Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
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Hey! Good Evening!
Tonight's music features ragtime piano player, arranger and self-proclaimed inventor of jazz Jelly Roll Morton. Morton's original "Jelly Roll Blues" is widely acknowledged as the very first jazz tune, written in 1910 and first published in 1915. Regardless of whether he invented jazz, his contributions to jazz and American music are outstanding. Enjoy!
Jelly Roll Morton - Hesitation Blues
"Downsizing, reorganization, bubbles bursting, unions busted, quickly outdated skills, and transfer of jobs abroad create not just fear but an economy of fear, a system of control whose power feeds on uncertainty, yet a system that, according to its analysts, is eminently rational."
-- Sheldon Wolin
News and Opinion
Wealthy CEOs Want Tax Breaks, Cuts to Poor and Elderly
Michael Hudson: Fiscal Cliff An Artificial Crisis
Walmart is ‘the largest recipient of public aid in the country’
Representative-elect Alan Grayson (D-FL) said Monday that he will put mega-retailer Walmart squarely in his sights during the next Congress for the company’s liberal use of public assistance programs to supplement their workers’ wages. ...
“In state after state after state, Walmart employees represent the largest group of Medicaid recipients, the largest group of food stamp recipients, and taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear that burden,” Grayson said. “It should be Walmart. So, we’re going to take that burden and put it where it belongs: on Walmart.” ...
“The taxpayer pays for the earned income credit,” he said. “The taxpayer pays for Medicaid. The taxpayer pays for unemployment insurance when they cut hours down. And the taxpayer pays for other forms of public assistance like food stamps. I think the taxpayer is getting fed up of paying these things when, in fact, Walmart could give every employee its got, even the CEO, a 30 percent raise and still be profitable.”
Bangladeshi Labor Activist Finds Burned Clothes With Wal-Mart Labels At Site of Deadly Factory Fire
Why So Secretive? The Trans-Pacific Partnership as Global Coup
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the most secretive and “least transparent” trade negotiations in history.
Luckily for the populations and societies that will be affected by the agreement, there are public research organizations and alternative media outlets campaigning against it – and they’ve even released several leaks of draft agreement chapters. From these leaks, which are not covered by mainstream corporate-controlled news outlets, we are able to get a better understanding of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership actually encompasses.
For example, public interest groups have been warning that the TPP could result in millions of lost jobs. As a letter from Congress to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated, the TPP “will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,” including “those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.” ...
The leaked documents revealed that the Obama administration “intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations,” as Obama and Kirk have emerged as strong advocates “for policies that environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding key protections currently in domestic laws.”
In other words, the already ineffective and mostly toothless environmental, financial, and labor regulations that exist are unacceptable to the Obama administration and the 600 corporations aligned with the TPP who are giving him his orders.
Shaky Truce Between Israel and Hamas Opens Lands to Farmers
France to Back Palestinian Bid to Raise UN Status
France will support a Palestinian bid for non-member observer state status at the UN, the country announced on Tuesday.
"This Thursday or Friday, when the question is asked, France will vote yes," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told his country's National Assembly.
"We've known for years France's constant position is to recognize the Palestinian state," said Fabius, a statement that France24 reports was met with "a round of applause in France’s lower house."
The new UN status sought by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could bring groundbreaking effects, as Reuters reports that "[i]t could also grant access to bodies such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where the Palestinians could file complaints against Israel."
'The United States brought crony capitalism, not free markets, to Afghanistan'
Kabul Bank became Afghanistan’s largest financial institution by offering the promise of modern banking to people who had never had a saving or checking account. What it really dealt in was modern theft: “From its very beginning,” according to a confidential forensic audit of Kabul Bank, “the bank was a well-concealed Ponzi scheme.”
Afghan and American officials had for years promoted Kabul Bank as a prime example of how Western-style banking was transforming a war-ravaged economy. But the audit, prepared this year for Afghanistan’s central bank by the Kroll investigative firm, gives new details of how the bank instead was institutionalizing fraud that reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars and obliterated Afghans’ trust after regulators finally seized the bank in August 2010 and the theft was revealed.
