“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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Ms. Amanpour will take a look at Education in the classroom and lunchroom. Her guests will include: Education Secretary Arne Duncan, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers; and Bringing a Food Revolution to America’s Schools with Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This week Mr. Schieffer’s will have a exclusive with Joe Miller, Candidate for Senate in Alaska. His other guests will include Rep. Kendrick Meek, Florida Democratic Senate Nominee, Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour, Chairman, Republican Governors Association and Fla. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC Vice Chair.

The Chris Matthews Show: Heading up discussion with Mr. Matthews will be Joe Klein, TIME Columnist, Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent and Reihan Salam, The Atlantic Associate Editor. The questions that will be discussed are Who Gains from the Divisions in the Country? and Will The Right Stuff For The GOP This Year Actually Help Obama in 2012?.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: In a special live edition from New Orleans on the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Meet the Press will be hosted by Brian Wiliams, NBC’s anchor for Nightly News. He will speak with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. He will also interview actor Brad Pitt, founder of the Make It Right Foundation and the effort to build 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the neighborhood closest to the levee breach, the Lower 9th Ward. Mr. Williams will host a discussion with New Orleans native, a star of HBO’s “Treme”, President of the Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corporation, Wendell Pierce, Long-time New Orleans journalist and Host of WWL-Radio’s “Think Tank”, Garland Robinette and historian, former Professor at Tulane University and author of “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast”, Douglas Brinkley.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: The housing crisis is the topic with guest host Ed Henry talks with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan about the state of the anemic housing market and the struggling economy.

Then how are states coping at a local level, we’ll look at Florida, one of the hardest hit states, with two Florida Senate candidates Gov. Charlie Crist (I) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D).

Finally, what does this all mean? CNN’s Ali Velshi joins us to break it all down.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS:

Are China and the U.S. on a collision course? Is a confrontation inevitable? No, we’re not talking about economies here. This is about militaries. China is busy beefing up its navy, buying new ships and weapons. What does it all mean for the world’s biggest superpower – the U.S.? Geo-strategist Robert Kaplan tells us the answer and explains why the South China Sea will soon be the most important place on earth.

Then, What in the World? Do you know the significance of the number 311? It’s not just a phone number any more. It might be a key number for reducing America’s nuclear arsenal.

And is the Internet really dead as Wired Magazine claims? Is it really making us dumber? Internet guru Clay Shirky on the state of technology in our culture today…and what the future will bring.

Then, is there a bright side to the recession? Author and economist Richard Florida on the change that always comes with economic crisis…and the good things that he thinks will come out of this one.

And finally, the Last Look: the next big idea in military fashion.

Queen Noor of Jordan: Ramadan Lessons for All of Humanity

   

True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west — but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance — however much he himself may cherish — it — upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God. (2:177 [Asad])

In a sense this beautiful verse is its own commentary, and for a Muslim these exhortations are among the most familiar commandments in their religious life. It is one of those verses where several strands of the Quran’s teachings interlace. Each phrase, taken alone, repeats an idea that is found throughout Islam’s sacred text, and taken together they form a kind of summary of the teachings of Islam.

It is from passages such as this one that Muslims find their main articles of faith: belief in the one God, the Day of Judgment and the Hereafter, the existence of the angels, revelation in the form of sacred books, and the messengers and prophets who have borne that revelation to humanity from Adam until the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon them all.

Ramadan is the holiest month of the Islamic year. We observe it this year against a backdrop of intensifying global human suffering, caused by economic hardship, human rights abuses, military conflict and terrorism, and the rapidly multiplying disastrous consequences of climate change. Muslims have an opportunity to use the days of this month as God intended: to reflect on our own humanity and our collective duty towards our fellow human beings. True religion isn’t built of the manifestations of piety through prayer — turning faces towards the east or west — but requires good deeds and action that manifest and express the essential values of our faith.

Janet Napolitano: Improving America’s Disaster Response

As we approach the fifth anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it’s important to note how far our nation has come in improving our ability to respond to and recover from disasters and the progress we’ve made in helping our Gulf Coast recover from one of the worst natural disasters in our country’s history.

Since taking office, the Obama administration has made Gulf Coast rebuilding a top priority. Over the past 20 months, we’ve obligated more than $2.5 billion in funding for new schools and universities, fire houses, police stations, and critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, hospitals and public health assets across the Gulf.

Kathleen Sebelius: Strengthening the Gulf’s Health-Care Infrastructure for Generations to Come

We can’t look back on the five years since Hurricane Katrina ripped through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama’s Gulf Coast communities without recognizing the extraordinary determination of the people who live there. When the wind subsided and the clouds cleared, more than 1,800 people had lost their lives, and property damage was as high as $75 billion. But folks rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Our job at the Department of Health and Human Services was to make sure the health system was there for them. There are families who have called the Gulf region home for generations, and they aim to call it home for generations to come. That’s why this Department worked quickly in the immediate aftermath of the storm to provide emergency services and supplies to the region, and it’s why we have set out to rebuild the health-care infrastructure to meet Gulf communities’ long-term medical needs.

Earlier this week, we announced an additional $25 million in newly-approved funding for rebuilding projects in Louisiana and Mississippi, the latest in a series of Gulf Coast recovery projects. These resources are helping revitalize communities, cut through red tape, and get long-delayed construction projects off the ground.

Glenn Greenwald: Racial and ethnic exploitation of economic insecurity

Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, today:

 

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama’s social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.

Yahoo! News, August 12, 2010:

 

A new CNN poll has found that most Americans think gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married. . . . As polling-statistics blogger Nate Silver points out, the margin of error [as well as the poll’s status as the first to find majority approval] means we can’t assume that a majority of Americans support gay marriage, but it is “no longer safe to say that opposition to same-sex marriage is the majority position . . . . “

That particular factual inaccuracy, which I am 100% certain will never be corrected by the Post, is the least of the problems with Krauthammer’s column today.  Above all else, he seeks to delegitimize concerns over the Right’s intensifying use of racially and ethnically divisive tactics as nothing more than the last refuge of a Democratic Party which, he argues, espouses unpopular policies and thus has no means of winning an election other than by falsely accusing its opponents of bigotry.

