Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
On "the Birthers" and Lou Dobbs
See: Dobbs Joins ‘Birthers,’ But CNN Pushes Back
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
I'm curious: would this controversy have any legs where his name "President Barry O'Bama" and his father were from Ireland?
Barack means "blessing" in Arabic, in Aramaic it is spelled Baruch and occurs 24 times in the Bible (for all you Christian right-wingers)!
5/27/2009 Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
The White House Press Secretary, Mr. Gibbs states:
"MR. GIBBS: Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people -- (laughter) -- that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download. I certainly hope by the fourth year of our administration that we'll have dealt with this burgeoning birth controversy."
Snopes.com debunks it: Obama Birth Certificate
Here's a link with the seal of the 50th state of Hawaii:
Hawaii: Obama Birth Certificate with the state seal
Racism. A narcissism of self-centered, paranoia resulting from the notion that right or wrong, all things are "good" when someone like "me" is in charge.
Monday, July 20, 2009
No Prayers
© 20 July 2009, 11:59 PM, The Griot Poet
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
I have no prayers to utter to God…
It is not that I don’t believe in Him,
I’m definitely beset by some demon
Assigned to my overt oppression and demise…
I pray for others healings and they do recover
I slack and their marriages suffer…
Like Moses, my arms get tired sometimes
Like Elijah, I suffer depression after dueling with the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth in groves.
Like Paul, I have thorns in my side; I am left for dead many times
Like today: on the anniversary of seeing earth from God’s front porch
I am defeated by nineteen points
Separating me from bidding on a classroom this fall…
What sin can I not be forgiven?
What sin spews back from the sea of forgetfulness?
Back to shore to chagrin me again and again?
What blocks my prayers so that after ravens feed me?
I am seeking for God… to kill me?
GIVE ME AN ANSWER!
So I can declare to my disciples that there are “more with us than there are with them.”
So I can ride a chariot of fire, translate death and give a double portion of my mantle to my sons
As I ascend before Apollo 11 beyond the sun to God’s front porch.
Rachel Maddow Correcting the Record
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Friday, July 03, 2009
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...
...Who Watches the Watchmen?
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)
See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers
The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.
From the article:
"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.
"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."
I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:
1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)
2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.
3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).
4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.
5. 9/11. Enough said.
6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.
Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.
The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.
At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.
Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!
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