[NOVA] "Earth from Space" -- a suggestion to watch -- with a caveat below

This program looks utterly fabulous.  We will be taping it and watching it all. This is television at its most profound and a force for good.  It is a force for intellectual curiosity and instruction as to who we are and what transpires on our beautiful beautiful planet.  It makes one want desperately to be a steward of this one earth on which we miraculously reside and especially to stop earth's killer -- polluting and climate changing fossil fuels!

A Caveat must be mentioned:  PBS is now funded and its programming perhaps overseen by the Koch Brothers, who are right wing funders of right wing extremism and the Republican Party.  Their fortune is in oil and many other things.  Still, that does not mean all programming is tainted and it means some programming has worth.  BUT one should always know that this right wing slant has taken over what USED to be one of the best public stations on earth and, in my opinion, because of that fact, it no longer is.  I no longer give money to support its broadcasting but I will watch certain things I deem have merit.  

It is a sad fact and reality of the world in which we live that money buys it all and NOT for humane purposes.  It extends far and wide even to the media.  Beware and if you give to PBS I suggest you stop and tell them exactly why.  The Koch Brothers are major funders of the Tea Baggies, are major deniers of global climate change going against 98% of scientific expertise in the subject.  Beware of ALL things bearing their name!  --WHY WE MUST ELECT DEMOCRATS IN 2014 AND BEYOND!

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From: NOVA <novanewsletter@wgbh.org>
To: natalierosen <natalierosen@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 12, 2013 7:21 am
Subject: [NOVA] "Earth from Space"

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NOVA PRESENTS Earth from Space Airing Wednesday February 13 at 9 pm on PBS (Check local listings) Watch a Preview "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth. Viewers witness how dust blown from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon; how a vast submarine "waterfall" off Antarctica helps drive ocean currents around the world; and how the Sun's heating up of the southern Atlantic gives birth to a colossally powerful hurricane. From the microscopic world of water molecules vaporizing over the ocean to the magnetic field that is bigger than Earth itself, the show reveals the astonishing beauty and complexity of our dynamic planet. WEB FEATURES Watch a Preview Watch a preview of the program online now.  The Uses of Satellite Imagery Images from near-Earth orbit help us with everything from weather forecasting and disaster management to archeology. "Earth from Space” is now available on DVD from shopPBS.org.NOVA email subscribers receive an exclusive offer of 20% off your order of $60 or more at shopPBS.org. Enter promotion code: NOVANEWSLETTER to receive your discount. Cannot be combined with other offers. Valid thru 2/31/13. NOVA Launches New Energy Lab  NOVA is excited to announce the launch of the Energy Lab, the second Lab in a growing collection of research offerings on the NOVA Labs site. In this Lockheed Martin-funded site, students design renewable energy systems for cities across the U.S. and compete with Lab participants nationally. Visit the site now to design your own renewable energy system. 2012 Visitor/Viewer Survey Message Calling all NOVA scienceNOW viewers and/or digital content explorers! We rely on your feedback to learn and improve. Please take 5-10 minutes to complete this survey being conducted by our external evaluation firm. Become a NOVA and NOVA scienceNOW fan on Facebook, follow us onTwitter, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for your interest in NOVA. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. You can send a message directly to nova@wgbh.org, or use ourfeedback form.  TWITTER  FACEBOOK  ITUNES  YOUTUBE  RSS  INSIDE NOVA      Major funding for this program is provided by The Kendeda Fund. Additional funding for this program is provided by Millicent Bell, through the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation.Funding for NOVA is provided by David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS viewers.

Skyfall -- Adele -- Beautiful

I was never a music groupie   I loved the music of my youth and even the music of my mother's youth but, in modern times, that love of contemporary music left me -- too much sex, too much violence, too loud and often too vulgar.  That is not who I am.  Consequently, I tune out award shows like the Grammy's because generally speaking -- very generally speaking -- I do not like much contemporary sound -- UNTIL I decided to see what all the hype was about Adele.  Below is the Youtube of her song, "Skyfall" that has won her much acclaim including a Golden Globe and a Grammy.  Her voice is gorgeous and haunting, the words profound. No wonder everyone loves her there is much to love.  

Enjoy here or below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeumyOzKqgI

The POOPED Pope? -- "Out out damn spot"

Pope Benedict XVI is too tired and must resign, he says.  It is the first resignation of a pope in 700 years. Why does this even matter to me?  Mostly, it does not as it surely has no influence in MY life BUT in a way it does because this institution directs its clergy in hypocritical fashion from the pulpit in our country and around the world to advocate for political issues that suppress and most importantly oppress human beings spending money against policy it does not like. It has influence on voters.

 

The Austrian born Pope Benedict XVI I thought was ugliness incarnate from the time he was selected Pope. Charles Dickens could not have given him a better name – The former Cardinal Ratzinger.  He had a childhood in the Nazi Youth and I believe continued to hold some of the ideological and anti-Semitic views with which he was infused at a young age. It was evidenced by certain tolerances by him of priests who would conduct in Latin the inclusion of century’s old anti-Semitic passages in the mass which had been long erased from its liturgy.  He apologized to the Jewish people more than once.

