2/24/12

But if there is war in the Middle East

If there is war in the Middle East
Let it be to quell dictatorship
To stop genocide and the utter disregard of human rights
And let it be the measured action of neighbor states
With the support of all nations who embrace democracy
And let it be a word to Russia and China that their leadership in the world
Is marginalized by their unwillingness
To stand firmly with those neighbor states
Should they be forced to act
I speak mainly of Syria
But also of possible action to keep the Strait of Hormuz open
This signals the end of Iran as we know it and for this reason may not happen
If it does we are at a new ground zero
And the measured care which we take to cleave to the value democracy
And not to the hawkish rhetoric of those who serve big oil
That measured action will spell the difference between something admirable and progressive against forces that would hurt the world
And yet another futile effort to strong-arm the world to control its resources
This is the century of global democratic revolution
Let that be what we stand for and bring about everythere

See also:

ShortFormContent at Blogger: How about no war in Iran:

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

What was Mitt thinking of?

Mitt Romney’s Ford Field Fumble:

"Mr. Romney could be seen standing at a lectern in front of a backdrop that had the logo of the Detroit Economic Club. And when the audience — about 1,200 people — clapped, they filled the TV screen as cameras panned across them.

But in the age of Twitter and the Internet, that is not all that matters.

Even before the speech started, reporters began tweeting out pictures of the 65,000-seat stadium — completely empty, except for the chairs set up on the field itself, near the 20-yard line."

The True Pain at The Pump

Pain at the pump is no mystery - Chicago Breaking News: "The price of gas 'makes me sick,' said Geraldine Stiles, 33, of Chicago's Portage Park neighborhood."

Pain at the pump is addiction to sprawl
Pain at the pump is choosing commuting as a lifestyle
Pain at the pump is not being willing to use public transportation
Pain at the pump is everything we do to help oil companies with huge tax breaks
Pain at the pump- is preferring crowded expressways to creating car-free communities zoned for everything that makes life worthwhile
Pain at the pump is our pain for not dealing with these realities


How The President De-Politicized Ground Zero


Click the link below for a lesson in how to respect the wounded and the dead.

President Obama made the nation proud and drained a sacred site of the political uses that have been made of it. There is nothing more to say.

Obama Visits Ground Zero: Why Republicans Can No Longer Politicize the Site - The Daily Beast

Does not look that much like Jennifer Aniston


I looked and said who is that. It is her but it's a stretch.

Jennifer Aniston Dons Daring Dress To Fete Perfume (PHOTOS, POLL)

The untold story of Lee Arthur Hester and his case

The Pdf file below is a 400 page document that should be read by anyone who cares about justice, civil rights, children and our American justice system.

I was at the Hester trial in the courtroom of Judge Alexander Napoli day after day as the injustice was done. I wrote at the time, to no interest, that the murderer was most probably a deranged worker at the school Lee attended, a truth suppressed in court but made eminently clear in the narrative linked to below..

I made efforts when the Web came into being to find out what had happened and eventually contacted people who were indeed working on the case more than four decades later.

I have the original article I did on Lee somewhere and may post it in time, but the piece below is so riveting, so thorough and so damning that I do not want to waste a minute in helping to alert anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see that an injustice was done long ago in Chicago and needs to be properly resolved now.

"This article tells the untold story of Lee Arthur Hester and his case, raises questions about Hester's guilt, and takes the Supreme Court to task for failing to use Hester's case to provide greater protections to juvenile suspects during police interrogations." SOURCE

It all began with 9/11


"'Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness,' it said, 'their blood will be mingled with their tears.'"
Thus Al Qaeda following Osama's death.

It is hard not to think of the current Middle East strife as part of the broad panorama that opens up when we begin with 9/11.

Inevitably, we chose the exact wrong course. Had we merely taken out Al Qaeda we would have done the proportional thing, the fair thing, the right thing. 

Instead we set off a chain which has exacted more lives than were ever lost on 9/11. And now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran are  set against us, Iraq spins close to a meltdown and Syria is involved in a grisly program of serial genocide with the support of Russia and China.

We are walking at the edge of an abyss that can be traced back to the warped mind of the President we allowed our Supreme Court to put into office twelve years ago.

The history of life since 9/11 has been one of monstrous error and limited efforts to counter it with sanity.

To praise the President would be a wonderful option were it not for two things. He has helped compound. the karmic burden by refusing to see the value in truth as given to the world by one Bradley Manning and he had stored up grapes of wrath with the move to the drone. Both these "policies" are fraught with future danger to our nation. To the point that we cannot and should not say we are safer now than we were four or eight or ten years ago.

It is easy to be against Al Qaeda and to fault radical Islam. But it is more accurate to lay blame equally and even to lay it more heavily on ourselves. This is precisely what the GOP thinks is so terrible. That we should be apologetic. Well we should be. And we should understand that the way of Abba is in the direction of this understanding, not in the Santorum, McCain, Gingrich direction. 

We are in a tragic vortex and we will get out of it only by a grace which we do not deserve.    

We should create more jobs not less.


In 2010:

NY subways eliminated 131 car cleaners and supervisory positions
A 10 % drop in person power assigned to sweep and mop trains

Sigh. Eliminating jobs is music to Republican ears.

A text book example of why we are moving posterior-backwards into the slough of idiocy.

Cleaner subways mean more jobs and less disease. not to mention the fact that employed people buy things.