Joe Conanson: Our new welfare queens, the undeserving unemployed

Economic punditry on the right offers an insidious meme: The jobless are scamming, so why extend benefits?

Neither party has advanced a sufficiently ambitious plan to stimulate the economy and put Americans back to work, but only the Republicans have argued against extending federal assistance to the unemployed. Loud voices among them — notably those of Sharron Angle and Rand Paul — think the jobless are “spoiled” and that there are plenty of jobs for those who are willing to work.

Such ideas are akin to the view that dinosaurs coexisted with humans or that global warming will prove beneficial. But the urge to demonize the unemployed is so powerful on the right that even conservatives who understand the grim realities perfectly well cannot resist it.

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Glen Ford writing at Black Agenda Report said on Wednesday “We Are Cornered: There’s No Way Out Without A Fight”: “Obama and his Democratic legislative allies have successfully shielded their Wall Street masters from anything worthy of the name financial reform.”, and “The pace of finance capital deterioration quickens, accelerating the timetable of the Right’s offensive. As the hunger grows, Wall Street’s servants become more aggressive and demanding, and there is nothing in the Democratic Party, as presently constituted, to stop them.”

Ford closed his essay with: “One truth remains: only a massed people can defeat massed capital. If the American Left is capable of bearing that in mind in the critical times ahead, it might just escape the cul-de-sac and make some modest contribution to the world.”

Robert Scheer noted on Tuesday:

It is Obama’s continued deference to the sensibilities of the financiers and his relative indifference to the suffering of ordinary people that threaten his legacy, not to mention the nation’s economic well-being. There have been more than 300,000 foreclosure filings every single month that Obama has been president, and as The New York Times editorialized, “Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the Obama administration’s efforts to address the foreclosure problem will make an appreciable dent.”

The ugly reality that only 398,198 mortgages have been modified to make the payments more reasonable can be traced to the program being based on the hope that the banks would do the right thing. While Obama continued the Bush practice of showering the banks with bailout money, he did not demand a moratorium on foreclosures or call for increasing the power of bankruptcy courts to force the banks, which created the problem, to now help distressed homeowners.

…foreclosures are behind Tuesday’s news that U.S. home sales reached their lowest point in 15 years and that there is unlikely to be an economic recovery without a dramatic turnabout in the housing market. The stock market tanked Tuesday on reports that U.S. home sales had dropped 25.5 percent below the year-ago level.

— Foreclosure

Ford is right about many things, but Ford is wrong about one thing.

There is more than one truth.

There is a enormous and powerful difference between millions of people not voting for a particular party, and millions of people saying loud and clear to that party: “we guarantee will give you millions of votes, more than enough to tip the scale…… once you have done a or b or c or d or any combination of those things, and as soon as we see that you’ve done that you can relax in the confidence that you have won even before election day arrives, otherwise you’ve already lost and you might as well tell your corporate donors now that their money has been pissed away for absolutely nothing and that you were an utter and pathetic waste of their time, and quit campaigning”.

It takes planning, and it takes a determination to make decisions not out of fear but out of the power and leverage you know you have, but have only if you use it.

The best that can happen with this approach is beyond your wildest dreams, and the worst that can happen with this is that if nobody else does it while you do you won’t be defending yourself after the fact for having voted for people who could have done their jobs but wouldn’t.

The majority of responses that message draws from Democrats boil down to “but… but… republicans!!!”

Much of the remainder of the responses it draws are some attempt to justify “give them more time”, to justify waiting on a supposedly incrementally arrived at ultimate reward at some undefined future date that continually recedes, like heaven, after death.

The Democrats won the 2006 midterms effectively by running on an end the Iraq war platform. The first major thing they did afterwards was to betray the voters with the first emergency supplemental war funding passed by a democratic congress after eight years of Repblican congressional control. The result was a folding of hands by the fake democratic antiwar movement who showed themselves to be really only interested in democratic wins, but not in progressive results.

The incrementalists have already lost all the ground they were afraid of losing while the Democrats have had years to “incrementalize” their way into producing good progressive results. They haven’t done so, and the result is now an effectively Republican and corporatist congress and president who are Democrats in name only.

That Democrats are politicians, and being politicians will do whatever it takes to win the votes they need means that the fear of republicans or the fear of losing ground is a phantom fear if enough people threaten all Democrats with extreme loss of votes unless and until they all realize that they will all face political oblivion unless they all band together and do something useful to win those votes back, which they will do because they are politicians and they need those votes to survive politically.

It’s an eyeball to eyeball poker game right down to election day, and it cannot be a bluff from the voters.

People have to be strong enough to say to the Democrats, “Look, if you’re going to ACT like republicans then we’re going to let republicans have your jobs you fools – now get busy and PRODUCE some useful progressive legislation or you’re history. Come back when you’ve produced, and I guarantee you my vote” – and mean it.

All Democrats, being politicians, will do it for the votes they need, and if on the off chance they’re too stupid to do it then they aren’t worth your vote anyway.

It’s called voting for results instead of promises.

In the face of a movement of millions of poeple, more than enough to tip the electoral balance, Obama and the Democrats will finally wake up and realize they need the independent and liberal votes they’ve thrown away since inauguration day last year, and that all the corporate donations in the world aren’t going to save them without those votes, and start producing some useful progressive legislation and pass it in time for the midterms.

They could have independents and liberals all across the country rewarding them for results instead of turning their backs on empty promises and the largest landslides in history this November with just a few simple moves.

Creating and passing an actual, real, universal single payer health care bill and rolling back the bailout of the insurance industry for example might do it all by itself, for example.

Although they could probably sew it right up it for themselves by also starting torture and war crimes trials for Bush and Cheney, while withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and breaking up the big Wall Street investment banks and doing Ken Lay numbers on Goldman Sachs‘ Lloyd Blankfein and Magnetar‘s Alec Litowitz, while firing Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and Rahm Emanuel, and Robert Gibbs too.

They’ve got two whole months, after all.

Democrats are smart people. They should be at least half as smart as all those independent and progressives who won’t vote for them unless they begin to do those things.