 

As an adult in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, he was in control of the hidden sex scandals and other corruptions which saturated the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, aka the Inquisition, a morphed institution he once led.  The church has tortured and slaughtered in its history many -- many Jews and others it considered heretics.  Now while it does not physically slaughter it emotionally still does.  It stands silent in the face of a great sin against humanity with the massive sexual abuse of children by hundreds of its priests around the world and then actively for decades covered those unthinkable crimes up.

 

I recently viewed "Mea Culpa: Silence in the House of God" an HBO documentary by the great Alex Gibney.  Its synopsis in part says: 

 

[Mea Culpa] investigates the secret crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, a charismatic Milwaukee priest who abused more than 200 Deaf children in a school under his control. The film documents the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the U.S., which led to a case that spanned three decades and ultimately resulted in a lawsuit against the pontiff himself. The investigation helped uncover documents from the secret Vatican archives that show the Pope, who must operate within the mysterious rules of the Roman Curia, as both responsible and helpless in the face of evil.

 

Many popes, including this present one, ignored these crimes.  The church tries to keep this evidence and its silence behind its walls while they move those accused priests around the world like pawns on a checkerboard and do nothing for its victims.  This corrupt and disordered celibate institution will probably conduct business as usual and its great perversion against children will go on.  Since we are not living in the Middle Ages (or at least I THINK we are not) resignation of this pope will make no difference to most but the church in its infinite odious wisdom will continue to advocate for policies against women and advocate against, in mind numbing hypocrisy, ALL forms of gay rights even though the institution of the church contains many adult innocent homosexual priests within it.  It did nothing about the TRUE crimes it perpetrated and would still be doing nothing, hiding in the dark to this day if not for the press blowing the scandal sky high to see the light of day.

 

The church could finally, now, have an opportunity to remake itself, ultimately reopen churches to their faithful and in so doing fill its coffers with the gold it lost.  I am sure, however, it will not remake much.

 

I submit the Pope is NOT too pooped although the church will surely take advantage of his age in its explanation of his resignation.   No, I suspect the Pope is NOT too pooped but rather has soaked his own hands in blood by the acquiescence of his Church’s own sexual abuse of children.  This damn spot, like Lady Macbeth's, cannot be washed out.  

 

 

Block the Block

This appeared on Huffington in response to the article stating Graham of S. Carolina to block two top Obama pics for Sec. of Defense and CIA -- Hagel and Brennan respectively, two eminently qualified men.  This person hit the nail on the proverbial head and did it more succinctly than I!  Both of us are adamantly committed to Republicans losing their shirt in 2014!  I cannot wait.  

“Benghaziism and Birtherism."

Both words begin with "B" and end in unceasing GOPTea shenanigans.

How many times must President Obama publish his Hawaiian Birth Certificate to no avail?

How many meetings must Senators have over Benghazi, culminating in that stellar meeting with former Sec. of State and future President Hillary Clinton, before they’ll believe the facts?

But the GOPTea has anathema to FACTS. Their 24/7 propaganda Fox-machine eschews them and pays pundits to ignore polls and believe instead their own faux-polling that predicts Romney landslides (although one of the Fox pundits was lately let go, hello.)

If the GOPTea had actually done ANYTHING for our country and the American people since 2008 I might listen to what they had to say. But they’ve done NOTHING except obstruct and filibuster year after year all legislation and cabinet and judicial appointments.

The MAJORITY of Americans want to move FORWARD. The MAJORITY of Americans voted TWICE for President Obama, giving him more than 51% of the popular vote, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since Eisenhower. We the people want President Obama’s agenda and appointees. But the GOPTea is deaf to the will of we the people that pay them and keep paying them to do nothingfor our country or us.

The 2014 elections cannot come fast enough and they will not be a repeat of 2010. They will mark an even greater victory for Democrats than 2012. Count on it, Senator Graham.”

Graham Cracker Block

Huff Post Headline:  Lindsey Graham Plans To Block Chuck Hagel, John Brennan To Get Answers On Benghazi (VIDEO) -- link below.

These Republicans are simply just bastards.  Forgive the profanity but that is the ONLY epithet I can manage to use to aptly describe them.  They are utterly sickening racist slime. The president could say he is giving everyone a box of chocolates with his own money and the Lindsey Grahams of the RepublicRAT Party would call for his overthrow.

I wonder if Graham opposed Brennan when Brennan was in the Bush administration.  I suspect he did not.  It simply makes Democrats all the more FURIOUS and all the more determined to give them a FINAL electoral smashing in 2014.

We are waiting patiently as justice WILL work its magic.  We WILL take back the House, secure the Senate even more and, of course, the executive is ours to kick sand in their ugly faces.  Hopefully, the presidency will be in our hands beyond 2016as the president will pass his baton to the next Democrat (hoping for Hillary.)  They are DESPICABLE!

