Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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!
This evening's music features the legendary jam band Grateful Dead. In honor of the Dead's final performances at Chicago's Soldier Field this weekend, I have resurrected this set from a few months ago. Enjoy!
Grateful Dead - Truckin'
Note: We here at the Evening Blues Weekend Edition often step beyond the boundries of traditional blues music. Joe shikspack so adeptly covers the blues genre in his weekday series that we at the Weekend Edition would find most trad blues offerings we could serve up as being redundant. Therefore Joe, in magnanimous manner has allowed us to color outside of the lines and we appreciate and thank him for that. Almost all modern American music has it's roots in traditional blues music anyway, so ultimately we do not stray far from the mother language. As Muddy Waters sang:
The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll, let us add to that list (jazz, country, bluegrass, ragtime, folk, gospel, soul, swing and rhythm and blues) and all subsets thereof. -- JtC
I am an old woman now. The buffaloes and black-tail deer are gone, and our Indian ways are almost gone. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I ever lived them.
My little son grew up in the white man's school. He can read books, and he owns cattle and has a farm. He is a leader among our Hidatsa people, helping teach them to follow the white man's road.
He is kind to me. We no longer live in an earth lodge, but in a house with chimneys, and my son's wife cooks by a shove.
But for me, I cannot forget our old ways.
Often in summer I rise at daybreak and steal out to the corn fields, and as I hoe the corn I sing to it, as we did when I was young. No one cares for our corn songs now.
Sometimes in the evening I sit, looking out on the big Missouri. The sun sets, and dusk steals over the water. In the shadows I see again to see our Indian village, with smoke curling upward from the earth lodges, and in the river's roar I hear the yells of the warriors, and the laughter of little children of old.
It is but an old woman's dream. Then I see but shadows and hear only the roar of the river, and tears come into my eyes. Our Indian life, I know, is gone forever.
Waheenee - Hidatsa (North Dakota)
News and Opinion
The Evening Blues
We dig up what the MSM buries.
Contributors:
mimi
janis b
NCTim
enhydra lutris
“I won’t see the end of the year”: Backstage at Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead’s final shows
The Grateful Dead were exhausted in spring '95, Garcia most of all. Here's the band's story of those last days
Three songs into the show, the house lights still on, the time had come for “Dire Wolf,” but with a perverse twist no one had anticipated. Twenty-five years had passed since the Dead had recorded that song at Pacific High studio. They’d played it innumerable times since, occasionally slowing it down a half step. But tonight, in the middle of Indiana, they again injected it with the crisp, merry gait of the recorded version, and even the song’s refrain harked back to its original impending-death inspiration. “Please, don’t murder me,” Jerry Garcia sang again, now in a voice weathered by age and abuse, as cops pivoted their heads, hoping to catch sight of the man who’d vowed to kill Garcia before the night was over.
Along with the likes of Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Wisconsin, the Deer Creek Music Center had become a destination spot, a revered haven, for the Dead and their fans alike. Springing up amid cornfields and cow pastures a half-hour north of Indianapolis, the amphitheater was, like the band, an enclave unto itself. Out there the straight world never felt so distant. Although the Dead had played Deer Creek six times before without major incident, tonight began on a sour note. On their way from their hotel (north of Indianapolis) to the venue word filtered down to band and its management: a death threat had been called in to Deer Creek. Similar calls and warnings had arrived before, but this one felt creepier. An anonymous person had called local police claiming to have overheard the distraught father of a young female Deadhead. The information was unclear, but the implication was that the girl couldn’t be found and had run off on the road with them, and that the father was planning to attend the show and shoot Garcia.
Huddling backstage with the head of security, the band grappled with what to do. Verifying the threat was difficult, but Phil Lesh, the most immediately concerned because his family was there, made the case for canceling the show and heading out. “I was not going to stand up there and be a target,” he recalls. But Garcia brushed it off, saying he’d dealt with crazies before and wouldn’t let this one stop him. “Would you sacrifice yourself for the music?” Mickey Hart recalls of that night. “All those things run around in your brain. But I remember joking, ‘Jerry, could you move over six inches onstage? At least I’ll make it!’ We were screaming laughing. The decision was made and everyone came around. We were worried, of course, but we didn’t want some lunatic to shut us down.” Indiana state police made their way into the crowd and the stage pit; there they were joined by other Dead employees, including publicist Dennis McNally and Steve Marcus of Grateful Dead Ticket Sales, all nervously glancing around for . . . something. No one knew what the supposed shooter looked or dressed like, and no one even knew for sure whether the threat was real. But they weren’t about to take any chances.
Goodbye Washington, hello Moscow? Saudi Arabia finds friendly face in Putin.
The two oil-producing giants seem to have made a breakthrough last month in their often adversarial relationship, signing several cooperation pacts. But incompatible foreign policies may yet cool the new warmth.
Link Submitted by: NCTim
Moscow — As two of the world's biggest oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia working together have the potential to dominate the globe's petroleum markets. So far, that hasn't happened, as seemingly irreconcilable differences – and particularly US-Saudi relations – have kept them apart.
But all the smiles and deal-making last month between Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman, the youthful and ambitious Saudi deputy crown prince and defense minister, has some claiming that the two energy giants, driven together by geopolitical crisis, may bet set for a much closer relationship.
Some experts perceive signs of an "emerging partnership" driven by shifting global winds, in which Saudi cash helps Moscow dodge Western sanctions, while Russian arms, engineering expertise, and diplomatic support assist the energetic new Saudi king to wean his country from dependency on an increasingly uncooperative US.
