October 2014 archive

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Jim Newell: Chris Christie takes a prisoner: A lesson in Ebola panic gone wrong

The New Jersey governor has finally freed his Ebola prisoner. It’s astonishing that it even came to that

It was this weekend, 10 days or so before “votin’ time,” when Ebola hysteria and electoral politics finally converged hard enough to deprive someone of their liberty. If I’d been drawing up the over/under, I would have put this moment at about 20 days before the election. So at least there’s that. At least we, a nation mighty and spastic altogether, can be proud that it took slightly longer than estimated for this toxic combination to distill into shrieking authoritarianism.

On Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s up for (an easy) reelection this year and may run for president, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s busying himself down the stretch as head of the Republican Governors Association and will run for president, decided it would be wise to quarantine health workers returning from West Africa for several weeks.

A real tuff-guy play, and one that would soon thereafter be copied in Illinois and Florida, two states whose governors are mired in tight reelection races. What better way to prove your “leadership” skills than by ignoring the pansy experts’ advice and simply throwing health professionals into the hole for a few weeks? Unlike the incompetent elites who comprise the Obama-medical complex, these guvs have the stones to do what it takes and abridge liberty, which only causes problems and is overrated anyway.

Paul Krugman: Ideology and Investment

America used to be a country that built for the future. Sometimes the government built directly: Public projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, provided the backbone for economic growth. Sometimes it provided incentives to the private sector, like land grants to spur railroad construction. Either way, there was broad support for spending that would make us richer.

But nowadays we simply won’t invest, even when the need is obvious and the timing couldn’t be better. And don’t tell me that the problem is “political dysfunction” or some other weasel phrase that diffuses the blame. Our inability to invest doesn’t reflect something wrong with “Washington”; it reflects the destructive ideology that has taken over the Republican Party.

Well, I had drain issues so I spent most of my time on that, but I do have one article for y’all. It’s a long one, but it’s a good one.

Apocalypse Now: Seriously, It’s Time for a Major Rethink About Liberal and Progressive Politics

So I am sorry to share my deep-seated opinion, which should jibe with anyone who is paying attention. After decades of engagement in progressive politics and media, it is very clear to me: we progressives, liberals, common-sense people, are losing badly to the conservative business state, the tyranny of massively expanding tech companies, theocratic right-wing forces and pervasive militarism, home and abroad. By virtually every measure, things are getting worse. And things are trending much, much worse in ways we can easily measure, like inequality, climate, militarization of police forces, etc., and in ways that are more psychological and emotional.

No jumping today. Just one good read.

So how you doin’?  😀

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 27 is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 65 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1904, the New York Subway opens.

While London boasts the world’s oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States in 1897, the New York City subway soon became the largest American system. The first line, operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. Running from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal in midtown, and then heading west along 42nd Street to Times Square, the line finished by zipping north, all the way to 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem. On opening day, Mayor McClellan so enjoyed his stint as engineer that he stayed at the controls all the way from City Hall to 103rd Street.

History

A demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City was first built by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869. His Beach Pneumatic Transit only extended 312 feet (95 m) under Broadway in Lower Manhattan and exhibited his idea for a subway propelled by pneumatic tube technology. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, although extensions had been planned to take the tunnel southward to The Battery and northwards towards the Harlem River. The Beach subway was demolished when the BMT Broadway Line was built in the 1910s; thus, it was not integrated into the New York City Subway system.

The first underground line of the subway opened on October 27, 1904, almost 35 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the Ninth Avenue Line. The heavy 1888 snowstorm helped to demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. The oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line, and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn. The oldest right-of-way, that of the BMT West End Line, was in use in 1863 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road. The Staten Island Railway, which opened in 1860, currently uses R44 subway cars, but it has no links to the rest of the system and is not usually considered part of the subway proper.

By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT) and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). The city was closely involved: all lines built for the IRT and most other lines built or improved for the BRT after 1913 were built by the city and leased to the companies. The first line of the city-owned and operated Independent Subway System (IND) opened in 1932; this system was intended to compete with the private systems and allow some of the elevated railways to be torn down, but was kept within the core of the City due to the low amount of startup capital provided to the municipal Board Of Transportation, the later MTA, by the state.[3] This required it to be run ‘at cost’, necessitating fares up to double the five cent fare popular at the time.

In 1940, the two private systems were bought by the city; some elevated lines closed immediately, and others closed soon after. Integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT, and now operate as one division called the B Division. Since the IRT tunnel segments are too small and stations too narrow to accommodate  B Division cars, and contain curves too sharp for B Division cars, the IRT remains its own division, A Division.

The New York City Transit Authority, a public authority presided by New York City, was created in 1953 to take over subway, bus, and streetcar operations from the city, and was placed under control of the state-level Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968.

In 1934, transit workers of the BRT, IRT, and IND founded the Transport Workers Union of America, organized as Local 100. Local 100 remains the largest and most influential local of the labor union. Since the union’s founding, there have been three union strikes. In 1966, transit workers went on strike for 12 days, and again in 1980 for 11 days. On December 20, 2005, transit workers again went on strike over disputes with MTA regarding salary, pensions, retirement age, and health insurance costs. That strike lasted just under three days.