WHY WE MUST BE DETERMINED TO WIN IT ALL.  

ONWARD TO 2014!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/10/lindsey-graham-chuck-hagel_n_2657802.html#comments

Science Rules -- A Raging Planet

I feel bad for NYC and Staten Island.  It is deja vu all over again for them as it seems like Hurricane Sandy is repeating itself if that is possible.  Extend that through Boston on to Portland, Maine and beyond, the inconvenient truth that Al Gore talked about in his famous presentation, is coming truer beyond anyone's predication that it would so soon. 

 

I am a science worshiper and kneel at its alter.  Either you believe in science or you don't and why one would not staggers the rational mind at the ignorance that is reflected in so much of our population.

 

Science rules.  Its truth as reflected in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics cannot be denied. Science is NOT faith because it is provable and repeatable.  Climate change is accepted by at least 98% (or more now) of the best scientists and I believe them!

 

When one considers collectively ALL the disasters in recent time it shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Al Gore knew what he was talking about when he produced "An Inconvenient Truth."  He knew it was true because he was talking TO scientists.  As far back as the 1970's he with the scientists that influenced him could see the remarkable change in weather patterns in coincidence with the Industrial Age and its burning of filthy fossil fuels that polluted the atmosphere, dramatically increased global warming that produces the explosive weather events we are now experiencing.  An increase in temperature from the burning of fossil fuels and its deadly pollutive influence on the earth's atmosphere are robbing us of billions, ruining our beautiful planet and ultimately will, I fear, kill us all.

 

The floods, the fires, the intense hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, droughts, crushing record breaking heat in the summer, tornadoes, mud slides from saturating rain and now the snow hurricanes in winter are more than enough to prove the point. Al Gore's inconvenient truth was 100% correct but this country does little to ameliorate the effects of its massive contribution to climate change. 

 

Instead of fixing infrastructure, the national electric grid, burying electric and telephone lines, developing alternative energies of wind and solar we have IDIOTS wanting a dastardly uber dirty pipe line dug from Canada to Louisiana to feed the pig's insatiable appetite for more filthy polluting oil. The pipeline will carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels tar sands oil warming the planet further.  Why attempt to fix climate change for generations to come when we can spend trillions on trumped up wars to feed the military industrial complex beast and kill a lot of people in the process?

 

In addition, we now proudly can attest this country has more natural gas to be gleaned from fracking shale than Saudi Arabia has oil.  The corporatists say it will make us energy self sufficient.  The problem is we will not live to tell this dirty story.  The innocent, duped by the corporations that frack their land, try to drink the fire water from their taps lit up by chemicals used to frack that gas out of the earth sickening them with cancer and other insufferable diseases that fracking causes.  

 

Moreover, superstitious, ridiculous and extreme religious wackoism will kill us all through the ignorance it spreads.  This country could lead the way BUT it must destroy the power of the stupids that occupy a large part of the Republican political spectrum.

 

The earth is NOT flat, a god's will does NOT cause disease but bacteria, viruses and DNA do. Evolution is truth and it should not be debated with those who want to believe in comforting fairy tale myths of sky gods, seas parting, virgins giving birth and men rising from the dead.   

 

Moses played by Charlton Heston in the absurd film "The Ten Commandments" did get one thing right however.  He said "If man does not live by the law he will die by the law." It is, though, the law of science and not man's law that has the last word.  There is NO question now that we are living on a raging planet and that the planet's explosive weather is due to one animal -- MAN.  If he does not obey the laws of science he WILL die by its laws that will sentence him to extinction sooner than he ever thought possible.

 

 

 

 

A Republic if you can keep it. A Liberal’s Conundrum—The Fourth Amendment in the Age of Terror

The Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What could be more sacred in extremis to a liberal  than the Fourth Amendment?   Answer:  Nothing – usually. If anyone told me forty years ago that I would be in debate with myself over our most valued civil libertarian guarantee I would have thought them ... well … nuts. 

The very foundation of this nation’s oft touted superiority to other nations of less democratic inclinations lies embedded in the Fourth Amendment.  It is a near sacred text brilliant in its conception so much so other nations emulate it.  There is no more evidence of our Founders genius than their construct of the Fourth Amendment, an insurance policy to a democratic republic that mandates no one is above the law.  No dictator, no potentate, no tyrant and, yes, even no democratic leader can think himself superior to its edict.

Recently, though, it has come under a challenge that heretofore would have been thought ridiculous to contemplate.  The president is alleged to have bent the long arc of justice not toward justice but away from it.  There is incredulity of a commander-in-chief who was a Constitutional Law professor in a prestigious academic institution to possess a so called “kill list.”  Yes, Barack Obama, has, in this age of terror, in Star Trek fashion, allegedly gone where no man has gone before.  The president has ordered drone killings abroad on his orders even to American citizens without evidence, without warrant and without those things mandated by the crystal clear Fourth Amendment. 