But others argue that, while change is definitely in the air, the outreach is purely tactical and of limited intent on both sides. Vast differences remain, particularly over critical issues such as regime change in Syria and a big power-sponsored nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia's archenemy, Iran.
The Politics of Fear Ahead of Greek Referendum
Link Submitted by: mimi
Elite interests aim to keep Greece on the path of further austerity, say University of Greenwich's Ozlem Onaran and University of London's John Weeks
With Austerity Vote Just Hours Away, World's Eyes on Greece
'Turn your backs on those who terrorize you daily,' Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says, urging Greeks to vote 'No'
"What they're doing with Greece has a name: terrorism," Greek Finance Minister Yaris Varoufakis told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo on Saturday, one day before his country votes on an austerity-driven bailout proposal in a referendum that some say could decide whether or not Greece stays in the Eurozone.
"Why have they forced us to close the banks? To frighten people. And spreading fear is called terrorism," Varoufakis said, adding that foreign creditors wanted to "humiliate Greeks."
He was speaking of the so-called Troika—the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Union (EU)—and his words echoed those of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who urged a crowd of 30,000 supporters in Athens on Friday night: "Turn your backs on those who terrorize you daily."
"This is not a protest. It is a celebration to overcome fear and blackmail," Tsipras declared, calling on creditors to forgive 30 percent of what they are owed and allow a 20-year grace period for repaying the rest.
Satellite imagery reveals China’s new drone base
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Satellite imagery of Hangzhou Bay shows that China has recently renovated a reserve airfield for dedicated drone operations in the East China Sea.
With military aviation being a priority, China’s been slowly moving toward operating more capable UAVs. Analysts and policy wonks alike have little doubt those capabilities will be put to good use as China develops a more assertive foreign policy.
In fact, they may already have.
Space snapshots acquired by DigitalGlobe from April 2015 show three of China’s BZK-005 parked in front of aircraft shelters on Daishan Island, located just off the coast in the East China Sea. The platform’s associated ground control stations were parked nearby.
China again tries to shore up shaky stock market
BEIJING--Capping an extraordinary week of stock market losses that defied state intervention, China decided to double down on Saturday - hoping to avoid a “Black Monday” when trading resumes after the weekend.
Meeting in Beijing, 21 major brokerage houses said they would contribute 120 billion yuan - the equivalent of $19.3 billion - to purchase blue-chip “exchange traded funds” to stabilize the market, according to a statement Saturday by the Securities Association of China.
The announcement followed a week of moves by Beijing to stimulate stock prices and prevent a deeper rout that could reverberate through the slowing Chinese economy. Despite those measures, the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 5.77 percent on Friday, resulting in a weekly loss of 12.9 percent.
Overall, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock indices have dropped 29 percent and 33 percent, respectively, since June 12. Shareholders have seen $2.8 trillion in market value disappear during that time.
UN Human Rights Council Resolution Calls for End to Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Link Submitted by: NCTim
The UN’s Human Rights Council on Friday stressed the urgency of ending the occupation of Palestinian territory and denounced Israel’s refusal to cooperate with an independent commission on last year’s Gaza conflict.
A resolution was voted for by 41 states with just the U.S. opposing the proposal in Geneva.
The resolution condemned the “non-cooperation by Israel with the independent commission of inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict and the refusal to grant access to or to cooperate with international human rights bodies seeking to investigate alleged violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
It also stressed the “urgency of achieving without delay an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967″ and denounced the 1,462 civilian deaths in Gaza in July and August, including 551 children and 299 women, as well as the deaths of six Israeli civilians.
Syrian forces close in on rebel-held Zabadani
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Syrian forces with their Lebanese Hezbollah allies are carrying out a major offensive against rebels holding the strategically important town of Zabadani, state TV says.
Zabadani, north-west of the capital, Damascus, is the last significant town held by Sunni Muslim rebels in an area close to the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah's al-Manar TV showed large clouds of smoke from explosions caused by artillery and air strikes.
Reports say civilians have fled.
The Privatization of Nuclear War
Link Submitted by: NCTim
With tensions growing in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, a new generation of nuclear weapons technology is making nuclear warfare a very real prospect. And with very little fanfare, the US is embarking on the privatization of nuclear war under a first-strike doctrine.
“On August 6, 2003, on Hiroshima Day, commemorating when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (August 6 1945), a secret meeting was held behind closed doors at Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex were in attendance. This mingling of defense contractors, scientists and policy-makers was not intended to commemorate Hiroshima. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the development of a new generation of “smaller”, “safer” and “more usable” nuclear weapons, to be used in the “in-theater nuclear wars” of the 21st Century.
“Nuclear war has become a multibillion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”.
Draft accords of sanctions relief at Iran nuke talks in hand
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
VIENNA (AP) — World powers and Iran have drawn up a draft document on the pace and timing of sanctions relief for the Islamic republic in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program, advancing on one of the most contentious issues at their negotiations, diplomats told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Written by technical experts, the document still must be approved by senior officials of the seven nations at the table, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the foreign ministers of the five other countries expected to join Kerry and Zarif in Vienna this weekend for a push to meet a July 7 deadline.
The development indicated the sides were moving closer to a comprehensive accord that would set a decade of restrictions on Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in economic benefits for the Iranians.
Officials had described sanctions relief as one of the thorniest disagreements between Iran and the United States, which has led the campaign of international pressure against Iran's economy. The U.S. and much of the world fears Iran's enrichment of uranium and other activity could be designed to make nuclear weapons; Iran says its program is meant only to generate power and for other peaceful purposes.