The Masque of the Red Death

by Edgar Allan Poe

(published 1850)

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal – the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven – an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue – and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange – the fifth with white – the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet – a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm – much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these – the dreams – writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away – they have endured but an instant – and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise – then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood – and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him – “who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him – that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly – for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple – through the purple to the green – through the green to the orange – through this again to the white – and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry – and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Bumgarner and Shields.  Well, I think we all know how this one plays out, don’t we?  I’m not unsympathetic to the Royals, they are victims of an organization and set of rules that disadvantages them.  And I’ve got waaay more respect for Yost than Bochy who is terrible.

So the Giants are will leave San Francisco up 3 – 2 and the Royals will have to sweep in Kansas City and that’s just the way it is.

Last night was an enjoyable blow out if you’re a Giants fan, an ordeal if you root for Blue.

Bottom 1st, Leadoff Walk, Wild Pitch, Steal, RBI Force.  Giants 1 – 0.

Top 3rd, 1 Out Single, Force, 2 Down, Steal, RBI Single, Walk, RBI Single, 2 RBI Single.  Royals 4 – 1.

Bottom 3rd, Leadoff Single, Sacrifice, RBI Single.  Royals 4 – 2

Bottom 5th, Leadoff Double, Sacrifice, RBI Single, Single, At The Corners, Walk, RBI Sacrifice, KO.  Tied at 4.

Bottom 6th, Leadoff Single, Single, Sacrifice, 2nd and 3rd, Walk, Force at the Plate, 2 RBI Single, RBI Single.  Giants 7 – 4.

Bottom 7th, Leadoff Single, Walk, Double Switch, RBI Single with Error, 2 RBI Double, RBI Double.  Giants 11 – 4.

Game Over Dude.

Starting tonight for the Giants is Madison Bumgarner (L, 18 – 10, ERA 2.98).  Post Season he is 3 – 1, ERA 1.40 based on 38.2 Innings Pitched with 22 hits, 3 Home Runs, 7 Runs Scored.

He will be matched for the Royals by James Shields (R, 14 – 8, ERA 3.21).  Post Season he is 1 – 1, ERA 7.11 based on 19 Innings Pitched with 28 Hits, 4 Home Runs, 15 Runs Scored.

I would have pitched Bumgarner last night so he would have been available in Game 6 and I sure as hell would have benched Vogelsong sooner.  As it is we shall leave Baghdad by the Bay with the Giant’s requiring but 1 victory.

It’s an old book, but I was in my local thrift store yesterday and among the other RW books on sale for $1.99, I saw this one and was reminded that I ignored it when it came out but was also reminded that I had a college classmate who edits this line of conservative books, which always seemed odd for someone who had a BMW in college and lived on the upper east side of Manhattan. And having met a couple of the 101 if only as casually as PBO has met Bill Ayers, it continues to baffle me that the false consciousness of the US RW, cannot see education or Liberalism in its classic sense of the Trivium and Quadrivium, rather than reinforcing existing status and class warfare in the basic college curriculum and its prerequisites. The modern college/university is seen by the RW as Educational Ebola, where sharing the tropes of bodily fluids with liberal professors reifies the hypodermic needle model of (banking-style) education where liberal cooties stays with one without the inoculation of RW talk radio and its pastiche of higher education – for example its offering the scholarly heraldry of Photoshop…

The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and policy advocate David Horowitz….

Following the Ward Churchill September 11 attacks essay controversy, Horowitz argued that there were many “careers like Ward Churchill’s”. He wrote that “Not all of the professors depicted in this volume hold views as extreme as Ward Churchill’s, but a disturbing number do” and “it would have been no problem to provide a thousand such profiles or even ten times the number.”

The review in the industry news digest Publishers Weekly stated that Horowitz’s “intention to expose the majority of these professors as ‘dangerous’ and undeserving of their coveted positions seems petty in some cases, as when he smugly mocks the proliferation of departments dedicated to peace studies or considers ‘anti-war activist’ as a character flaw… the most egregious crimes perpetrated by the majority of these academics is that their politics don’t mesh with Horowitz’s.

Fortunately there are critiques of Horowitz’s work even as it has become a reactionary cottage industry and without indulging his biography truth does will out, although it is curious that Michael Savage and David Horowitz are never seen at the same time:

http://cdn.publicinterestnetwo…

Nonetheless, there is a spectre haunting Academe, and the reality is that a majority of US college faculty are actually more conservative or grudgingly centrist – in departments that are in the aggregate, predominantly white, male, and decidedly reactionary considering the trend toward more mechanical, menu-driven college degree requirements and attacks on core-curricula / general education requirements. Some of the evil 101 Horowitz cites are retired or passed on so the Pantheon in the eight years has declined since the book emerged yet still supports in spirit the stupidity of RW radio. More interesting is that the democratization of public education not unlike the democratization of suffrage threatens political discourse such that the Kochs through Koch Industries now sponsor a significant number of college sporting events (ESPN College Game Day and The Pac-12 Network) and television channels in their continuing effort to reprivatize it, just as Accuracy in Academia concurrently attacks MOOCs while promoting online efforts to leverage more false consciousness.

