Imagine the asshole that paid $100,000 for this. Concept, looking over the proofs, signing the check. Yes. It's good. pic.twitter.com/frQmlvHF5I
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) September 2, 2015
Imagine thinking this is an indictment of welfare, not capitalism. pic.twitter.com/DDNKaYAsk3
— Charles Davis (@charliearchy) August 31, 2015
Labor Day is when the Memorial and Veterans Day veneration police take the day off.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 7, 2015
reminder that labor day was invented to stop americans from commemorating on may day those killed by the government as a result of haymarket
— Alice Maz (@alicemazzy) September 7, 2015
***********
What’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend (& the social-not-scientific summer)?
rikyrah
when journalists want to do good, they can.
……………………..
How an Ohio reporter helped convict more than 100 rapists
On a recent Tuesday morning, members of the DNA Cold Case task force in Cleveland, Ohio, gathered for their weekly meeting. The conference room filled with detectives, prosecutors, a crime analyst, several victim advocates—and one journalist. Rachel Dissell is a reporter for The Plain Dealer, one of two who first uncovered and wrote about neglected rape kits at the Cleveland Police Department in 2010. Dissell has been covering the ongoing story ever since.
The meeting started as it usually does with “all hands on deck” cases—the ones running up against the statute of limitations—then moved to other open investigations. Cleveland is not the first city to tackle a rape kit backlog, but it is one of the only municipalities to investigate every case so doggedly. Since 2011, when the city began sending rape kits to the state’s crime lab, almost all of its 4,000 kits have been tested; of these, over 1,600 contained usable DNA. Three hundred and fifty cases have led to grand jury indictments, and as of this month, over 100 rapists have been convicted, some of multiple rapes.
Timothy McGinty, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor who created and oversees the rape kit task force, attributed its existence to Dissell and her former reporting partner, Leila Atassi. “Rachel and her partner started this,” McGinty told CJR. “They are really the reason we are where we are.”
It’s an exemplary instance of local reporting, responsive government officials, and public support coming together to make a community safer. Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, calls Dissell’s work an “unusually positive use of investigative reporting.”
cjr.org/local_news/rape_kit_reporting.php
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
modern technology helping families to stay close.
BGinCHI
I think Saint Huey of the Lewis said it best:
“I’m taking what they’re giving cuz I’m working for a living.”
trollhattan
I have first-hand evidence of the beginning of the end of civilization. Spotted it on a Spanish-language billboard Saturday and somehow managed to not drive off the road. Is it an elaborate Colbert-baiting?
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: Good for her. Good for her publisher.
BGinCHI
Also, too, I love the asshole poster assumption that working for minimum wage is not really working. As if management works hard, but a laborer at a construction site or a guy cutting grass or a hotel maid is just sitting around.
Have any of these going-to-hell-the-second-they-die motherfuckers ever worked a real job?
Hell no.
rikyrah
If you have a bucket list:
25 Trips of a Lifetime
by Travel + Leisure Staff June 11, 2015
Exploring the “lost city” of Petra, a walking safari in Zambia, a cruise to Antarctica: This isn’t your average trip. Take your family vacation to the next level with 25 destinations worthy of your bucket-list.
For an extended version of these itineraries, plus additional trips, tips, and photos, pick up a copy of Travel + Leisure’s special edition bookazine, available on newsstands now.
Edited by Jacqueline Gifford, Brooke Porter Katz, and Clara O. Sedlak
travelandleisure.com/slideshows/trips-of-a-lifetime
Renie
anyone know what that website address is at the right bottom? who is behind this? i live in NY and the only problem i have with the $15 minimum wage is that it should be for everyone not just a particular set of workers.
whenever i hear people complaining about union pay and benefits, i always say that instead of talking against what union members get, people should be more annoyed that everyone else isn’t getting proper pay and benefits.
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: They’ve been selling that on the East Coast for a while.
Supposedly it’s a Mexican thing because I always heard of it as an Appalachian thing.
Another Holocene Human
@Renie: Exactly, 15 should be the bottom. More skilled jobs should go up in pay in tandem.
Actually, Teamsters usually bargain to get raises if min wage goes up.
My Truth Hurts
As if $15 an hour to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world is a lot of money.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
Give ’em a single day of picking lemons for piece-rate, then challenge them to find shelter and food on what they earned. “Be sure to put ten-percent into your 401k!”
rikyrah
from TOD:
theobamadiary.com/2015/09/07/chat-away-661/#comment-1397845
Unlike Social Security and Medicare, OBAMACARE was the first expansion of the American Social Safety Net that, in its design, DID NOT EXCLUDE HUGE SWATHS of the American populace. It took the Robert’s Court to do that.