After all, Obama and the Democrats can’t possibly be stupid enough to actually believe that independents and liberals are stupid enough to to vote to continue being screwed by them, can they?

And really, all they really need to do is start just one of those things and the republicans would be history in November.

This is not a sport we’re talking about. It is, however, the future of America, and a choice of who rules it. Bought and paid for politicians. Or voters.

The Democrats would hate you for saving their asses this fall.

There is an election coming up…

“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse… Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature would be on the contract”.

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

August 28 is the 240th day of the year (241st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 125 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King addressed the crowds assembled on the Washington Mall from the steps at the Lincoln Memorial. His speech, “I have a Dream”, is forever embedded in history and our memories as one of the great moments in the fight for civil rights. But there were many other speakers, and in particular one great performance by the “Queen of Gospel”, Mahalia Jackson. Right before Dr. King spoke, Ms. Jackson performed “How I Got Over”.

Indeed, if Martin Luther King, Jr., had a favorite opening act, it was Mahalia Jackson, who performed by his side many times. On August 28, 1963, as she took to the podium before an audience of 250,000 to give the last musical performance before Dr. King’s speech, Dr. King himself requested that she sing the gospel classic “I’ve Been ‘Buked, and I’ve Been Scorned.” Jackson was just as familiar with Dr. King’s repertoire as he was with hers, and just as King felt comfortable telling her what to sing as the lead-in to what would prove to be the most famous speech of his life, Jackson felt comfortable telling him in what direction to take that speech.

The story that has been told since that day has Mahalia Jackson intervening at a critical junction when she decided King’s speech needed a course-correction. Recalling a theme she had heard him use in earlier speeches, Jackson said out loud to Martin Luther King, Jr., from behind the podium on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” And at that moment, as can be seen in films of the speech, Dr. King leaves his prepared notes behind to improvise the entire next section of his speech-the historic section that famously begins “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream….”

There is no embeddable video of Ms Jackson from that day but here is the inspirational song she performed that day.

 475 – The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.

489 – Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.

1189 – Third Crusade: the Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan

1349 – 6,000 Jews are killed in Mainz, accused of being the cause of the plague.

1511 – The Portuguese conquer Malacca.

1521 – The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.

1542 – Turkish-Portuguese War (1538-1557) – Battle of Wofla: the Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovao da Gama is captured and later executed.

1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.

1619 – Ferdinand II is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1640 – Second Bishop’s War: King Charles I’s English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.

1789 – William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn.

1810 – Battle of Grand Port – the French accept the surrender of a British Navy fleet.

1830 – The Tom Thumb presages the first railway service in the United States.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.

1849 – After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent, surrenders to Austria.

1859 – A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far away as Japan.

1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas.

1867 – The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll.

1879 – Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.

1898 – Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink “Pepsi-Cola”.

1913 – Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.

1914 – World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.

1914 – World War I: German troops conquer Namur.

1916 – World War I: Germany declares war on Romania.

1916 – World War I: Italy declares war on Germany.

1917 – Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House.

1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.

1943 – World War II: in Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation is started.

1944 – World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.

1953 – Nippon Television broadcasts Japan’s first television show, including its first TV advertisement.

1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.

1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech

1963 – Emily Hoffert and Janice Wylie are murdered in their Manhattan flat, prompting the events that would lead to the passing of the Miranda Rights.

1964 – The Philadelphia race riot begins.

1968 – Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention.

1979 – An IRA bomb explodes on the Grand Place in Brussels.

1981 – The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of pneumocystis and Kaposi’s sarcoma in gay men. These will soon be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS.

1986 – United States Navy officer Jerry A. Whitworth is sentenced to 365 years imprisonment for espionage for the Soviet Union.

1988 – Ramstein airshow disaster: three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. 75 are killed and 346 seriously injured.

1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.

1990 – The Plainfield Tornado: an F5 tornado hits in Plainfield, Illinois, and Joliet, Illinois, killing 28 people.

1991 – Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

1996 – Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales divorce.

1998 – Pakistan’s National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the “Qur’an and Sunnah” the “supreme law” but the bill is defeated in the Senate.

2003 – An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in south east England and brings 60% of London’s underground rail network to a halt.

Well, if you’re a Ferrari fan (and there are lots of them) you’ll be encouraged by the podium finish of Alonso at the Hungaroring.  Alas the drivers and constructors standings don’t justify much optimism as this year looks like a fight between Red Bull and McLaren with the advantage currently to Red Bull.

It’s been 3 weeks and the floppy Front Wing has been studied (though technically you’re not supposed to do any work on vacation) and many teams are sporting new aero bits where the rules allow them.

The efficacy of which remains to be seen.  Spa is notorious for its rain and much of the running in practice has been on Intermediates and Wets and the strategic question for the teams has been how much to ruin them because like the Primes and the Softs you get just so many sets but unlike them you can’t replace them between Practice and Race Day (they issue a full compliment of Softs and Primes today for Qualifying) and running used up Intermediates when it really is damp is a good way to end up in a wall.

As always your participation is welcome and desired, but you’ll have to tolerate my rambling regardless as I need to take notes to prove to Richard I’m paying attention.  I’ll attempt to highlight any surprises like Hamilton washing out in Q2.  This Qualifying is repeated on Speed at 2:30 am.  Tomorrow’s pre-race starts at 7:30 am preceded by GP2 on the same track at 6 am.

Need.  More.  Coffee.

Why are so many Americans hostile to Islam?



By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Nearly a decade after 9/11, less than a third of the country feels favorably toward Islam. Most Americans reflexively oppose an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, and the lower the Christian president’s approval ratings, the higher the percentage of people who think he’s Muslim.

Why?

Beyond the simplistic debate – are we patriots or bigots? – pollsters, historians and other experts say that the nation’s collective instincts toward Islam have been shaped over decades by a patchwork of factors. These include demographic trends, psychology, terrorism events, U.S. foreign policy, domestic politics, media coverage and the Internet.

BBC’s Mark Thompson takes aim at Murdoch empire in MacTaggart lecture

BBC director general Mark Thompson says Sky is becoming ‘dominant force’ in British TV – but isn’t investing enough

James Robinson

guardian.co.uk,  

Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, launched a scathing attack on Rupert Murdoch’s media empire tonight, warning that BSkyB is too powerful and threatens to “dwarf” the BBC and its competitors.

