Apr 21 2011
egular Features-
Featured Essays for April 20, 2011-
Apr 21 2011
(8 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Those of you that read this irregular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile of so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
I never write about living people except with their express permission, but since these folks are long gone, they are fair game. They were actually very nice folks, but had some quirks, as most folks in my little town did.
I do not know how they came into a little money, since they owned a nice (by mid 1960s standards) house on a large lot. They were my neighbors just to the south where I lived. I liked both of them.
Mr. and Mrs. Holloway (not related, as far as I know, to the really mean Arthur Holloway) were a very nice couple. They were around 15 years older, give or take, than my parents, and would say hello to anyone. They owned a little, and I mean very little, cafe just up the street from my house. It served mainly hamburgers and French fries, and such, and also had an ice cream locker.
They also made milkshakes using the stock in the locker. Agnes was not very good at making them, and usually I just got sort of thick chocolate milk instead of a real milkshake, so I went from that to buying ice cream cones. At least those were sort of solid.
I loved the chocolate marvel ones, and they also had strawberry marvel ones, too, but I did not like them that much. I finally decided that I liked the honeydew ones the best, but for the life of me can not remember the exact flavor now. That is sort of surprising to me, since I tend to have a really good flavor and smell memory. Does anyone have any information about that, now obsolete, flavor?
They came to our church on occasion, like Christmas or Easter (by the way, please read my Pique the Geek post about Easter, The Borg, and the Dalaks Sunday evening), but were not regular attendees. Of course, that was enough in a little town to have sharp tongues saying things, but I never observed anything about them that was less than wholesome.
Agnes was an extremely petite lady, probably not even 85 pounds soaking wet. Her face was lined with smile lines, and she almost always had a nice one for the little kid with 15 cents for an ice cream cone. I think that she was a truly nice person, as was Pete. She, except for being so petite, was otherwise unremarkable except for being kind.
Pete was not a large guy, either, maybe 5’7″ or so, and thin. I would guess that he was 60 or so at the time, and my research into his medical condition bears this out well. Pete had Jake Leg. I suspect that I am the only one here that knows what it was. All of the Jake Leg folks are gone now, with perhaps only a scant handful remaining. They would be over 100 years old now.
I shall attach a poll to this piece to get an honest idea about who know about Jake Leg. I suspect that no one has ever seen anyone with it, as I have, and only a very few have heard the term. If my instincts are correct, the “What are you talking about, Doc?” will have the most votes, not corrected for pie.
Jake Leg was a neuronal deterioration condition caused by contaminated alcohol sold during Prohibition. It had nothing to do with the “moonshiners” in the hills making what, during those days, was usually a fairly high quality product. At that time, most of the moonshiners were producing a high quality product at great personal risk. Only later, after Prohibition was lifted, did unethical ones took over the market by producing untaxed liquor, and many of them cut lots of corners and produced highly dangerous products. But that is for another piece. Back to Jake Leg.
There was a product that was imported into the United States that passed the arcane Treasury Department Prohibition regulations that contained mostly alcohol in the form of an extremely bitter and almost undrinkable formulation called Jamaica Ginger. It was around 70% alcohol, but was legal under the standards at the time. However, ginger was sort of expensive, so two evil entrepreneurs decided to make a cheaper product. I shall call those men out by their names: Harry Gross and Max Reisman. These Chicago men were interested in nothing except to enrich themselves.
They found that an industrial chemical, and I know that this is getting quite Geeky, could be added to the Jamaica Ginger and cut down on the actual ginger content, making it not only cheaper, but also more drinkable. It also passed the test the the Prohibition analyses required at the time.
The chemical was tri-o-tolyl phosphate, a chemical that does not have a bad taste, is not volatile enough so that it passed the test, and is, also, a potent neurotoxin. Gross and Reisman were making money hand over fist. Damn those bastards, by the way.
It turns out that this cheap chemical is a neurotoxin that actually killed several people, the heavy drinkers, by complete system paralysis. It disabled many others from general paralysis, hands and arms included. Most of those died for want of taking care of themselves not too long after drinking the evil brew. The material was insidious because the effects were delayed for around a week, give or take a day or two, so that rather large amounts could be consumed without ill effects being immediately noticed.
Tri-o-tolyl phosphate is still used industrially now. It is used as a plasticizer for various polymers (not for food contact), as a material for fireproofing, and as an additive for various lubricants. It was cheap and readily available in 1930.
But folks like Mr. Holloway were fortunate. His lasting sequelae were only from the knee and lower. I shall try to get a video of what it looked like before I post this piece.
Well, I have not found a video yet, so I shall have to attempt to describe it to you. First, just a little more background. Apparently this material was pretty much, except for massive doses, specific for the afferent nerves for voluntary muscles at the spinal cord. In that respect, its effects sort of resembled polio in that the sensory nerves were not much affected but that the motor afferent ones were. In common with polio, the muscles affected often became flaccid and withered. Here is the best description that I can remember about now Mr. Holloway walked.
He would raise his leg, pretty normally, but since he could not make his ankle work, would have to “throw out” his foot to meet the sidewalk. Since his sensory nerves were relatively unaffected, he could sense when it made contact with the ground, and then he would raise his other knee, once again throwing out his other foot onto the pavement. I know that his is difficult to visualize. Try this.