My Truth Hurts
@Renie:
http://www.fastfoodflop.com
My Truth Hurts
This is the lobby group that created the billboard. All of the “myths” about minimum wage are debunked by the “facts” of their own studies which they cite as their proof. Reminds me of a snake sucking it’s own dick.
epionline.org/
minimumwage.com/myths/
trollhattan
Did y’all know the Delano grape strike was initiated by older Filipino pickers? I suspect that detail has been largely forgotten because it also launched Cesar Chavez’s career and the UFW.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
That’s not the only assumption there, either. They’re also assuming that fast food workers will actually get a full 40 hours per week, and that $30K per year is enough for somebody in New York to be excited by it. More likely that the fast food employers will keep their employees to about 25 hours a week so they don’t have to pay for health care, and even if they were getting $30K, it isn’t going to go very far in New York.
Tom Q
@My Truth Hurts: That was my reaction. Someone making 30 grand a year would be lucky to be able to live within 50 miles of NYC.
Mike J
$30,000 a year for 40 hrs/week (like fast food restaurants will give that) in a city where the median rent is $3100/mo $37,200/yr
bystander
Boy, today all three hit at the same time.
Jean Darling, 93, from the Little Rascals and more importantly, the original Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel.
Judy Carne, the Sock It to Me Girl, Laugh In.
Martin Milner, 83, in everything. Emergency!, Route 66, Valley of the Dolls.
bystander
@My Truth Hurts: Then, you’ve seen Chuck Todd?
Renie
@My Truth Hurts: went to their site. love the misleading stats on their ‘myths’ page
Renie
@My Truth Hurts: this is who EPI is:
The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is a fiscally conservative non-profit American think tank that conducts research on employment issues such as minimum wage and health care. EPI was established in 1991 and has been described as “a nonprofit research group that studies issues of entry-level employment.”
According to Source Watch, EPI is one of several front groups created by Richard Berman of Berman and Company, a Washington, D.C. public relations organization that lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. The Employment Policies Institute has no employees of its own. Instead, according to the New York Times, Berman and Company charges the nonprofit institute for the services its employees provide to the institute.
EPI should not be confused with the older, similarly named Economic Policy Institute, which is a liberal think tank advocating for low to moderate-income families in the United States.
no surprises there
Mike in NC
@rikyrah: The only place on that list I’ve been to is St Petersburg, though my wife in her travels has seen Egypt, Istanbul, and Jaipur as well.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: They also seem to think that the $15 an hour deal also brings with it the impossibility of being fired for doing the job poorly.
Eric U.
@Tom Q: the people making $30k at Penn State University Park campus have to live 30 miles away or have roommates. The traffic into this place in the morning is pretty bad for quite a distance.
FlipYrWhig
@Renie: And the name is deliberately confusing, because the better-known EPI is Economic Policy Institute (epi.org), which is liberal-and labor-leaning.
Benw
Watching tennis. The petite Randy Moss commercial made me laugh.
Roger Moore
@Renie:
So they’re not just a front group, they’re a front group that abuses tax law to provide grift for lobbyists. How typical.
trollhattan
@bystander:
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of war hero Ben Kuroki.
Bart
@Renie: More info about the a-hole who put up that billboard in this follow-up tweet, which quotes a NYT article: twitter.com/DewNO/status/638940613627383809
SiubhanDuinne
@bystander:
I saw about Martin Milner a little earlier, but had not heard about Darling or Carne.
We had the original Broadway cast album of Carousel when I was a kid, so I knew Jean Darling’s voice, although I never saw her in anything AFAIK (was never much of a Little Rascals fan).
I do remember Judy Carne quite well, not only from Laugh-In but from an earlier sit-com she was in, called Fair Exchange about an American and a Brit who are exchange students for a year. Always liked her.
And I adored Martin Milner — again, my earliest memories of him date to well before his TV superstardom: he played the second son, John, in the Irene Dunne-William Powell film version (1947) of Life With Father.
May all three of them RIP. They gave great pleasure.
Mustang Bobby
Just back in Miami after a weekend in Estes Park, Colorado, at a summer camp reunion. I got to ride a horse for the first time in 29 years, putting the mustang — the four-legged kind — to the road test. I had a great time and didn’t talk politics at all with any of my old friends because I know that they’re all conservatives… even saw a couple of “I’m With Ben” as in Carson stickers.
But I’m glad to be back where my nose doesn’t bleed from the dry air or lack of it.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Are you prepping her for Jeopardy? If not, why not?
