Tag: Open Thread

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 1 is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 305 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking for permanent funding for the agency, which would send trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist in development efforts. The Peace Corps captured the imagination of the U.S. public, and during the week after its creation thousands of letters poured into Washington from young Americans hoping to volunteer.

The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand U.S. culture, and helping Americans understand the cultures of other countries. Generally, the work is related to social and economic development. Each program participant, (aka Peace Corps Volunteer), is an American citizen, typically with a college degree, who works abroad for a period of 24 months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger, business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. After 24 months of service, volunteers can request an extension of service.

Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver to be the program’s first director. Shriver fleshed out the organization with the help of Warren Wiggins and others. Shriver and his think tank outlined the organization’s goals and set the initial number of volunteers. The program began recruiting in July, 1962.

Until about 1967, applicants had to pass a placement test that tested “general aptitude” (knowledge of various skills needed for Peace Corps assignments) and language aptitude. After an address from Kennedy, who was introduced by Rev. Russell Fuller of Memorial Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, on August 28, 1961, the first group of volunteers left for Ghana and Tanzania. The program was formally authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, and within two years over 7,300 volunteers were serving in 44 countries. This number increased to 15,000 in June 1966, the largest number in the organization’s history.

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

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

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

New York Times Editorial: Women’s Health Care at Risk

A wave of mergers between Roman Catholic and secular hospitals is threatening to deprive women in many areas of the country of ready access to important reproductive services. Catholic hospitals that merge or form partnerships with secular hospitals often try to impose religious restrictions against abortions, contraception and sterilization on the whole system.

This can put an unacceptable burden on women, especially low-income women and those who live in smaller communities where there are fewer health care options. State regulators should closely examine such mergers and use whatever powers they have to block those that diminish women’s access to medical care.

Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky, for example, recently turned down a bid by a Catholic health system to merge with a public hospital that is the chief provider of indigent care in Louisville. He cited concerns about loss of control of a public asset and restrictions on reproductive services.

Katrina vanden Huevel: Why the GOP can’t win Michigan in November

Tonight we will learn what pundits and politicos have been clamoring to find out: whether Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum will win the Michigan primary. And yet, for all the attention paid to the primary, especially given Romney’s Michigan roots, relatively little focus has been given to the more important story: that come November, neither of these candidates has much of a chance of carrying the state. After all, it is in Michigan that a battle over perhaps the defining issue of 2012 – the role of government in America’s recovery and it’s future – is playing out beneath the headlines. And it’s a battle Republicans are losing.

It hasn’t always been this way, of course. Bill Clinton was the first Democrat to win Michigan in twenty years, and even in the years since, the state has been a perpetual part of the presidential battleground. But this year it looks like it won’t even be close. A February NBC/Marist poll has the president beating Romney by 18 points in Michigan and Santorum by 26.

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.

February 29 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 305 days remaining until the end of the year.

February 29, known as a leap day in the Gregorian calendar, is a date that occurs in most years that are evenly divisible by 4, such as 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 do not contain a leap day, with the exception of years that are evenly divisible by 400, which do contain a leap day; thus 1900 did not contain a leap day while 2000 did. Years containing a leap day are called leap years.

On this day in 1940, Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar

On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An epic Southern romance set during the hard times of the Civil War, the movie swept the prestigious Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Actress categories. However, the most momentous award that night undoubtedly went to Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of “Mammy,” a housemaid and former slave. McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar. [..]

Her most famous role was as Mammy in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. Directed by Victor Fleming and based on the best-selling Margaret Mitchell novel of the same name, the movie remains the highest-grossing movie of all time when inflation is taken into account. Although she was honored with an Oscar, liberal African Americans sharply criticized McDaniel for accepting a role in which her character, a former slave, spoke nostalgically about the Old South.

McDaniel’s film career declined in the late 1940s, and in 1947 she returned to radio as the star of the nationally broadcast The Beulah Show. In the program, she again portrayed an effervescent Southern maid but in a markedly un-stereotypical manner that won praise from the NAACP. In 1951, while filming the first episodes of a television version of the popular show, she had a heart attack. She recovered to do a few more radio programs but in 1952 died of breast cancer at the age of 57.

“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”.

New York Times Editorial: Not What Paul Volcker Had in Mind

The Volcker rule, a crucial provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, is supposed to stop banks from doing the sort of risky trading that was one of the big causes of the financial meltdown.

