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Many senators began this week still uncommitted on whether they’ll vote for attacking Syria. Among the fence-sitters are enough “progressives” to swing the Senate’s decision one way or the other.
That decision is coming soon -- maybe as early as Wednesday -- and the Obama White House is now pulling out all the stops to counter public opinion, which remains overwhelmingly against a war resolution. The administration hopes to win big in the Senate and carry momentum into the House, where the bomb-Syria agenda faces a steeper climb.
Some Democratic senators who’ve cultivated progressive reputations nationwide -- Barbara Boxer of California, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Al Franken of Minnesota -- haven’t hesitated to dive into Obama’s war tank. Boxer, Durbin and Franken quickly signed on as carnage bottom-feeders, pledging their adamant support for the U.S. government to attack yet another country.
Other Democrats, like Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Tom Udall of New Mexico, have made clear their intention to vote “no” when the war-on-Syria measure reaches the Senate floor.
That decision is coming soon -- maybe as early as Wednesday -- and the Obama White House is now pulling out all the stops to counter public opinion, which remains overwhelmingly against a war resolution. The administration hopes to win big in the Senate and carry momentum into the House, where the bomb-Syria agenda faces a steeper climb.
Some Democratic senators who’ve cultivated progressive reputations nationwide -- Barbara Boxer of California, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Al Franken of Minnesota -- haven’t hesitated to dive into Obama’s war tank. Boxer, Durbin and Franken quickly signed on as carnage bottom-feeders, pledging their adamant support for the U.S. government to attack yet another country.
Other Democrats, like Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Tom Udall of New Mexico, have made clear their intention to vote “no” when the war-on-Syria measure reaches the Senate floor.
Having taught Popular Culture for more than 20 years, one of the more frequently asked questions is “Why are Americans obsessed with zombies, vampires and other post-apocalyptic creatures?”
While there’s no one answer, I believe the best explanation is that these evil beings are a metaphor for corporate America. Remember the words uttered in George C. Romero’s legendary Dawn of the Dead (1978): “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the Earth.”
We live in a society that has given similar rights to “natural born citizens” and unnatural entities through so-called “corporate personhood.”
The concept of corporate personhood evolved from corporations having the ability to engage in certain legal actions, such as entering into contracts, suing or being sued – into much more dangerous territory. Our tale of horror begins in the bizarre 1886 case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the key early cases in establishing the concept of corporate personhood that gave rights to soulless, legal fictions.
While there’s no one answer, I believe the best explanation is that these evil beings are a metaphor for corporate America. Remember the words uttered in George C. Romero’s legendary Dawn of the Dead (1978): “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the Earth.”
We live in a society that has given similar rights to “natural born citizens” and unnatural entities through so-called “corporate personhood.”
The concept of corporate personhood evolved from corporations having the ability to engage in certain legal actions, such as entering into contracts, suing or being sued – into much more dangerous territory. Our tale of horror begins in the bizarre 1886 case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the key early cases in establishing the concept of corporate personhood that gave rights to soulless, legal fictions.
The United States is not now bombing Syria.
Let’s savor that again: for the moment at least, the United States is not now bombing Syria.
That alone qualifies as an epic, unprecedented victory for the SuperPower of Peace, the global movement to end war, win social justice and somehow salvage our ecological survival.
Will it mark a permanent turning point?
That a treaty has been signed to rid the Assad regime of its chemical weapons is icing on the cake, however thin it proves to be. We don’t know if it will work. We don’t know if the restraint from bombing will hold.
But in a world that bristles with atomic weapons, where the rich get ever richer at the expense of the rest of us, and where stricken Japanese reactors along with 400 more worldwide threaten the survival of our global ecology, we must count any victory for peace---even if potentially fleeting---as a huge one. Let’s do some history.
Let’s savor that again: for the moment at least, the United States is not now bombing Syria.
That alone qualifies as an epic, unprecedented victory for the SuperPower of Peace, the global movement to end war, win social justice and somehow salvage our ecological survival.
Will it mark a permanent turning point?
That a treaty has been signed to rid the Assad regime of its chemical weapons is icing on the cake, however thin it proves to be. We don’t know if it will work. We don’t know if the restraint from bombing will hold.
But in a world that bristles with atomic weapons, where the rich get ever richer at the expense of the rest of us, and where stricken Japanese reactors along with 400 more worldwide threaten the survival of our global ecology, we must count any victory for peace---even if potentially fleeting---as a huge one. Let’s do some history.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Communist Vietnam's police clashed with hundreds
of Catholics who were demanding two parishioners be released from
prison, resulting in what was described as "one of the bloodiest
religious crackdowns in recent years."
Government-controlled "television reported that about 300 people mobbed the Nghi Phuong village people's committee building," near Vinh city in Nghe An province on September 4, according to Washington-based, U.S. federally-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA).
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/church-09042013193713.html
Protesters "attacking" police with stones, injured one police officer and provoked the crackdown, Nghe An TV reported.
Police also fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
"They [police] fired 15 shots in front of the My Yen church. They beat some parishioners with electric batons," one protester told RFA's Vietnamese Service.
"Some parishioners had to be hospitalized. They also arrested nine to 10 people."
Government-controlled "television reported that about 300 people mobbed the Nghi Phuong village people's committee building," near Vinh city in Nghe An province on September 4, according to Washington-based, U.S. federally-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA).
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/church-09042013193713.html
Protesters "attacking" police with stones, injured one police officer and provoked the crackdown, Nghe An TV reported.
Police also fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
"They [police] fired 15 shots in front of the My Yen church. They beat some parishioners with electric batons," one protester told RFA's Vietnamese Service.