Delivering the annual MacTaggart lecture at the Mediaguardian Edinburgh television festival, Thompson rounded on Sky’s chairman, James Murdoch, who used the same speech last year to attack the corporation.

“A year ago, James Murdoch fretted aloud about the lamentable dominance of the BBC,” he said. “He was able to do that only by leaving Sky out of the equation.”

USA

Dangers of war persist for soldiers left in Iraq



By Leila Fadel

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, August 28, 2010; 12:13 AM

FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARHORSE, IRAQ – Col. Malcolm Frost knew there would be questions. The official end to the U.S. combat mission in Iraq was approaching, but his soldiers, operating in two of Iraq’s most dangerous provinces, would still be here.

He sat down and penned a letter to the soldiers’ families. “01 Sept. 2010 does not mean a light switched on or off in Iraq,” the brigade commander wrote. “. . . The weight of responsibility upon our shoulders is great, because we must follow through to the very finish.”

U.S. wary over example of first military tribunal case

Administration has been trying to repair the system’s reputation

By CHARLIE SAVAGE 8/27/2010

WASHINGTON – After working for a year to redeem the international reputation of military commissions, Obama administration officials are alarmed by the first case to go to trial under revamped rules: the prosecution of a former child soldier whom an American interrogator implicitly threatened with gang rape.

The defendant, Omar Khadr, was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier. Senior officials say his trial is undermining their broader effort to showcase reforms that they say have made military commissions fair and just.

Europe

UN tells France to stop forced expulsion of Roma



By Jenny Barchfield in Paris, AP Saturday, 28 August 2010

France has come under increasing pressure to stop its mass expulsions of Roma when a United Nations human rights panel added its voice to the chorus of condemnation.

In recent weeks, French officials have dismantled more than 100 illegal camps and sent hundreds of Roma back to their homes in eastern Europe.

A report released yesterday by a UN anti-racism panel urged France to avoid its “collective repatriations” and expressed concern that members of the Roma community weren’t receiving full voting, education and housing rights in France.

ECB chief Trichet warns failure to tackle high debts risks a ‘lost decade’

Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank President, said governments risk causing a “lost decade” of weak economic growth if they delay reversing the surge in public debt triggered by the financial crisis.  

Published: 11:29PM BST 27 Aug 2010

“The lesson from past history is that dealing with the legacy of accumulated imbalances is not simply a duty to be fulfilled after the economic recovery, but rather an important precondition for sustaining a durable recovery,” he said in a speech at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s annual monetary symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

“The primary macroeconomic challenge for the next 10 years is to ensure that they do not turn into another ‘lost decade.'”

Middle East

The great chess game of the Middle East



By Victor Kotsev  

Nerves are frayed to the point of breaking over the Middle East escalation. One can tell this is so when even respectable think-tanks start looking for ulterior motives behind seemingly minor events, without offering any specific evidence or well-developed leads.

Take, for example, Thursday’s emergency landings of two Iranian civilian airliners over Turkey. Absolutely nothing unusual was reported, except that both aircraft malfunctioned, both over Turkey, and both coming from Tehran. Still, the event warranted a front-page report by Stratfor. The (anti-climactic) conclusion: “These incidents may simply be representative of Iran’s inability to maintain its commercial aircraft under the weight of sanctions and financial restrictions, but given Iran’s ongoing confrontation with the West over its nuclear program, ulterior motives for the landings cannot be ruled out.”

Iraq put on high alert ahead of expected bombing campaign



By Jomana Karadsheh, CNN  August 28, 2010

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned Friday of likely attacks across the country and put all local governments and security forces on high alert.

In a statement read on state television, al-Maliki — commander-in-chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces — said there were indications that “al Qaeda and remnants of the Baath party with foreign backing are planning to carry out a series of bombings in Baghdad and the other provinces.”

The statement, which came shortly before midnight in Iraq, said the attacks would strike across the country, targeting government institutions in particular.

Asia

‘We want to talk to the Taliban. But they would rather kill themselves’

Control of Kandahar is key to withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the coming US offensive there will be a bloody one, writes Kim Sengupta

Saturday, 28 August 2010

The first sign of the attack was somewhat mystifying: a tractor suddenly going up in flames on farmland beyond the base.

But there no ambiguity about what followed. A group of men charged, the first blowing himself up as he reached the fence, the others behind opening up with rifle fire. At the same moment, the first of a salvo of rockets launched from a distance landed inside Kandahar airfield.

It lasted no more than a few minutes. Once the tractor packed with explosives had prematurely detonated there was little chance of the Taliban fighters getting through, their suicide vests exploding as the Western troops cut them down.

The Dear Leader has left the building



By Sunny Lee

BEIJING – The South Korean government is keen to see whether Kim Jong-un, the heir-apparent of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, is accompanying the father on a secretive trip to China amid reports that the young heir will finally make his official debut next month.

Analysts are scratching their heads over the Dear Leader’s visit to China, the second this year. It all started when a senior aide of South Korea’s Presidential Office told reporters on Thursday that Kim had embarked on a secretive visit to China during the wee hours of that day.

Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang confirmed the report. But South Korean media said Kim Jong-il spent his first day in China in the northeastern city of Jilin that borders North Korea.

Latin America

Fresh violence hits Mexico



SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 201  

A car bomb has exploded outside the local affiliate of Televisa TV network in the northeastern city of Ciudad Victoria, in Tamaulipas state.

Friday’s blast damaged equipment and the station was unable to broadcast locally, AFP news agency reported.

“Fortunately none of our colleagues were wounded,” Carlos Loret de Mola, the host of the Televisa morning news show, said.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

I reported this yesterday (#44) but the AP account didn’t make it clear to me that this was not some “white’s rights” reverse discrimination subtle racism.