Mike in NC
@My Truth Hurts: What are the odds that EPI is Koch-funded?
Chris
I worked on Labor Day. Nine to five. Yay Labor Day.
Has any conservative chimed in yet to say that it’s disgraceful how there isn’t a Job Creator Day?
trollhattan
@Mustang Bobby:
Spent some time in Estes Park many years ago. It was spring, RMNP was just beginning to melt off and the town was overrun with elk. Beautiful place and much fun! A German restaurant just east of town had wonderful food and a most welcoming owner who sat down and showed us a photo album from her years in post-war Germany, where her family owned a bakery that shared my last name.
Baud
@efgoldman:
I made the right decision not to have children, but I will regret not having grandchildren.
JPL
In honor of Labor Day… read this
storify.com/papicek/erikloomis-labor-day-history
You know what else you get if you are working for $30,000 a year at McDonald’s, the opportunity to work on Labor Day. Labor Day has become a holiday for the white collar folk.
sharl
Regarding Bob Schooley’s tweet in the OP:
…I dunno. Maybe those who police social media to ensure veneration of the armed forces take the day off, but if so, it may be because they found that their services are not required:
From a scan of @FanSince09‘s timeline, he’s having no more trouble this year finding such tweets than he did last year.
Renie
@Bart: What a dick this guy is! He actually says he looks for dirt on people and tries to offend people to make his point. Sounds like he studied the Lee Atwater playbook.
Here’s the full article in the
NYTimes
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
If they called it Jerbs-Kraetter Day I might go with it.
JPL
@Chris: As I just mentioned at comment 42, it’s called Labor Day.
trollhattan
@JPL:
Worked for two Very Large engineering firms that didn’t take Labor Day. Nor Memorial Day, Veterans Day or Presidents Day. Cheap bastards.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Oh I know. You can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat.
JPL
@trollhattan: Next time someone complains to me about other holidays, I’m going to mention that all holidays including Labor Day should be revered. f..k em
Elizabelle
That billboard will backfire on the purchasers. It’s insane, and proof they are out of touch. Let us know how long it stays up.
Also disgusted they’re using the EPI acronym. Creeps.
Gravenstone
@trollhattan: /wretch
/gasp
/vomit
Mike J
@trollhattan: I’ve seen that in the stores for years.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Chilling out most of the weekend. An old friend visited and it was a great surprise. Took my 82 Y-O MIL to A Walk in the Woods because she loves Robert Redford. Then out to dinner. How many elderly ladies have to be scolded not to F-bomb in public? She’s owned a bar for 35 years and it’s in her DNA now.
My wife’s family are such weirdos.
geg6
Unbelievable as this seems to me, my John has never seen Ken Burns’ Civil War. PBS is showing it all this week, so episode one is up for tonight. John is finishing up canning the tomatoes that suddenly decided to pop out this week and once he does, I’m making dinner (mise en place already done). Filet mignon with a mushroom, shallot, rosemary and Marsala sauce with green beans almondine and a mash of rosemary-infused cauliflower, grated Parmesan and Asiago and chives. Cherry pie for dessert. A fine way to celebrate how the union movement improved my life.
Aleta
@Benw: good match going on
trollhattan
@geg6:
I have a box set awaiting my kid to express an interest, my hope being we can watch it together. It was a life-altering experience when first aired, especially as I was reading “The Battle Cry of Freedom” at the time.
I will add there’s a “Ken Burns effect” setting on one of the Apple photo apps that we were expressly forbidden to use completing photo class assignments. It automagically pans across the frame between slides, which I now am distracted by since taking the classes. Ah well.
debbie
@My Truth Hurts:
They sound lovely. From Wikipedia:
According to Source Watch, EPI is one of several front groups created by Richard Berman of Berman and Company, a Washington, D.C. public relations organization that lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries.[3][4] The Employment Policies Institute has no employees of its own. Instead, according to the New York Times, Berman and Company charges the nonprofit institute for the services its employees provide to the institute.[5]
…
Berman and Company, a for-profit advertising firm, bills EPI for the services that Richard Berman and others provide to the institute. In 2012, Berman and Company was paid $1.1 million by EPI, according to its tax returns, 44 percent of its total budget. Other funds were used to buy advertisements. EPI’s tax return shows that the $2.4 million in listed donations it received in 2012 came from only 11 contributors, who wrote checks for as much as $500,000 apiece.[5]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Policies_Institute
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
Some things are just so self-evidently wrong as to cause despair on learning of their existence.
geg6
@Eric U.:
Just one of the many reasons I’m happy to stay at my Commonwealth campus. Thirty K in Beaver County goes a lot farther than it does at University Park.