It was sort of like a goose stepping soldier, except that the knee bent and the foot was “loose”, making it necessary to use the momentum to put the foot on the pavement. Does that make a better illustration? It is difficult to describe, but I think that the goosestep is better than the previous one. Interestingly, folks with Jake Leg had knees that would lock, the injury being confined to the calves and downward for most of them.
The bad liquor had a very short history. I have not been able to find exactly when it started, but by 1930 it was found out and stopped. I also not not know what happened to those two bootleggers, but forcefeeding them the material seems morally correct. I know! That is not a proper punishment in our legal system, but it does have a bit of schadenfreude.
Mr. and Mrs. Holloway lived to be quite old, and as far as I can tell, his Jake Leg did not shorten his lifespan, but I wonder about deep vein thrombosis in flaccid calf muscles. They were really nice folks, always said hello, even when I was just little, and I have not heard anyone say anything bad about them, except for the bitties that condemned him for being a drinking man.
Well, if Agnes could have made a better milkshake I would have even better things to say! LOL!
I have looked at numbers, and many sites say that perhaps 50,000 folks ended up with Jake Leg. I can not accept that. I think that many times more were afflicted, because the probability of a next door neighbor having it, in a nation of over 200 million, is vanishingly small. I suspect that at least 500,000 people had it, but that is just The Geek in me coming to the surface. On the other hand, the outbreak seemed to be fairly limited insofar as geographic distribution went, so the 50,000 figure may be correct if primarily confined to Arkansas and surrounding states. Since the syndrome was first described in Oklahoma, this is plausible.
Next time we shall discuss another person or two in My Little Town. I have not decided yet, but I think that it might be one of the more mean ones.
Please comment about growing up in Your Little Town. Please include only distant memories, unless they directly impact recent actions. I really would rather that this series be about things as they were years ago, rather than what any of us did yesterday. Facebook is for what we did recently.
Warmest regards,
Doc
Apr 21 2011
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Foreign military advisers head for Libyan rebel bastion
by Marc Burleigh, AFP
28 mins ago
| MISRATA, Libya (AFP) – France and Italy joined Britain on Wednesday in sending military advisers to insurgent-held eastern Libya, as Tripoli warned that a foreign troop deployment would only prolong the conflict.
In the besieged city of Misrata, Tim Hetherington, an Oscar-nominated British film director and war photographer, was killed and three colleagues were wounded by mortar fire, the local hospital said. Vanity Fair, for which Hetherington was working, confirmed the death of the 41-year-old from Liverpool, the second journalist killed covering Libya’s two-month-old conflict. |
2 A year after BP spill, Obama vows to restore Gulf
by Craig Guillot, AFP
1 hr 27 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Mourners bowed their heads at vigils Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of the massive blowout on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which unleashed the biggest maritime oil spill in history and blackened beaches from Texas to Florida.
President Barack Obama vowed to do “whatever is necessary” to restore the US Gulf Coast and to “hold BP and other responsible parties fully accountable for the damage they’ve done and the painful losses that they’ve caused.” Oil-coated dolphin carcasses and sticky tar balls continue to wash up on beaches a year after the April 20, 2010 explosion which killed 11 workers and sank the Deepwater Horizon some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana. |
More lies from Barack Hussein Obama.
3 Despite Gulf tragedy, more spills possible: Allen
by Karin Zeitvogel, AFP
Mon Apr 18, 5:54 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States cannot rule out another oil disaster in its waters, the official who led the response to last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill told AFP, as the country marks one year since the tragedy.
“We’re never going to be able to prevent an event from happening out there,” said retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who has worked on oil spills since the 1980s and led the government response to the disaster that began on April 20 last year, when an oil rig moored off the coast of Louisiana exploded. Eleven men died and several others were injured as fire ripped through the platform, which two days later sank 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, causing BP’s Macondo well to rupture and start spewing oil into the sea. |
4 Libya rebels plead for foreign forces or ‘we will die’
by Marc Burleigh, AFP
Tue Apr 19, 3:47 pm ET
| MISRATA, Libya (AFP) – A rebel official in Libya’s besieged city of Misrata pleaded desperately on Tuesday for Britain and France to send troops to help fight strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s forces, saying “if they don’t, we will die.”
In the first request by any insurgents for boots on the ground, a senior member of Misrata’s governing council, Nuri Abdullah Abdullati, said they were asking for the troops on the basis of “humanitarian” principles. Previously, he told reporters, “we did not accept any foreign soldiers in our country, but now, as we face these crimes of Kadhafi, we are asking on the basis of humanitarian and Islamic principles for someone to come and stop the killing.” |
5 France sends military advisers to Libya
by Marc Burleigh, AFP
Wed Apr 20, 11:59 am ET
| MISRATA, Libya (AFP) – France said on Wednesday it has sent military advisers into insurgent-held eastern Libya, with Britain and Italy set to follow suit, as Tripoli warned foreign boots on the ground would prolong the conflict.
