Remember the World Trade Organization, which slipped into the shadows after massive Seattle protests in 1999? The same day last week that Congress initially blocked the possibility of fast track approval for the TPP trade agreement, the House voted to overturn rules requiring country-of-origin labeling for meat. Those supporting the vote said they were responding to a World Trade Organization ruling, judging US country-of-origin labeling unfair competition with meat coming from foreign countries like Canada and Mexico, and therefore a violation. They said they had no choice for fear of triggering sanctions or lawsuits from countries exporting meat across our borders.

Books about how World War I started, and to a lesser degree how World War II started, have tended in recent years to explain that these wars didn’t actually come as a surprise, because top government officials saw them coming for years. But these revised histories admit that the general public was pretty much clueless and shocked.

The fact is that anyone in the know or diligently seeking out the facts could see, in rough outline, the danger of World War I or World War II coming years ahead, just as one can see the threats of environmental collapse and World War III approaching now. But the general public lacked a decent understanding prior to the first two world wars and lacks it now on the looming dangers created by environmental destruction and aggressive flirtation with World War III.

What led to the first two world wars and allowed numerous wise observers to warn of them years ahead, even to warn of World War II immediately upon completion of the treaty that ended World War I? A number of factors ought to be obvious but are generally overlooked:

He sat with them for an hour in prayer. Then he pulled his gun out and started shooting.

And today our national numbness is wrapped in a Confederate flag. The young man who killed nine members of Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night was an old-school racist. “I have to do it,” Dylann Storm Roof is said to have explained. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”

Roof’s roommate told ABC News the next day that he was “big into segregation and other stuff” and “he wanted to start a civil war.” And this is America, where we have the freedom to manifest our lethal fantasies.

The cries for the death of the Charleston murderer are already mounting.     But we can do better.     One would expect in this country that the government will seek to kill this twisted young man for his having shot nine wonderful people in the coldest possible blood.  It is beyond comprehension how someone—-anyone!—-could sit in a Bible discussion for as long as he did and then shoot those who had shown him such kindness.  One by one.  Stopping to reload.   We must truly question what kind of species we are to have spawned such a creature.   There is no doubting his motivation.  This murder was about race.   

So the first step in healing should be for the state of South Carolina to honor these victims by removing its Confederate flags. The Confederacy was an unmitigated hell-hole for African-Americans. There are no provinces in Germany that “preserve their legacy” with swastika banners, and there should be none in the US that should do so for the flag of Dixie.

As for this murderer, there may have been other motives in addition to racism. Maybe he wanted recognition. No doubt there were other deep psychological issues.

someone handing another person money

I’m shocked – shocked! – that our City Council President and leading mayoral candidate Andy Ginther is accused of taking bribes. His name is attached to the scandal involving former CEO of Redflex Karen L. Finley – provider of much-hated red-light traffic cameras – pleading guilty to bribery and fraud schemes.

Finley pled guilty to submitting payments based on false invoices to a consulting firm, which then laundered the money into elected public officials’ accounts – including Andy Ginther’s account. In classic corrupt quid pro quo, in exchange for the dough, Ginther granted Redflex a contract for red light cameras in our city.

No wonder he was able to raise so much money as Council President and as a mayoral candidate. Ginther’s method, like his mentor Mayor Michael Coleman – is that nearly every contract is an opportunity to shake someone down for money.

In this case, we’re glad to say, “We told you so.”

Two men holding sign reading Raise the MInimum wage by amending the city charter

Today’s Columbus Dispatch reported that Ashley Wnek, the Republican candidate for the Unexpired Term Race for Columbus City Council will  not be actively campaigning and has “ no intention to campaign” according to Brad Sinnott chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party. If the FCDP does not find a candidate within the next 86 days, the contest for the Unexpired Term this November will result in a two-way race between Shannon Hardin and Write-In Independent candidate Joe Motil.

The emotions (from left) Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), Joy (Amy Poehler), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) represent the personality of the 11-year-old heroine in Inside Out (Disney/Pixar photo)

The movies have taken us to some fascinating places over the years, including the past, the future and a galaxy far, far away. With Inside Out, Disney and Pixar take us to the most unexpected place of all: an adolescent girl’s brain.

It’s an ingenious concept, and one that Pixar attacks with its usual blend of laughter, tears and glorious animation.

Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) is a cheerful girl living in Minnesota. We know she’s happy because we experience her childhood from the viewpoint of the five emotions who live inside her head and influence her every thought and action. Of the five, Joy (Amy Poehler) is the most dominant, easily keeping Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust at bay while Riley grows into a fun-loving, hockey-playing 11-year-old.

Then Dad (Kyle MacLachlan) uproots the family to take a job in San Francisco, and the girl’s contented existence starts to unravel. Not only is her new home dirty and run-down, but she misses her friends, and the neighborhood pizza joint serves only pies topped with her least-favorite vegetable: broccoli.


Last month at the graduation ceremony of Tuskegee University, a historically black college, first lady Michelle Obama spoke candidly about the racial barriers facing African Americans and encouraged them to overcome continuing discrimination by staying “true to the most real, most sincere, most authentic parts of yourselves.”

People, she said, “will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world.” She and her husband have “felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives.” But “those feelings are not an excuse to just throw up our hands and give up. … They are not an excuse to lose hope.”

 

Al-Qaeda has a makeover – and now they're the good guys

If you want to know why our “war on terrorism” has failed so miserably – if you want to understand how and why the harder we fight the more enemies we have to face – then read this recent piece in the Wall Street Journal on the evolution of the Syrian civil war, which opens with this startling query:

“In the three-way war ravaging Syria, should the local al Qaeda branch be seen as the lesser evil to be wooed rather than bombed?”

When the United States government declared its war on Afghanistan in October 2001, thus taking the first step in its so-called ‘war on terror’, following the devastating attacks of September 11 earlier that year, Iran jumped on board.

 

Then Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, dubbed a reformist, provided substantial assistance in the US effort aimed at defeating the Taliban, an ardent enemy of Iran and Afghan Shia. Indeed, the Taliban’s aggressive policies included an anti-Shia drive, which resulted in a massive refugee problem. Tens of thousands of Afghan Shia sought refuge in Iran.

 

Khatami’s ‘friendly’ gesture towards the anti-terror crusade lead by George W. Bush was not by any means an Iranian departure from a supposed policy of non-intervention in the region. Iran is a country with porous borders, political and strategic interests, serious and legitimate fears, but also unquestionable ambitions.

 

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