One of us passed tonight. RIP, Nate Dogg, ABL’s one true love.
Sitting here bawling over a pet I never met because I know how raw and awful it feels. I guess you all know a thing or two about that.
by John Cole| 66 Comments
This post is in: Absent Friends, RIP
One of us passed tonight. RIP, Nate Dogg, ABL’s one true love.
Sitting here bawling over a pet I never met because I know how raw and awful it feels. I guess you all know a thing or two about that.
This post is in: Absent Friends, Bleg
Another good person, gone too soon. Just got an email from commentor Aji:
Commenter Paddy, a/k/a Paddy Kraska of The Political Carnival, died suddenly on the morning of the 16th. Apparently heart problems; she would’ve been 53 on the 29th. She was, and her family still is, in really dire straits financially. Her cobloggers are trying to raise funds to help with cremation expenses, etc…
Aji has more about Paddy at Daily Kos, link here.
TPC‘s webmaster, Lucian Dixon, is administering the PayPal fund; link here. Cremation ceremony is this Saturday, in Indiana.
Paddy was an occasional commentor and guest-blogger here, as well as an incredibly generous person. I’m sure John will have more to say about her later, but in the meantime, if you want to honor her memory…
Sad News: R.I.P. Paddy, of <em>The Political Carnival</em>Post + Comments (14)
This post is in: Absent Friends, Excellent Links, Rare Sincerity
Via commentor Aji, a beautiful tribute by Kossack ‘Navajo’ honoring a beautiful warrior:
… Much has been written about Carter, but many have not heard of him. He was one of the original organizers of the American Indian Movement, a pan-Indian movement sparked in part by the civil rights movement of African Americans. He led our people on the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan in 1972 from the West Coast to Washington, D.C., to protest the hundreds of broken treaties and other agreements the U.S. Government forced the tribes or their chiefs to sign. Nixon officials refused to meet with them. That led to AIM’s seven-day takeover of the BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., which ended with some government concessions. It also led, as Meteor Blades recalls, to the liberation of BIA documents that were passed along to journalists and lawyers. “We carried out box after box of documents,” inspired by the people who “stole documents from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania,” in March 1971.
In the winter of 1973, Carter and other AIM leaders took over the small town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation. Gun battles during the 71-day stand-off with federal officers left three dead. Wounded Knee was chosen for the takeover because it is the location of a massacre of at least 150 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Lakota Indians in 1890. After their bodies had lain on the frozen ground for days, they were dumped into a mass grave by the 7th Cavalry. It was a historically appropriate site for the American Indian Movement to bring national attention to the struggles of the Lakota and all Native peoples…
Carter’s sister, Casey Camp-Horinek said that unlike other AIM leaders, Carter remained at Wounded Knee throughout the entire siege with his warriors. He was also the only leader to spend two years at Leavenworth federal prison for disputed actions during the siege. For him there would be no book deals, no film roles, no adoring groupies just service to the Indian people and the respect of those who knew of his sacrifice…
In 1973 the fires of our traditional peoples were burning low and everyone thought they would soon die out. But a “Movement” happened across the USA led by young people who were determined not to allow that to happen. It took many years and plenty of fighting and struggle with a determined enemy who wanted our disappearance to solve his own “Indian Problem.” But quitting or stopping was not an option when so much was at stake.
We won, and our ways are no longer endangered with extinction. Our people have many battles yet to fight as you [Meteor Blades] and Navajo outline each week in this powerful series. But the flames of our fires now burn from shore to shore on this, our turtle island, and they will never go out.
At Wounded Knee in 1890 the Americans thought they had won a final solution. But, at Wounded Knee in 1973 we showed the world how wrong they were as we relit the ancient fires of the Nations. I’m proud of that.
Much more at the link.
by Kay| 106 Comments
This post is in: Absent Friends, Activist Judges!, Domestic Politics, Election 2012, Election 2014, Election 2016, Fuck The Poor, Kochsuckers, Local Races 2018 and earlier, Decline and Fall, Nobody could have predicted
It’s race, class AND punditry predictions:
In most elections, the intricacies of voting procedures rarely warrant headlines or interest most Americans. But in 2012, voter identification laws took center stage. In fact, in the five years preceding the 2012 election, almost half of states enacted some form of legislation restricting voter access — such as requiring photo identification or proof of citizenship to vote, more stringently regulating voter registration drives, shortening early voting periods, repealing same-day voter registration, or further restricting voting by felons.