Aleta
@geg6: wow, what a dinner. (Must be hot in the kitchen if he’s processing tomatoes?)
Elizabelle
Paul Krugman has a good column today, about how Trump is the closest to earth orbit of any of the Republican presidential candidates. (This despite the rhetoric about deporting every illegal immigrant, etc.)
Trump is Right on Economics
Which leaves Krugman’s readers to decide whether he declines to write “these politicians are running for the Democratic nomination” or whether he declines to name the great, mythical moderate Republican (and DINO) moderates out there who are not in the 2016 race. Le sigh.
But it would be refreshing for our pundit class to stop pretending the GOP “experienced governor”candidates are more serious. They’re actually loopier than Trump — in the event they believe their political rhetoric, or even more craven.
geg6
@Aleta:
Horrible on a ninety degree day. But we suddenly had a bumper crop after a summer when it seemed we wouldn’t get any. Too many to eat or even give away. Canning was the only solution. A/C is struggling.
Redshift
The one local congresswoman who’s a wingnut paid tribute to Labor Day in the laziest way possible – by cutting and pasting a tweet from Reince Priebus honoring the “work ethic” of Americans, without attribution, but adding a typo that caused it to make no sense.
raven
We just saw Mr Holmes and loved it.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Elizabelle:
This year it’s not a case of who in the GOP is more right in his position or analysis than another. It’s a matter of finding any GOP candidate who has a tenuous grip on reality on any issue at all. Trump has cleared what ought to be a very low bar. But Krugman gives him credit for that, if only to take a shot a Jeb! in contrast.
sharl
@geg6: I loved that Ken Burns series (and I still think it’s worthwhile), so Dennis_G’s criticism of it came as a jolt to me, e.g., in this and this B-J post, and especially his follow-ups in the following comments. DennisG was especially irked by Burns’ heavy reliance on the late Shelby Foote’s commentary – a novelist who was a total fanboy of the Confederacy (though at least able to acknowledge some of its failings).
redshirt
@Baud:
Nieces and Nephews are pretty good compensation.
My just turned 4 year old niece was marching along my forest trails yesterday singing a song from a show named “Daniel Tiger” I think and it was about being brave and courageous and it was just the most precious thing ever.
J.D. Rhoades
I’d like to see this Berman fellow say the shit on that billboard to an actual working person.
geg6
@sharl:
Yes, I’m aware of the criticism and agree with most of it but I still think it’s really good tv.
@redshirt:
Daniel Tiger is from Fred Rogers’ Neighborhood. Which is why the lyrics were so affirming
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: The granddaughter must just beam when you and your bride are there to converse. She sounds like a darling.
srv
@Elizabelle: Even Krugman gets Trump.
Or we can have Hillary. NAFTA, GATT, WTO, TPP… what’s next for the Clintons? What other great benefits will she bring working Americans?
trollhattan
@J.D. Rhoades:
He’d send one of his people to do the speaking.
redshirt
@geg6: She’s also very much into Dr. McStuffin which is just wonderful as a role model, and for some reason that no one can explain, Spiderman. She’s never seen a show or a cartoon or anything of Spiderman, and yet she’s enraptured. I bought her Spiderman pajamas that look just like the costume (for 40$! but it’s all worth it now) and she’s basically worn them nonstop since she got them. She’s also sleeping in the Spiderman tent I got her. I won that birthday I think.
redshirt
@srv: Hmm. Let’s consider what srv has to say about the next President. Who’s your ideal candidate, forums poster srv?
ThresherK (GPad)
@Redshift: Was the typo congratulating a “work ethnic”? Cos I can see right wingers doing that.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: Would this be Barbara Comstock covering herself with glory?
What did she say?
Mike J
JPL
Is it just me or does anyone else see a resemblance with the picture used and Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Mike J:
I was in Toronto last week. Rob Ford billboards are prominently visible. Listening to the news he seems to have a loyal following and a substantial lead in his bid for re-election as mayor. Our media portrayed him as a hapless buffoon through all of his substance abuse embarrassments last year. But people seem to like him. Not caught whizzing in the coffee yet though.
redshirt
Is America infecting Canada with Teh Crazie?
Seems it. Sorry if so.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
I don’t see it. It looks like a stock footage photo of a stereotypical obnoxious young person. I’m just amazed they managed to avoid giving him tattoos or something else to make him revolting to Teh Olds.
raven
GO HOKIES!!
Redshift
@Elizabelle: Yes, indeed. She tweeted (or more likely some staffer did):
The original said “that has made our country”.