Nope.  This is in your face ‘colored people’s water fountain’ racism–

A school memo, obtained by MixedandHappy and The Smoking Gun, was passed out to every 6th, 7th, and 8th grader to inform them of the breakdown. The upcoming elections are divided between offices delineated for black and white students. Of the 12 offices for which students can compete, “eight are earmarked for white students, while four are termed ‘black seats.” The presidency is reserved for white students across each grade, but a black student is permitted to be the 8th grade vice-president or reporter, the 7th grade treasurer, or the 6th grade reporter. So, along with a “B” average and “a good disciplinary status and moral character,” a child hoping to represent his or her class must be the right race:

You see, I suppose that the sensitivity to minority African-American representation–

Programs » Counseling Department » Media Statement

Media Statement

After being notified of a grievance regarding upcoming student elections at Nettleton Middle School, research was conducted that evidenced that the current practices and procedures for student elections have existed for over 30 years. It is the belief of the current administration that these procedures were implemented to help ensure minority representation and involvement in the student body. It is felt the intent of these election procedures was to ensure African-American representation in each student office category through an annual rotation basis.

It is our hope and desire that these practices and procedures are no longer needed to help ensure minority representation and involvement. Furthermore, the Nettleton School District acknowledges and embraces the fact that we are growing in ethnic diversity and that the classifications of Caucasian and African-American no longer reflect our entire student body.

Therefore, beginning immediately, student elections at Nettleton School District will no longer have a classification of ethnicity. It is our intent that each student has equal opportunity to seek election for any student office. Future student elections will be monitored to help ensure that this change in process and procedure does not adversely affect minority representation in student elections.

Thank you

Superintendent

Russell Taylor

is that they called these children “Black” and not “African-American” or “Negro” or that terrible Dr. Laura word.

Emphasis mine.

Blue Laws are (well, actually mostly now) were laws that restricted what products and services could be legally traded on Sundays over much of the United States.  They varied from region to region, with some places pretty much shutting down everything except emergency medical treatment, to other places where there was little difference from other days.

In most of the United States, Blue Laws no longer exist for the most, except for the sale of alcohol, and they are vestigial remnants in that area.  When I was a child (only months after the last mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, LOL!), Blue Laws were common in west central Arkansas, and applied to lots more than alcohol.

Since the Blue Laws were even more strict before I was born, I can only repeat items that my Western Civilization instructor in junior college told us.  She lived that era, and had no reason to be deceptive.  When she was a girl, in the 1920s and 1930s, it was illegal for a motion picture to be screened on Sundays.  For a while the theatre operators kept with the law, but finally realized that the fine was much less than the revenue that they could take in on Sundays, since most folks were off of work on that day, because of the Blue Laws!  This is information specific to Fort Smith, Arkansas during that time period.  The theatre operators finally just showed the movies, paid the fines, and made money.  Obviously there was not much criminal sanction other then the fine, because going to jail would have been more discouraging to the operators.  Finally, the law was changed to allow theatres to screen movies on Sundays, since it was decided that they would show them anyway and to criminalize a large part of the population was not a good idea.

Speaking of the word “Sunday”, the ice cream treat called the Sundae is reputed to be a direct outgrowth of Blue Laws.  During the Prohibition era, sodas, make with ice cream, other ingredients, and seltzer water were very popular.  Some blue noses thought that seltzer was too identified with alcohol, so they prohibited them from being served on Sunday.  Some enterprising person modified the recipe to leave out the seltzer water, and sold the more solid treat on Sundays.  This may me apocryphal, and anyone with a better origin for the term Sundae is welcomed to comment.

In my experience, the Blue Laws worked this way:  arbitrarily.  For example, newspapers were OK to sell, but not books nor magazines.  This carried on until I was around 10 years old or so, as I recall.  That would be around 1967.  Then the line got blurred, and books and magazines were OK to sell, if you could find anyone open to sell them.  By the way, the Post Office (not yet the Postal Service) still stocked post office boxes with mail on Sundays, and you could mail letters on Sundays if you went to a major Post Office.  I remember my father driving to Fort Smith (we lived in Hackett, nine miles south over the very treacherous and curvy state highway 45) on Sunday afternoons to mail his sales reports before the deadline.  He, like I, was a procrastinator.

It was OK to sell food on Sundays, but even it the store were open, you could not buy, for example, shaving cream, deodorant, or razors.  Razor blades were OK, since they were not tools.  Nails were OK, if the store were open, but not a hammer.

Clothing was right out for sale on Sundays.  This put women in the queer position of being able to buy sanitary napkins on Sunday, but not the little harness that held them in place at the time.  Females from that era, please explain about the harness.  They are almost unknown now, and I was too little to know that much about them, since I was only around nine years old or so, thus this information has been told to me from female family members years later.

This started to wane in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Part of it had to do with the advent of the mall.  Because of pressure to pay high rents, mall merchants wanted to sell more of time.  That did not wipe out the Blue Laws, but weakened them.  Authorities looking the other way did more to lead to the demise of the Blue Laws than anything else.  However, as late at 1979 is was almost impossible to find things like plumbing supplies, building supplies, and the like on Sundays.  Most of the stores that sold “legal” items on Sundays had a much larger “illegal” inventory, so it was not worth their time to be open.

When the former Mrs. Translator and I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1978 we were in need one Sunday of several home (well, trailer) improvement items, like faucet washers, screws, and other common items.  In those days there was nothing like Home Depot or Lowe’s, at least stores like that open on Sundays.  But there was a grocery store to our west that just “happened” to have a Coast to Coast hardware store franchise inside it.

Let that sink in for a minute.  We had gone to the MOON and back nine years earlier, and yet it was still illegal to sell a darned HAMMER on Sunday!  But that brave little IGA grocery store sold them anyway!  By the way, IGA stands for Independent Grocers’ Association, a network of small, locally owned grocers who use their combined purchasing power to get price breaks.  There are still a few of them, but big box stores are making them obsolete rapidly.

We were able to get the washers that we needed to make the faucets stop dripping, and the screws that we needed to tighten up a few things.  Now, those were legal to sell, but no hardware store was open on Sundays, and if we had needed a screwdriver or wrench (illegal tools) they would have sold them to us as well.  I saw folks buying such contraband.

Folks, this was in the United States in 1978!  Think about it:  it was ILLEGAL to sell a hammer or a sanitary pad harness on Sunday!