The developments come as the besieged rebel-held city of Misrata desperately pleaded for help against Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s forces, who have been pounding it for more than six weeks. The bombardment continued on Wednesday, with loud explosions heard mid-afternoon in Misrata, where there was heavy overnight fighting and from which thousands of people are trying to flee. |
6 Nigerian unrest kills more than 200: rights group
by Aminu Abubakar, AFP
2 hrs 31 mins ago
| KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – Post-poll unrest in Nigeria has killed more than 200 people, a rights group said Wednesday, as the Muslim opposition candidate who lost alleged rigging but said he did not instigate the riots.
Aid workers rushed to help nearly 40,000 displaced, many of whom had taken refuge in military and police barracks, while victims being treated in hospitals spoke of being hacked with machetes and beaten with clubs. Authorities say many were killed in the violence, which saw corpses burnt beyond recognition and bodies reportedly thrown into wells, but have refused to give a toll, saying it could spark reprisals and would be inaccurate. |
7 ‘Bodies thrown into wells’ in Nigerian post-election riots
by Aminu Abubakar, AFP
Tue Apr 19, 4:45 pm ET
| KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – Post-election riots in northern Nigeria left many dead, thousands displaced and hundreds wounded on Tuesday amid claims that bodies had been thrown into wells in areas hit by unrest.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan called on political and religious leaders to condemn the violence over his election victory, adding that most of the rioters appeared to be “unemployed young people.” He pledged that the government would work to change their situation “so that they will no longer be tools for people to use.” |
8 Nigeria rival urges calm as thousands flee unrest
by Aminu Abubakar, AFP
Wed Apr 20, 8:32 am ET
| KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – The Muslim opposition candidate in Nigeria’s presidential polls rejected the results on Wednesday but urged calm after deadly post-election riots, amid a rush to help nearly 40,000 displaced.
Authorities say many were killed the violence, which saw corpses burnt beyond recognition and bodies reportedly thrown into wells, but have refused to give a toll, saying it could spark reprisals and would be inaccurate. There were reports of fresh clashes in the northern state of Kaduna overnight, with a community leader telling local radio “the killing was unbelievable and the destruction is colossal.” |
9 Yemen president ‘resists’ calls to stand down
by Hammoud Mounassar, AFP
2 hrs 53 mins ago
| SANAA (AFP) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Wednesday he would “resist” calls to resign and abide by the constitution in any transfer of power, Yemen’s state news agency Saba reported.
Yemen’s opposition, meanwhile, called for mass protests following another round of deadly clashes with police, as talks appeared to have stalled between Gulf mediators and Saleh’s envoys. “We will continue to resist (…) undaunted and committed to constitutional legitimacy, while rejecting the plots and coups,” Saba quoted the embattled president as saying. |
10 Yemen opposition urges protests as talks stall
by Hammoud Mounassar, AFP
Wed Apr 20, 12:46 pm ET
| SANAA (AFP) – Yemen’s opposition called on Wednesday for mass protests after deadly clashes with police, as talks appeared to have stalled between Gulf mediators and envoys of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Members of the UN Security Council also failed to come up with a joint statement on Yemen after adding the crisis in the Arabian peninsula country to their agenda for the first time. Youth groups called for nationwide marches by millions of people in protest at the killing of protesters on Tuesday, stressing their rejection of any deal that excludes Saleh’s immediate departure. |
11 Syria to lift emergency law, regulate demos
AFP
Tue Apr 19, 4:33 pm ET
| DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syria’s government approved on Tuesday a bill to rescind a decades-old emergency law and agreed to abolish the state security court, after weeks of pro-democracy protests and hundreds of deaths.
The cabinet also approved a bill regulating demonstrations, the state news agency SANA reported, only hours after the interior minister imposed a total ban on political gatherings and after security forces fired on protesters in the city of Homs, killing four. The ongoing repression prompted the United States to call on Syria to cease violence against protesters. |
12 UN chief issues nuclear warning on Chernobyl visit
by Anya Tsukanova, AFP
Wed Apr 20, 12:08 pm ET
| CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AFP) – The head of the UN warned on a landmark visit to Chernobyl on Wednesday that the Ukrainian tragedy and the recent accident in Japan prompted “painful questions” about the future of atomic power.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon visited the site of the Chernobyl disaster a day after world donors pledged 550 million euros ($800 million) towards a permanent shelter to secure the ruined reactor, which exploded on April 26, 1986. Speaking in Kiev afterwards, he warned that the recent quake damage to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant showed that accidents like Chernobyl were likely to occur again in the future. |
13 Nasdaq, ICE sweeten bid for NYSE Euronext
AFP
Tue Apr 19, 3:03 pm ET
| NEW YORK (AFP) – US exchange operators Nasdaq and ICE said Tuesday they had boosted their bid to buy NYSE Euronext, offering to pay it $350 million if the deal fails to meet regulatory muster.
NASDAQ OMX and IntercontinentalExchange did not alter the terms of their April 1 cash-and-stock offer that had been rejected by NYSE Euronext as it pursues an agreed merger with Germany’s Deutsche Boerse. But the spurned suitors said in a statement they have taken a series of steps “demonstrating their commitment to pursuing their superior proposal with NYSE Euronext and providing greater certainty to the NYSE Euronext Board.” |
14 US to move WikiLeaks suspect in prison upgrade
by Mathieu Rabechault, AFP
Wed Apr 20, 3:59 am ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – Bradley Manning, a US soldier held for allegedly passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, is being transferred to a new prison facility after intense criticism of the conditions of his detention.