He has been given a permission slip by his Office of Legal Counsel that drone strikes are legal even at home if he and others under his tutelage deem someone an existential threat to the republic.  Not only can individuals be targeted by the president simply issuing the order but others who are seen merely walking or being in that person’s vicinity perhaps on the wrong side of sidewalk near the offender can be killed.  This is unprecedented. 

As I am writing this I cannot believe that this is by liberals debated AND YET it is debated by me.  Glenn Greenwald, civil libertarian lawyer supreme, has been writing against this policy for months and indicting the Obama administration as being worse than the administration of George Bush.

Glenn Greenwald says: "… due process is guaranteed in the Constitution and judicial review of government accusations has been a staple of western justice since the Magna Carta" 

But the people at the time of the Magna Carta, as pure as their motives may have been, did NOT face a world of nuclear dirty bombs or worse the total annihilation of western civilization.

I am a liberal and a staunch Democrat.  Why do I not care if the president is going after treasonous vipers who have said, by their own words that they are in a holy war against the west and will stop at nothing, even if it takes generations to do so, to destroy the United States and all of its western allies? 

Glenn Greenwald, when you are dying from leukemia because a dirty bomb exploded within the area you happen to be, then tell me how much you care about the Fourth Amendment for those terrorists who would, if they could, commit this dastardly act.  The thought of living under a religious fascist state, ANY religious fascist state is to me more repugnant than the suspension of the Fourth Amendment for the cause of defeating our most virulent foes who would if they could eradicate us all.  Yes, I address you my friends, you my relatives, ALL of you who read my opinions, nothing one could say or nothing one could do would change the mind of an Anwar al-Alawaki or the minions he represents and the Obama administration has targeted them for elimination. 

Until I see otherwise, until I see the president and his underlings who enforce his decree are in error, I continue to say IF ANYONE, ANYONE at all says they support the religious fascism that is an Al Qaeda world then I do NOT care what the president must do to stop them. 

Moreover, I do NOT feel the least bit frightened, or the least bit constrained and you, Glenn Greenwald, by the very fact that you are writing the strong opposition to the president you do have the freedom to do it.   No one that I know of is targeting you for observation or elimination.   BUT if you said you would be willing to work for a world according to Al Qaeda -- one in which people are put to death or severely hurt for the MOST trivial reasons – the beautiful child Malala who merely wanted girls to be educated was severely shot being an example – then I say the president MUST do everything in his power to STOP that from happening.  If YOU, Glenn Greenwald, an admitted homosexual, were living in an Al Qaeda world you would NOT be living long. 

Why the left allows these bestial acts done by extremists to go uncriticized, I have no idea.  Rather it goes after those states in which people really do, for the most part live free!  The left makes me question my own affiliation with it.  I do not know where I fit but I do know that the west is infinitely superior to any religious fundamentalist state. 

One must open one's eyes and deal with political realities not idealistic fantasy.  This is NOT a game and this is not the same world that our Founders knew.  As much as we want it to be probably, since 9/11, it never will be again!

As stated by David W. Johnson – writing for Salem Newsnet:

“225 years ago, as an aged Benjamin Franklin departed from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman in the street called out: "Well Doctor Franklin, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied back: "a republic if you can keep it”

Until it is proven otherwise, I believe that is just what the president is trying to do!

Why Ed Markey is the one! A big opportunity to tackle climate change

This is why Ed Markey is the ONLY choice for US Senator (see below.) He is NOT a science denier. He is intellectually stellar and has massive experience (36 years!) in the House. He has been a lion on climate change as well as 100% progressive on every other issue!

If you are not from Mass. please tell those you know who are or Google Ed Markey's web page to see how you can help to keep the Senate OUT of the opposition's hands and keep the majority Democrat for you, for me, and for all those who will come after us.




Dear Natalie,
Superstorm Sandy and unprecedented extreme weather. The worst drought middle America has seen in half a century. Global temperatures and sea levels rising fast.

NASA calls weather patterns “vital signs of the planet” -- and Earth’s vital signs are alarming.

I’ve been proud to lead the fight against climate change -- and I’m committed to continuing that fight in the Senate. President Obama’s inaugural address highlighted the need to take action on this critical issue and we must continue to move this debate forward.

The State of the Union is coming up, and I’m hoping you’ll join me in sending a message to the President:

With its strongest champion John Kerry now gone, I want to be the passionate voice in the Senate for taking action on climate change.

We can’t let obstructionist Republicans who deny the science of global warming stop us from taking action. We have to commit to action before it’s too late to combat the most dire consequences of climate change.

President Obama has a chance to take a huge step forward in the State of the Union address. But he needs to know that we will stand with him.

I’m sending a message to the President: Give us a bold plan to address climate change, and I’ll stand with you.