What we found was that restrictions on voting derived from both race and class. The more that minorities and lower-income individuals in a state voted, the more likely such restrictions were to be proposed. Where minorities turned out at the polls at higher rates the legislation was more likely enacted.
More specifically, restrictive proposals were more likely to be introduced in states with larger African-American and non-citizen populations and with higher minority turnout in the previous presidential election. These proposals were also more likely to be introduced in states where both minority and low-income turnout had increased in recent elections. A similar picture emerged for the actual passage of these proposals. States in which minority turnout had increased since the previous presidential election were more likely to pass restrictive legislation.
We also examined just the bills passed in 2011, when the vast majority of bills were adopted. The same findings emerged.
States that passed more restrictive legislation in 2011 were those in which:
• Republicans controlled the governorship and both chambers of the legislative body.
• Forecasters viewed them as potential swing states in the 2012 election.
• Minority turnout was higher in the 2008 presidential election and those which have larger proportions of African-American residents.
Ultimately, recently enacted restrictions on voter access have not only a predictable partisan pattern but also an uncomfortable relationship to the political activism of blacks and the poor.
I think we knew most of this from nearly a decade of observations but I have not seen the link between “swing state” status and new voting restrictions shown before, although of course it occurred to me partly because conservatives in Pennsylvania told us all about it.
Ohio and Florida are the traditional “screw around with the voting rules” states of course, but we saw new efforts to restrict or impede voting in nearly every state that was (rightly or wrongly) designated “in play” in 2012 including North Carolina, Iowa, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
This post is in: RIP
My mother always names her cars, and as this was her car before she sold it to my sister who then sold it to me (because my working philosophy with cars is “DOES IT RUN? IS IT SAFE? CAN I JUST GIVE YOU 4K IN CASH?). She always gives Duncan as the first name, the R. stands for my mom’s maiden name, and Ruby for the color, and Dundee because it was a 97 Outback (Crocodile Dundee, anyone?). Here the chariot sits in the middle of the field, sad and cold and alone after 17 years of dedicated service to the Cole family:
Oddly enough, the car flipped and rolled twice, over a fence, and ended up upright, and not all the eggs were broken. So well done Subaru and egg carton engineers.
Some of you don’t seem to understand what happened. He was driving north on 88, and on the passenger side of the car there basically is no shoulder. It’s a drop-off into a pasture:
See where the white car is? That’s the road, and it immediately drops off. So a convoy of truckers came in the other direction, over the fucking yellow line again, and he moved to the right, catching the passenger side tires on the lip. He braked, tried to get back on the road, and the car shot across both lanes before he over-corrected and the ass end tailed. At that point, this car is starting to flip and is tipping on both wheels on the driver side, which blow out. He rolls twice, and the car lands down the embankment in the pasture facing the road.
It’s fucking amazing he was not hurt, it’s amazing the air bags did not employ nor no windows broke, potentially lacerating him, and it’s amazing how little external damage there is to the car. Having said that, the car is clearly totaled, and even if they say it could be repaired, I think I am putting the old guy out to pasture (no pun intended). He did his job. He safely served the Cole’s for three decades (17 years, pedants, spanning three decades, not having this argument again tonight), and then saved my boy’s life.
There is a mechanic at the Subaru dealership who has the same exact make and model and we have talked about how much he loves the car (and I do to), so I figger I will offer it to him as an organ donor for his car for a couple hundred bucks. Since he did the work on the engine rebuild a year back, he knows what he is getting.
Adios, Dundee.
*** Update ***
I forgot the funniest part, sort of. The car is still there, because I only got hold of the farmer at 8pm. He basically said that you aren’t the first and you won’t be the last, and I’ve been yelling at that sheriff for a guard rail for 25 years. I told him that the car ran but had no tires, and I checked and it was not leaking oil, coolant, transmission fluid, or gas, and he said it’s not doing any harm there, and I’ll just keep the cows in the other pasture down the hollow and feed them there, and they won’t come up anyway because of the snow. Then he said something that made me almost laugh- “I’m retired, so just call me whenever and I’ll be there to talk to the tow truck guy.” I found that funny because the guy is retired and still getting up three hours before all of us to trudge down a hill and feed a bunch of livestock. I think I have never felt lazier.