The Pentagon on Tuesday announced his imminent transfer to a Kansas military facility it said was better-suited for a long-term stay, while denying that the move was in response to criticism of his treatment in Quantico, Virginia. “We have decided that the new joint correctional facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is the most appropriate facility for Private Manning,” Jeh Johnson, the general counsel of the Department of Defense, said Tuesday. |
15 At Facebook headquarters, Obama seeks 2008 magic
By Jeff Mason, Reuters
9 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama takes early steps on Wednesday to recapture the magic of his exuberant 2008 campaign on a West Coast swing that starts at the nexus of social communications, Facebook headquarters.
Democrats acknowledge that Obama will need to rally many of the same forces that propelled him into the White House in order to win re-election in 2012: an army of young, energetic voters as well as a sizable showing from independent voters. By visiting Facebook headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley, where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a folk hero, Obama seeks to connect to tens of millions of people who have adopted social media as a prime method of communications. |
16 Lobbying push targets lawmakers on debtvote
By Tim Reid and Rachelle Younglai, Reuters
2 hrs 46 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – They have been in Washington barely four months but the 85 first-term Republicans in the House of Representatives have found themselves the target of a massive lobbying campaign by Wall Street banks, big business and the Treasury.
The fiscally conservative freshmen are under intense pressure to vote to raise the cap on U.S. borrowing so that the United States can continue to pay its bills after May 16. The Obama administration has expressed confidence that a deal can be reached with Republicans but Wall Street is less sure. Yet there are signs the intense lobbying effort is falling flat. Many freshmen still insist they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless it comes with legislation to slash America’s $1.4 trillion deficit. |
17 AT&T weathers loss of iPhone exclusivity
By Sinead Carew, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 12:46 pm ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – AT&T Inc survived the loss of its exclusive U.S. rights to sell the Apple Inc iPhone.
The No. 2 U.S. mobile service provider, which is planning to buy T-Mobile USA, eked out a slight increase in subscribers in the first quarter, surprising Wall Street, though some analysts said the growth came at too high a cost. Its net addition of 62,000 contract customers in the quarter was much weaker than its fourth-quarter growth of 400,000 but better than the loss of 83,000 customers expected, on average, by seven analysts polled by Reuters. |
18 Sarkozy tells Libyan rebels: "We will help you"
By Emmanuel Jarry and Michael Georgy, Reuters
18 mins ago
| PARIS/MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – France promised Libyan rebels Wednesday it would intensify air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and send military liaison officers to help them as fighting raged in the besieged city of Misrata.
Rebels said they fought pro-government troops for control of a main road in the port city of 300,000 that is the insurgents’ last bastion in the west of the country where civil war erupted in February over demands for an end to Gaddafi’s 41-year rule. Five civilians were killed in mortar attacks in Misrata on Wednesday, medical workers said. Eight people had been killed on Tuesday, mostly civilians, rebels said. |
19 Euro zone hit by Greek debt fears, aid backlash
By Harry Papchristou and Paul Day, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 12:32 pm ET
| ATHENS/MADRID (Reuters) – Spain attracted solid demand in a bond sale on Wednesday, easing concerns it could be swept up by euro zone contagion, but worries about Greek debt continued to haunt the bloc, slamming bank stocks in Athens.
A Reuters poll showed an overwhelming majority of economists believe Greece will eventually have to restructure its 325 billion euro ($468 billion) debt mountain, although most said it would not happen for at least a year. In a reminder of the rising political hurdles to solving the euro zone’s debt crisis, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party said he would try to block plans for a new financial safety net for the 17-nation currency area. |
20 True Finns see Portugal bailout opposition growing
By John Acher, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 2:36 pm ET
| HELSINKI (Reuters) – The head of the euroskeptic True Finns party, confident his opposition to the terms of a Portuguese bailout was gaining traction, said on Wednesday euro zone members might face a new solution to the debt crisis by next month.
“I believe that reason will return to Europe,” said Timo Soini, the charismatic leader of the party which scored big gains in weekend elections by promising to block the looming European bailout for Portugal. His confidence also shows how hard it will be for the National Coalition party, which won the most votes on Sunday, to form a coalition with the True Finns and the opposition Social Democrats, who finished second. |
21 Obama defends U.S. deficit plan, sees common ground
By Jeff Mason and Alister Bull, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 9:19 am ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama drew a sharp line on Tuesday between Republican and Democratic plans to cut the deficit, but he said a deal could be reached despite ideological differences between the two sides.
Democrats and Republicans agree that $4 trillion needs to be slashed over roughly a decade, Obama told a town hall-style event in Virginia. But the two parties disagree on what to cut to get there. “The big question that is going to have to be resolved is: how do we do it?” Obama told students at a community college. “I don’t want to lie to you, there is a big philosophical divide right now.” |
22 Intel and VMWare give downtrodden tech sector a lift
By Noel Randewich and Edwin Chan, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 2:20 am ET
| SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Strong results from a clutch of technology heavyweights, led by top global chip maker Intel Corp and “cloud computing” specialist VMware Inc, may give the battered U.S. tech sector a boost.