We can already see the devastating impacts of the warming of our planet. Massachusetts’s economy, infrastructure and natural resources are already at risk. We can’t let this opportunity for action slip through our fingers.

Now is the time for action. Let’s urge President Obama to include a bold plan of action for tackling climate change in his State of the Union Address.

Thank you.

Ed
Paid for by The Markey Committee

Woe is US -- Re: Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It

I enclose pasted below, if you are interested, a take on US power that is, I think, most interesting, in Tom Dispatch Noam Chomsky's recent article entitled. "The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful Washington’s Dilemma on a “Lost” Planet." 

 I have, in my pedestrian way, been saying for a long time that the US is STUCK in a 1945 WWII time warp psychological miasma.  If nothing else WWII was a necessary war.  Finally, the good war, (I DO think WWII was a "good" war) if there can be a good war but its rearrangement of Allied power is over. It birthed us lathering in love us, praise us the saviors of Europe and the entire world from the worst kind of fascist dictator, love us we along with our allies did a wondrous thing (and I think they did do that.)  

To use George Bush's infamous words we had capital political capital and we surely did spend it PROFUSELY but in the long term I have suspected MOST unwisely.  The problem is the world is NOT WWII Europe or Japan anymore and has not been for quite some time.  It has changed so significantly that the US seems to me not to know what to do.  We are losing control of the power we always had and worse the US speaking softly with grand philosophical democratic ideals but carrying the biggest war stick of all is failing to create sound policy.  After World War II the US supported right wing, often religious tyrannies or any tyranny, for that matter, all over the world -- as long, of course, as that tyrant suited US interests since we called the shots (pardon the pun.)

Now with a changing world we are -- in a word -- flummoxed.  It worries me frankly because if one truly looks at religious prone-to-civil-war fascism one feels, at least I do, lightheaded and rather nauseated but those of us who have seen US power as significant contributing factors behind the now Arab Spring realignment of the Middle East, it comes as no surprise.  Emerging secular and Islamic nationalism along with even anarchy is scary indeed. It is not exactly what the doctor ordered for US hegemony, empire and the maintenance of its brand of global power.

Middle Eastern Islamic countries know they have what the west wants only they are not playing by OUR rules anymore.  When the US was the only rule maker after the Soviet collapse it comes as a cold water shower on a 25 degree day when we lose the power we enjoyed for a VERY long time spending LOTS of blood and LOTS of money to secure it.  Loss of hegemony is intolerable but more intolerable is the loss of our blood and treasure for oil the real reason we are in such a mess anyway.

How will it all play out?  Who the hell knows?  My grandmother used to say some day the living will envy the dead. This is a pretty bleak thought, I know, but conceivable with the utter explosive fragmentation and perpetual war in the Middle East and a future for some Middle Eastern states of anarchy combined with loose nukes.  Add to the toxic blend blinding hatred for the US with its Iraq War based on lies destabilizing that neck of the woods along with the sworn enemy of the Middle Eastern many -- Israel ready to pounce at any moment when the US fires the starting gun to bomb Iran -- and things look rather bleak in Bleak House USA doncha think?

The next big fear promulgated by the war makers in the US is what to do if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. How can we stop them when we, Israel, the west and Pakistan have many?  I do NOT have the foggiest idea and worst of all, I think, neither does the Pentagon, the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA and certainly not this president nor ANY president.  In fact, in my view, things would be much scarier with a right wing ideologue like an Etch-A-Sketch Romney salivating over the power to push that nuclear button with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "Handel's Messiah" in the background.  Thank God (or something) for the small favor of Romney's political demise.  I digress.

To quote the great William Bendex those of us who remember the 1950's "The Life of Riley", "what a revoltin (sic) development this is!"  Perhaps someone(s) else will figure out how to deal with this most complex (to say the least) conundrum.  I am damned if I know.  Let me know if anyone figures it out and wake me up in 25 years if I or anyone is around to do so!

Please read Tom Dispatch with Noam Chomsky's article below.