The Reince original was marginally less insulting than Eric Cantor’s classic celebrating Labor Day by honoring “job creators,” but it gets bonus points for its obvious straining to miss the point.
JPL
@Roger Moore: You wouldn’t want to rely on me for a photo line up.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
A Willie Horton photo was more what I had in mind.
shell
Would love to s watch the Civil War tonight, but it seems Fios has suddenly dumped the PBS channel, without any explanation.
Schlemazel
@sharl:
I read Foote’s 3-volumn civil war series and disagree. While he is overly forgiving of garbage like NB Forrest he is very clear that the war was all about slavery, all the South’s fault and totally a stain on those who brought it about.
I would highly recommend the first book to anyone who claims that slavery was benevolent, that it wasn’t destroying the South and the sole cause of the war. He goes into great detail with statistics and first person quotes. I believe his quoting Faulkner about it always being July 4th was more intended to illustrate the poison on Southern youth than any kind of wish
trollhattan
@shell:
That sucks. You should perhaps drop paying them until they get it back. I hate it when (cable company X) adds and subtracts channels like the tides, but a basic network like PBS should NEVER be in play.
raven
@Schlemazel: I just finshed “War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta, by Russell S. Bonds Really interesting look at the war in Georgia.
Schlemazel
@raven:
I will add that to my read list, thanks. I calculated once that I have read 200 books on the ACW. Several were a waste of time and most were shallow rehashes often to prove a point. But many were worth the time, particularly if they focused on a narrow area. The war in Georgia would fall into that relem
Patricia Kayden
Who is dumb enough to believe that $30,000 is a lot of money for a New Yorker? The standard of living in NY is one of the highest in the U.S. Add children to the mix and $30,000 is barely scraping by.
Doug R
@rikyrah: Maybe he’s trying to break the Republican party after all. Man, Bill Clinton is a genius!
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel:
BTW, Battle Cry of Freedom is the one book to read if you are going to only read one. It is a good starting point if you plan on more.
TNC’s book club online for that book may be the best use of the Internet I have ever witnessed. I wish it could be reproduced. It was a master class on the topic
Mike J
@Schlemazel: Probably too basic for you, but I would highly recommend Yale’s civil war course taught by David Blight. Watch the lectures on Youtube or download from itunes and listen on your commute/strolls around the neighborhood.
oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-119
Germy Shoemangler
New documentary out on the Black Panthers. Seven years in the making. I’m hoping to see it soon, but I doubt it’ll be distributed widely. I’m not sure when PBS will be showing it.
raven
@Schlemazel: You’ll appreciate the way the author begins with “Gone With the Wind” as the vision most people have of the Civil War. When it opened at the Fox Butterfly McQueen was not allowed to enter or sit with the rest of the cast. Gable was furious but apparently Butterfly convinced him to attend anyway. Their was a choir dressed as slaves and MLK was one of the members.
Schlemazel
@Mike J:
I have the link in my favorites for a few months now but I am not up to serious learning at the moment. If I can chase the black dragon off I intend to give it a go.
Thanks for reminding me, I want to do this
raven
@Mike J: I assume you have read it to make that judgement?
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: And show me a fast food worker who is guaranteed 40 hours a week. At 29 hours (so they avoid paying healthcare benefits) that’s 22,620, and even that assumes they don’t even take a one week vacation or have to miss work because they are sick.
Oh, and that’s before taxes!
redshirt
@Germy Shoemangler:
Is there a modern Black Panthers organization?
I’ve been surprised that with the elevated gun violence of the last 20 years they’re haven’t been fringe, armed African-American groups organized in response.
Germy Shoemangler
@redshirt: I don’t know about a modern incarnation; this documentary is about the original Panthers:
Arlington, VA; February 2, 2015 – Following the recent Sundance Film Festival premiere of Stanley Nelson’s highly anticipated new documentary “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,” PBS Distribution has announced it will distribute the film in select theaters in the fall of 2015. The film is also slated for a special broadcast as part of PBS’ independent film series INDEPENDENT LENS in winter of 2016.
Directed and produced by award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” explores the history of the Black Panthers, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California. The group and its leadership remain powerful and enduring figures in our popular imagination. This film interweaves voices from varied perspectives who lived this story — police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters, detractors, those who remained loyal to the party and those who left it. Because the participants from all sides were so young in the ’60s and ’70s, they are still around to share firsthand accounts.
Schlemazel
@raven:
Lovely! I never heard that.
I did read that “Birth of a Nation” was Wilson’s favorite movie and he saw it 19 times while prez. He issued directives segregating the military, firing all blacks from the government and denying them the ability to be hired for fed jobs. That was particularly hard on them in the South where postal jobs were one of the few available for reasonable wages.