Iran nuke deal — What’s cookin’ at the Vienna table: Escobar
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
By Pepe Escobar
VIENNA – As the clock ticks towards a – possible? – Iran nuclear deal, sources very close to Iranian negotiators expressed to Asia Times their frustration about American negotiators; they seem not to be prepared, yet, to make a clear choice between keeping some UN Security Council sanctions and getting an agreement.
Asia Times has also learned that the major – extremely contentious – point at the negotiating table concerns the operation of the Joint Commission dispute resolution mechanism. None of the P5+1 players want this to be leaked – yet.
As for an overview of the status of negotiations, Iranian officials are cautious; “Still undecided.” A good sign is that the general language on how sanctions are to be lifted, including the “simultaneous and parallel” principle, is already decided. The negotiations advancing towards this make or break weekend are now focused on “operational details”.
Still, there are serious divisions within the P5+1, especially over key aspects of what the UN Security Council should be doing; on the complex mechanism through which sanctions would be lifted; and on access – the famous “verification” regime. That leads Iranian negotiators to a quirky formulation; “We can say with authority that they have to spend more time negotiating among themselves than negotiating with us.” At the same time the Iranians acknowledge the problems faced by the Obama administration; “They have to go through so many difficult channels.”
Now We Build a Fair Trade Movement
Link Submitted by: janis b
Fast track trade authority passed last week. So many of us fought so hard but The Money won again – this time. What do we do now?
We take this awareness and energy into the fight against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). And then, win or lose, we build a fair trade movement that will eventually rewrite all of our trade agreements and policies so that they work for We the People instead of just a few people.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
On the one hand, Wall Street and the big corporations again pushed through a rigged process called “fast track” that keeps us and our Congress from “meddling” with corporate-written agreements setting down the “rules for trade in the 21st century.” And those rules are, of course, going to be very good for the plutocrats who write them and very bad for the rest of us. Fast track seriously greases the skids to get TPP and other trade deals through so it will be a very tough fight.
Egypt foiled extremist 'state' in Sinai, president says
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
CAIRO (AP) — President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, wearing battle dress for the first time in over a year, said Saturday that Egypt had foiled an attempt by the Islamic State group to seize territory and set up an extremist state with its recent assault on the military in the troubled northeastern part of the Sinai Peninsula.
In combat fatigues he had said he hung up for good when he ran for president, the general-turned-politician met members of the army and delivered a televised speech to troops in Sinai, his first public comments on Wednesday's unprecedented attack.
The group had tried to announce "an Islamic state, in their concept, an Islamic State in Sinai," he said. "These are the messages, very simply, that they are putting out to us," adding that the area was now under control.
El-Sissi praised the troops for "foiling a very big plan."
NSA’s Top Brazilian Political and Financial Targets Revealed by New WikiLeaks Disclosure
Top secret data from the National Security Agency, shared with The Intercept by WikiLeaks, reveals that the U.S. spy agency targeted the cellphones and other communications devices of more than a dozen top Brazilian political and financial officials, including the country’s president Dilma Rousseff, whose presidential plane’s telephone was on the list. President Rousseff just yesterday returned to Brazil after a trip to the U.S. that included a meeting with President Obama, a visit she had delayed for almost two years in anger over prior revelations of NSA spying on Brazil.
That Rousseff’s personal cell phone was successfully targeted by NSA spying was previously reported in 2013 by Fantastico, a program on the Brazilian television network Globo Rede. That revelation – along with others exposing NSA mass surveillance on hundreds of millions of Brazilians, and the targeting of the country’s state-owned oil company Petrobras and its Ministry of Mines and Energy – caused a major rupture in relations between the two nations. But Rouseff is now suffering from severe domestic weakness as a result of various scandals and a weak economy, and apparently could no longer resist the perceived benefits of a high-profile state visit to Washington.
But these new revelations extend far beyond the prior ones and are likely to reinvigorate tensions. Beyond Rousseff, the new NSA target list includes some of Brazil’s most important political and financial figures, such as the Finance Ministry’s Executive Secretary Nelson Barbosa; Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, a top official with Brazil’s Central Bank; Luiz Eduardo Melin de Carvalho e Silva, former Chief of Staff to the Finance Minister; the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s chief of economics and finance, Luis Antônio Balduíno Carneiro; former Foreign Affairs Minister and Ambassador to the U.S. Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado; and Antonio Palocci, who formerly served as both Dilma’s Chief of Staff and Finance Minister under former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Ukrainian Govt. Acknowledges Some of Its Leaders Are Nazis
On July 3rd, the Ukrainian newspaper Vesti headlined “The Ministry of Justice Acknowledges UNA-UNSO Collaborated with Nazis,” and reported that, “Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice has officially recognized that the members of the Ukrainian nationalist organization UNA-UNSO fought on the side of Nazi Germany during the Great Patriotic War.” It went on to note that, “On May 22 of last year, the State Registration Service renamed the party of UNA-UNSO as the Right Sector Party, which is led by Dmitriy Yarosh.”
Yarosh was appointed by the U.S.-organized Ukrainian coup in February 2014 to serve as the active head of the Security Bureau of Ukraine, working directly under the newly appointed Chief of State Security, Andrei Parubiy, who had co-founded Ukraine’s other nazi party, the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine. The SNPU had already changed its name in 2004 to “Freedom” or “Svoboda,” on the advice of the U.S. CIA, because a name patterned after the National Socialist Party of Germany wouldn’t look good in the U.S.
Parubiy had been the “Commandant of Maidan,” who organized the Maidan demonstrations against Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, with the assistance of the U.S. State Department and CIA. The U.S. Embassy was already actively preparing this coup by no later than early 2013.