International Business Machines Corp also blew past Wall Street targets, raising its profit forecast and citing strong sales of mainframe computers and brisk business in emerging markets. Those results set a brighter tone for a bedraggled tech sector than recent analysis might have suggested. Still to report are heavyweights, from Cisco Systems Inc and Apple Inc to Hewlett-Packard Co. |
23 Goldman profit drops as trading revenue falls
By Lauren Tara LaCapra and Dan Wilchins, Reuters
Wed Apr 20, 12:53 am ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc posted a 72 percent decline in quarterly earnings as trading revenue dropped, and the bank cautioned that its businesses face headwinds.
The results were stronger than many analysts had expected, but with Goldman discussing risks to future earnings, the bank’s shares fell 1.4 percent to $151.61. Goldman has long been viewed as an earnings machine, consistently posting some of the highest returns on Wall Street. Investors now wonder if U.S. financial reform will cut into trading revenue and force the bank to focus on investment banking businesses that have historically been less profitable, like stock underwriting and merger advisory. |
24 RIM launches PlayBook but fans don’t play along
By Alastair Sharp and Sinead Carew, Reuters
Tue Apr 19, 5:59 pm ET
| TORONTO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet computer launched in thousands of stores on Tuesday and mostly stayed there, a grim reminder of Apple’s lasting allure for tech-hungry consumers.
By mid-afternoon, two carriers and two electronic stores in one of downtown Toronto’s main shopping malls — where long lines greeted last month’s iPad 2 launch — had stock available. Each started the day with no more than 5 PlayBooks. “It’s going to be a tough sell to the consumer,” BGC Partner analyst Colin Gillis said of the tablet, a sleek but flawed gadget that doesn’t yet offer the secure email that is the trademark of RIM’s ubiquitous BlackBerry. |
Apr 20 2011
(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
One year ago, there was this
Today there is still this:
A year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the surrounding environment and those who depend on it are still facing an uncertain future. Nearby islands have seen visible land loss, and tar balls still roll onto coastal beaches occasionally. Federal plans on recovery projects are far from finalized, and President Obama said yesterday that while “significant progress has been made,” the “job isn’t done.”
Apr 20 2011
“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”
Wednesday is Ladies’ Day. Scroll down for the Gentlemen. (click on images to enlarge)
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Obama needs a budget to match his progressive ideals
For perhaps the first time since being sworn into office, President Obama has articulated, in eloquent terms, what it means to be a progressive. In his budget speech last week, he spoke of our obligation to the broader community to provide a basic level of security and dignity. Speaking of programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, he said what every good progressive believes: “We would not be a great country without those commitments.”
e fused a defense of progressive governance with a scathing critique of Paul Ryan’s cruel budget, which all but four Republican House members have now voted for. And he demanded that the rich finally pay their fair share, vowing to let the Bush tax cuts expire. It was a powerful speech, in many ways reassuring to progressives who have been demoralized by a president who appeared missing in action.
But rhetoric and policy are not the same thing. And in this case, as in far too many, the policy agenda the president has laid out is not worthy of, in his words, “the America we believe in.”
Pamela Merritt: The Anti-Choice Movement: A Dangerous Place for African American Women
A racist, anti-choice billboard has been placed in my city, in a neighborhood less than 20 minutes from my home. Yeah, it’s hard to put into words just how disgusted and insulted I am.
In 2010 I had the honor of participating in the founding of the Trust Black Women Partnership, when I was invited to a meeting of women of color in Atlanta Georgia. Reproductive justice activists had recently defeated race-baiting anti-choice legislation that came on the heels of a billboard campaign that advertised “black children are an endangered species” and “the most dangerous place for an African-American baby is in the womb.” The Trust Black Women Partnership is a long-term strategy to ensure that black women can mobilize wherever such campaigns appear in African American communities, and to generate deeper discussions about black women’s autonomy and human rights. Instinct fueled me to action, since I knew my home state of Missouri was likely to see a similar campaign in the future. So, I returned home and immediately reached out to the reproductive justice community to share what we learned from the Georgia campaign and to organize women of color in St. Louis city and Missouri.
Supporters and opponents of abortion seem to agree: It’s no longer the law of the land.
Supporters and opponents of abortion agree on nothing. One side says this is a conversation about fertilized eggs; the other says it’s about fetuses. One side says the debate is about personal autonomy; the other says it’s about murder. One side sees exceptions to abortion restrictions for reasons of maternal life or health as necessary to protect life; the other sees them as cunning “loopholes.”
Increasingly, however, there is a fundamental assumption both sides seem to share, even if they don’t say so, and it may well shape the future of abortion rights in America: Opponents and supporters of abortion appear to have taken the position that Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land.
Laura Flanders: Demonizing Taxes, Heightening Inequality
Yesterday was Tax Day in the US, and that’s almost universally greeted with groans and complaints. That tax word’s been so effectively demonized that it may be there’s no coming back. Is it time for a new word?
Some research by Duke University’s Dan Ariely suggests it might be.
