Ministerial meetings in Atlanta have dragged on three days longer than scheduled and it appears this might be the make-or-break moment for concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership here, and now, before the Canadian election.
A few final irritants have pushed negotiations into the take-it-or-leave-it phase, after which some ministers have a G20 meeting in Turkey including Japan’s envoy, who has made it clear he’s gone after Sunday.
…
Countries face the following dilemma: Accept the deal now, warts and all. Or wait, and risk that this decade-long project dies a slow, politically driven death.
It became clear relatively early Saturday that all-night negotiations had failed to conclude agreements on those few issues, delaying yet another day the planned celebratory news conference announcing the deal.
“Ministers have agreed to stay (until Sunday),” one source said, as hopes for a deal Saturday faded.
So what began as a two-day ministerial meeting in an Atlanta convention centre will have wound up lasting five days, amid widespread desire from deal proponents to get it done now before elections in Canada, the U.S., Peru and Japan.
…
The United States and Australia are involved in a staredown over cutting-edge, cell-based pharmaceuticals. At stake in their scuffle is not only the deal, but also how 800 million people in the TPP region would access revolutionary new medicines.
The Americans face political pressure to keep those medicines more expensive, for longer. Because the pact already faces uncertain prospects in the U.S. Congress, the American side must keep every possible vote onside – including from those lawmakers whose campaigns are generously funded by pharmaceutical companies.
They have already agreed to whittle down their patent-style protections on these treatments, from the 12 years that is current U.S. policy down to a new TPP rule of eight years. After that period, cheaper, generic-like biosimilar versions of the product could come to market.
The Australian government faces pressure from its public. That country allows five years’ exclusivity. It doesn’t want to budge upward, despite industry insistence that a too-small exclusivity period could hurt the very companies discovering these treatments.
…
The last big sticking point involving Canada is dairy. As negotiators worked until at least 4 a.m. Saturday, sources say Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and others were involved in a multi-sided talks about providing more access to each other’s milk, cheese and butter.
Canada’s dairy sector is 90-per-cent closed to foreign competition and the government is under political pressure – especially in Quebec and Ontario – to keep foreign products off Canadian grocery shelves. With an election weeks away, the NDP has made the issue a centrepiece of its campaign.
The hallways at the convention centre hosting the talks were suddenly filled Saturday with nervous chatter about what the delays meant for the TPP, which some backers believe could be drowned in politics if it doesn’t get to shore this weekend.
Critics of the deal fear that any gains in trade would be offset by the loss of good-paying jobs at auto plants and dairy farms, with greater foreign competition. They also warn that the deal, which was crafted with heavy input from U.S. businesses but far less from labour and civil-society groups, could transfer power from people and governments to corporations.
Japanese high school teacher’s scathing, two-foot-long note to students is nothing short of epic
Meg Murphy
Being a teacher is one of the most rewarding yet difficult jobs one can do; on the one hand, you’re helping to shape the next generation, and you get to help kids learn and grow. On the other hand, though, kids will be kids, and you’ll always have those one or two students who really know how to get under your skin.
Even the most patient teacher has their limit-they’re still human after all. Like this Japanese high school teacher, who apparently had it “up to here” with students spitting their gum out on the floor. So what did he do? Wrote a scathing note of epic proportions and pinned it to the wall for all to see.
This is a picture I took of a manhole cover here in Japan
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Once again this week’s H & F news is abbreviated due to other pressing matters.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
The notion that you cannot refreeze thawed foods “is a myth,” said Tina Hanes, a registered dietitian with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Any raw or cooked food that has been thawed can be refrozen as long as it was thawed properly – in the refrigerator, not on the counter – and hasn’t spoiled. That includes raw meat, poultry, fish and seafood, Ms. Hanes said.
“It’s one of the most popular questions we get on our hotline,” she said, “but it is safe to refreeze raw meat, as long as it’s not spoiled.” [..]
“You can refreeze anything as long as it’s been handled properly,” Ms. Hanes said, adding that it is safe to thaw and then refreeze frozen fruit, vegetables, breads, cakes, processed foods and other items. The process, however, may affect their texture, taste and color, making them mushy or dried out and less appetizing, depending on the item.
“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”.