Tunisian president says country 'in a state of war'
Essebsi declares state of emergency after beach massacre, saying country is 'in a state of war' due to continued threat.
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi has declared a state of emergency after the recent attack on a beach hotel that killed 38 foreigners, saying that "the continued threat" the country faced left the country in "a state of war".
Last week's attack, three months after a deadly assault on the Bardo museum in Tunis, has shocked the North African country trying to emerge into a democracy a 2011 revolution.
Tunisia's emergency laws temporarily give the government more executive flexibility, hand the army and police more authority, and restrict certain rights such as those dealing with public assembly and detention.
"Due to the terrorism risk, and the regional context, and spread of terrorism, we have declared a state of emergency," Essebsi said in a televised address.
Independent Kurdistan taking shape
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Nearly a century after failing to achieve nationhood in the post-Versailles period, the Kurds are now on the move. A greater Kurdistan nation-state taken from the four countries where Kurds are minorities seems improbable. But greater autonomy is growing within Turkey and Syria if not Iran, and an independent Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming more likely by the day.
Kurds who are scoring significant victories over Islamic State are by far the most effective force fighting IS in both Iraq and Syria. But they appear to intent on keeping all the ground they’ve taken from the notorious terrorist group for their own national project, endangering the larger cause of keeping these two battered nation-states in one piece, and raising the prospect of another war patiently waiting at the conclusion of the current one.
There is no doubt that Kurds are the most mighty ground force against Islamic State today. The recent run of victories in Syria illustrates the Kurds battlefield capabilities. Six months after winning in Kobani, the Turkish border town where as many as 1,000 ISIS fighters died, Syrian Kurd fighters took another border town, Tel Abyad, creating a corridor on Syria’s northern border and far more important cutting off the main supply line to Raqqah, ISIS’s capital 60 miles due south. But the efforts of the Kurds are also driven by the desire of achieving nationhood.
The Kurds fight so well largely because, in addition to trying to defeat an extremist enemy, they’re fighting for something else: A country of their own. The future Kurdistan may be severely buffeted across Arab portions of the Middle East. Neither Syria nor Iraq (currently) have effective and powerful central governments, though in the past, they have always crushed Kurdish nationalist movements. So Kurds smell the great opportunity for building an independent Kurdistan now.
Not Learning from Mideast Mistakes
Apparently, the United States, perhaps Great Britain and almost certainly Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are on the brink of a major escalation of war in what we now can call “the former Iraq and Syria.” But is this rational? Are we drawing lessons from our interventions in the past? Is there a realistic post-intervention plan? How much will intervention cost? And, finally, will it accomplish the presumed objective of making the situation better with more security for them and for us?
These are questions we should be asking now – not after the fact. Perhaps somewhere deep in government council rooms these questions are being asked. If so, those asking them are certainly not sharing their answers, if they have any, with us. And since we will be paying the bills for whatever decisions are adopted, we have what in government usage is called a “Need to Know.”
I have no access to the thinking of the inner circles of any of the relevant governments, and from the sketchy and undemanding accounts in the media, it does not appear that anyone else has better access than I do. What I do have is 69 years of observation and study of the Middle East of which four were spent as the Member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Council responsible for the Middle East.
This does not give me an up-to-the-minute “take” on events – several journalists provide that much better than I could – but perhaps my years of experience give me a framework in which to place current events. So let me sketch answers to the questions citizens should ask:
The Global African: Right-Wing Extremism & Who Stole the Soul
Link Submitted by: NCTim
TeleSUR's the Global African examines right-wing terrorism and Soul!, an early African-American variety show.
Social Democracy Is 100% American
Link Submitted by: mimi
Appearing late last week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont “is too liberal to gather enough votes in this country to become president.” Indeed, responding to the fact that candidate Sanders is not only drawing big, enthusiastic crowds to campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire, but also pulling within 10 points of frontrunner and party favorite Hillary Clinton in certain state polls, McCaskill said: “It’s not unusual for someone who has an extreme message to have a following.”
Extreme? McCaskill’s remarks indicate that we may be in more trouble than we thought. For some time we have feared that Republican politicians were losing their minds. Now it seems we must worry, as well, that Democratic politicians are losing their memories.
Clearly, McCaskill’s attack — which, to me, smacked of red baiting — was intended as a dismissal of Bernie Sanders’s candidacy based on the fact that Sanders, who has repeatedly won elections in Vermont as an independent and then caucused with the Senate Democrats, is a self-described “democratic socialist” or “social democrat.” And of course, we all know that social democracy is not just unpopular in the United States, it is un-American.
Well, think again. Social democracy is 100 percent American. We may be latecomers to recognizing a universal right to health care (indeed, we are not quite there yet). But we were first in creating a universal right to public education, in endowing ourselves with ownership of national parks, and, for that matter, in conferring voting rights on males without property and abolishing religious tests for holding national office.
What Makes An American?
Link Submitted by: janis b
As the Fourth of July rapidly approaches, red, white, and blue banners (as well as hundreds of tacky Independence Day-themed advertisements for bars and nightclubs) seem to be everywhere in our nation’s capital. While patriotic fireworks and large quantities of alcohol tend to mark the way we celebrate our country’s independence on this special day, discussions regarding patriotism and the American identity reveal disagreement on just what and who we’re celebrating.
Coming from conservative Texas, I’ve heard more than my fair share of xenophobic remarks regarding immigrants and other communities that weren’t seen as authentically “American.” But what exactly do Americans think constitutes being American?