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: Huey , Eldridge, Fred Hampton and Bobby!
Gimlet
Jerry Flynn, a Lowell cop on leave while serving as executive director of the New England Police Benevolent Association, said his organization’s executive board has chosen to boycott President Obama’s Labor Day breakfast address in Boston today to make a statement about violence against police:
“Our members are enraged at his lack of support of law enforcement. It’s clear that he has an agenda, and unfortunately the police are not part of his agenda.
this is an epidemic of lawless people trying to kill police officers for no apparent reasons. Case in point is the lieutenant who was pumping gas in Houston. Over 7,000 people were at that church, and where was he (Obama)? Why wasn’t he there instead of a unity breakfast?”
raven
@Schlemazel: Also Gable told the mayor of Atlanta that they would get more people at the Cyclorama if HE was one of the mannequins. There is a dead guy at the base of the painting with a big grin on his face!
media.cmgdigital.com/shared/img/photos/2012/08/13/a6/98/slideshow_644490_LVbiggest20.JPG
Germy Shoemangler
@raven: Saw a 1995 film, “Panther” (Chris Rock has a small but funny part) and it shows the rise and fall of the Black Panther group. Huey Newton is played by Marcus Chong. Directed by Mario Van Peebles, screenplay by Melvin Van Peebles. Made me interested in learning more from the documentary.
bemused
@efgoldman:
Yes, we can see the changes every time we facetime with our 2 yr old granddaughter and she is hilarious.
Mike J
@raven: Listened to the lectures, yes. It’s very good. 27 lectures, 50 minutes each. Better than listening to NPR in the car.
redshirt
@Schlemazel: Not until the last few days did I learn Wilson was such an asshole, and I majored in American History! I still got the “tried to bring peace to the world but was foiled by evil Europeans and poor health” myth.
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: I’ll have to check it out.
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel:
I wanted to add but working with a7″ tablet made it impossible for me. Is there any wonder the KKK experienced a boom in the 20’s?
raven
@Mike J: I meant you read the book?
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: The kid has taste.
Mike J
@raven: The Foote book? I’ve read it, and enjoyed it. I’d agree with Schlemazel’s take on it.
Gimlet
By Leon E. Panetta
Arms control agreements are by their very nature controversial. They often fall short of achieving everything that was hoped for. Potential gaps in enforcement can make the threat worse, and even if the parties abide by the terms of the agreement, evasion is always suspected.
In itself, the Iran deal would appear to reward Tehran for defying the world, make funds available for its extremist activities and generally make it stronger militarily and economically. Although the agreement provides for a temporary delay in Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability, it allows Tehran to retain its nuclear infrastructure and obtain sanctions relief. The risk is that Iran could become an even bigger threat to the region.
Let’s face it, given the situation in the Middle East, empowering Iran in any way seems like a dangerous gamble.
The response of the United States to these threats is driven more by the crisis of the moment than by any overarching geopolitical or military strategy. The principal driving motivation appears to be to avoid being trapped by another war in the region.
Make it clear that force is an option. Although the use of force should never be the first response, the argument against military action has been made so often that it has created uncertainty about our will to do what we say. For that reason, Congress should pass a resolution authorizing the current and future presidents to use force to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. This is U.S. policy; there should be no doubt that force can be used if necessary to stop Tehran from building a bomb.
raven
@Mike J: My mistake. I took the Battle of Atlanta Tour last summer and knew way more than the guide.
Schlemazel
@redshirt:
American history is a complex thing and we do not do ourselves any favors by teaching more myth or glossing over our ugly bits.
Wilson also sent the Marines to Haitie to overthrow the legitimately elected black government and install the old white land owners in power again. I read a letter from the Marines general and he was crying about what he was ordered to do but felt he had no choice
raven
@Schlemazel: The Banana Marines!
Schlemazel
@raven:
I thought he meant the Yale course
redshirt
Congress should pass a resolution which says force is authorized against every country in the world preemptively, and that includes the USA.
Schlemazel
@raven:
I was trying to picture Chesty Puller crying . . . nope can’t imagine anything like that. This guy must have been pretty upset
raven
@Schlemazel: Aha, I get it now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I thought Leon wanted nothing more out of life than to wander his almond groves in peace and obscurity
SiubhanDuinne
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I’m really confused. He is not mayor, so cannot be running for “re-election.” And in any case, I don’t believe there’s a mayoral election scheduled in Toronto for several years yet. Might be wrong, though — I no longer pay the close attention to Canadian politics I once did.
