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.

March 13 is the 72nd day of the year (73rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 293 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1881. Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, is killed in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will, organized in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy. They murdered officials and made several attempts on the czar’s life before finally assassinating him on March 13, 1881.

Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of the Crimean War and, after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace, led by his trusted counsellor Prince Gorchakov. The country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war. Bribe-taking, theft and corruption were everywhere. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of radical reforms, including an attempt to not to depend on a landed aristocracy controlling the poor, a move to developing Russia’s natural resources and to thoroughly reform all branches of the administration.

Emancipation of the serfs

In spite of his obstinacy in playing the Russian autocrat, Alexander II acted willfully for several years, somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental type. Soon after the conclusion of peace, important changes were made in legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of limited liability companies. Plans were formed for building a great network of railways-partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its power for defence and attack.

The existence of serfdom was tackled boldly, taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces and, hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors), he authorised the formation of committees “for ameliorating the condition of the peasants”, and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected.

This step was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were formed.

But the emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukase. It contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and political future of the nation.

Alexander had to choose between the different measures recommended to him. Should the serfs become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should they be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors?

The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake off serfdom.

The architects of the emancipation manifesto were Alexander’s brother Konstantin, Yakov Rostovtsev, and Nikolay Milyutin.

On 3 March 1861, 6 years after his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published.

 1138 – Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected Antipope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II.

1639 – Harvard College is named for clergyman John Harvard.

1781 – William Herschel discovers Uranus.

1809 – Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden is deposed in a coup d’ètat.

1845 – Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto receives its premèire performance in Leipzig with Ferdinand David as soloist.

1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agree to the use of African American troops.

1881 – Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. (Gregorian date: it was March 1 in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia.)

1884 – The Siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins, ending on January 26, 1885.

1897 – San Diego State University is founded.

1900 – Second Boer War: British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State.

1920 – The Kapp Putsch briefly ousts the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.

1921 – Mongolia, under Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, declares its independence from China.

1925 – Scopes Trial: A law in Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.

1930 – The news of the discovery of Pluto is telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.

1933 – Great Depression: Banks in the U.S. begin to re-open after President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandates a “bank holiday”.

1938 – World News Roundup is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio in the United States.

1938 – Anschluss of Austria to the Third Reich.

1940 – The Russo-Finnish Winter War ends.

1943 – World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.

1943 – The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.

1954 – Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh forces attack the French.

1957 – Cuban student revolutionaries storm the presidential palace in Havana in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista.

1962 – Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a proposal, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks upon Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The proposal is scrapped and President John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position.

1964 – American Kitty Genovese is murdered, reportedly in view of neighbors who did nothing to help her, prompting research into the bystander effect.

1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.

1979 – The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts Prime Minister Eric Gairy in a nearly bloodless coup d’etat in Grenada.

1988 – The Seikan Tunnel, the longest undersea tunnel in the world, opens between Aomori and Hakodate, Japan.

1991 – The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

1992 – An earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale kills over 500 in Erzincan, eastern Turkey.

1996 – Dunblane massacre: in Dunblane, Scotland, 16 Primary School children and 1 teacher are shot dead by a spree killer, Thomas Watt Hamilton who then committed suicide.

1997 – The Phoenix lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.

2003 – Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy.

2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

         o Euphrasia of Constantinople

         o Gerald of Mayo

         o Leander of Seville

         o Leticia

         o Nicephorus

         o Roderick

         o Sabinus of Hermopolis

   * Kasuga Matsuri (Kasuga Grand Shrine, Nara, Japan)

Remember all those safe, clean, cheap nuclear energy ads from the 50s, 60s and 70s?

Here’s one from Westinghouse circa 2007 ——>

Connecticut has 2 active units, Millstone 3 happens to be a Westinghouse reactor.  It’s licensed to operate until 2045.

Makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Partial Meltdowns Presumed at Crippled Reactors

By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times

Published: March 13, 2011

TOKYO – Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a widening nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors and that they were bracing for a second explosion, even as they faced serious cooling problems at four more reactors.