Over time, the Blue Laws were either found to be unconstitutional, ignored, or repealed.  That is, except for the laws governing alcohol sales.  Those are still with us in many places.  It turns out that the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution allowed the Congress and the States to regulate the sale of alcohol pretty much as they chose.

This had led to a plethora of different laws and regulations between different states, and also within individual states.  In 2010, no state completely prohibits the sale of alcohol, but some severely limit it.  Some states, like Alabama, allow only state-owned stores to sell alcohol, although beer is sometimes not included.  Other states, like Oklahoma, allow the sale of weak (the so called 3.2% beer) beer at grocery stores and the like, but only licensed liquor stores can sell beer of higher alcohol content, and not only limited to Sundays.  Oklahoma had a very bizarre law for a few years that allowed the legal drinking age for males to be 21 years, but for females it was 18, for weak beer.  Lots of boyfriends drove their girlfriends over the border in those days to get beer, despite the risk of a $50 PER bottle or can fine if out of state beer was brought in from Oklahoma.

Many states do not allow the package sale of ANY kind of alcohol on Sundays, including Arkansas and Kentucky.  However, parts of these states have the local option of allowing the serving individual drinks at eating establishments on Sundays.  Then there is the concept of the dry county.

A dry county does not allow the sale of any alcoholic beverage, at least in concept.  Many localities have wormed around this by introducing the concept of the private club, in which members can buy liquor legally.  Put forth first by wealthy individuals who liked to congregate and drink without wanting to be bothered by bringing their own liquor, they pushed the concept through in Arkansas, and several other states as well.

Originally, that exception only worked for very exclusive clubs wherein the members could pony up lots and lots of money to bribe the alcohol regulators in their areas.  In Arkansas, private clubs were even approved in dry counties, if the members had enough collective power to make it so.  It did not hurt the effort when one realizes that many of the folks in those clubs were also the folks who dictated laws and regulations.

It was, and still is, a corrupt mess, but folks make money at it, especially in dry counties.  It finally got to the point that one could “join” a private club for one night, usually with a $5 temporary member fee, with a complimentary drink for joining for the night.  This is just corruption on a massive level.

Even in 2010, there are STILL votes on the wet or dry issue.  Most often, the fundamentalist members of society, usually evangelical Christian ministers, lobby for dry.  They rail about how “al-kee-haul” will ruin the character of the community, when all the while the folks who want it are buying it out of region or from bootleggers.  Yes, bootlegging is still an extremely important part of the grey market.

Bootlegging is a term from the old days when illegal alcohol in flat (hip flask) bottles were stuffed into high riding boots and delivered to customers that way.  Often obtained in legally “wet” areas, it was taken to dry areas and sold at quite a profit.  Bootlegging is not the same as moonshining, and I shall discuss moonshining in another installment.  I actually knew a woman who literally bootlegged in her younger days (at least according to my grandmum, who was pretty astute).

In summary, the Blue Laws were the reaction of the established, extremely religious, elements of society to impart their “moral” beliefs onto others.  However, there was a more sinister aspect to it, at least in the south and associated with alcohol.  White people were terrified of black people getting intoxicated and “coming after” them.  My comment on the morality of that school of thought is just one of contempt.  The white folks had all of the liquor that they wanted.  They just wanted to keep it away from the black folks.  Like it or not, that is the historical truth.  People that have not grown up in the south do not realize how deeply racial bigotry still exists.  I have said many times that I am a recovering racist, because it was drilled into my mind from the time that I comprehended the English language that black folks are not only inferior, but inherently evil.

I think that my recovery has gone fairly well, because I voted for our current President, and am still fairly well pleased with he is trying to do.  It is interesting that as much as his agenda has been made so, even with the extreme resistance from the opposition party.  But this is not supposed to be a political post, so I will dissist from this avenue of dissertation.  If anyone would care to talk about it further, the comment section awaits.

My thesis is that the Blue Laws were conceived, written, carried out, and enforced by religious bigots who wanted control.  I focused on alcohol because it the last vestige of Blue Laws, and sort of kind of Constitutionally supported.  That still does not make Blue Laws right, but I hope that this has put them into some historical perspective.

This is a little different from many of my Popular Culture installments, because it is not about personal tastes in one or another form of art.  However, if one lives in a particular culture every day, by definition that is popular culture.

As always, your thoughts are encouraged in the comments.  If you agree, please tell me why.  If you disagree, please tell me why.  If you have other ideas, please express them.  Remember, my posts are always just the beginning of a much better discussion in the comment section.  If you are aware of any blue laws other than those regarding alcohol sales in your area, please post a comment.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Docudharma and at Dailykos.com

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What?  You say you don’t want to watch documentaries about prisons and sexual predators?  That you’d rather gouge your eyes out like Gloucester?  There, there, Uncle ek will see what he can scare up on the Hypnotoad tonight.

• ESPN– High School Throwball, Plant @ Manatee
• Bravo– Fight Club, Ocean’s Thirteen x 2
• TLC– Say Yes to the Dress marathon
• Toon– Repeats of the Season Premiers of Ben 10 and Generator Rex
• USA– Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• Discovery– Odd Couple Survival night, Dual Survival, Man, Woman, Wild (premier), Beyond Survival (Series Premier)
• Food– Chopped, Triple D, Chefs v. City (premier)
• FX– My Super Ex-Girlfriend
• Oxygen– Just Friends x 2
• Turner Classic– The Heiress, To Each His Own (Olivia de Haviland night)
• TBS– The Scorpion King x 2
• SciFi– Eureka (last week’s and new), Haven (premier)
• Comedy– John Oliver Special

Later-

• AMC– The Negotiator
• Turner Classic– The Snake Pit (more Olivia)
• USA– Hairspray
• Disney– More Phineas and Ferb

Alton does guacamole and chicken-liver mousse.  Perchance to Dean, a good episode if you like progressive rock.  Look Around You is the next to last episode, Computers.

Wikipedia notes that Olivia de Haviland is still alive (born in 1916) and is one of the last surviving actresses of her generation.  She has a famous feud with her sister, Joan Fontaine (also still alive).