Belafon
@redshirt: Another piece of Wilson’s history is that a young Ho Chi Minh tried to petition Wilson to get the French out of Vietnam. Wilson gave a speech talking about countries being free that was meant to show support for countries that were being taken over by the Soviet Union. It’s generally acknowledged that Wilson ignored the petition because he was trying to keep relations with the French. My US foreign relations teacher said Wilson’s racism also had a big part in ignoring Ho Chi Minh.
esme
@Mustang Bobby: that’s cheley, right? I was a camper there in the 80s, early 90s. Great memories. Thanks for sparking them.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
For the GOP voting base, fiscal conservatism was only, ever, a tool to grind down minorities. No, they don’t actually care about taxing the rich or universal health care. Until now, telling liberals to fuck off about everything (like regulating the rich) and screwing everyone over as long as minorities are getting screwed over hardest was the best racism fix they thought they could get. Why should they care about whether Trump sounds the right dog whistles when he tells them straight-out that Mexicans are rapists and murderers and should all be kicked out of the country?
If this transforms GOP politics from now on, it will only be because there’s still plenty of white supremacy left to tap. Trump hasn’t touched the n-word, yet. Or referred to blacks as ‘animals.’
Schlemazel
@raven:
HA! We took the 3 hour personal tour at Gettysburg this summer. I don’t think I knew more than the guide but I irritated him by asking a lot of questions about people and events I cared about. He seemed to just want to go through his spiel by rote
redshirt
@Belafon: We made so many mistakes with Vietnam. It sorta warms my heart to know now we’re good allies with Vietnam and there’s a tourism trade and money to be made and I just remark in amazement on the people of Vietnam.
Belafon
@redshirt: From what I’ve read about Vietnam and Iran, and having known people from both places, we would have some decent allies in both regions if we had only been half as idiotic as we have been, and we can still have good relationships with both countries if we keep doing things better.
Schlemazel
@Belafon:
We screwed Vietnam over pretty well as I recall during the armistice. Promises were made and broken. I have not read enough to know but my impression was Wilson got played pretty well but no doubt his racism played a part.
I am sure this was not missed 40 years later when we were fucking them over again
Just One More Canuck
@Ultraviolet Thunder: the signs are still up? The election was last year. Rob Ford had to drop out due to cancer (being treated, seems to be doing ok) – his brother took his spot in the mayor race (don’t ask), but John Tory won the election
Ben
@SiubhanDuinne:
Per the Wiki, Ford is still on the City Council, although he’s no longer Mayor. Maybe his brother is running for Parliament?
Woodrowfan
@Schlemazel:
did read that “Birth of a Nation” was Wilson’s favorite movie and he saw it 19 times while prez. He issued directives segregating the military, firing all blacks from the government and denying them the ability to be hired for fed jobs. That was particularly hard on them in the South where postal jobs were one of the few available for reasonable wages.
1. No, he saw it once, and he refused to endorse it. The NAACP circulated his statement about the movie in their attempts to ban it.. The statement of his praising it was made up by the film’s author later.
2. No, the military was already segregated.
3. No, they did segregate the workforce for most of the federal offices. Black managers were demoted. His Labor Secretary refused to follow along and so Labor was not segregated. The postal jobs were for postmasters, which were patronage jobs, so they were fired because they were republicans. White post-masters also were fired. That was normal when the presidency changed parties.
Wilson also sent the Marines to Haitie to overthrow the legitimately elected black government and install the old white land owners in power again. I read a letter from the Marines general and he was crying about what he was ordered to do but felt he had no choice
No, the government had collapsed and the President killed by a mob of Haitians. The French and Germans were both threatening to take Haiti over which is what convinced Wilson and Bryan to send in troops. Yes, it was a brutal war.
Another piece of Wilson’s history is that a young Ho Chi Minh tried to petition Wilson to get the French out of Vietnam. Wilson gave a speech talking about countries being free that was meant to show support for countries that were being taken over by the Soviet Union. It’s generally acknowledged that Wilson ignored the petition because he was trying to keep relations with the French. My US foreign relations teacher said Wilson’s racism also had a big part in ignoring Ho Chi Minh.
The Soviet Union did not exist yet. And Wilson was swamped by hundreds upon hundreds of petitions. One by a 20-something Vietnamese cook’s apprentice did not stand out. Wilson did insist that the colonial powers have to report every year to an international commission on how they were preparing their colonies to be independent. That was set up by the League of Nations. We screwed over Vietnam in 1945 more than in 1919.
redshirt
@Woodrowfan: Damn. Some WOODROWAGE!