Ten people were killed and seven wounded recently in a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Such shootings are more than another tragic expression of unchecked violence in the United States, they are symptomatic of a society engulfed in fear, militarism, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and a growing disdain for human life. Sadly, this shooting is not an isolated incident. Over 270 mass shootings have taken place in the US this year alone, proving once again that the economic, political, and social conditions that underlie such violence are not being addressed. [..]
Gun violence in America is inextricably tied to economic violence and the violence reproduced by politicians who would rather support the military-industrial-gun complex than address the most basic needs and social problems faced by the American people. When violence becomes an organizing principle of society, the fabric of a democracy begins to unravel suggesting that America is at war with itself. When politicians refuse out of narrow self and financial interests to confront the conditions that create such violence, they have blood on their hands.
If you want to reduce the number of gun deaths in America, the conclusion is inescapable: ban handguns, along with assault rifles.
Politicians generally avoid proposing handgun bans because the position doesn’t fit into the frame of exempting “responsible gun owners” from new regulations. No one needs an assault rifle to hunt or to protect themselves. But plenty of Americans keep handguns thinking that it will protect them from harm. Politicians are loathe to advocate that the government “take their guns away.”
However, the reality is, as physicist David Robert Grimes put it, “actually owning and using a firearm hugely increases the risk of being shot.”
Of course, this is a political impossibility for the foreseeable future. The current Republican Congress won’t even pass an expansion of background checks, and a previous Republican Congress allowed the Clinton-era assault weapons ban to expire. A handgun ban also could run afoul of the Supreme Court, as it is currently constituted.
But will any presidential candidate be willing to push the envelope, shake up the debate, and put a handgun ban on the table?
The super-secretive Monsanto has stated, regarding the FOIAs, that “agenda-driven groups often take individual documents or quotes out of context in an attempt to distort the facts, advance their agenda, and stop legitimate research.”
Advocates with the venerable Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) do worry that the FOIA can be abused to harass scientists for ideological reasons. This is true; for example, human-caused global warming deniers have abused the FOIA against climate scientists working at state universities like Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University. [..]
The proper response to abuses of the FOIA is not, however, to advocate blocking citizens or reporters from using the FOIA. [..]
The use of the FOIA by citizens, journalists, and others to expose scandals is essential to ensure honest scientific inquiry and is critical to developing protective public health and environmental standards. Scientific research should not be contaminated by the inevitable biases and secrecy that come with corporate contracts at public universities.
The FOIA is a valuable tool to help citizens uncover corruption and wrongdoing, and to vindicate our right to know what our own governments are doing.
First came the big crowds, now comes the big money. At this point, anyone who doesn’t take Bernie Sanders seriously must not be paying attention.
Sanders’ campaign announced that it raised an eye-bugging $26 million in the third quarter-essentially matching the $28 million raised during those three months by Hillary Clinton, long considered the presumptive Democratic nominee. If that doesn’t make Clintonistas nervous, they need defibrillation. [..]
What explains Sanders’ appeal? Much is made of his “authenticity,” and it’s certainly true that there is a refreshing lack of artifice about him. But tousled hair alone isn’t enough to explain his rock-star status in college towns and other liberal redoubts.
I believe his success to date is due to insight and ideology. Sanders was perceptive enough to frame a message that is perfect for the zeitgeist: The system is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. And having identified the problem, he offers clear and internally consistent remedies.
Ever since House Speaker John Boehner unveiled yet another committee to investigate Benghazi-the eighth congressional panel to investigate that September 2012 tragedy, along with a State Department Accountability Review Board-suspicions have festered that its purpose was purely partisan and political.
Even Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sounded skeptical when he interviewed the speaker last February:
Wallace: “Finally, you have set up a select committee to investigate what happened in Benghazi, even though there have been about a half dozen investigations; the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee basically said there was no there there-like this last year. Some people have questioned: Is all of this an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign?”
Boehner: “No, Chris, it’s-the idea here is to get the American people the facts about what happened.”
But on the evening of Sept. 29, the amiably dim Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., fully vindicated those original suspicions during an interview on Fox with Sean Hannity. Attempting to defend the departing Boehner, whom he is touted to succeed as Speaker, McCarthy highlighted what he considers the outstanding achievement of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the Restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, That’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s Restaurant.
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the Restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the Church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of Room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room, Seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t Have to take out their garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So We took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW Microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.” And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our’s down.