Ariely’s study showed that Americans actually want a more equitable society-in fact, they think they have one. When asked to identify their homeland from a list of nations described only by their level of equality–a majority of those polled picked Sweden, thinking it was the US. When asked to create their ideal society, Democrats, Republicans, men and women, the rich and the poor all created a distribution of wealth that is much more equal than the one we’ve got.
All that “social mobility, low inequality” stuff–Americans love it. They just don’t have it. In fact, social mobility here’s been shriveling, as the wealth gap’s been opening up.
Daphne Wysham: Obama’s Dirty Energy Fixation
As radioactivity levels continue to spike in Fukushima, Obama’s support for nuclear power is unwavering.
Just days after a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami unleashed a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, President Barack Obama signed a nuclear power cooperation agreement with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. Like Japan, Chile is seismically active. It suffered the sixth-most powerful earthquake–8.8–ever recorded on a seismograph only last year.
The irony of peddling nukes in an earthquake zone after a devastating nuclear accident was apparently lost on Obama.
A few weeks later, he called for lowering the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, as well as aiming to reduce it by one-third by 2025. But in the course of doing so, he perpetuated some tired ideas about what’s possible with our energy matrix.
Donna Smith: Why Is a Trump Bankruptcy (or Two) OK?
Donald Trump has benefited from bankruptcy twice. Donald Trump has grown his personal fortune following his two bankruptcies and now may run for President of the United States. Clearly, the rules for Donald Trump in the aftermath of bankruptcy are not the same as for the rest of us.
And is this what we want in terms of leadership for the nation? Someone who is smart enough to mow right over the realities the rest of us face when financial disaster looms? Someone who bellies up on hundreds of millions is better than someone like me who goes broke for want of several thousand dollars following medical crisis? My credit as a bankrupted person should be ruined forever and keep me from working some jobs or ever owning a home again while Donald Trump’s bankruptcies catapult him to the Presidency and great personal wealth and the building of Trump structures all over the country?
Ari Berman: Obama vs. Ryan: Who’s Winning the Deficit Debate?
Democratic strategists believe that House Republicans committed political suicide by voting to approve Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan last week. “When we win back the majority, people will look back at this vote as a defining one that secured the majority for Democrats,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel told Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent.
Obama skillfully framed Ryan’s budget during a major speech on the deficit earlier in the week, contrasting his vision of “shared sacrifice” with Ryan’s “deeply pessimistic” plan to gut the social safety net and redistribute income upwards. After a week of enjoying the limelight, the “bold” and “courageous” Mr. Ryan, an instant media darling, suddenly looked like something of a fool. Ryan complained that Obama had characterized his proposal as “basically it’s un-American.”
Ralph Nader: Waiting for the Spark
What could start a popular resurgence in this country against the abuses of concentrated, avaricious corporatism? Imagine the arrogance of passing on to already cheated working people and the jobless enormous corporate losses? This is achieved through government bailouts and tax escapes.
History teaches us that the spark usually is smaller than expected and of a nature that is wholly unpredictable or even unimaginable. But if the dry tinder is all around, as many deprivations and polls reveal, the spark, no matter how small, can turn into a raging inferno.
The Boston Tea Party lit up the American Revolution. Storming the hated Bastille (prison) by impoverished Parisians launched the French Revolution. More recently, in December 1997, an Israeli military vehicle rammed a civilian van in the West Bank killing seven occupants and igniting the first Intifada.
Mark Bittman: What’s Worse Than an Oil Spill?
A year ago, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, gushing nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before it was finally capped three months later. It was by most accounts a disaster. But when it comes to wrecking our oceans, the accidental BP spill was small compared with the damage we do with intent and ignorance.
I recently talked about this with two men who specialize in ocean affairs: Carl Safina, the author of “A Sea In Flames” and the president of the Blue Ocean Institute; and Ted Danson, (yes, that Ted Danson), who recently published Oceana (the book) and is a board member of Oceana, the conservation organization he helped found. As Safina said, “Many people believe the whole catastrophe is the oil we spill, but that gets diluted and eventually disarmed over time. In fact, the oil we don’t spill, the oil we collect, refine and use, produces CO2 and other gases that don’t get diluted.”
Apr 20 2011
So much goes over Beltway Access Bloggers heads that it’s genuinely hard to determine if they are morons or liars (with moron being the more charitable choice).
I find that a fitting introduction to Greg Sargent’s current piece.
New Washington Post/ABC News polling released this morning is unequivocal: There is strong across the board support for Obama’s policy preferences on the deficit.
And yet, in what appears to be an emerging pattern, that support is not matched by general approval of Obama’s handling of fiscal matters.
The poll finds that 72 percent overall, and 68 percent of independents, support hiking taxes on those over $250,000. Even 54 percent of Republicans support this.
Meanwhile, 65 percent say Medicare should remain as it is today and should not be transformed into a voucher program. Only 34 percent favor changing the program.
A solid majority, 59 percent, also supports a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts to reduce the deficit – the Dem approach – versus only 36 percent who support only cuts.
But only 39 percent approve of Obama’s handling of the deficit, versus 58 percent who disapprove. That’s better, but only marginally so, than the GOP’s 33-64 spread on the same question. And more say the GOP is taking a stronger leadership role than Obama, 45-40. This matches yesterday’s McClatchy poll, which found the same disconnect.