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Many fled Katrina, and many never found their way back

by Anita Hassan, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 1:14 pm ET

2 Pakistan orders evacuation of southern town

by Emmanuel Duparcq and Hasan Mansoor, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 1:04 pm ET

3 Carter leaves N. Korea with freed American, nuke pledge

by Lim Chang-won, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 11:44 am ET

4 Some Chilean miners ‘depressed’ as rescue ramps up

by Moises Avila Roldan, AFP

18 mins ago

5 Chile mine faces first lawsuit alleging criminal negligence

by Moises Avila Roldan, AFP

Thu Aug 26, 4:25 pm ET

6 Drilling about to start to reach Chilean miners

by Moises Avila Roldan, AFP

2 hrs 27 mins ago

7 Video shows Chile’s trapped miners in good spirits

by Moises Avila Roldan, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 4:32 am ET

8 US Fed eyes aggressive steps as recovery slows

by P. Parameswaran, AFP

1 hr 52 mins ago

9 British economy steams ahead but derailment looms

by Ben Perry, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 11:33 am ET

10 Barrichello reaches 300 landmark

AFP

Fri Aug 27, 1:13 pm ET

11 US poised to end Iraq combat mission as bloodshed spikes

by Arthur MacMillan, AFP

Thu Aug 26, 6:20 pm ET

12 No Elin, no problem as leader Tiger enjoys season best

AFP

Thu Aug 26, 3:28 pm ET

13 Top Ramadan TV show satirises, irks Saudi hardliners

AFP

Thu Aug 26, 5:43 pm ET

14 Swords clanging, tourists learn gladiator skills in Rome

by Francoise Kadri, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 12:07 pm ET

15 Myanmar army reshuffle ahead of vote: officials

AFP

Fri Aug 27, 10:57 am ET

16 US slashes second quarter growth as recovery slips

by P. Parameswaran, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 9:32 am ET

17 Japan PM to outline steps to boost economy, tackle yen

by David Watkins, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 6:39 am ET

18 Japan’s Kodo troupe beats drum for a better world

by Frank Zeller, AFP

Fri Aug 27, 3:55 am ET

19 Imports stifle 2nd-quarter growth

By Lucia Mutikani, Reuters

1 hr 23 mins ago

20 Bernanke says recovery softer, Fed to act if needed

By Mark Felsenthal and Pedro da Costa, Reuters

2 hrs 51 mins ago

21 Pakistanis stream out of town as flood spreads

By Faisal Aziz, Reuters

Fri Aug 27, 8:00 am ET

22 Japan PM Kan vows firm moves against strong yen

By Stanley White and Rie Ishiguro, Reuters

Fri Aug 27, 6:16 am ET

23 Political ads surpass 2006 levels as attacks mount

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer

4 mins ago

24 Recession may have pushed US birth rate to new low

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

2 mins ago

25 DC’s ‘truth, honor’ rally tests Glenn Beck’s power

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

5 mins ago

26 Engineers to remove temporary cap from Gulf well

By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

8 mins ago

27 AP ENTERPRISE: Oil cleanup both bonanza and bust

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 12:50 am ET

28 Economic growth slows to 1.6 pct. in the spring

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

2 hrs 37 mins ago

29 SPIN METER: What Biden didn’t mention on stimulus

By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 59 mins ago

30 Corps: New Orleans levee upgrades nearly ready

By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 1:18 pm ET

31 Homemade bombs kill 3 US troops in Afghanistan

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 9:36 am ET

32 Afghan president questions US timeline for leaving

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

Thu Aug 26, 10:12 pm ET

33 Chilean family survives quake, faces mine collapse

By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 55 mins ago

34 UN: 1 million more displaced by Pakistan floods

By SHAKIL ADIL, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 8:27 am ET

35 Tepid response from US public to Pakistan floods

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

1 hr 8 mins ago

36 World Series tix could get NY governor in trouble

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 10:29 am ET

37 Salmonella find links 2 Iowa farms to egg recall

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 12:50 am ET

38 LA authorities plan to use heat-beam ray in jail

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

Fri Aug 27, 12:50 am ET

39 Suit: Priest impregnates Pennsylvania teenager

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer

10 mins ago

40 Guard troops to deploy to Arizona border on Monday

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer

12 mins ago

41 NJ schools chief fired after Race to the Top gaffe

By BETH DeFALCO and GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Writers

25 mins ago

42 Lutherans split over gay pastors, Bible beliefs

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer

47 mins ago

43 DOD denies 4 states military ballot law waiver

By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 5 mins ago

44 School’s race rule prompts mom to pull kids out

By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 26 mins ago

45 Early Nation of Islam documents found in Detroit

By JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Writer

1 hr 44 mins ago

46 Bikini-clad strippers protest church in rural Ohio

By JEANNIE NUSS, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 13 mins ago

47 Holdout juror at Blagojevich trial explains vote

Associated Press

Fri Aug 27, 11:01 am ET

48 Ground zero’s boundaries evolve in mosque debate

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer

Thu Aug 26, 6:14 pm ET

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Sacramento, CA:  The California State Senate passed the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Prisoner Safety Act (AB 633) by a 26-9 vote and sent it on to Governor Scharzennegger.  The bill is designed to protect LGBT people who are incarcerated.  Arnold vetoed a similar bill last year.

A recent study from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) found that 67 percent of LGBT inmates report being sexually assaulted by another inmate, a rate 15 times higher than the overall prison population. Another study by UC Irvine and commissioned by CDCR found that 69 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization while incarcerated.

Dateline Memphis: The Duanna Johnson Case

Four months after a hung jury in the case of the beating of Duanna Johnson, Memphis police office Bridges McRae plead guilty to violating her civil rights.  This will not bring any closure to Ms. Johnson or her family since she was murdered 9 months after the beating.  That case has not yet been solved.

Apparently protection after being arrested is indeed necessary.

San Francisco: New Leaf to close

New Leaf, a community organization serving LGBT people in San Francisco will be closing October 15 (press release (pdf), since the city can no longer afford to fund the program due to increases in rent and the cost of health care.  The program provided mental health care, substance abuse services, and HIV/AIDS support services.