That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, “Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it. ” And I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage.”
After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police Officer’s station. So we got in the red vw microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the Police Officer’s station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on. ” He said, “Shut up, kid. get in the back of the patrol car.”
And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of Cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt. ” And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for? ” And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.
“I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?”
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out the – roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. Aand then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the Judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.
Came to talk about the draft.
They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. ‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”
And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I Wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and Guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, Kill, kill. ” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “kill, kill,” and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”
Didn’t feel too good about it.
Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?” He said, “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome… – and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever go to court? ”
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W…. Now kid!! ”
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father Rapers! Father Rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest Father Raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage. ” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid? ” and I said, “Littering.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, Mother Stabbing, Father Raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.
“Kids, this-piece-of-paper’s-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-Officer’s-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say”, and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:
(“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”)
I went over to the sargent, said, “Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug. ” He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”
And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say “Shrink, You can get Anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant. “. And walk out. You know, if One person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it’s a movement.
And that’s what it is, the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the Guitar.
With feeling.
So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I’m not proud… Or tired.
So we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.
We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.
All right now.
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
A United States airstrike appeared to have badly damaged a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the Afghan city of Kunduz early Saturday, killing at least nine hospital staff members and wounding dozens, including patients and staff.
The United States military, in a statement, confirmed the 2:15 a.m. airstrike, saying that it had been targeting individuals “who were threatening the force” and that “there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
Accounts differed as to whether there had been fighting around the hospital that might have precipitated the strike. Two hospital employees, an aide who was wounded in the bombing and a nurse who emerged unscathed, said that there had been no active fighting nearby and no Taliban fighters inside the hospital.
In 1963, Bob Dylan was asked by the authors of a forthcoming book on Woody Guthrie to contribute a 25-word comment summarizing his thoughts on the man who had probably been his greatest formative influence. Dylan responded instead with a 194-line poem called “Thoughts on Woody Guthrie,” which took as its theme the eternal human search for hope. “And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin’?” Dylan asks in the poem, before proceeding to a kind of answer:
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You’ll find God in the church of your choice
You’ll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children’s songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is “This Land Is Your Land”, which is regularly sung in American schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton have acknowledged their debt to Guthrie as an influence.
Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour”. Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.
Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington’s disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.
Folk revival and Guthrie’s death
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of young people were inspired by folk singers including Guthrie. These “folk revivalists” became more politically aware in their music than those of the previous generation. The American Folk Revival was beginning to take place, focused on the issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and free speech movement. Pockets of folk singers were forming around the country in places such as Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. One of Guthrie’s visitors at Greystone Park was the 19-year-old Bob Dylan, who idolized Guthrie. Dylan wrote of Guthrie’s repertoire: “The songs themselves were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them.” After learning of Guthrie’s whereabouts, Bob Dylan regularly visited him. Guthrie died of complications of Huntington’s disease on October 3, 1967. By the time of his death, his work had been discovered by a new audience, introduced to them in part through Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, his ex-wife Marjorie and other new members of the folk revival, and his son Arlo.
It’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.
As we pass into our final week or two in this format (haven’t read this? You really should.) I stand before you utterly unrepentant in my obnoxiousness. The signal will continue.
Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
I don’t have any handy pictures, but I’ve stopped at the Bus Stop in Thomaston that Red waited at. People got on and off, I didn’t pay any attention. None of my business.
These walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get used to ’em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.
Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards… that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.
But you do it anyway. Every day. It’s ok. You just have to remember that freedom goal at the end.
You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.
The mass shooting yesterday at a small community college in Roseberg, Oregon, took the lives of nine people and the gunman, despite the fact that there were students in nearby classrooms who were carrying guns themselves. Despite arguments by gun activists, that didn’t deter or stop the shooter until police arrived. This has become routine in the United States to the point that it should be considered an epidemic. This latest mass murder is the 994th since the mass murder of 26 students and teachers in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in December, 2012. There have been nearly 300 shooting that have taken four or more lives, the FBI criteria for a mass shooting, so far in this year alone. In the face of these horrific statistics what have our government representatives done? Nothing except pray and criticize anyone calling for better gun control laws as politicizing the lives of the victims.