…

On Saturday, Japanese officials took the extraordinary step of flooding the crippled No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 170 miles north of Tokyo, with seawater in a last-ditch effort to avoid a nuclear meltdown. That came after an explosion caused by hydrogen that tore the outer wall and roof off the building housing the reactor, although the steel containment of the reactor remained in place.

Then on Sunday, cooling failed at a second reactor – No. 3 – and core melting was presumed at both, said the top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. An explosion could also rock the No. 3 reactor, Mr. Edano warned, because of a buildup of hydrogen within the reactor.

…

Officials also said they would release steam and inject water into a third reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after temperatures rose and water levels fell around the fuel rods.

Cooling had failed at three reactors at a nuclear complex nearby, Fukushima Daini, although he said conditions there were considered less dire for now.

Crisis Underscores Fears About Safety of Nuclear Energy

By NORIMITSU ONISHI, HENRY FOUNTAIN and TOM ZELLER Jr., The New York Times

Published: March 12, 2011

Critics of nuclear energy have long questioned the viability of nuclear power in earthquake-prone regions like Japan. Reactors have been designed with such concerns in mind, but preliminary assessments of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents suggested that too little attention was paid to the threat of tsunami. It appeared that the reactors withstood the powerful earthquake, but the ocean waves damaged generators and backup systems, harming the ability to cool the reactors.

It was not until Sunday that the increasingly dangerous nature of the problems at Daiichi became clear. But even on Saturday, with Reactor No. 1 there having suffered a radiation leak and an explosion, James M. Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the nuclear industry would be shaken. While Japan may try to point to the safety of its newer facilities, concerns may run too deep, he said. Decades ago, after the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, Mr. Acton said, the nuclear industry tried to argue that newer reactors incorporated much better safety features. “That made very little difference to the public,” he said.

…

Over the years, Japanese plant operators, along with friendly government officials, have sometimes hidden episodes at plants from a public increasingly uneasy with nuclear power.

In 2007, an earthquake in northwestern Japan caused a fire and minor radiation leaks at the world’s largest nuclear plant, in Kashiwazaki City. An ensuing investigation found that the operator – Tokyo Electric – had unknowingly built the facility directly on top of an active seismic fault. A series of fires inside the plant after the earthquake deepened the public’s fear. But Tokyo Electric said it upgraded the facility to withstand stronger tremors and reopened in 2009.

Last year, another reactor with a troubled history was allowed to reopen, 14 years after a fire shut it down. The operator of that plant, the Monju Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, located along the coast about 220 miles west of Tokyo, tried to cover up the extent of the fire by releasing altered video after the accident in 1995.

“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”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Ms. Amanpour will be reporting live from Japan.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Chairman, Homeland Security Committee and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Homeland Security Committee.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, David Ignatius, The Washington Post

Columnist, David Brooks, The New York Times Columnist and Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent who will discuss these questions:

Can Any GOP Candidate Beat President Obama At His Own Game of Hope?

Will Republicans Successfully Cut Off Funds For PBS and NPR?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Mike Todd, NBC’s White House correspondent will be hosting for Mr. Gregory this week. The guests will be Japan’s Ambassador to the US, Ichiro  Fujisaki to discuss the disaster in Japan, also, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel and Sen Chuck Schumer, (D-NY).

At the roundtable the panel will be: Political reporter for The Washington Post, Dan Balz, and host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Michele Norris who will be joined by nuclear reactor expert, Michael Norris

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) will discuss the break down a budget battle that seems no closer to resolution than it did at the last deadline two weeks ago with up dates on the Japan disaster.

Fareed Zakaris:GPS: According to Fareed’s Tweets, there will be discussion about the situation in Libya with experts on the region

Maureen Dowd: In Search of Monsters

Paul Wolfowitz has lost the right to be moral arbiter on matters of war. He just doesn’t know it. comment icon

The Iraq war hawks urging intervention in Libya are confident that there’s no way Libya could ever be another Iraq.

Of course, they never thought Iraq would be Iraq, either.