Subject: Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It

February 3, 2013 Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Why It's "Legal" When the U.S. Does It Credit the Arab Spring and what’s followed in the Greater Middle East to many things, but don’t overlook American “unilateralism.”  After all, if you want to see destabilization at work, there’s nothing like having a heavily armed crew dreaming about eternal global empires stomp through your neighborhood, and it’s clear enough now that whatever was let loose early in the twenty-first century won’t end soon. If, from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria and Libya, the Arab Spring was a series of popular uprisings, it was also a series of unravelings.  Two decades late, the Cold War system of great power control in the Middle East, in which the U.S. was the dominant partner and the Soviet Union the lesser one, is finally disintegrating.  The abattoir that is now Syria could be considered the Russian contribution to the present chaos; Egypt, with its besieged fundamentalist president, its irate soccer fans in the streets of its Suez-Canal-bordering cities, and its army chief talking about a possible “collapse” of the state, should be considered part of the far greater and more devastating American contribution.  (Along with Israel, Egypt was one of the three pillars of the American system in the region; the other, still standing in all its fundamentalist glory, its vast oil reserves pumping away, remains Saudi Arabia.) In any case, when you see what’s happening these days, first thank the American unilateralists of the 1990s, our own financial jihadis. They dreamed of organizing a planet subservient to American financial power and ended up, in 2008, blowing a hole in it instead.  A decade later came George W. Bush and his neocon followers, dreaming of doing the same thing in military terms, with similarly disastrous results.  If the neoliberals helped create the 1% world of Middle Eastern oppression that a young Tunisian with a lighter set afire, Bush’s visionary militarists, with their catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq, did even greater damage.  They punched a hole directly in the oil heartlands of the planet and set what they already liked to call “the arc of instability” -- little did they know -- aflame.  Between them, they drove us through what, in 2004, Amr Moussa, then head of the Arab League, called “the gates of hell,” imagining they were the gates to an imperial paradise. Now, from Pakistan and Yemen to Mali and Niger, Washington's drones, special ops, and cyber warriors are now blindly pushing that process of destabilization forward, even as they further undermine American power in the region.  This post-Arab Spring world and the state of U.S. power are the subjects that TomDispatch regular Noam Chomsky takes up in the following excerpt adapted from his wide-ranging new interview book with David Barsamian, Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire.  (It’s another Chomsky must-read.) Tom The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful  Washington’s Dilemma on a “Lost” Planet  By Noam Chomsky [This piece is adapted from “Uprisings,” a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire, Noam Chomsky’s new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books).  The questions are Barsamian’s, the answers Chomsky’s.] Does the United States still have the same level of control over the energy resources of the Middle East as it once had? The major energy-producing countries are still firmly under the control of the Western-backed dictatorships. So, actually, the progress made by the Arab Spring is limited, but it’s not insignificant. The Western-controlled dictatorial system is eroding. In fact, it’s been eroding for some time. So, for example, if you go back 50 years, the energy resources -- the main concern of U.S. planners -- have been mostly nationalized. There are constantly attempts to reverse that, but they have not succeeded. Take the U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example. To everyone except a dedicated ideologue, it was pretty obvious that we invaded Iraq not because of our love of democracy but because it’s maybe the second- or third-largest source of oil in the world, and is right in the middle of the major energy-producing region. You’re not supposed to say this. It’s considered a conspiracy theory. The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism -- mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn’t deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets. Step by step, Iraq was able to dismantle the controls put in place by the occupying forces. By November 2007, it was becoming pretty clear that it was going to be very hard to reach U.S. goals. And at that point, interestingly, those goals were explicitly stated. So in November 2007 the Bush II administration came out with an official declaration about what any future arrangement with Iraq would have to be. It had two major requirements: one, that the United States must be free to carry out combat operations from its military bases, which it will retain; and two, “encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments.” In January 2008, Bush made this clear in one of his signing statements. A couple of months later, in the face of Iraqi resistance, the United States had to give that up. Control of Iraq is now disappearing before their eyes. Click here to read more of this dispatch.

Mademoiselle -- A SONG IS BORN

A relative sent me a beautiful poem set to music.  The story below explains it all. Below the explanation is the link to the Hebrew song with English subtitles which grew out of the poem.  It is quite beautiful.  As the 80th year anniversary of the emergence of the Nazi state, one should, I think, give pause for thought as to the seriousness of what right wing and other religious fascistic movements mean.  If religious and other political fanatics win we all lose!

The explanation:

In  the summer of 1942, as persecution of   Belgium 's Jews  began, an underground Jewish group took form in cooperation with the  Belgian underground and set out to rescue Jewish children by hiding  them in various places around the country. The most active team consisted of twelve-women, mostly non-Jewish, who managed to hide  some 3000 children. This admirable clandestine campaign was unique  by the complexity of its structure and the degree of its success.

The  only remaining survivor from the team is Andrée Geulen, and on   September 4, a great number of the children who had been hidden,  celebrated her ninetieth birthday. The celebration included a  screening of a DVD in which singer Keren Hadar performed a song in her honor. The song stirred a great deal of emotion.  

This  song, composed very shortly before the event, arose from an impulse  on the part of one of the hidden children — Shaul Harel, who today  is a professor of pediatric neurology.

And  this is how it happened.....

One  warm summer day at the Isrotel Dead Sea Hotel, the Harel family was  visiting for a performance of the opera Aïda at Massada.  Shaul  Harel was lolling alone in the whirlpool bath. As the warm water and  the complete solitude began to take effect, he wondered intensely  what gift he could bring to Andrée for her birthday. "After all, she  already has everything. After the war, she married a Jewish  attorney, they were blessed with two daughters and with  grandchildren and  great-grandchildren, and to this day she is  surrounded by the love of the children she rescued."  