The banks hate the rule because less speculation means less profit and lower bonuses for traders and bank executives. And ever since it was signed into law in mid-2010, they have pressed Congress and regulators to weaken it. Sure enough, in late 2011, regulators issued proposed rules that are ambiguously worded and lack the teeth to rein in the banks. Paul Volcker – the former chairman of the Federal Reserve for whom the rule was named – and other reformers have rightly urged significant changes before the rule becomes final in mid-July. Regulators need to listen.

Barry Lando: The World Turns Its Back-Again

Thousands of largely unarmed people rise up against a brutal regime. In reaction, military commanders are dispatched to ruthlessly crush the revolt. Men, women and children are cut down in cold blood, houses and apartments destroyed, the streets littered with body parts and piles of the dead. Desperate appeals are made to the world for help, for arms, for medicines, for rescue.

The leaders of the world wring their hands and meet to deal with the horrific situation. Regrettably, there are too many reasons not to act, too many complications, too many subtleties. Sophisticated diplomats and heads of state understand these things. The slaughter continues.

One such meeting just ended in Tunis on Feb. 24, called to deal with the uprising in Syria. The other was held in Bermuda in April 1943, with delegations from the U.S. and Britain, to discuss the terrible predicament of the millions of Jews trapped in Hitler’s Europe.

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.

February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 306 days remaining until the end of the year (307 in leap years)

On this day in 1953, Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick announce that they have determined the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.

History of DNA research

DNA was first isolated by the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher who, in 1869, discovered a microscopic substance in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. As it resided in the nuclei of cells, he called it “nuclein”. In 1919, Phoebus Levene identified the base, sugar and phosphate nucleotide unit. Levene suggested that DNA consisted of a string of nucleotide units linked together through the phosphate groups. However, Levene thought the chain was short and the bases repeated in a fixed order. In 1937 William Astbury produced the first X-ray diffraction patterns that showed that DNA had a regular structure.

In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered that traits of the “smooth” form of the Pneumococcus could be transferred to the “rough” form of the same bacteria by mixing killed “smooth” bacteria with the live “rough” form. This system provided the first clear suggestion that DNA carries genetic information, the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment, when Oswald Avery, along with coworkers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty, identified DNA as the transforming principle in 1943. DNA’s role in heredity was confirmed in 1952, when Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase in the Hershey-Chase experiment showed that DNA is the genetic material of the T2 phage.

In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick suggested what is now accepted as the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure in the journal Nature. Their double-helix, molecular model of DNA was then based on a single X-ray diffraction image (labeled as “Photo 51”) taken by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling in May 1952, as well as the information that the DNA bases are paired – also obtained through private communications from Erwin Chargaff in the previous years. Chargaff’s rules played a very important role in establishing double-helix configurations for B-DNA as well as A-DNA.

Experimental evidence supporting the Watson and Crick model were published in a series of five articles in the same issue of Nature. Of these, Franklin and Gosling’s paper was the first publication of their own X-ray diffraction data and original analysis method that partially supported the Watson and Crick model; this issue also contained an article on DNA structure by Maurice Wilkins and two of his colleagues, whose analysis and in vivo B-DNA X-ray patterns also supported the presence in vivo of the double-helical DNA configurations as proposed by Crick and Watson for their double-helix molecular model of DNA in the previous two pages of Nature. In 1962, after Franklin’s death, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. However, Nobel rules of the time allowed only living recipients, but a vigorous debate continues on who should receive credit for the discovery.

“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”.

Paul Krugman: What Ails Europe?

Things are terrible here, as unemployment soars past 13 percent. Things are even worse in Greece, Ireland, and arguably in Spain, and Europe as a whole appears to be sliding back into recession.

Why has Europe become the sick man of the world economy? Everyone knows the answer. Unfortunately, most of what people know isn’t true – and false stories about European woes are warping our economic discourse.

Read an opinion piece about Europe – or, all too often, a supposedly factual news report – and you’ll probably encounter one of two stories, which I think of as the Republican narrative and the German narrative. Neither story fits the facts.

New York Times Editorial: Justice and Open Files

Prosecutors have a constitutional duty to disclose significant evidence favorable to a criminal defendant. But too often that duty, as laid out by the 1963 Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland, is violated.

To help ensure compliance, some prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers and legal scholars have sensibly concluded that prosecutors’ files, as a general rule, should be made open to defendants. In cases where turning over evidence might endanger a witness, for example, a judge could allow an exception.