According to a recent Public Religion Research Institute survey, several factors contribute to making a person seem distinctly American. By far the most important factor according to the study is the ability to speak English, with 89 percent of participants saying this was necessary for a person to be considered truly American. This is a bit of strange, considering that our country does not maintain English as our official language and because we have more Spanish speakers than any country in the world excluding Mexico (but including Spain).
Another strange finding was that 58 percent of respondents said being born in the United States is a requirement to be considered a real American. Sadly, this means that only 42 percent of people recognize and respect our country’s proud history as a nation of immigrants.
Newsflash, Conservatives: Right-Wing Jingoism Isn’t Patriotic
Link Submitted by: NCTim
In the eyes of a conservative, patriotism in today’s America means three things: anything non-white and non-Christian is threatening; to disagree with or criticize your country is treason; we must bomb and invade every country we deem inferior.
The definition of jingoism is extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy. Synonyms include, but are not limited to: chauvinism, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, flag-waving, hawkishness, militarism, belligerence and bellicosity.
Gee, what group of people do these definitions fit?
A perfect example of how Republicans have perverted American patriotism to satisfy their outdated and offensive viewpoints is the Confederate flag. While some members of the GOP realize keeping it up is political suicide, the voters within their party have become outright Confederate apologists, claiming the flag is about America’s history and their “heritage.” (Hint: it’s actually part of the no longer existent Confederate States of America’s history.) The flag represented, and still does, white-man’s feeling of superiority over black people, disdain for the Union and a hatred for one of America’s best presidents. Waving that flag around like it represents something glorious in America’s history is a slap in the face to our country’s promise of a more perfect union. Support for that flag is not patriotism, it’s borderline treason. Southern apartheid is not something to take pride in.
Huckabee Plan To Undo 'Judicial Tyranny' Of SCOTUS Marriage Ruling Sounds Like The Inquisition
Mike Huckabee has unveiled what President Huckabee would do "on Day One" in response to same-sex marriage, and it's not only frightening, but probably unconstitutional.
Link Submitted by: NCTim
President Mike Huckabee on "Day One" will "will use the power of the presidency to protect and defend people of all faiths in all fifty states."
That will be President Huckabee's focus during his tenure in the White House, according to the former Arkansas Republican governor, and 2016 presidential candidate. Those images above are from Huckabee's Facebook page. The one on the right is his new "profile picture."
"First, I will sign religious liberty executive orders that support traditional marriage and protect businesses, churches, non-profits, schools and universities, hospitals, and other organizations from discrimination, intimidation, civil penalties, or criminal attacks for exercising their religious beliefs," Huckabee, a 59-year ordained southern Baptist minister in a new Fox News op-ed says.
"Second, I will direct the attorney general to protect religious liberty and prosecute any violations of First Amendment rights of individuals, businesses, religious organizations, institutions, and civil servants, including those who believe in traditional marriage," Huckabee, detailing what his presidency will look like, adds.
Baltimore Is Putting Cameras In The Back Of Every Police Van
Link Submitted by: janis b
A week after Freddie Gray’s autopsy report concluded his death was a homicide caused by a serious injury in a police van, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that all police vans in Baltimore will be equipped with a camera in the near future. “We’re working through a process that will place cameras with recording capabilities in the backs of all our police vans, to ensure that we have a more complete record of what occurs there,” she said at press conference held at City Hall on Thursday.
Back in April, Gray suffered a “high-energy injury” in the back of a police van, during one of several stops. He was unbuckled the entire ride, and at one point, officers slid him on the floor. By the time police sought medical attention, Gray’s spine was severed and his voice box was crushed. Following a number of high-profile police killings of unarmed black men, his death fueled national outrage and shone a spotlight on longstanding systemic injustice in Baltimore.
But Gray was not the first person to suffer a fatal injury while in the back of a Baltimore Police Department vehicle. For years, the BPD has come under fire for its “rough rides,” during which officers drive recklessly while unbuckled people are violently tossed around police vans. Multiple people have been paralyzed, and one man died from pneumonia caused by his paralysis.
Ideally, fully-functioning cameras in police vans will reduce the number of rough rides, and prevent future deaths. But as with body cameras, vehicle cameras cannot guarantee officer accountability. Without strict regulations and transparency, officers can opt to turn the cameras off. Footage that’s in law enforcement possession can be manipulated to absolve the officers of alleged wrongdoing. And videos don’t guarantee officers will be taken to task for their actions, as was the case with the officers who killed Eric Garner in New York City, Jason Harrison in Dallas, and Oscar Grant in Oakland.
This Is How We Are Spending Billions On The Sexual Mis-Education Of America’s Youth
Link Submitted by: janis b
In early February, Kelly Wortham’s sixth-grade son brought home a letter from Jarrett Middle School in Springfield, Missouri. The letter, from the Missouri State University School of Social Work, informed Wortham and other parents at Jarrett that their children were “being invited to take part in an abstinence-based education program designed to reduce teen pregnancy in southwest Missouri.”
The program, the letter assured, “is designed to teach teens about the benefits of choosing abstinence and how to better communicate with parents/guardians, families, and peers.” The course would use “Choosing the Best,” a self-described “abstinence-focused” curriculum published by a Georgia-based company of the same name. Unless Wortham and her husband chose not to sign the letter and consent to the program, it would be taught to their son in the upcoming month.
Wortham, concerned by what her son might be taught in their “deeply conservative state,” contacted the school and asked to see the curriculum. “We were told by the principal, the vice principal, and the health teacher that this was an abstinence-centered course but not abstinence only,” she explained. “And that generally nobody had a problem with it but we were welcome to review the materials.”