All President Obama needs to do, Paul Wolfowitz asserts, is man up, arm the Libyan rebels, support setting up a no-fly zone and wait for instant democracy.

It’s a cakewalk.

Pierre Tristam: Peter King’s Muslim McCarthyism

New York Congressman Peter King’s so-called homeland security hearing on Muslim radicalization should surprise no one. We’ve been at war with Islam abroad for 10 years. It’s amazing it’s taken this long for the xenophobia and hate-mongering to be elevated to heroic status on Capitol Hill, where even the fringe the notion of Barack Obama as a Muslim fifth columnist still has currency. It’s all part of a long American tradition, rich in blood and bile.

This is a country partly built on the genocidal eradication of the Indian, on the enslavement of blacks for 300 years and the terrorizing and demonizing of blacks for another hundred. At the turn of the last century it was the “Yellow Peril” that led Congress to ban Asian immigration. In the 1920s, at a time when Jews were openly barred from colleges, clubs, restaurants and neighborhoods, Henry Ford was devoting page after page of his Michigan newspaper to battling what he perceived as the threat of Jewish radicalization in America, and dreaming of the day when the country would be cleansed of them. That was just warm-up for the mass hysteria of the 1950s when it was feared that Soviet communists, who had trouble keeping a light bulb functioning properly in Russia, would overrun the United States thanks to a few well-placed “infiltrators.” The Soviet threat has become the Muslim threat.

Nicholas D. Kristof: Pay Teachers More

Remember when public schools paid almost as well as law firms?

From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid.

That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.

Michelle Chen: Union Battleground Shifts From Wisconsin to Ohio-and Ballot Box

The movement has been set back for now, but the standoff in Madison captured labor’s political imagination. Although the Republicans have cynically used the “nuclear option” to ram through the anti-union bill, the battleground will now just shift to other states.

Ohio lawmakers are mulling a bill similar to Wisconsin’s, which would restrain the collective bargaining rights of some 360,000 state and local employees.

Ohio does not need as many votes for a quorum. This means Democrats cannot hold up the voting process by going AWOL, as they did in Wisconsin and are still doing in Indiana (where unions are fighting proposals to further erode union rights and public education). But in Ohio’s case, Madison-style people power could be deployed in a more concrete way, according to some lawmakers. House minority leader Armond Budish told Bloomberg News that even if the bill initially passes, he and other Democrats will mobilize citizens to thwart the legislation through other channels, through public pressure and perhaps ultimately, the ballot box.

David Sirota: From Charlie Sheen to Reagan nostalgia, the ’80s just won’t go away

Charlie Sheen is hogging the spotlight. “Tron” and “Wall Street” have just left theaters. Moammar Gaddafi is the planet’s top bad guy. Millionaires are enjoying budget-busting tax cuts. Conservatives are saber-rattling against Iran. Bon Jovi is on tour. And Ronald Reagan tributes are everywhere.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think we’d all just stepped out of a 1.21 gigawatt-powered DeLorean and right back into the 1980s.

And in some ways, we have. This collective deja vu moment is part coincidence, part commodified nostalgia and part impulse to rehash successful old political and entertainment brands. But the similarities between today and the 1980s also reflect a country now run by those who came of age in that decade – people whose worldviews were molded by an era that began with a Chrysler bailout and ended with foreign students protesting dictatorship in a distant square.

Japanese nuclear plants’ operator scrambles to avert meltdowns



By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, March 13, 2011; 12:29 AM

Japanese authorities said Sunday that efforts to restart the cooling system at one of the reactors damaged by Friday’s earthquake had failed, a major setback in the struggle to contain what has become the most serious nuclear power crisis in a quarter century.

Officials said utility workers released “air containing radioactive materials” in an effort to relieve pressure inside the reactor, even as they raced to bring several other imperiled reactors under control.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said officials were acting on the assumption that a meltdown could be underway at that reactor, Fukushima Daiichi’s unit 3, and that it was “highly possible” that a meltdown was underway at Fukushima Daiichi’s unit 1 reactor, where an explosion destroyed a building a day earlier.