A small number of state and local governments have adopted open-file policies that require prosecutors to make available well before trial all information favorable to the defense, without regard to whether such information is likely to affect the outcome of the case. North Carolina and Ohio and places like Milwaukee have found that such policies make prosecutions fairer and convictions less prone to error. The Justice Department should join this movement and set a national example. But instead, it continues to take half-measures in response to its own failures to meet disclosure requirements.

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.

February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 307 days remaining until the end of the year (308 in leap years).

On this day in 1827, New Orleanians take to the streets for Mardi Gras with groups of masked and costumed students dance through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, marking the beginning of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

The celebration of Carnival–or the weeks between Twelfth Night on January 6 and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian period of Lent–spread from Rome across Europe and later to the Americas. Nowhere in the United States is Carnival celebrated as grandly as in New Orleans, famous for its over-the-top parades and parties for Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday), the last day of the Carnival season.

History

The celebration of Mardi Gras was brought to Louisiana by early French settlers. The first record of the holiday being celebrated in Louisiana was at the mouth of the Mississippi River in what is now lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, on March 3, 1699. Iberville, Bienville, and their men celebrated it as part of an observance of Catholic practice.

The starting date of festivities in New Orleans is unknown. An account from 1743 notes that the custom of Carnival balls was already established. Processions and wearing of masks in the streets on Mardi Gras took place. They were sometimes prohibited by law, and were quickly renewed whenever such restrictions were lifted or enforcement waned. In 1833 Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville, a rich plantation owner of French descent, raised money to fund an official Mardi Gras celebration.

James R. Creecy in his book Scenes in the South, and Other Miscellaneous Pieces describes New Orleans Mardi Gras in 1835:

   Shrove Tuesday is a day to be remembered by strangers in New Orleans, for that is the day for fun, frolic, and comic masquerading. All of the mischief of the city is alive and wide awake in active operation. Men and boys, women and girls, bond and free, white and black, yellow and brown, exert themselves to invent and appear in grotesque, quizzical, diabolic, horrible, strange masks, and disguises. Human bodies are seen with heads of beasts and birds, beasts and birds with human heads; demi-beasts, demi-fishes, snakes’ heads and bodies with arms of apes; man-bats from the moon; mermaids; satyrs, beggars, monks, and robbers parade and march on foot, on horseback, in wagons, carts, coaches, cars, etc., in rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, fifeing, and all throwing flour broadcast as they wend their reckless way.

On Mardi Gras of 1857, the Mystick Krewe of Comus held its first parade. Comus is the oldest continuously active Mardi Gras organization. It started a number of continuing traditions. It is considered the first Carnival krewe in the modern sense. According to one historian, “Comus was aggressively English in its celebration of what New Orleans had always considered a French festival. It is hard to think of a clearer assertion than this parade that the lead in the holiday had passed from French-speakers to Anglo-Americans. . . .To a certain extent, Americans ‘Americanized’ New Orleans and its Creoles. To a certain extent, New Orleans ‘creolized’ the Americans. Thus the wonder of Anglo-Americans boasting of how their business prowess helped them construct a more elaborate version of the old Creole Carnival. The lead in organized Carnival passed from Creole to American just as political and economic power did over the course of the nineteenth century. The spectacle of Creole-American Carnival, with Americans using Carnival forms to compete with Creoles in the ballrooms and on the streets, represents the creation of a New Orleans culture neither entirely Creole nor entirely American.”

In 1875 Louisiana declared Mardi Gras a legal state holiday. War, economic, political, and weather conditions sometimes led to cancellation of some or all major parades, especially during the American Civil War, World War I and World War II, but the city has always celebrated Carnival.

“And the winner is”. With those words there will be at least 5 people holding their collective breath, while a finely coiffed and swathed celebrity tears open a sealed envelop with the closely guarded secret. Welcome to the Live Blog of the 84rd Academy Awards from fabulous downtown Hollywood or, in my case, on the couch in the family room with my lap top, a pitcher of martinis and Parmesan popcorn, Oh, and lots of napkins.

I used to chuckle at the introduction of the tuxedoed men carrying the brief case with those envelops and the silly ritual of reading of the “Rules” on how the votes were cast and who voted on what. Do they even do that any more?

The first Oscars were presented on May 19. 1929 at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood at a private brunch for 270 people. My how far they have come. Now it is the “hottest” ticket in town and the parties after for winners and losers are elaborate affairs that would keep food pantries in business for a year. I shouldn’t be too critical many of the industry’s actors, directors and producers do wonderful humanitarian work for causes that would be easily forgotten.