A few days later, Wortham received an email from a Jarrett Middle School employee encouraging her to “preview information about the curriculum” on its website, www.choosingthebest.com. Wortham and her husband took a look. “It gave us both almost a negative visceral response,” she recalled. “We were looking at the [curriculum for older students], where they help you find your soulmate. It’s just stuff that really seemed to use the language of shaming and applying a Christian morality on something that from our perspective should really be about human sexuality and science. It made us very nervous.”
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature report on day seven of the Convention of Industrial Unionist. The Convention adopts a name for new industrial union!
Tune in at 2pm!
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The super sense you didn't know you had
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
An experiment originally designed to test the visual abilities of octopuses and cuttlefish has given University of Bristol researchers an unprecedented insight into the human ability to perceive polarized light – the super sense that most of us don’t even know we have.
We are all familiar with colour and brightness, but there is a third property of light, the ‘polarization’, which tells us the orientation in which the light waves are oscillating.
Dr Shelby Temple, a Research Associate from the Ecology of Vision Group in Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences and one of the study’s lead authors said: “Imagine a skipping rope represents a light wave travelling through space. If you move the rope from side to side, the wave you make is horizontally polarized. If you shake the rope up and down you create a vertically polarized wave. Generally, light is a mixture of polarizations, but sometimes – for example in parts of the sky, on your computer screen and in reflections from water or glass – a large percentage of the waves are oscillating in the same orientation and the light is strongly polarized.”
Animals, like bees and ants, use polarization patterns in the sky as a navigation aid. But few, even in the scientific community, are aware that humans can perceive the polarization of light with the naked eye too. We do so using ‘Haidinger’s brushes’, a subtle visual effect, which appears like a yellow bow tie at right angles to the polarization angle.
Milwaukee Sewer Socialism
Link Submitted by: mimi
While early twentieth century politics were largely associated with the Progressive party, it was also the era of Socialism in Milwaukee. Often referred to as "sewer socialism" for their back-to-basics strategy, Milwaukee Socialists sought to reform the legacy of the Industrial Revolution on the local level by cleaning up neighborhoods and factories with new sanitation systems, municipally-owned water and power systems, community parks, and improved education systems. Progressivism and Socialism had different leaders and spoke different languages, but were, in many ways, remarkably similar in practice. Socialists rejected the Progressive idea of government regulation of industry. Instead, they sought to replace the capitalist system with a planned economy of state-owned industries that would protect workers from business monopolies. Socialists believed that this change would be inevitable as the working class became increasingly oppressed by powerful businesses. Although they believed in a type of class warfare, Socialists did not advocate a violent revolution as a means of achieving their goals. Rather, Socialism was to come by ballots. Until that time came though, Socialists supported measures to improve conditions for the working class and to achieve a more efficient administration of government.
The first formal manifestation of Socialism in Milwaukee came with the establishment of the Social-Democratic Party in 1897. After the violence and chaos of the eight-hour day campaign in 1886, Milwaukee's laboring classes had turned to political action. A Labor or People's Party ran candidates for governor and Congress in 1886. Labor candidates continued to run for city and state offices, and the Populist or People's Party, under the leadership of labor leader Robert Schilling, gained much of its support from Milwaukee labor in 1892 and 1894. In 1897, Milwaukee Socialists joined with labor to form a new political party, the Social-Democrats, and Milwaukee became the first Socialist city in the United States.
Just as Robert La Follette came to symbolize Progressivism in Wisconsin, Victor Berger became the symbol of Milwaukee Socialism. An Austrian immigrant, Berger developed a program of political action that, while operating under the name of Socialism, was really a variety of moderate reform. Berger organized the Socialists into a highly successful political organization by drawing on Milwaukee's large German population and active labor movement.
FEMA’s New Data Viz Tool Helps Communities Understand the Risk and Impact of Disasters
Link Submitted by: janis b
FEMA just launched a new data visualization tool aimed at help communities better understand the risk and impact of disasters. The tool charts historical disaster declaration data reaching back to 1953, giving a clear, county-specific picture of the type of disasters that have struck and how much FEMA spent on assistance. With this knowledge, communities can be better prepared for the unexpected and put their focus where it matters most.
The data, provided as part of the OpenFEMA initiative, is available visualized or raw. Users can find disaster declarations by year, location, or by hazard type. You can also see the financial support provided for each area.
The interface on the first visualization is smart and simple. Select a state or territory (we grabbed California), then select a county (we chose Santa Cruz). A heat map visualization gives a clear picture of disaster declarations compared to other counties, while a simple bar chart shows a hierarchy of incident types:
Weighing the Climate Elephant
The First Step to a Sustainable Future
Link Submitted by: janis b
During the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris this November, there will be more in the conference rooms than white boards, translation technology, and steely-eyed negotiators. There will also be an elephant. Namely, the gap between the carbon-cutting pledges thatcountries are making and the cuts that scientists say are needed to keep the increase in the average global temperature below 1.5–2 degrees Celsius (2.7–3.6 degrees in Fahrenheit)—the threshold that likely separates the world from the worst effects of climate change.
Nearly everyone involved in the climate process expects such a gap to exist. What’s unknown is how big it will be. Assessments by non-government organizations show a difference of many gigatons; some analysts predict that the pledges will secure only about half of the reductions needed. And the gap is expected to grow over time.
Climate negotiators have signaled no intention of even measuring that gap, let alone closing it. As it stands now, the negotiators in Paris will be like friends who go out to dinner, and, when the bill comes, simply throw down a few dollars and walk away, knowing that they haven’t covered the tab. Everyone on earth will be left holding the bill from this planetary dine-and-dash.