Gaddafi’s men poised to strike at Benghazi

Rebels’ failings and lack of support have sent them into retreat.  

By Kim Sengupta in El Agheila, Libya Sunday, 13 March 2011

A strategic town is lost in the east with another expected to follow soon. In the west, a symbolic centre of resistance is about to suffer an onslaught that it is unlikely to survive. With no international action to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s fierce offensive, the survival of Libya’s revolution hangs in a precarious balance.

Just four days ago the picture was very different: the rebel fighters were seemingly on a march to the capital, Tripoli, and the enemy was in disarray and retreat. But a series of misjudgements, and chronic lack of planning and organisation, have resulted in a dramatic reversal. The regime’s troops are poised to strike at Benghazi, the capital of “Free Libya”.

Quake shifted rotation of the Earth



Cameron Houston

March 13, 2011

AS THE task of rescuing survivors moves into top gear, scientists and geologists are struggling to comprehend the scale and impact of Friday’s earthquake that destroyed large areas of northern Japan.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake shifted the Earth’s rotation axis by about 25 centimetres, which could literally change time.

Only after centuries would a second be lost as each day is shortened by a millionth of a second, according to University of Toronto geology professor Andrew Miall.

Advertisement: Story continues below

”Ten inches [25 centimetres] sounds like quite a lot when you hold a ruler in front of you.

Egypt to lift restrictions on political parties



CAIRO, EGYPT – Mar 13 2011 07:53

It is the latest political reform push following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last month in a popular uprising.

A military official said on Saturday that the restrictions on establishing political parties would be lifted after a referendum next week on constitutional changes to allow for fair parliamentary and presidential elections.

The official said new political parties will only need to notify authorities. Under Mubarak, they had to apply to a committee dominated by the ruling party, which ensured his control over rivals.

The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Venice residents claim victory in battle to preserve the city’s heritage

Activists defeat development that would have shut Rialto bridge fish market – and pledge to reverse decline of city in thrall to tourism

Tom Kington Rome

The Observer, Sunday 13 March 2011  

After a remarkable week, Michela Scibilia is breathing a sigh of relief. The Venetian activist has been at the forefront of a successful battle to safeguard the future of one of the city’s best loved institutions, the fish market at the foot of the Rialto bridge where locals have shopped for their food for 1,000 years.

“If the people who still live here are going to protect this city, we have to pull together, and I think that’s finally happening,” said the head of the growing residents’ association 40xVenezia.

It was a victory that will pass unnoticed by the millions of tourists who visit Venice every year, but that does not diminish its significance for locals. “They understood we were serious,” said Scibilia, 44, a graphic designer and mother of two. “We are standing firm against all choices made without consulting Venetians first.” And last week’s victory was just a start, they claim.

SDF in full disaster deployment; U.S. military pitches in

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Kyodo News

The Self-Defense Forces swung into full action Saturday, less than 24 hours after the most powerful earthquake in the nation’s recorded history caused devastating tsunami in northeastern Japan.

All available SDF resources, including personnel, vehicles, aircraft and vessels, were mobilized for rescue and other efforts in areas hit by the quake and tsunami.

At a meeting of the government’s antidisaster countermeasure headquarters, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the government would increase the number of SDF personnel detailed for rescue efforts to about 50,000.

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

After an earthquake that has now been upgraded by Japanese officials to a magnitude 9.0, with a tsunami that has devastated the northeastern region of the main island of Japan, it is now becoming evident that there are two nuclear reactors that may be in meltdown which would be a nuclear disaster on an unimaginable scale. The Japanese government has ordered the evacuation of nearly a quarter of a million people from the area and state of emergency has been declared for the area because of the damage to five nuclear reactors after two of the units lost cooling ability.

Japanese Scramble to Avert Meltdowns as Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake

TOKYO – Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a widening nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors and that they were facing serious cooling problems at three more.

The emergency appeared to be the worst involving a nuclear plant since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago. The developments at two separate nuclear plants prompted the evacuation of more than 200,000 people. Japanese officials said they had also ordered up the largest mobilization of their Self-Defense Forces since World War II to assist in the relief effort.

