Unarmed Empowerment

“But my instinct was that if someone is shooting at you, it is generally better to shoot back than to cower and pray.”

This is the hidden argument for guns as America’s primary peacekeepers — that the debate comes down to gun ownership vs. helplessness.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s 7,000-word essay, “The Case for More Guns (and More Gun Control),” which ran in the December issue of The Atlantic — just prior to the Newtown killings — came down, for me, to the above sentence.

He made a number of quasi-reasonable points, the main one being that there are 300 million guns in America right now and it’s simply too late for gun control to be effective: “. . . only the naive think that legislation will prevent more than a modest number of the criminally minded, and the mentally deranged, from acquiring a gun in a country absolutely inundated with weapons.”

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade

This month, we celebrate four decades of constitutionally protected reproductive rights! As Roe v. Wade turns 40, join us in recognizing the past work done to gain those rights and the present work to preserve them for future generations. This year, we're proud to invite you to three great events across Ohio. We hope to see you at an event in your area.
Northeast Ohio
Celebrate. Reflect. Moving Forward.
Tuesday, January 22 at 7 p.m.
Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, Beachwood
Keynote Speaker: Loretta Ross

Southwest Ohio
Passing the Activist Torch.
Saturday, January 26 at 6 p.m.
Wyndham Hotel, South Dayton
Keynote Speaker: Senator Nina Turner

Central Ohio
Looking Back, Moving Forward.
Wednesday, January 30 at 6 p.m.
The Gateway Film Center, Columbus
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Susan Wood

Book Review: Marshalling Justice: The Early Civil Rights Letters of Thurgood Marshall

Marshalling Justice: The Early Civil Rights Letters of Thurgood Marshall - By Michael G. Long
When Thurgood Marshal, the first black justice of the United States Supreme Court, resigned from the Court for reasons of ill health in 1991, he had served for twenty-four years. It took his death two years later for people to remember what a legacy he left this country: general counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1938 through 1961; first black judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; first black solicitor general of the United States. While with the NAACP he argued thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court, winning twenty-nine of them. During his four-year tenure on the Court of Appeals, he issued one hundred twelve rulings, none of which were reversed on certiorari by the Supreme Court. His record as solicitor general was equally impressive; he won fourteen of the nineteen cases he argued on behalf of the United States.

In Kabul, widows and orphans move up

Kabul --Yesterday, four young Afghan Peace Volunteer members, Zainab, Umalbanin, Abdulhai, and Ali, guided Martha and me along narrow, primitive roads and crumbling stairs, ascending a mountain slope on the outskirts of Kabul. The icy, rutted roads twisted and turned. I asked if we could pause as my heart was hammering and I needed to catch my breath. Looking down, we saw a breathtaking view of Kabul. Above us, women in bright clothing were navigating the treacherous roads with heavy water containers on their heads or shoulders. I marveled at their strength and tenacity. “Yes, they make this trip every morning,” Umalbanin said, as she helped me regain my balance after I had slipped on the ice.

NEWGreen: Radioactive Wakeup Call for the Great Lakes!

Radioactive materials will go to NEWGreen by ship and rail. The U.S. and Canada are poised to water down shipping regulations. Radioactive metals may soon be mixed with regular scrap metal.

LOCATION:

• NEWGreen is located directly on Lake Erie at Perry, OH, adjacent to the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.

THE PERFECT STORM:

• NEWGreen CEO Patrick New has appealed to Bruce Power in Ontario to receive shipments of 100-ton radioactive steam generators for “decontamination” and “recycling”. Bruce Power operates 8 nuclear reactors on the shores of Lake Huron, part of the largest nuclear facility in North America.
• Canada recently passed an omnibus budget bill making sweeping changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Under the changes, Bruce Power’s shipping of the steam generators would not trigger an environmental assessment. Environmental organizations and First Nations have strongly objected to the re-writing of environmental law through a budget bill.

Aim for a rational discussion on guns

The president is committed to reforming our gun laws; a working group headed by Vice President Joe Biden is considering a broad agenda. The proposals mentioned, not formally announced yet, already are being strafed by politicians in both parties. Before everyone goes to the barricades, it would be worth trying to have a rational discussion.

The reforms under consideration include the basic: reinstating the ban on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. They include good governance: bolstering state reporting on felons, drug abuses, the mentally ill for the FBI database, strengthening mental health screening. They include what many of us would consider common sense: higher penalties for carrying a gun near our schools. And they include applying regulations already in place universally: requiring a background on every gun sale to check to screen out felons, the mentally unstable and terrorists.

Showdown at San Onofre

Two stricken California reactors may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power.

They sit in a seismic zone vulnerable to tsunamis. Faulty steam generators have forced them shut for nearly a year.

A powerful "No Nukes" movement wants them to stay that way. If they win, the shutdown of America's 104 licensed reactors will seriously accelerate.

The story of San Onofre Units 2 & 3 is one of atomic idiocy. Perched on an ocean cliff between Los Angeles and San Diego, the reactors' owners cut unconscionable corners in replacing their multi-million-dollar steam generators. According to Russell Hoffman, one of California's leading experts on San Onofre, inferior metals and major design failures turned what was meant to be an upgrade into an utter fiasco.

Installed by Mitsubishi, the generators simply did not work. When they were shut nearly a year ago, tubes were leaking, banging together and overall rendering further operations impossible.

Our freedoms

The Social Context of Mass Murder

Hey, loser!

And so the nail is driven in. This is isolation; this is the coffin. And there are so many ways of saying it.

The social context of being human has been shattered for far too many people, and one manifestation of this is the eerie rise in mass murders — seemingly senseless, impersonal rampages — over the last four or five decades. Since the 1960s, they have increased fourteenfold in the United States, far exceeding the rise in population, according to sociologist Peter Turchin, whose four-part essay, “Canariesin a Coal Mine,” ran at Social Evolution Forum shortly after the Newtown killings.

“The reason we should be worried about rampages,” he writes, “is because they are surface indicators of highly troubling negative trends working their way through deep levels of our society.”

Call it by its real name "Chemtrails": Harvard prof calls for spraying to re-freeze the Arctic

It was inevitable. Those of you who have been wondering about so-called "chemtrails" need to read the December 11, 2012 article in Britain’s Daily Mail. The headline screams "Could we re-freeze the Arctic? Scientists suggest radical solution to global warming."

This miraculous feat of geo-engineering comes to us courtesy of Harvard Professor of Applied Physics David Keith, who has authored papers proposing the massive spraying of reflective particles over the Arctic Circle in the journals Nature Climate Change and Environmental Research Letters.

They call it "spraying," the street name is "chemtrails." They have been doing it for years. It is the use of chemicals sprayed from planes to alter the environment, create military antennas in the sky, to build fake clouds and a toxic reflective sunscreen for the planet. You have probably seen it happen with a long-lasting white trail streaking high in the sky behind one or more planes, sometimes making a criss-cross checkerboard design. And when you call your local news station to ask what’s going on, usually they send out the jolly local weatherman to tell you not to believe your lying eyes.

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