Any climate agreement that fails to take the emissions gap into account will fall shamefully short of what the world needs to avoid catastrophe. If the negotiators are serious about putting humanity on a path to a safer future, they shouldn’t leave the table without weighing the elephant in the room and figuring out what to do with it.
Direct Actions Across Canada Declare: 'Time to Move on' from Tar Sands
The #JobsJusticeClimate actions are serving as an important prelude to the Climate Summit of the Americas, happening in Toronto next week
Creative direct actions are taking place across Canada on Saturday, in a nationwide mobilization meant to demonstrate that Canadians "care about their communities, and that we are ready to stop digging, start building and move beyond the tar sands."
The 'We > Tar Sands' rallies and events are coming in advance of a major March for Jobs, Justice, and the Climate happening in Toronto on Sunday, and on the heels of a series of student-led sit-ins that swept the country on Friday.
Taken together, the actions represent "the first steps towards a new kind of climate movement," as eco-activist and anti-capitalist Naomi Klein put it.
The July 4th coast-to-coast mobilizations, which range from the creation of a giant human chain on the sea wall at Vancouver's Sunset Beach to a flotilla protest on the Ottawa River just outside Montreal to a free concert in Edmonton, the capital of tar sands-rich Alberta, are being supported by 350.org—which is providing live updates on the events here.
The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris
Federal report: Polar bears in peril due to global warming
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Polar bears are at risk of dying off if humans don't reverse the trend of global warming, a blunt U.S. government report filed Thursday said.
"The single most important step for polar bear conservation is decisive action to address Arctic warming," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a draft recovery plan, part of the process after the agency listed the species as threatened in 2008.
"Short of action that effectively addresses the primary cause of diminishing sea ice, it is unlikely that polar bears will be recovered."
Halting Arctic warming will require a global commitment, said Jenifer Kohout, the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional program manager and a co-chair of the polar bear recovery team.
'Hydrothermal siphon' drives water circulation through seafloor
New study explains previous observations of ocean water flowing through the seafloor from one seamount to another
Vast quantities of ocean water circulate through the seafloor, flowing through the volcanic rock of the upper oceanic crust. A new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz, published June 26 in Nature Communications, explains what drives this global process and how the flow is sustained.
About 25 percent of the heat that flows out of the Earth's interior is transferred to the oceans through this process, according to Andrew Fisher, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz and coauthor of the study. Much of the fluid flow and heat transfer occurs through thousands of extinct underwater volcanoes (called seamounts) and other locations where porous volcanic rock is exposed at the seafloor.
Fisher led an international team of scientists that in the early 2000s discovered the first field site where this process could be tracked from fluid inflow to outflow, in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. In a 2003 paper published in Nature, Fisher and others reported that bottom seawater entered into one seamount, traveled horizontally through the crust, gaining heat and reacting with crustal rocks, then discharged into the ocean through another seamount more than 50 kilometers away.
'Ever since we discovered a place where these processes occur, we have been trying to understand what drives the fluid flow, what it looks like, and what determines the flow direction,' Fisher said.
Largest freshwater lake on Earth was reduced to desert dunes in just a few hundred years
Researchers from Royal Holloway, Birkbeck and Kings College, University of London used satellite images to map abandoned shore lines around Palaeolake Mega-Chad, and analysed sediments to calculate the age of these shore lines, producing a lake level history spanning the last 15,000 years.
At its peak around 6,000 years ago, Palaeolake Mega-Chad was the largest freshwater lake on Earth, with an area of 360,000 km2. Now today's Lake Chad is reduced to a fraction of that size, at only 355 km2. The drying of Lake Mega-Chad reveals a story of dramatic climate change in the southern Sahara, with a rapid change from a giant lake to desert dunes and dust, due to changes in rainfall from the West African Monsoon. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms earlier suggestions that the climate change was abrupt, with the southern Sahara drying in just a few hundred years.
Part of the Palaeolake Mega-Chad basin that has dried completely is the Bodélé depression, which lies in remote northern Chad. The Bodélé depression is the World's single greatest source of atmospheric dust, with dust being blown across the Atlantic to South America, where it is believed to be helping to maintain the fertility of tropical rainforests. However, the University of London team's research shows that a small lake persisted in the Bodélé depression until about 1,000 years ago. This lake covered the parts of the Bodélé depression which currently produce most dust, limiting the dust potential until recent times.
"The Amazon tropical forest is like a giant hanging basket," explains Dr Simon Armitage from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway. "In a hanging basket, daily watering quickly washes soluble nutrients out of the soil, and these need to be replaced using fertiliser if the plants are to survive. Similarly, heavy washout of soluble minerals from the Amazon basin means that an external source of nutrients must be maintaining soil fertility. As the World's most vigorous dust source, the Bodélé depression has often been cited as a likely source of these nutrients, but our findings indicate that this can only be true for the last 1,000 years," he added.
Extremely high coastal erosion in northern Alaska
In a new study published today, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey found that the remote northern Alaska coast has some of the highest shoreline erosion rates in the world.Analyzing over half a century of shoreline change data, scientists found the pattern is extremely variable with most of the coast retreating at rates of more than 1 meter a year.
“Coastal erosion along the Arctic coast of Alaska is threatening Native Alaskan villages, sensitive ecosystems, energy and defense related infrastructure, and large tracts of Native Alaskan, State, and Federally managed land,” said Suzette Kimball, acting director of the USGS.
Scientists studied more than 1600 kilometers of the Alaskan coast between the U.S. Canadian border and Icy Cape and found the average rate of shoreline change, taking into account beaches that are both eroding and expanding, was -1.4 meters per year. Of those beaches eroding, the most extreme case exceeded 18.6 meters per year.