Welcome to Conservative University! CU is a project of Accuracy in Academia and will offer free online courses promoting conservative principles. The courses will primarily be geared towards college students, but are open to all lovers of liberty and free speech!

Each course will be taught by expert faculty, will offer continued education resources, class summaries, and an optional brief quiz to test your ascertained knowledge about the class topic.

Thank you for visiting! To see our first course trailer, click here. (“Sex, Lies & Women’s Studies”)

Ultimately, as Activity theory, going to college doesn’t even make one liberal,

Conservatives have been criticizing academia for many decades. Yet only once the McCarthy era passed did this criticism begin to be cast primarily in anti-elitist tones: charges of Communist subversion gave way to charges of liberal elitism in the writings of William F. Buckley Jr. and others. The idea that professors are snobs looking down their noses at ordinary Americans, trying to push the country in directions it does not wish to go, soon became an established conservative trope, taking its place alongside criticism of the liberal press and the liberal judiciary.

The main reason for this development is that attacking liberal professors as elitists serves a vital purpose. It helps position the conservative movement as a populist enterprise by identifying a predatory elite to which conservatism stands opposed – an otherwise difficult task for a movement strongly backed by holders of economic power.

Even if Galileo was a dangerous academic, one can use the global warming denialist movement as yet another example of the less-than-palpable effect of scholarly rationality on public policy in a world that still believes the planet to be only 6000 years old.

The FSFG supports organizations like Accuracy in Academia, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the National Association of Scholars, the Madison Center for Educational Affairs (their “Collegiate Network” links over 70 student newspapers), the Institute for Educational Affairs and others. These organizations work to transform academia toward the right’s ideological agenda.

In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher tears into Kansas Governor Sam Brownbeck and the Republican “Zombie Lie” of trickle-down economics, as well as voters who allow themselves to be distracted by faux scandals.

So, do you have the guts to join the die Weiße Rose?

“At this stage I can offer nothing more than my word. I am a senior government employee in the intelligence community. I hope you understand that contacting you is extremely high risk … This will not be a waste of your time.” This was one of the first messages Edward Snowden wrote to filmmaker Laura Poitras beginning an exchange that helped expose the massive surveillance apparatus set up by the National Security Agency. Months later, Poitras would meet Snowden for the first time in a Hong Kong hotel room. Poitras filmed more than 20 hours of footage as Snowden debriefed reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill. That footage – most unseen until now – forms the backbone of Poitras’ new film, “Citizenfour.” She joins us to talk about the film and her own experience with government surveillance. The film is the third installment of her 9/11 trilogy that also includes “My Country, My Country” about the Iraq War and “The Oath” about the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Poitras’ NSA reporting contributed to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service awarded to The Guardian and The Washington Post. We also speak with Jeremy Scahill, who appears in the film reporting on recent disclosures about NSA surveillance from a new, anonymous government source. Scahill, along with Poitras and Greenwald, founded The Intercept, a new media venture to continue investigating whistleblower leaks.

Transcript

Laura Poitras: “I knew this was going to piss off the most powerful people in the world”

Andrew O’Hehir, Salon

Thursday, Oct 23, 2014 08:30 AM EST

Poitras convinced Snowden to let her film him beginning on the day when she and journalist Glenn Greenwald first met him in a Hong Kong hotel. So what you see in “Citizenfour,” for the first time, is not the clichés or assumptions or tabloid-style reporting on who Snowden was and why he chose to reveal an enormous trove of classified documents revealing much of the NSA’s worldwide spy campaign, but the man himself.

You are perfectly free to agree or disagree with Snowden’s reasoning and his decisions, but any argument that he was a foreign agent or a naïve hothead or an arrogant narcissist pretty much falls apart. We are confronted with a calm and reflective adult who has thought deeply about his life-changing and history-shaping decision, and is prepared to face the consequences. As you’ll see in “Citizenfour,” Snowden did not appear confident that he would escape prosecution and imprisonment, and pretty much expected those things. The admittedly ironic fact that he is now a gilded-cage émigré in Russia – America’s longtime global rival, and a vastly less free and open society – is surely not lost on Snowden. But that came about by accident, as the denouement of a chapter of the Snowden story we don’t really know yet: His involvement with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, who would seem to have bungled his escape plan, albeit with noble intentions.

…

“It’s not about that information, but about Glenn and Snowden and the fact that other people have come forward and will continue to come forward. That’s always been Snowden’s perspective. He’s not the first, and he’s not the last. I definitely felt that the film shouldn’t end on any kind of closure, because there is none. The programs continue and the risks continue. There’s the danger that once a story or an event becomes kind of book-ended, that it looks as if the choices were easy and the risks were minimal, where in fact none of that was the case.”

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 66 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.