While conservatives are busying trying to shutdown any debate on gun control following the 45th school shooting this year by yelling about Chicago’s murder rates – apparently unaware that Chicago is the third largest city in the country but not even in the top five cities with the highest murder rate per capita – and reflexively decrying any mention of gun control as a “gun grab,” what if we just entertained their wildest conspiracy theories for just a bit?
A 2015 study found that when guns are used to kill people in the United States, they are overwhelmingly used for murder rather than self-defense. That study found that in 2012, there were only 259 justifiable homicides, or what is commonly referred to as self-defense, compared to 8,342 criminal firearm homicides. In 2008-2012, the report says, guns were used in 42,419 criminal homicides and only 1,108 justifiable homicides.
We are told by pundits and politicians that nothing can be done because of the Second Amendment. That is pure nonsense. Laws requiring strict licensing and ban on ownership of certain weapons, such as semi-automatic assault type weapons, have been on the books in cities like New York for years and have withstood court challenges. Tightening the sale of guns at guns shows and by individuals without adequate regulation and background checks of the buyers needs to be made federal law. Requiring a person to demonstrate that they are qualified to own the weapon they are buying by showing that they have attended classes in safety and handling by a certified instructor would go a long way in curbing some of the accidental incidents as well.
The idea pushed by the NRA and gun manufacturers that better and smarter gun laws won’t make a difference is a myth. Just look what Australia did after a mass shooting that took 35 lives in 1996. They passed 12 new gun laws and regulations within days after the shooting:
The National Firearms Agreement and Buyback Program, as the package of legislation was called, prohibited the sale of shotguns as well as semiautomatic and self-loading rifles. Waiting periods and safety courses became mandatory for new gun owners and limits on the sale of ammunition were imposed.
Most importantly, perhaps, the legislation allocated $250 million for a gun buyback program, allowing for newly outlawed rifles and shotgun to be destroyed by the Australian government. Ultimately more than 640,000 firearms were either purchased by the Australian government or voluntarily handed in.
And it worked.
In the years after the Port Arthur massacre, gun-related homicides decreased 7.5 percent per year while suicide by gun dropped by a whopping 80 percent (pdf) until the the risk of dying by gunshot in Australia fell by more than 50 percent in the decade following the attacks.
It didn’t completely stop the incidents but there have only been six people killed in mass shooting since the laws were passed.
America could do the same if we demand it of our elected officials but first end Americas obsession with guns to debunk the myths of the NRA and gun nuts that guns keep us safer. They don’t.
By Caitlin Emma , Allie Grasgreen Ciaramella, and Kimberly Hefling, Politico
10/02/15 03:58 PM EDT
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, an unwavering advocate for low-income and minority students and longtime basketball buddy to President Barack Obama, said Friday he will leave his post in December, ending a contentious tenure in which he moved aggressively to raise the academic bar in U.S. schools.
Duncan, the former Chicago schools head who is one of the last remaining original Cabinet members, has clashed with most camps in the education community since taking the post. He’s supported charter schools, encouraged the use of testing to measure teachers and schools, and championed the divisive Common Core standards. He’s also taken on the higher education establishment by pushing policies to regulate for-profit colleges and make colleges and universities more transparent.
His announcement comes as Congress is the closest it’s been in years to the long-overdue updating of the No Child Left Behind law – something that could be a crucial part of his legacy. His term might also be remembered for his embrace of Race to the Top grants that incentivized many of the controversial ideas he’s long embraced.
Just this week, Duncan said he thought the forthcoming resignation of House Speaker John Boehner would make it more difficult to get the law updated. Before Boehner’s announcement, the odds were “50/50,” Duncan said. “I can only think that our odds of having it pass now are worse, not better, which is really disappointing,” he said.
Former Duncan aide Justin Hamilton said Duncan likely knew in “his heart of hearts that Boehner was a guy who wanted the deal. … The prospects for getting anything done have gone from 50/50 to a snowball’s chance in hell.”
But otherwise, Duncan had “accomplished everything the administration set out to do and he should be proud,” Hamilton said.
“Everything the Administration set out to do.” Indeed. Don’t let the door hit you.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s 
In 1963, Bob Dylan was asked by the authors of a forthcoming book on Woody Guthrie to contribute a 25-word comment summarizing his thoughts on the man who had probably been his greatest formative influence. Dylan responded instead with a 194-line poem called
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