Going further than previous reports, the audit asserts that Kabul Bank had little reason to exist other than to allow a narrow clique tied to President Hamid Karzai’s government to siphon riches from depositors, who were the bank’s only substantial source of revenue. ...
For many Afghans, the scandal surrounding Kabul Bank, a linchpin of the economic order established here by Americans and their allies, has cemented the opinion that the United States brought crony capitalism, not free markets, to Afghanistan. The audit is likely to reinforce that view while raising potentially troubling questions about who is being prosecuted here in connection with the scandal, and who is not.
Cop cars to be replaced with drones by 2025
Law enforcement agencies across the US are lining up to be among the first to use drones to serve and protect, but unmanned vehicles are likely to replace the traditional cop cruiser in just a few short years.
In places like California, Texas and Washington State, police officers in recent weeks have intensified their demands for surveillance drones, a necessary addition they say to their arsenal of tools to help thwart crime. The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to finalize plans to put drones in US airspace, but by the end of the decade as many as 30,000 UAVs are expected to be soaring through the sky.
By 2025, those drones are predicted to take the place of the police patrol car as unmanned vehicles operated by cops are being considered a likely inclusion on our roads of tomorrow.
Deforestation of Amazon slowed to lowest recorded rate
Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon has slowed for a fourth consecutive year to its lowest rate since authorities began monitoring the world’s largest rainforest, officials said Tuesday.
The National Institute of Space Research found that the Amazon lost 4,656 square kilometers (1,797 square miles) of rain forest over a period running from August 2011 to July 2012, 27 percent less than the previous year.
“It is the lowest deforestation rate since Brazil began its monitoring” in 1988, said Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira. ...
Large-scale deforestation has made Brazil one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, but the government has made significant strides in curbing it over the past decade.
Key causes of Amazon deforestation are fires, the spread of agriculture and stockbreeding and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.
Many Still Wait for Help in Storm Battered Communities
Gas tanker Ob River attempts first winter Arctic crossing
A large tanker carrying liquified natural gas (LNG) is set to become the first ship of its type to sail across the Arctic.
The carrier, Ob River, left Norway in November and has sailed north of Russia on its way to Japan.
The specially equipped tanker is due to arrive in early December and will shave 20 days off the regular journey.
The owners say that changing climate conditions and a volatile gas market make the Arctic transit profitable.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Time to End the War in Afghanistan
CEO Evening News? CBS Turns to Benefit-Cutting Bosses for 'Fiscal Cliff' Commentary
Sign Language from the Invisible Hand? How Do We Know That We Need to Reduce the Deficit by $4 Trillion Over the Next Decade?
"story-telling, mythmaking and fear mongering"
A Little Night Music
Jelly Roll Morton - Finger Breaker
Jelly Roll Morton - Dr. Jazz
Jelly Roll Morton - Buddy Bolden's Blues
Jelly Roll Morton - Sweet jazz music
Jelly Roll Morton - Maple Leaf Stomp
Jelly Roll Morton - Creepy Feeling
Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Steamboat Stomp
Joe Oliver/Jelly Roll Morton - Tom Cat Blues
Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers - Climax Rag
Jelly Roll Morton - The Naked Dance
Jelly Roll Morton + Sidney Bechet - Didn't He Ramble
Jelly Roll Morton - Missisippi Mildred
Jelly Roll Morton + Sidney Bechet - Winin' Boy Blues
Janis Joplin - Winin' Boy
Jelly Roll Morton - Wolverine Blues
Jelly Roll Morton - Courthouse Bump
Jelly Roll Morton - Dead Man Blues
Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers - The Original Jelly Roll Blues
Jelly Roll Morton - Pretty Lil
Jelly Roll Morton - Burnin' the Iceberg
Jelly Roll Morton - Black Bottom Stomp
Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Beale Street Blues
Jelly Roll Morton - Michigan Water Blues
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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