Either voters don’t know what Obama’s proposals are; or they do, but the GOP’s success in creating generalized anxiety about Dem overspending continues to dominate; or perhaps all views of Obama are colored by unease about the economy. Whatever the cause, closing this disconnect – translating support for Obama’s policies into confidence in his economic and fiscal leadership – is perhaps Obama’s central political challenge.
Zing! Obama’s central political challenge is that people know he’s a liar. He should stop lying.
Update: (h/t Think Progress)
Apr 20 2011
(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Why would anyone believe ratings or projections by the S&P or Moody’s after their part in crashing the economy?
Rather than assess risk accurately, two major rating agencies sold their top seals of approval to their investment bank clients, blessing products that the agencies themselves knew to be undeserving, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations concluded in a report released Wednesday. By repeatedly debasing their standards, these agencies helped banks sell shoddy securities to unsuspecting investors, inflating the value of assets that turned out to be worth far less, the report has found.
The senate panel, led by Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), levels a two-part charge against the rating agencies: Not only did these companies help inflate a dangerous bubble, the report says, but they also bear responsibility for popping it, as their abrupt downgrades of mortgage-linked securities in 2007 helped set off the panic that caused markets around the world to collapse.
Wall St. wants more austerity and and their puppets in Congress will help them every step of the way. So why should anyone take this seriously? Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars reminds that “the banks liked the recession”
You’d think, considering the part played by Standard and Poors, Moody’s and Fitch in
covering up these stinking piles of crapinadvertently rating mortgage derivatives as sound and crashing our economy, they would have the good grace to shut up and sit down.But since nothing happened to hold accountable any of these craven clowns, what possible incentive do they have to tell the truth? And what reason do we have to believe them? After all, they’ve already displayed their willingness to sell their ratings to the highest bidder.
Let me remind you that bankers actually like the recession. They like the falling wages and the weak job market. The only thing that really worries them is inflation, and only because it raises wages and depresses the value of their holdings. Don’t trust anything that comes out of their mouths, or the feckless minions who sell their souls to them.
No reason to believe them now.
Apr 20 2011
Duh.
Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
By Paul Bignell, The Independent
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.
The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as “highly inaccurate”. BP denied that it had any “strategic interest” in Iraq, while Tony Blair described “the oil conspiracy theory” as “the most absurd”.
…
The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP’s behalf because the oil giant feared it was being “locked out” of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”
The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts.
The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. Its minutes state: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”
War Crimes–
To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Accessory After The Fact–
An accessory after the fact is often not considered an accomplice but is treated as a separate offender. Such an offender is one who harbours, protects, or assists a person who has already committed an offense or is charged with committing an offense.
(h/t emptywheel)
Apr 20 2011
The DCCC’s Bad Ad Team
By: David Dayen
Tuesday April 19, 2011 12:59 pm
Why would you play this funny? Why give the message that old people are worthy of derision, essentially because they’re old? This looks like a really bad Super Bowl spot when the issue discussed is deadly serious. Republicans are claiming that the ad represents “scare tactics” but no, I could show you scare tactics. A closeup of a senior’s hand as she struggles in the last throes of life and then pulling out to reveal she’s laying on the middle of the sidewalk as white men in suits ignore her, that’s scare tactics. This looks like a GoDaddy ad.
Furthermore, it gets progressively worse. The lemonade stand shot is fine, but then you have the lawnmower riding played for laughs, with the jerk owner of the lawn telling the old man that he missed a spot. Still generally on point, but discordant; why is the focus on basically getting amusement out of the old man’s condition with the walker? And then there’s the strange third segment. When the bachelorettes come to the door, I have no idea what’s going on. The old guy is dressed like a firefighter, and given that the women are all screaming, it’s just as plausible at first glance that he’s moonlighting as a firefighter. Indeed that’s a concern in a world without Medicare; the elderly will extend their working days to keep a hold on their employer-provided health insurance. Only a few seconds later do you figure out that he’s a stripper, and are again told to laugh at the old man’s expense.
…
Even if this ad were funny, which it isn’t, the subject of the comedy is completely misplaced. Would an old person watching this and seeing people their age held up for ridicule have a better opinion of Democrats?But, you might say, they got the facts out. It says right there that Republicans voted to end Medicare. Who cares? The narrative of the story is generally a light one, where old people have to work demeaning jobs and we derive pleasure from that spectacle.
Obviously, one ad isn’t going to change people’s views on the subject; it isn’t going to change much of anything. But it strikes me as a missed opportunity to clarify the record. An ad that said “Republicans voted to end Medicare” over and over for 30 seconds would do the job better and you wouldn’t have to hire a septuagenarian who’s comfortable in a feather boa. In fact, I know it does, because the DNC ran that ad back in 2009.
So in addition to having contributions go to save the most conservative Blue Dogs in the most conservative districts in their re-election efforts, DCCC donors just paid for this, where the party takes a winning issue and inexplicably lampoons it.
Apr 20 2011
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.
April 20 is the 110th day of the year (111th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 255 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1939, Billie Holiday records the first Civil Rights song “Strange Fruit”.