 Suddenly,  as to Archimedes in his warm bath, the Muse descended to him.  Although he did not emerge with a mathematical equation — since  mathematics was never his subject — he just as suddenly decided to  write her a poem. And this is not to be taken lightly, since for  many years he had written nothing but medical documentation and  articles. 
 

The  warmth of the water and the atmosphere brought lines tumbling into  his mind, and as if possessed, he burst into the hotel room and told  his wife, Dahlia, to sit down  and transcribe because otherwise  the lines would "get away" from him.   His wife raised her  eyebrows, thinking that the desert heat had  overpowered  him.  But she consented and soon a poem was on paper telling  Andrée's story. Shaul's imagination took him further and he said  that the poem should be set to music and his favorite singer, Keren Hadar, should perform it.

Since  the poem was written in free verse, Dahlia worked rhymes into it.  The poem  was read to Keren and she was moved to tears. She  said that it was suitable for setting to music and that she would  like to sing it. She  recommended Rafi Kadishzon, a prolific  and well-known composer. Rafi  heard the poem, liked it, and  immediately recommended Dan Almagor, a master of the Hebrew word, to  adjust the text for the music. In the  end, Dan Almagor  contributed greatly to the rhythm, to the refrain,  and to the  perfect fit of the lyrics.   All  this occurred in the  course of two weeks. A week later, the  song was recorded, the DVD  visuals were prepared, and copies  were printed with graphics and with a French and English  translation.   Everyone who saw it was moved, and now,  here it is for you.

'Mademoiselle' sung by Keren Hadar, with English translation CLICK  link BELOW or here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR6PC74--1s&feature=youtu.be<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR6PC74--1s&feature=youtu.be>

Fake News and Intelligent News -- a blogger's take and my own

You might want to consider a blogger's excellent comment about the difference between MSNBC and Faux Fake Fox No News News.  My view below it includes citing independently owned "Democracy Now" and other very good independent News entities worthy of watching.  

The blogger's view reflects mine about MSNBC perfectly while understanding MSNBC and all news is corporately owned and not independent.  Still MSNBC is MUCH better than any other mainstream news anywhere!

The blogger said:

"Pretty much, the only TV shows I watch "live" are premium cable series and MSNBC. From 5PM-11PM, if I'm watching TV, I'm watching MSNBC.

MSNBC has basically ruined me for "regular" news. Plain vanilla reading from the prompter with no passion or additional insight into the pundit/reporter's take, and/or how it could affect me, or those I care about, and why I should care, is boring.

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with "bias" as long as the facts are accurately reported.

And that's one of the major differences between MSNBC and Faux News. While prime-time MSNBC hosts are biased in their reporting, they don't slant, or otherwise report inaccuracies as fact. Whereas, reporting a slanted, fictionalized account of the news, is the whole reason for Faux News' existence.

The other main difference is that MSNBC hosts are simply more intelligent:

My Response to him which includes other Independent News entities:

 

You hit the proverbial nail on the head and said it much more succinctly and better than I. I agree with you 150%. That's exactly the reason I love MSNBC so much!!

There are other Independent forums online which are very very good. I wish cable could carry them but if one has Smart TV (I do not) one can I am told get those programs. "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman is excellent.  Sometimes I watch it online. Something called "The Real News" online and of course “Current” on Cable is still good. Current sold by Al Gore and  now owned by Al Jeezera and to me that is a plus.  Al Jeezera English is quite good.   I am Jewish and see NO reason to abandon good news programming no matter where it comes from.  Current so far offers very good programming and is NOT against Israel. As long as all news organizations do not have a religious slant of any kind I would watch it.  I can take criticism of all nations especially in that neck of the woods as there SURELY is enough in every nation or semi nation state there to go around the world many times over!

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Brown NOT running!!!

Just heard/read on MSNBC that Scott Brown is not running!  

I do not know about any of you but my animus about him was SO negative after his RUDE treatment of the wonderful Elizabeth Warren that I was going to devote 150% of my energy no matter how hard that I could to defeat that bloviating, superficial, mendacious Republican FOOL.

On to Ed Markey and let's WIN one for him and every other Democrat in the land.  

My goal is to EMPHATICALLY RETAKE the House, keep the Senate and hand Barack Obama FINALLY a Congress with whom he can work! No matter your state you too should work within your state to turn all those formerly blue but now red state legislatures back to the blue it should be.  Republicans and the austerity they bring will NOT be for you unless you are part of the richest 2%! 

The Anniversary of Hitler's 20th Cenutry Rise to Power and the Explosive 21st

It is the 80^th anniversary of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 Germany.  There has been no other historical cataclysmic event which has shaped my politics and reflects who I am more than the history and the title of William L. Shirer’s seminal book on the subject “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”

As a rather leftist student during the anti-war upheavals of the late 1960’s in America, I was forever trying to decipher the political spectrum and where I lay on it.  To the left extreme was, of course, Communists and to the right extreme were National Socialists or NAZIS.  