We should create more jobs not less.

A number of mind testers


Wiggling Bugs | Solve the Optical Illusion - Yahoo! Games

Funny this wheel thing did not work for me. It was always static. Does that mean I have no illusions?

Click the link above for a number of mind testers.


Religious Gobbledegook All Around

Obama Apologizes As Afghan Quran Protests Rage | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics: "KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Barack Obama apologized to Afghans on Thursday for the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base, trying to assuage rising anti-American sentiment as an Afghan soldier gunned down two American troops during another day of angry protests."

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The notion that any sacred text is - sacred - is very much in the eye of the beholder. The inability of a "religion" to withstand attacks on its content is a sign of sad immaturity. We live in a world of false values. Among them are this veneration of the sacred in place of the very values which cannot be besmirched - tolerance, democracy, helpfulness, non-idolatry. These are what are truly sacred and when they are challenged evil becomes palpable, and very often it is the religious who commit the worst atrocities. Enough said, I hope.



Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Supreme Court is Ageist Now

Unwarranted Immunity - NYTimes.com: "The Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday about an outrageous police raid on a 73-year-old woman’s home in Los Angeles shows how unconvincing a legal conclusion can be when the opinion for the court does not reflect what happened in the case."

'via Blog this'

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Paul Simon, The Descendants, Theodorakis, Miranda Lambert, etc. Spotify Playlist


Good Morning

Paul Simon, The Descendants, Theodorakis, Miranda Lambert, Neil Young, Lady Gaga, Kraftwerk, Dawes, Arcade Fire, Hayes Carll, Figees

Million Dollar Bill Spotify Playlist

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Home care can create millions of new jobs

Managed Care Keeps the Frail Out of Nursing Homes - NYTimes.com: "Faced with soaring health care costs and shrinking Medicare and Medicaid financing, nursing home operators are closing some facilities and embracing an emerging model of care that allows many elderly patients to remain in their homes and still receive the medical and social services available in institutions."

'via Blog this'

Home care can create millions of new jobs
There is no reason why this can't be so
New jobs in new car-free communities
Keyed to new values and diversity


Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Facebook is a harbinger of doom

Facebook Posts Can Offer Clues of Depression - NYTimes.com: "But specialists in adolescent medicine and mental health experts say that dark postings should not be hastily dismissed because they can serve as signs of depression and an early warning system for timely intervention. Whether therapists should engage with patients over Facebook, however, remains a matter of debate.

And parents have their own conundrum: how to distinguish a teenager’s typically melodramatic mutterings — like the “worst day of my life” rants about their “frenemies,” academics or even cafeteria food — from a true emerging crisis."

'via Blog this'

Facebook is a harbinger of doom
When agony exits a lonely room
And makes its way to words upon a page
Are they just words or white hot seething rage

No Kill Zones in Syria ASAP

How to Halt the Butchery in Syria - NYTimes.com: "There is an alternative. The Friends of Syria, some 70 countries scheduled to meet in Tunis today, should establish “no-kill zones” now to protect all Syrians regardless of creed, ethnicity or political allegiance. The Free Syrian Army, a growing force of defectors from the government’s army, would set up these no-kill zones near the Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Each zone should be established as close to the border as possible to allow the creation of short humanitarian corridors for the Red Cross and other groups to bring food, water and medicine in and take wounded patients out. The zones would be managed by already active civilian committees."

'via Blog this'

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Conspicuous Corruption

Donors With Agendas - NYTimes.com: "Freed of nearly all regulations or good sense by Citizens United and other court decisions, the super PACs are raising money in ludicrously large sums. The $10 million from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson to Winning Our Future, which has sustained Newt Gingrich’s trailing campaign, is the biggest single donation to a candidate. But every candidate now has his own millionaire supporter, and the concentration of wealth in the campaign is growing."

'via Blog this'

Who will be the first conservative Supreme Court judge to see the error of his (sic) ways?


Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Questions About A G.O.P. Fund-Raiser

G.O.P. Fund-Raiser Faces Inquiries Into His Races - NYTimes.com:

"Federal inquiries surrounding Mr. Buchanan appear to be widening, as investigators examine allegations that his companies improperly reimbursed contributors to his campaigns and claimed improper tax deductions and that he failed to include all his varied financial interests in his Congressional disclosure reports.

The Federal Election Commission has already completed one investigation that produced a settlement this week with a former partner of Mr. Buchanan’s who used their car dealership to reimburse employees for contributing to the congressman’s campaigns, in violation of federal law.

The commission dropped its case against Mr. Buchanan himself over the reimbursements, despite testimony that he took part in the scheme. But agents for the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service recently contacted former employees alleging financial improprieties by Mr. Buchanan, who owns a number of auto dealerships thoughout Florida and elsewhere and is one of the richest members of Congress."

'via Blog this'

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Dylan, Jessie J, Howlin' Wolf, etc. Spotify Playlist


Dylan, Jessie J, Howlin' Wolf, Mozart, Chesnutt,  Deep Dark Woods, Suzanne Vega, Cocker, Fogerty, John Williams, Kraftwerk, Julie Fowls, Don Williams

Lay Lady Lay Spotify Playlist

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Dylan's Girl from The Red River Shore (Spotify)

ShortFormContent at Blogger:

Dylan's Girl from the Red River Shore on Spotify

The female anima well-evoked. A good companion to Angelina.


RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press