12 Million Americans Believe Lizard People Run Our Country.
That number is actually lower than I expected!
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Hilarious!
I don't know why but I've been on a real photo kick lately. It truly is a medium that has exploded thanks to social media. But it also has an eye to the past and that's why I completely adored this site. What a fantastic idea! Check it out!
Friday, November 15, 2013
He's Right
Michael Tomasky is absolutely right when the says that the Democrats need to to stop freaking out and take charge. They tend to get sucked in to the news cycle panic of the moment and forget about the the long term picture. In the final analysis, this is where we are at.
The current situation is serious. But I remember a lot of other times when it was supposedly curtains for Obama, too, because inside the Beltway, the more disciplined Republicans, who after all are in the luxurious position of just sitting back and firing away, have an easier time winning news cycles. But out beyond the Beltway, the party that shut down the government for three weeks and killed immigration reform and wants to decimate food stamps and can’t even pass its own spending bills doesn’t look very appealing to most people. The fate of Obamacare can be changed. The DNA of the GOP cannot.
How To Admit Fault
I challenge any conservative to show me a Republican that is this reflective and honest.
The Barack Obama they hate simply doesn't exist.
The Barack Obama they hate simply doesn't exist.
The Magic Bullet Was Ordinary After All
With the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination coming up, NOVA ran an episode called "Cold Case JFK" that may interest conspiracy theorists.
Using the slim evidence left over from the botched investigations in 1963 and experiments with a rifle identical to the one Lee Harvey Oswald bought mail order, ballistics experts Luke and Mike Haag and other forensics experts put together a pretty convincing case that Oswald fired all three shots: The first one missed. The second one hit Kennedy in the back, exited at the neck, passed through Governor John Connally, passed through his wrist and then lodged in his leg. The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head, causing a small entry wound and a large explosion of brain and blood at the exit point in the forehead.
The bullet in question was a 6.5x52mm Carcano cartridge, similar to the one shown on the right. A 6.5 mm Carcano model 91/38 carbine was found in the Texas Schoolbook Depository with Oswald's handprint on it. The key thing about this bullet is the long, cylindrical shape of the slug (the part of the cartridge that's fired from the rifle). Most rifle bullets are like the 30.06 slug below on the the right: more conical than cylindrical.
The cylindrical shape of the Carcano slug means that it has more contact with the riflings inside the rifle barrel than a 30.06 slug does, which gives it more spin and therefore makes it fly truer through the air.
However, once it passes through something -- say, a head or ballistics gel -- it begins to "yaw" or tumble. The bullet had started to tumble when it struck Connally, and hit him sideways instead of straight on.
The Haags' experiments in the NOVA program bear all this out.
The Carcano slug was also copper-jacketed, which means it would deform less than a naked lead slug. And the slug that was found on Connally's gurney was deformed -- the rear end was pinched in, just as you would expect if it hit Connally sideways, as shown in the third photo.
The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head and caused a massive shockwave through the skull, causing the forehead to explode. The pattern of cracks in the skull is consistent with a rear entry wound, ruling out a shot from the Grassy Knoll. The backward jerking of Kennedy's body evident in the Zapruder film was due to a spasm that caused all Kennedy's muscles to contract, but since back muscles are stronger than abdominals, his head jerked back.
Other incidentals such as people hearing more than three shots are due to echoes and the supersonic speed of the Carcano slug.
From all this it seems that Oswald really was the lone gunman. Which means Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission actually got something right with the single-bullet theory.
Oswald, an avowed Marxist, apparently tried to assassinate Edwin Walker, a retired general who Oswald called a Fascist (Walker had tried to stop desegregation in Mississippi). So it's plausible that Oswald was a nut and was just moving on to higher things by assassinating Kennedy, with no orders from Cuba or Moscow or Vegas or the Teamsters. Oswald may also have had an accomplice in the Walker assassination attempt, which means... Well, you get the picture.
However, the fact that Oswald shot Kennedy single-handedly doesn't mean there was no conspiracy. Jack Ruby's shocking murder of Oswald on live TV is incomprehensible. Why would a strip club owner with mob connections sacrifice his own life to spare Jackie Kennedy the pain of testifying in the trial of the century?
Unfortunately, forensics and ballistics will never provide the answers for the machinations that led up to Ruby's silencing of Oswald.