On Saturday, Japanese officials took the extraordinary step of flooding the crippled No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 170 miles north of Tokyo, with seawater in a last-ditch effort to avoid a nuclear meltdown.

Then on Sunday, cooling failed at a second reactor – No. 3 – and core melting was presumed at both, said the top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. Cooling had failed at three reactors at a nuclear complex nearby, Fukushima Daini, although he said conditions there were considered less dire for now.

Japanese authorities rush to save lives, avert nuclear crisis

Sendai, Japan (CNN) — Japanese authorities are operating on the presumption that possible meltdowns are under way at two nuclear reactors, two days after a massive earthquake, a government official said Sunday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano added, however, that there have been no indications yet of hazardous emissions of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

The attempts to avert a possible nuclear crisis, centered on the Fukushima Daiichi facility in northeast Japan, came as rescuers frantically scrambled to find survivors following the country’s strongest-ever earthquake and a devastating tsunami that, minutes later, brought crushing walls of water that wiped out nearly everything in their paths.

Edano told reporters there is a “possibility” of a meltdown at the plant’s No. 1 reactor, adding, “It is inside the reactor. We can’t see.” He then said authorities are also “assuming the possibility of a meltdown” at the facility’s No. 3 reactor.

How the Japan Earthquake Shortened Days on Earth

The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan Friday (March 11) has shortened the length Earth’s day by a fraction and shifted how the planet’s mass is distributed.

A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth’s spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Gross refined his estimates of the Japan quake’s impact – which previously suggested a 1.6-microsecond shortening of the day – based on new data on how much the fault that triggered the earthquake slipped to redistribute the planet’s mass. A microsecond is a millionth of a second.

“By changing the distribution of the Earth’s mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused the Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds,” Gross told SPACE.com in an e-mail. More refinements are possible as new information on the earthquake comes to light, he added.  

Japan Earthquake Alters Coast Line, Changes Earth’s Axis

Geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey, told CNN that the quake moved part of Japan’s land mass by nearly 2.5 meters.

Experts say that the huge shake, caused by a shift in the tectonic plates deep underwater, also threw the earth off its axis point by at least 8 centimeters.

This is may well be worse than Chernobyl by magnitudes.

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Six In The Morning by mishima

Featured Essays for March 12, 2011-

• The Comforters: A Review by cabaretic
• Fucking Fripp, Asia bound. by Compound F
• Illustration of Michael Moore’s Stat About Inequality by Jacob Freeze
• Let them eat iPad by joeshwingding
• Still a "Fierce Advocate" by ek hornbeck
• Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Meltdown by RiaD
• Popular Culture (Music) 20110311: The Zombies by Translator
• Let It Be by TheMomCat

DocuDharma

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Some people say they were brother and sister, Susano-O and Amaterasu. Other people say they were meant to be husband and wife. One thing, however, was clear. They rarely agreed on even the smallest thing, and so could never tolerate the presence of the other for very long.

    And yet, despite their many differences, there was a very close bond between them, which brought them together again and again. Here is the story of one such meeting.

   The shining sun Goddess Amaterasu had a brother, Susanoo, lord of storms and of the sea.

   Susanoo was an uncontrollable man, often given to violence. When he quarreled with his sister, Susanoo lifted up Amaterasu’s beloved pony and threw it at Amaterasu and her priestesses.

   Amaterasu was so angry that she hid in the cave called Iwayado, and there was no warmth or light upon the Earth.

   The other Kami, or Goddesses and Gods, tried to lure Amaterasu out of her cave, but her anger still burned, and she refused to come out. Ame-no-Uzume, the Kami of joy, knew what to do. She placed a mirror near the entrance of the cave. Then, she did a bawdy dance, which made all of the other Kami roar with laughter. Amaterasu was still angry at her brother, the Kami of the stormy sea, but she wanted to know what made everyone laugh. She crept to the edge of the cave and peeked out at Ame-no-Uzume and, angry as she was, Amaterasu had to laugh. In that moment, a ray of her sunlight escaped from the dark cave and reflected in the mirror. Amaterasu saw her own lovely face and could no longer remain angry. She returned to the world, bringing sunlight and warmth.