"Some parishioners had to be hospitalized. They also arrested nine to 10 people."
As the crisis in Syria continues to evolve day by day according to the whims of foreign diplomats and leaders, President Obama’s foreign policy has been under special scrutiny. Concerning the Syrian dilemma, Barack Obama has relayed a message to the American people and the global community at large that is rife with confusion and contradiction. But, amidst that confusion rests one coherent signal: the President is insisting on having it both ways in Syria.
Despite the jeering and deriding that now accompanies any mention of the name George W. Bush, the fact remains that the former president had a sound, singular, stated foreign policy. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Bush, it is indisputable that his rhetoric of aggressive, preemptive action matched his operations as commander-in-chief. When President Bush delivered his remarks that portrayed the Saddam Hussein regime as one unable to coexist with the United States, Mr. Bush carried out those words with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like it or not, his words matched his actions.
Despite the jeering and deriding that now accompanies any mention of the name George W. Bush, the fact remains that the former president had a sound, singular, stated foreign policy. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Bush, it is indisputable that his rhetoric of aggressive, preemptive action matched his operations as commander-in-chief. When President Bush delivered his remarks that portrayed the Saddam Hussein regime as one unable to coexist with the United States, Mr. Bush carried out those words with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like it or not, his words matched his actions.
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The Columbus Crew are in a big transition. After falling well behind the pace in the MLS playoff race, the team dismissed long time Crew head coach Robert Warzycha on Labor Day and named Technical Director Brian Bliss the interim head coach.
Warzycha had been the head coach since 2009 and the team had slowly lost ground to the rest of the league. The Crew had slumped to an 8-13-5 record and 8th place in the Eastern Conference this year before he was dismissed. The change marked the end of an era as Warzycha had been with the team since midway through the inaugural season of 1996 playing or coaching in all 18 seasons of the team's history.
Bliss took over immediately and had two days to prepare for his first game in charge, a home match against the Houston Dynamo. The Crew looked re-energized against a fatigued opponent, winning 2-0. However by Saturday, that energy dissipated and the team lost it's seventh road game in a row, falling 3-0 against Eastern Conference powerhouse Sporting Kansas City.
Looking toward the stretch run, the Crew have six games left. They still can make the playoffs, but face very long odds.
Pop culture has a love/hate relationship with the Transformers movie franchise. The second and worst movie in the series, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, made over $400 million in the US alone despite having a 20% positive rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Dark of the Moon made $350 million with a slightly better 36% positive reviews. The entire series is notorious for bad plots, bad pacing, bad characterization – and lots of really, really good explosions. So of course there's going to be a fourth one.
Paramount recently revealed the title of the giant robot action franchise's fourth movie: Transformers: Age of Extinction. Online geekdom was alternately pulling for and rolling their eyes over simply Trans4mers, but alas, Paramount didn't go for the obvious pun.
The extinction of what? It probably has something to do with Dinobots. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura recently confirmed to the Beijing News that the Dinobots will be appearing in Age of Extinction, and that's got to be a huge draw for all the 30-something kids who loved the robo-T. Rex Grimlock and his team of saurian Autobots in the 80s.
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Geek website The Outhousers has a box on their homepage that looks like one of those “This workplace has gone XX days without an accident” signs you might see on a construction site. Instead of tracking injuries of the physical kind, this one tracks injuries to the reputation of one of the Big Two comic book publishers. It reads, “It has been XX days since DC Comics did something stupid.” Today the counter is back at 0. It was there yesterday, too.
DC Comics, owners of some of the biggest characters and movie franchises in the world, seems determined to cater to a small but fierce subset of geekdom: Adult men who like their male heroes unimpeded by marriage or morals and their female heroes unimpeded by clothing or agency.
The matter of marriage was the cause of one of those counter resets, and while it didn't involve any male characters at all it brought to light something distressingly man-child-ish about the attitude at DC Editorial.
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The end of summer may be upon us and, as sad as we may be about cold weather and school returning to session, there is good news awaiting all the comic book loving geeks out there — major crossover events have kicked off in both the DC and Marvel Universes.
Now the concept of the major label event has been going on for decades at this point, and the ploy is always pretty simple — rope readers in for a core six or seven issue main series, force them to buy a slew of off-shoot issues to keep up with the story, eventually kill a major character (who will be brought back to life soon enough) and then lead that major event into the next major event.
It's a cheap tactic that comic book publishers have been at for years, but these are almost always the biggest and best stories with the most character impact so we are forced to pay attention and more often than not we get some amazing writing and spectacular art to help along with the ride.
Let's break down the three major events going on at DC and Marvel, with a little back story on each and then hopefully send you to your local comic book store excited to check out at least one, if not all, of these event titles.
In his more than 40 years at the Institute for Policy Studies, Saul Landau produced more than 40 films and TV programs, 14 books, and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and reviews. Among his numerous accolades, Saul received an Emmy and a George Polk Award for “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang,” a film he directed with Jack Willis about the cover-up of health hazards related to 1950s atomic bomb testing.
Beyond his extensive body of work, Saul will be remembered for his steely nerve and caustic wit. “He stood up to dictators, right-wing Cuban assassins, pompous politicians, and critics from both the left and the right,” said IPS Director John Cavanagh. “When he believed in something, nobody could make him back down. Those who tried would typically find themselves on the receiving end of a withering but humorous insult.”
Beyond his extensive body of work, Saul will be remembered for his steely nerve and caustic wit. “He stood up to dictators, right-wing Cuban assassins, pompous politicians, and critics from both the left and the right,” said IPS Director John Cavanagh. “When he believed in something, nobody could make him back down. Those who tried would typically find themselves on the receiving end of a withering but humorous insult.”