Joel
@rikyrah: Working on that list. Having kids slows down one’s progress substantially. I have been to five of those places. In that list, I would argue that Napa is the least interesting, unless you’re *really* into wine. Napa is considerably less pretty than the Sierras, Mendocino, or Humboldt. Just my opinion.
Woodrowfan
@redshirt: sorry, I’m a history prof, my specialty is the 1910s, and I’ve published a book and numerous articles about Wilson in multiple academic journals, so it’s a subject I know a lot about. yes, he was a racist, but the sad thing is, he was well within the mainstream for his time. We forget just how f-ing racist the US was then. it still is, but damn. At least WW issued a statement denouncing lynching. When Teddy R was asked, his reply was if blacks wanted to stop lynchings, then they should stop raping white women.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Good for him for crowing about that. It’s huge. I mean, I think we all knew it but we didn’t have an actual example. We had negative examples, like how Republicans beat Democrats in 2010 by saying Democrats cut Medicare but we didn’t have an actual GOP candidate admitting it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ben:
No, but I think Doug Ford, Jr. (Rob’s brother) may run to replace Harper as Conservative Party leader, assuming the Tories lose the general next month and Harper resigns as leader. But I don’t see why there would be billboards up about that possibility.
Chris
@Belafon:
If Stephen Kinzer’s book “All The Shah’s Men” is to be believed, the tragedy in the case of Iran is that not only did it not have to be this way, but Truman at least understood pretty well what was going on. He was largely sympathetic to Mossadegh and unmoved by British petitions to help them overthrow him, understanding that it would be stupid to indulge a dying empire at a time when the U.S. was trying to win allies in the third world.
Everything changed when Ike became president – the new administration not only was more prone to seeing commies under every bed, but it saw an opportunity for its own friends in the oil industry, as the price of support for the coup was the end of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s monopoly and the opening of the country to its American competitors.
Vietnam, yeah – that and Iran are strikingly similar, now that you mention it. In both cases the U.S. moved into the vacuum left by a waning colonial empire that had been widely despised by the people it ruled, got a massive backlash for it, and ultimately “lost” (as the expression goes) the country completely.
AxelFoley
@Woodrowfan: I always wondered if your nym was in regards to Wilson.
He was still a racist asshole, no matter how you shake it.
redshirt
@Woodrowfan:
This fits my myth of guy who wanted to do good but didn’t because of tremendous racism.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@AxelFoley:
I think it’s useful to point out that Wilson was a mere middle-of-the-road racist for his time because it’s a good barometer for just how holy fucking shit racist those times were. There’s a reason the KKK went from a small, regional terrorist group to a powerful national organization in the same time period. “The Birth of a Nation” was hailed for years, if not decades, as the Greatest American Film Ever! until film school students in the 1960s started pointing out how completely fucking racist it is.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Indeed. But even with the incredible racism, the film is the birth of the modern film and every style is essentially derivative ever since?
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, it’s interesting that when people describe the Republican coalition, it’s always in terms of rich people “using” racism to promote an economic royalist agenda. You could just as easily say that racists are “using” the rich to promote a white supremacist agenda.
Mike G
@trollhattan:
I used to work for Ross Perot’s company. Despite his frequent wrapping himself in the glory of military veterans and how much he loves them, we never got Veteran’s Day off.
Sherparick
@BGinCHI: Funny, that is not how the folks at the fast food places I eat at look. Even if you are renting a place in the Bronx, the cheapest housing in NY City, you are spending about $1,000 a month on housing, and that after taxes you one and benefits are deducted, one is making only about $24,000 net, that means 50% of your income is going for housing. blog.nakedapartments.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/misc/nyc-rents.gif. It is interesting how these assholes and the asshole advertising companies they work for research just the right “resentment buttons to push” for their ads. In this case, it is perhaps Wall Street big shots worried about their slacker kids and seeing a whole generation as slackers as result.
Woodrowfan
@Mnemosyne (tablet): and there are many times when I’m working on Wilson that I want to grab him, smack him a few times and yell “WHAT THE F IS WRONG WITH YOU~~” But that’s true of TR, and Bryan, and the rest of the important figures of that age. Debs may be the only exception.
Linnaeus
@Chris:
I realize the thread is probably dead by now (I was mostly off the grid yesterday), but I just read a Facebook post by a conservative person I’m connected with there who wrote that we must remember (not verbatim, but close) “the entrepreneur working 80 hours a week and putting their life savings into their business, the engineer working off $200k of loans to make the world more efficient and the business executives who spend weeks away from their families to run their businesses but still find time to be pillars of their communities.” I didn’t take the bait.