At any rate, we’re supposed to get a mess of snow tomorrow, and we both decided it made no sense to bring a big wrecker out and endanger him as we block traffic on a blind curve and maybe cause other accidents, so we are just going to let it sit there in the field until Monday afternoon. He aid the only way it is an inconvenience is because his friends keep calling to tell him there is a car in his field. He’s going to string up some wire just in case the cows get weird, and I am going to make a big sign to let people know that they can stop calling 911. I had to call Sheriff Jackson today and apologize for all the calls, because while I was waiting outside the farmhouse for two hours today to try to find someone, I saw dozens of people slow down to an almost stop, so I knew they were getting a ton of calls.
West by God Virginia. I never want to live anywhere else.
This post is in: Absent Friends, Open Threads, RIP
(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
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From the NYTimes, “The Great and the Humble Gather to Honor Mandela”:
SOWETO, South Africa — Tens of thousands of people streamed into a huge soccer stadium here on Tuesday along with leaders and celebrities from around the world, braving heavy rain to pay common tribute to Nelson Mandela, the man credited with inspiring the fight against apartheid from his prison cell…
His last public appearance, during the World Cup soccer tournament in 2010, was in the same FNB Stadium that was the setting for his national memorial, midway through 10 days of mourning before his state funeral on Sunday in his childhood village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape.
Mr. Mandela’s memorial service is drawing an unprecedented crowd of global V.I.P.s, including at least 91 heads of state and government, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and the singer Bono as well as royalty including Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.
President Obama is scheduled to speak, as is South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma. Other speakers will include the presidents of Brazil, India and Cuba….
The national memorial service came 20 years to the day after Mr. Mandela and F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president who negotiated the demise of Afrikaner power, traveled together to Oslo, Norway, to receive a shared Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. de Klerk was among the dignitaries arriving at the stadium on Tuesday for the event along with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain.
The Washington Post, last Friday:
… In South Africa, where Mandela was affectionately known by his traditional clan name Madiba, the mood was more celebratory than somber after President Jacob Zuma announced the death on national television. Crowds thronged the streets outside Mandela’s former home in Soweto, the sprawling township outside Johannesburg that was the scene of some of the worst violence during the apartheid struggle but that has grown into an increasingly middle-class bedroom community.
Longtime newscaster Mathatha Tsedu said on a national news channel, “This is a man who had no unfulfilled missions.”…
In today’s Washington Post, Temba Maqubela:
No one should have doubted that, in the end, Nelson Mandela would be buried in his village, not in a grand public setting in Johannesburg. For it was Qunu that made Mandela a leader.
I grew up 13 miles from Qunu. In that village, like my own, neighbors nurtured the children who showed promise, celebrating their successes, collecting provisions when they were able to continue their education in boarding school or, more rarely, in college…
To really know Mandela, it helps to understand the concept of ubuntu. The Xhosa word is difficult to define, but it refers to the interconnectivity of one to another. In a Xhosa village like Mandela’s, when someone asks, “How are you?” the answer is not “I am fine.” It is, “We are fine.”…
In Qunu, Mandela lived a life of relative privilege, but in the village culture, that called for an extra dose of humility. His uncle was the acting king of the Thembus, part of the Xhosa people, and young Mandela was present during the many meetings in his village, where he would hear the egalitarian aspirations of elders, absorbing their dreams and frustrations. Mandela also herded cattle, as I and any boy growing up far from the townships did. Humility defined him.
Yet, when Mandela was 33 and heading the Youth League of the African National Congress, he announced publicly during protests on Jan Van Riebeeck Day, a holiday celebrating the whites’ arrival in South Africa, that he would someday become the first president of a liberated South Africa. Were these the words of a humble man? Yes—but also the words of a man who realized black South Africa needed energy, and, despite the callous and brutal killings, hope. Those who were fighting against apartheid had, up to that moment, been focused on equal rights. They had not considered for a moment that the highest office in the country could belong to a black….
by Betty Cracker| 137 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, RIP
Nelson Mandela died today. I heard him speak in Boston one time…must’ve been around 1990. He was a great man, and everyone who heard him speak that day loved the way he pronounced “Massachusetts.” Rest in peace.
Update: President Obama is scheduled to make a statement in a couple of minutes (5:20). You can watch here.