list, skip Amazon and Barnes & Noble and head for one of our many local, independently-owned comic shops.
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When he first started practicing with the Ohio Dominican University’s football team in the fall of 2010, senior Justin Bell had a hard time attracting the coaching staff’s attention.
After transferring from the University of Toledo, the defensive back didn’t go through the spring practices and sat on the bench during a 2-8 season in 2010.
Bell isn’t overlooked any more. He was selected as the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference’s defensive back of the year on Nov. 22.
“I went from being someone who wasn’t noticed at all to being a primary player,” Bell says.
“After spring ball, the coaches kind of know what route they’re going to take into the fall. The coaches weren’t able to see me play and I wasn’t able to show what I had. I had to climb up from there.”
Bell made the climb and then some. He has been a first team all-conference selection in both 2012 and 2013.
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Daniel Rako led the New Albany High School football team on to the field one last time on Nov. 22. Players pushed the sophomore’s wheelchair on to the artificial turf prior to a 35-28 loss to Zanesville in a Division II regional final at DeSales High School.
Although he never played a down for the Eagles, Daniel says being a part of New Albany’s 11-2 season was a life-changing event.
“I’d give anything to play,” Daniel says. “I know I can’t but it’s still fun to be out there and be a part of this team.”
Daniel, who was born with Spina Bifida, joins freshman Sam Hill and sixth grader Matthew Thomas as managers for the Eagles. All three are part of the football team’s partnership with the Special Needs Program. Hill and Rako were both chosen as the team’s practice players of the week in the days before the Zanesville game.
“Daniel is what our program is all about. It takes a lot of other people besides the starters to make up a football team,” New Albany defensive coordinator Matt “Bubba” Kidwell says. “Daniel will never make a tackle for this team. He’ll never score a touchdown, throw a block or catch or throw a pass.
What goes around comes around . . . and around, and around.
Last month, the day after I left Santa Rosa, Calif., a 13-year-old boy carrying a toy replica of an AK-47 was shot and killed on the outskirts of that town by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff with a reputation for being trigger-happy. The officer had ordered the boy to drop the “gun,” then in a matter of two or three seconds opened fire, giving him no chance to comply.
This is not an isolated incident, which is why it’s yet one more tragedy I can’t get out of my mind — one more logical consequence of the simplistic militarism and mission creep that’s eating us alive. This is gun culture running unchecked from boyhood to manhood, permeating national policy both geopolitically and domestically. This is the trivialization of peace. It results in the ongoing murder of the innocent, both at home and abroad, at the hands of government as well as criminals and terrorists.
“That’s America, we say, as news of the latest massacre breaks,” Henry Porter wrote in September in the U.K. Observer. The massacre of the moment was lone gunman Aaron Alexis’ slaying of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
Last month, the day after I left Santa Rosa, Calif., a 13-year-old boy carrying a toy replica of an AK-47 was shot and killed on the outskirts of that town by a Sonoma County deputy sheriff with a reputation for being trigger-happy. The officer had ordered the boy to drop the “gun,” then in a matter of two or three seconds opened fire, giving him no chance to comply.
This is not an isolated incident, which is why it’s yet one more tragedy I can’t get out of my mind — one more logical consequence of the simplistic militarism and mission creep that’s eating us alive. This is gun culture running unchecked from boyhood to manhood, permeating national policy both geopolitically and domestically. This is the trivialization of peace. It results in the ongoing murder of the innocent, both at home and abroad, at the hands of government as well as criminals and terrorists.
“That’s America, we say, as news of the latest massacre breaks,” Henry Porter wrote in September in the U.K. Observer. The massacre of the moment was lone gunman Aaron Alexis’ slaying of 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
More than ever, Israel is isolated from world opinion and the squishy entity known as “the international community.” The Israeli government keeps condemning the Iran nuclear deal, by any rational standard a positive step away from the threat of catastrophic war.
In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.
While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.
In the short run, the belligerent responses from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are bound to play badly in most of the U.S. media. But Netanyahu and the forces he represents have only begun to fight. They want war on Iran, and they are determined to exercise their political muscle that has long extended through most of the Washington establishment.
While it’s unlikely that such muscle can undo the initial six-month nuclear deal reached with Iran last weekend, efforts are already underway to damage and destroy the negotiations down the road. On Capitol Hill the attacks are most intense from Republicans, and some leading Democrats have also sniped at the agreement reached in Geneva.
Hello Everyone,
We have yet to get a response from the UN on our petitions. We'll continue gathering signatures until we do. Our request that Tepco be replaced by a global team is more urgent than ever.
Why? Because news from Fukushima & the Pacific continues to worsen. Please look at the on-going coverage as linked at Nuke Free.
Tepco has brought down some unused fuel rods from Unit 4. Next come those that were exposed. Remember that Units Three, Two & One may have even worse problems.
The whole world is trying to watch....so Tepco has complained that the media is actually photographing their operations! With a state secrets act on its way, we anticipate a formal crackdown. Tepco wants to open four other reactors in Japan and pursues overseas investments while toying with the fate of the Earth at Fukushima.
We have yet to get a response from the UN on our petitions. We'll continue gathering signatures until we do. Our request that Tepco be replaced by a global team is more urgent than ever.
Why? Because news from Fukushima & the Pacific continues to worsen. Please look at the on-going coverage as linked at Nuke Free.
Tepco has brought down some unused fuel rods from Unit 4. Next come those that were exposed. Remember that Units Three, Two & One may have even worse problems.
The whole world is trying to watch....so Tepco has complained that the media is actually photographing their operations! With a state secrets act on its way, we anticipate a formal crackdown. Tepco wants to open four other reactors in Japan and pursues overseas investments while toying with the fate of the Earth at Fukushima.