It is almost comical, if it were not so tragic, that the politics in our day in this country so often confuse the two extremes as if calling one a National Socialist places one nearer to the Communist left than the Nazi right.  It is a curious phenomenon, indeed, because the two extremes in reality detest each other and have been and continue to be mortal enemies.  It would, I think, have been better to have simply given the appellation of “Nationalist” Party to the extremist right rather then hiding it in opaqueness of the acronym for Nazi or the National Socialist Workers Party as if Nazis could be for the sharing of wealth or care about the well-being of workers or anyone else, for that matter, except themselves. 

To the contrary, the extremist right or Nazis were a party favored by the major industrialists of the day like I.G. Farben, the maker of Zyklon B gas used for extermination of the millions, mostly Jews but other “undesirables” as well, in the gas chambers of camps like Auschwitz.  It was the party of nationalism in the extreme holding that only those of German ethnic background had the right to power or even the right to live because of the pseudo-scientific German Aryan inherent superiority over other races.  Communists, on the other hand, at least philosophically, were a more inclusive movement and tried to lasso, at least in theory, all those who felt excluded by the rightist corporate capitalist state. 

The confusion about what is left and what is right in this country is alarming when one observes many on the American Right sporting the president’s picture with the insulting mustache of the little corporal, Adolph Hitler, and drawing on it the infamous swastika symbolic of the NAZI movement which does not even remotely characterize the centrist politics of America’s first black president.  It is almost laughable if it were not so inanely stupid and idiotically false because Nazis or National Socialists on the right considered the black man like the Jew as Untermenschen – translated sub-human. How could Barack Obama be called a Nazi National Socialist?  Who knows?  Does anything make rational and intellectual sense on the right wing extremist Tea Republican Party of the USA?  Answer: NO

You can be sure Republicans, especially with the Tea Party albatross around their necks, support all that is nationalist, cruel, exclusive, unscientific and inhumane as their brothers-in-stupidity, the German National Socialists, did when they tried to "scientifically" rationalize the superiority of the Aryan race.  The Nazi Party was a NATIVIST party aligned with big corporate industrialists which duped the masses by running the trains on time, expanding the military to Everest heights and making Germans feel so much better about themselves as they marched in goosestep to the beat of mass slaughter.

Today is the anniversary of the world’s most methodical killing machine of those humans thought inferior to the Aryan.  It tried not only to keep them out but lock them up, humiliate and finally rid their land expelling the so called "other" by any means necessary.  

How many on the extremist right in this country with the assistance of their 300 million guns and if they had political power to do that would to African Americans, Hispanics, gays, Muslims, Asians and all others they deem inferior to themselves as the true Americans – the white, English-speaking Anglo-Saxon American nativists they think they are?

THANKFULLY, a large part of our nation DOES understand the president was not, is NOT, nor ever could be a Nazi and surely is also not, from the extreme left, a Communist as he did NOT nationalize the means of production nor certainly the banks which he bailed out to avert a national economic collapse.

Republicans of the extremist right should look to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Act I, Scene ii, as they try to insultingly name call and assign blame for all things gone wrong to a president who is blameless:

The fault dear Brutus is NOT in the stars but in ourselves.

Thoughts to ponder surrounding the 80^th anniversary of the world’s most explosively destructive events of the 20^th century and the ones that exist in our own country in the explosive 21st century as well!

WHY IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO ELECT US MASS. REP. ED MARKEY TO THE US SENATE.  HE IS THE ONLY DEMOCRAT FOR THIS OFFICE WHO GETS A 100% EVALUATION FROM THIS PROGRESSIVE FOR THIS SENATE SEAT.  NO ONE ELSE IS ACCEPTABLE.  WORK HARD FOR ED WHO HAS ALWAYS WORKED HARD FOR THE 99%.  HE DESERVES OUR UNDIVIDED SUPPORT!

Here we go again! Scott Brown Leaning Towards Senate Run In Special Election: Report

Here we go again.  I post the article here and below. What can one do?  The ONLY thing one can do is fight.  Scott Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren for reasons among them were that Brown , a Republican, of course, is bought by the banks.  He voted with Republicans 70% of the time to prove it.  Brown is NOT about most of you.  He is about the top 2%.  It's the same tune and he is marching to the same beat.  If you want to see just how he voted Google his voting record for the last term he lost.

He is not about the economically disadvantaged, he is SURELY not about women, he is not about equality of marriage, and he is against all the issues that are part of  the Democratic Party's base.  Do NOT be fooled by this pretty centerfold face or what he MAY say to show he can be "bipartisan." In his heart he is not so and he will change with the wind the moment it is feasible.   Do NOT give him a second chance. 

DO THE MORAL THING AND CAST YOUR SUPPORT FOR ED MARKEY, A TRUE PROGRESSIVE AND THE ONLY PROVEN VALUES-DRIVEN DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR THE SENATE.  WHILE YOU ARE AT IT TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO SUPPORT FOR HIM AS WELL.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/scott-brown-senate_n_2578008.html