“Strange Fruit” was written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all other regions of the United States. He set it to music and with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York venues, including Madison Square Garden.
The song has been covered by numerous artists, as well as inspiring novels, other poems and other creative works. In 1978 Holiday’s version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In the poem, Meeropol expressed his horror at lynchings, possibly after having seen Lawrence Beitler‘s photograph of the 1930 lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. He published the poem in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Though Meeropol/Allan had often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music, he set “Strange Fruit” to music himself. The piece gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York. Meeropol, his wife, and black vocalist Laura Duncan performed it at Madison Square Garden. (Meeropol and his wife later adopted Robert and Michael, sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage and executed by the United States.)
Barney Josephson, the founder of Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, New York’s first integrated nightclub, heard the song and introduced it to Billie Holiday. Other reports say that Robert Gordon, who was directing Billie Holiday’s show at Cafe Society, heard the song at Madison Square Garden and introduced it to her. Holiday first performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939. She said that singing it made her fearful of retaliation, but because its imagery reminded her of her father, she continued to sing it. She made the piece a regular part of her live performances. Because of the poignancy of the song, Josephson drew up some rules: Holiday would close with it; second, the waiters would stop all service in advance; the room would be in darkness except for a spotlight on Holiday’s face; and there would be no encore.
Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about the song, but the company feared reaction by record retailers in the South, as well as negative reaction from affiliates of its co-owned radio network, CBS. Even John Hammond, Holiday’s producer, refused. She turned to friend Milt Gabler, whose Commodore label produced alternative jazz. Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” for him a cappella, and moved him to tears. Columbia allowed Holiday a one-session release from her contract in order to record it. Frankie Newton’s eight-piece Cafe Society Band was used for the session. Because he was worried that the song was too short, Gabler asked pianist Sonny White to improvise an introduction. Consequently Holiday doesn’t start singing until after 70 seconds. Gabler worked out a special arrangement with Vocalion Records to record and distribute the song.
She recorded two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. “Strange Fruit” was highly regarded. In time, it became Holiday’s biggest-selling record. Though the song became a staple of her live performances, Holiday’s accompanist Bobby Tucker recalled that Holiday would break down every time after she sang it
Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
1303 – The University of Rome La Sapienza is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII.
1453 – The last naval battle in Byzantine history occurs, as three Genoese galleys escorting a Byzantine transport fight their way through the huge Ottoman blockade fleet and into the Golden Horn.
1526 – The last ruler of the Lodi Dynasty, Ibrahim Lodi was defeated and killed by Babur in the First Battle of Panipat.
1534 – Jacques Cartier begins the voyage during which he discovers Canada and Labrador.
1535 – The Sun Dog phenomenon observed over Stockholm and depicted in the famous painting “Vadersolstavlan”
1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.
1657 – Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
1657 – Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
1689 – The former King James II of England, now deposed, lays siege to Derry.
1770 – The Georgian king Erekle II, abandoned by his Russian ally Count Totleben, wins a victory over Ottoman forces at Aspindza.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.
1792 – France declares war on Austria, the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.
1809 – Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon I of France at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four day campaign which ended in a French victory.
1810 – The Governor of Caracas declares independence from Spain.
1818 – The case of Ashford v Thornton was concluded, with Abraham Thornton allowed to go free rather than face a retrial for murder, after his demand for trial by battle was upheld.
1828 – Rene Caillie becomes the first non-Muslim to enter Timbouctou.
1836 – U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
1861 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
1862 – Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the first pasteurization tests.
1865 – Astronomer Pietro Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX’s yacht, the L’Immaculata Concezion.
1871 – The Civil Rights Act of 1871 becomes law.
1876 – The April Uprising – a key point in the new Bulgarian history, leading to the Russo-Turkish War and the liberation of Bulgaria from ottoman slavery, as an independent part of the Ottoman Empire.
1884 – Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum Genus.
1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
1912 – Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
1914 – 19 men, women, and children die in the Ludlow Massacre during a Colorado coal-miner’s strike.
1916 – The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 in 11 innings
1918 – Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.
1926 – Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.
1939 – Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany
1939 – Billie Holiday records the first Civil Rights song “Strange Fruit”.
1945 – World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
1945 – World War II: Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
1961 – Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed troops against Cuba.
1964 – BBC Two launches with the power cut because of the fire at Battersea Power Station.
1968 – English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
1972 – Apollo 16 landed on the moon commanded by John Young.
1978 – Korean Air Flight 902 is shot down by Soviets.
1980 – Climax of Berber Spring in Algeria as hundreds of Berber political activists are arrested.
1984 – The Good Friday Massacre, an extremely violent ice hockey playoff game, is played in Montreal, Canada.
1985 – ATF raid on The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas.
1986 – Pianist Vladimir Horowitz performs in his native Russia for the first time in 61 years.
1998 – German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.
2007 – Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
2010 – Deepwater Horizon oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last five months.
* Christian Feast Day:
Agnes of Montepulciano
Blessed Oda of Brabant
Theotimos
April 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Ridvan begins at sunset (Bahá’í Faith)
* 4/20, a counter-cultural holiday involving the consumption of cannabis
Recent Comments