May the Japanese people be soon back under Amaterasu’s warm glowing light.

h/t Hecate

(midnight. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Regular Daily Features:

Rise in the spotlight in Late Night Karaoke, mishima DJs

Gha!

Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!

                Six Days a Week!!!    at Six in the Morning!!!!

Essays Featured Saturday, March 12^th:

Popular Culture from Translator: The Zombies

Saturday Open Thoughts is a piggie update from Alma (welcome back Alma!)

Saturday Art! is a re-promotion of a little insight into the work from mishima‘s talented hands:

About The Pictures I Draw

Youffraita has a little something Just For Fun: Wanda Sykes

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Reactor Meltdown and

seriously stolen from RiaD

join the conversation! come firefly-dreaming with me….

What a crappy, if prolific week:  A (hopefully temporary) set back in Wisconsin. Violence in Libya.  An earthquake and tsunami and nuclear emergency in Japan.  Bad, winter weather, flooding and power outages, in Eastern New York and New England.  Your bloguero is about ready to push back from the keyboard and run away to join the nearest circus.  Maybe he could be the elephants’ poopsmith.  Although there are signs of Spring’s arrival (redwing blackbirds, March Madness, the first buds), your bloguero’s seasonal affective grumpiness (SAG) continues unabated.  He needs to see the first crocus.  Not a green stem.  No.  An actual, honest to goodness flower.  And he needs it badly.

The week ended on Saturday with a sad memorial, For Mike, the husband of our sister Port Writers Alliance bloguera, Diane.  She and her family are in our thoughts and prayers.  She has our condolences.

The weekend also brought your bloguero the recognition that things aren’t over in Madison, Wisconsin.  No, not at all.  It’s not the end, it’s the beginning of movement.  And, of course, MSNBC got it all wrong.  Wisconsin: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over points out the Trad Media outlet’s folly of pessimism.  Stooges .

The devastation in Japan brought your bloguero to prayer.  There didn’t seem to be anything else that could be done.  Kyrie Eleison For Japan is Christian, Jewish and Buddhist, a prayer for those suffering in Japan in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency.  Even if you don’t pray, please keep these people in your thoughts and do what you can to be of help to them.

Six Town Court Haikus, are as the title says, six haikus your bloguero wrote while wearing his lawyer clothes and sitting in an unnamed Town Court somewhere in Upstate New York, waiting for justice to be done.  For years and years, lawyers and politicians have tried to eliminate these small, formerly justice of the peace courts to no avail.  The New York Times has criticized them regularly.  Is there an outcry?  Crickets.

The night when Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate acted on their pronounced willingness to do the bidding of the Koch Brothers rather than the citizens and pulled a fast one on the electorate led your bloguero to write On Wisconsin!.  Your bloguero sees this maneuver as a temporary setback, and one that will lead to a real people’s movement.  Maybe your bloguero should thank the Wisconsin Republicans.  Not very forking likely.

Any time you can get an alligator and gerbil into the same poem, you’re doing ok.  Haiku For March does just that.

Your bloguero noted the passing of Moacyr Scliar, who invented the plot for Life of Pi, in which a person and a tiger are together alone in the same small boat, and Alberto Granado, who accompanied Che Guevara on his motorcycle trip.

And your bloguero reminded his six readers of that Saturday’s demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin in Solidarity With Wisconsin’s Workers.  At the time, your bloguero had no hint that Governor Koch-head had a plan to steal the cheese (and the workers’ right to bargain collectively) and would appear later in the week to be running the Wisconsin government as if it were a game of 3-card Monty.

And the week began with hope, the first sign that just maybe, Winter was on it’s way out. At Last: A Hint Of Spring noted the arrival of the first redwing blackbird.

Your bloguero also notes that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning.  Yes, he knows it’s still Saturday (again).  But your bloguero wants to go to the drum circle on Sunday morning and beat his brains out.  See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.  No drum circle next weekend.  🙁