“This report provides invaluable objective data to help native communities, scientists and land managers understand natural changes and human impacts on the Alaskan coast,” said Ann Gibbs, USGS Geologist and lead author of the new report.
Cluster of great white sharks has Monterey Bay scientists in awe
An unprecedented gathering of baby great white sharks near the Monterey Bay shoreline this week has scientists as curious as the public about what happens next.
The arrival of more sharks, perhaps even the giant great whites on the tails of these smaller ones? Or their departure from local beaches to the sites of large elephant seal populations for feeding?
Most of the sharks are 8- to 12-foot juveniles, part of a rookery that has been displaced north by the gathering strength of an El Niño, said Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation.
“It’s the same process of dynamics and water currents that has driven sea lions north,” Van Sommeran said. “In Monterey Bay, we’ve seen triggerfish, needlefish (species common off Mexico). The currents are really warm.”
Climate-change is turning male dragon lizards into females
A climate-induced change of male dragons into females occurring in the wild has been confirmed for the first time, according to University of Canberra research recently published on the cover of international journal Nature.
The researchers, who have long studied Australia's bearded dragon lizards, have been able to show that a reptile's sex determination process can switch rapidly from one determined by chromosomes to one determined by temperature.
Lead author Dr Clare Holleley, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Canberra's Institute for Applied Ecology, explained: "We had previously been able to demonstrate in the lab that when exposed to extreme temperatures, genetically male dragons turned into females."
"Now we have shown that these sex reversed individuals are fertile and that this is a natural occurring phenomenon."
The oceans can’t take any more: Fundamental change in oceans predicted
Our oceans need an immediate and substantial reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If that doesn't happen, we could see far-reaching and largely irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems, which would especially be felt in developing countries. That's the conclusion of a new review study published today in the journal Science. In the study, the research team from the Ocean 2015 initiative assesses the latest findings on the risks that climate change poses for our oceans, and demonstrates how fundamentally marine ecosystems are likely to change if human beings continue to produce just as much greenhouse gases as before.
Since the pre-industrial era, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has risen from 278 to 400 ppm (parts per million) -- a 40 percent increase that has produced massive changes in the oceans. "To date, the oceans have essentially been the planet's refrigerator and carbon dioxide storage locker. For instance, since the 1970s they've absorbed roughly 93 percent of the additional heat produced by the greenhouse effect, greatly helping to slow the warming of our planet," explains Prof Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-author of the new Ocean 2015 study and a researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research.
But the oceans have also paid a high price: as far down as 700 metres the water temperatures have risen, which has forced some species to migrate up to 400 kilometres closer to Earth's poles within the past decade. Given the increasing acidification in many regions, it's becoming more and more difficult for corals and bivalves to form their calcium carbonate skeletons. In Greenland and the western Arctic, the ice is melting at an alarming rate, contributing to rising sea levels. As a result of these factors, the biological, physical and chemical processes at work in marine ecosystems are changing -- which will have far-reaching consequences for marine life and humans alike.
In their new study, the research team from the Ocean 2015 initiative employs two emissions scenarios (Scenario 1: Achieving the 2-degree goal / Scenario 2: Business as usual) to compile the main findings of the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report and the latest professional literature, and to assess those findings with regard to the risks for our oceans. "If we can successfully limit the rise in air temperature to two degrees Celsius through the year 2100, the risks, especially for warm-water corals and bivalves in low to middle latitudes, will become critical. However, the remaining risks will remain fairly moderate," explains lead author Jean-Pierre Gattuso. But a rapid and comprehensive reduction of carbon dioxide emissions would be needed in order to achieve this ideal option, he adds.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
When Slavery Won’t Die: The Oppressive Biblical Mentality America Can't Shake
What Are We Doing to Ourselves? 84,000 Chemicals, and Only 1% Have Been Tested
The Real Reasons Bernie Sanders is Transforming the Election: Here’s Why He Galvanizes the Left
Truthdigger of the Week: Chelsea Manning
Newly Released Emails Reveal the Hillary You (Still) Don’t Know
George Washington’s Farewell Address: A ‘Warning Against the Impostures of Pretended Patriotism’
California's Drought Is Part of a Much Bigger Water Crisis - Here's What You Need to Know
Assessing the Candidates: Obama's Whistleblower War Leaves Dangerous Legacy for Future Presidents
Hellraisers Journal: No peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people.
Wikileaks' Press Release: TISA Leaks Uncover the Largest “Trade” Deal in History
“LEAKED: How the Biggest Banks Are Conspiring to Rip Up Financial Regulations Around the World”
The Declaration of Political Independence
Happy July 4th Through the Eyes of Orwell and Zinn - and Top 10 Reasons to Support Bernie Sanders
A Little Night Music
Grateful Dead - Casey Jones
Jerry Garcia - Bird Song
Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band
Grateful Dead - Friend of The Devil
Grateful Dead - Sugar Magnolia
Grateful Dead - Fire On The Mountain
Grateful Dead - Touch of Grey
Grateful Dead - Whiskey In The Jar
Grateful Dead - Tennessee Jed
Grateful Dead - Mama Tried
Grateful Dead - Me and My Uncle
Grateful Dead - Sugaree
Grateful Dead - New Speedway Boogie
Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street
Grateful Dead - Eyes of the World
The Grateful Dead - Ripple
Grateful Dead - Franklin's Tower
Grateful Dead - Ship of Fools
Grateful Dead - He's Gone
Grateful Dead - Box of Rain
Grateful Dead - Turn On Your Love Light
Grateful Dead - Stagger Lee
Grateful Dead - The Wheel