In 2009, the Academy decided to return to its roots. When the award for Best Picture was presented in 1934 and 1935 there were 12 nominees, and from 1935 to 1943 there were 10. This years there are nine nominated movies contending for the golden guy with a sword. Over at the New York Times, Melena Ryzik, a k a The Carpetbagger, gives her predictions for the winners:

Best picture: “The Artist”

Best director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Best actor: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

Best actress: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Best supporting actor: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Best supporting actress: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Best adapted screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, “The Descendants”

Best original screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Best animated film: “Rango”

Best foreign language film: “A Separation,” Iran

You can cast your ballot for your favorite in this poll let us know how well you do during the course of the show. h/t to our reader seakit.

There was a lot of revealing stories recently about the diversity of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and who votes for the awards. Low and behold, the Academy voting panel is overwhelmingly white, male and over 50. The other revelation was why there were only two song nominated from a list of 39 songs that were given Academy voting members. It’s the rules:

As it turns out, the sheer number of songs in the running split votes to the point that only two songs could be featured on the ballot, per current Academy rules. Basically, voters had to sort through the 39 songs and score each on a scale of 6 to 10 points, and only songs that received an average of 8.25 points could be nominated. Hence, only two songs made the cut.

There are pro’s and con’s for this. The pro, it will mercifully spare us from some really bad productions. The con, a lot of really good artists like Elton John, Lady Gaga, Chris Cornell, Mary J. Blige, and Willie Nelson did not make the cut. Now that’s a rule that needs to be revised.

One of the categories the Academy needs to create is “Best Animal in a Featured Film.” Some of the scene stealers this year are a Jack Russel terrier named, Uggie, “The Artist“, who won an inaugural Golden Collar from Dognewsdaily.com. He beat out his competition for cute, a fellow Jack Russell, Cosmo, “The Beginners”. The Dobermans that appeared in “Hugo” appeared to be quite fierce but, according to the trainers, in reality were quite timid and shy. As the late actor Lee Marvin said when he accepted his 1965 Oscar for Best Actor, “I think I should be sharing this award with a horse somewhere out there in the San Fernando Valley,” a reference to the horse Kid Shelleen rode, who appeared to be as drunk as Shelleen was.

The annual Razzie nominations were announced last night. The Razzies honor the worst movies and performances of the year. Adam Sandler was nominated for a record 11 awards for everything from worst actor to producer for three movies, “Jack and Jill,” ”Just Go with It” and “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.” He takes that title from Eddie Murphy who had 5 awards for just one picture, “Norbit,” in 2007.

Along with “Bucky Larson” and “Jack and Jill,” worst-picture contenders are “New Year’s Eve,” ”Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.”

“Jack and Jill” led with 12 nominations, with “Transformers” second with nine and “Breaking Dawn” right behind with eight. [..]

For worst actor, Sandler is up against “Bucky Larson” star Nick Swardson, along with Russell Brand for “Arthur“; Nicolas Cage for “Drive Angry,” ”Season of the Witch” and “Trespass“; and Taylor Lautner for “Abduction” and “Breaking Dawn.”

Swardson also was nominated for worst supporting actor for “Jack and Jill” and “Just Go with It.”

For worst actress, Sandler is joined by another cross-dressing actor, Martin Lawrence in “Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son.” Also nominated were Sarah Palin for her documentary “The Undefeated”; Sarah Jessica Parker for “I Don’t Know How She Does It” and “New Year’s Eve“; and Kristen Stewart for “Breaking Dawn.”

Appropriately, the winners will be announces on April Fool’s Day.

I will be your fashion and performance critic as we watch the parade down the red carpet and the main event. BTW, I always cry at the memorial tribute. Below the fold is the list for all the nominees. On with the show.

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.

February 26 is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 308 days remaining until the end of the year (309 in leap years).

Two national parks preserved, 10 years apart. The two national parks were established in the United States 10 years apart, the Grand Canyon in 1919 and the Grand Tetons in 1929.

The Grand Canyon National Park

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1903. An avid outdoorsman and staunch conservationist, he established the Grand Canyon Game Preserve on November 28, 1906. Livestock grazing was reduced, but predators such as mountain lions, eagles, and wolves were eradicated. Roosevelt added adjacent national forest lands and redesignated the preserve a U.S. National Monument on January 11, 1908. Opponents such as land and mining claim holders blocked efforts to reclassify the monument as a U.S. National Park for 11 years. Grand Canyon National Park was finally established as the 17th U.S. National Park by an Act of Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919.