Other San Francisco service providers (Lyon Martin Health Center, the AIDS Health Project, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation) will attempt to pick up the slack.

If you have a few extra bucks…

New York City: Singaporean transsexual performance artist Leona Lo brought the Ah Kua Show to the La Mama alternative theater in Manhattan’s East Village.

The life of a transsexual in Asia is limited to sexual work.

–Leona Lo

Leona has a BA in English Literature  and an MA in Qualitative Research Methods from the University of York.  Here autobiographical offering From Leonard to Leona: A Singapore Transsexual’s Journey To Womanhood was published in 2007.

She also participated in Lance Lee’s photo-documentary My Sisters, Their Stories.

The Ah Kua Show is a one-woman collage of experiences on the difficulties of being transsexual in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.  “Ah Kua” is a derogatory reference to transwomen, roughly translating to ladyboy

Be on the watch for the Mermaid Tales Art Exhibition, which is a collection of mosaic’s by Leona.

For anyone who would like to learn more about Leona, she has a blog here.

Personally, I have a soft place in my heart for multi-talented people.

Muncie, Indiana: Erin Vaught, transgender woman who was basically denied medical treatment after being ridiculed at the ER by the staff of Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, IN says she is satisifed with the changes that have been promised by that institution.

Ball Memorial Hospital announced Tuesday that all employees would receive mandatory lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender awareness training starting in September and that it was updating its nondiscrimination policies to include language specific to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Simply put, we failed to live up to our brand promise of care in regards to Erin and we apologize to her for that.

In the last month, I have heard from many team members who share my disappointment with Erin’s experience at BMH.

–Ball Memorial President Michael Haley

My goal from the outset was to try to make sure that my experience wasn’t repeated.

–Erin Vaught

Fort Lauderdale, Florida: Donna Milo, a transgender woman from Florida and a Cuban refugee, gained 22% of the vote in finishing third in the Republican primary for Florida’s 20th Congressional District, behind Karen Harrington‘s 40% and Robert Lowry‘s 38%.  Democrat Debbie Wasserman Shultz is the current representative in the district.

I’ll never know why it was deemed important by Chris Good, who wrote the article for the Atlantic to tell us Ms. Milo’s previous first name.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania ID Policy Changes

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has finally admitted that transgender people live in the state and drive vehicles and should be accorded some degree of dignity and repect…at least enough to allow them to identify their gender accurately on their licenses.  Transgender people will no longer be forced to prove that they have already had gender confirmation surgery.  Living full-time in their new gender will suffice.

Berkeley, CA: Dr. Antonia Caretto will be speaking at the Gender Spectrum Family Conference which takes place in Berkeley, CA, September 3-6.  She will be addressing the issue of Gender Incongruence in Children and Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum.  She will discuss, among other things, a recent article that was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Dr. Caretto’s website is here:  www.BeTreatedWell.com.

A quote from one of her pages:

The concept of Gender Identity Disorder dates back to the 1860’s when Karl Ulrichs described  a “third sex” individual as someone with a female soul in male body.  Interestingly, Ulrichs and other scientists of that era viewed third sex individuals (and homosexuals) as natural human deviations that were inborn and not pathological.

Also of passing interest is the fact that Ulrich’s and the others did not recognize female-to-male transfolk.

From the abstract:

Children and adolescents (115 boys and 89 girls, mean age 10.8, SD = 3.58) referred to a gender identity clinic received a standardized assessment during which a GID diagnosis was made and ASD suspected cases were identified. The Dutch version of the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (10th rev., DISCO-10) was administered to ascertain ASD classifications. The incidence of ASD in this sample of children and adolescents was 7.8% (n = 16). Clinicians should be aware of co-occurring ASD and GID and the challenges it generates in clinical management.

If anyone is going to the conference, I’d really, really appreciate a copy of any handouts provided.

The conference is the brainchild of Stephanie Brill, co-author with Rachel Pepper of The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals

England:  In Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, Rachel Millington, 24, informed her employers at Housing and Support Solutions Limited, where she worked with disabled people, that she had changed her name and would henceforth begin living as a woman.  After a week, she was told that she made her coworkers uncomfortable and was forced to apologize to them (no reason was given for why the Daily Mail felt it necessary to include a pre-transition photo).  A few days later, she received a phone call telling her she should no longer come to work.

Ms. Millington has filed suit, charging unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination.  In most places in the United States, she would lose because there is no protection against that sort of treatment.

More or less on the same topic, I’d like to draw people’s attention to a series by Juliet Jacques appearing in the Guardian called A Transgender Journey.  Juliet’s latest piece is No wonder many transsexual people end up in sex work.

Despite the protection of the Sex Discrimination Act, transgender people often face unfair treatment in the workplace.

Hong Kong:  In Hong Kong, we are fighting to get married.

Her lawyer says it’s her constitutional right but her birth certificate, which cannot be changed under Hong Kong law, still classes her as male.

The government says she cannot get married as it would constitute a same-sex marriage, which is not legal here.

And some people wonder why transfolk think marriage equality is so important to us.

Wharton, TX:  Phyllis Frye, attorney for Nikki Araguz, who is fighting to be recognized as legal heir to her recently deceased fireman husband in Texas, wrote this week:

Why is it that the Prop 8, same-sex marriage fight in CA and the DOMA same-sex marriage fight in the Northeast are BOTH so well funded by lesbian and gay groups and lesbian and gay individuals, but the same-sex marriage fight in Texas has been thus far supported ONLY by a small number of mostly transgenders plus three LGBT-allied churches, mostly in Houston, all in Texas?

Dallas, TX:

Playwright Ed Graczyk, author of Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, which featured Karen Black in the role of Joanna, a transwoman, in both the play and the movie, has written a new play, Blue Moon Dancing, which also includes a gay plot.  The link features an interview with the author.  

And I’ll close with this case:  

Baltimore, MD:  Baltimore Firefighter Jerry Majette was arrested for assaulting transgender woman Tamera King with a hammer.  Ms. King was also arrested for trying to defend herself with a pair of scissors.  Mr. Majette is suspended without pay because of of previous case of dereliction of duty.

And what were they fighting about?  Sex, of course.