Using the slim evidence left over from the botched investigations in 1963 and experiments with a rifle identical to the one Lee Harvey Oswald bought mail order, ballistics experts Luke and Mike Haag and other forensics experts put together a pretty convincing case that Oswald fired all three shots: The first one missed. The second one hit Kennedy in the back, exited at the neck, passed through Governor John Connally, passed through his wrist and then lodged in his leg. The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head, causing a small entry wound and a large explosion of brain and blood at the exit point in the forehead.
 | ||||
| Carcano 6.5 mm cartridge |
 |
| 30.06 cartridge |
 |
| Rear View of Magic Bullet |
The cylindrical shape of the Carcano slug means that it has more contact with the riflings inside the rifle barrel than a 30.06 slug does, which gives it more spin and therefore makes it fly truer through the air.
However, once it passes through something -- say, a head or ballistics gel -- it begins to "yaw" or tumble. The bullet had started to tumble when it struck Connally, and hit him sideways instead of straight on.
The Haags' experiments in the NOVA program bear all this out.
The Carcano slug was also copper-jacketed, which means it would deform less than a naked lead slug. And the slug that was found on Connally's gurney was deformed -- the rear end was pinched in, just as you would expect if it hit Connally sideways, as shown in the third photo.
The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the head and caused a massive shockwave through the skull, causing the forehead to explode. The pattern of cracks in the skull is consistent with a rear entry wound, ruling out a shot from the Grassy Knoll. The backward jerking of Kennedy's body evident in the Zapruder film was due to a spasm that caused all Kennedy's muscles to contract, but since back muscles are stronger than abdominals, his head jerked back.
Other incidentals such as people hearing more than three shots are due to echoes and the supersonic speed of the Carcano slug.
From all this it seems that Oswald really was the lone gunman. Which means Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission actually got something right with the single-bullet theory.
Oswald, an avowed Marxist, apparently tried to assassinate Edwin Walker, a retired general who Oswald called a Fascist (Walker had tried to stop desegregation in Mississippi). So it's plausible that Oswald was a nut and was just moving on to higher things by assassinating Kennedy, with no orders from Cuba or Moscow or Vegas or the Teamsters. Oswald may also have had an accomplice in the Walker assassination attempt, which means... Well, you get the picture.
However, the fact that Oswald shot Kennedy single-handedly doesn't mean there was no conspiracy. Jack Ruby's shocking murder of Oswald on live TV is incomprehensible. Why would a strip club owner with mob connections sacrifice his own life to spare Jackie Kennedy the pain of testifying in the trial of the century?
Unfortunately, forensics and ballistics will never provide the answers for the machinations that led up to Ruby's silencing of Oswald.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Hating Pope Frank
I've been laughing my socks right off of my feet as the Right reacts to Pope Francis and his vision that primarily involves Christians actually (gasp!) doing the work of Jesus. You know, feeding the poor...taking care of the sick and less fortunate...as opposed to judging others and being maniacally obsessed with sex. None have been more shocked than Sarah "I'm on a book tour so it's time for me to say dumb shit" Palin.
OMG, Sarah!! Jesus was, in fact, a liberal:)
OMG, Sarah!! Jesus was, in fact, a liberal:)
Welfare Myths
I'm pretty sick and tired of all the myths being spread out there regarding people on welfare. Thankfully, this piece torpedoes nine of them quite well. Here are three that stand out.
Myth: “People on welfare are lazy and sit at home collecting it while the rest of us work to support them.”
Fact: The welfare reform law that was signed by President Clinton in 1996 largely turned control over welfare benefits to the states, but the federal government provides some of the funding for state welfare programs through a program called Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF). TANF grants to states require that all welfare recipients must find work within two years of first receiving benefits. This includes single parents, who are required to work at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families are required to work 35 to 50 hours per week. Failure to obtain work could result in loss of benefits. It is also worth noting that, thanks to the pay offerings of companies such as Walmart, many who work at low wage jobs qualify for public assistance, even though they work full-time.
Right. People that get assistance are already working. Their jobs simply don't pay enough. And bitch all you want about federal spending on food stamps but the states are the ones that largely control aid to the poor.
Myth: “There’s a woman in Chicago. She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards. … She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000″ – Ronald Reagan
Fact: Ah, the “welfare queen.” Ronny loved to tell his stories, and his welfare queen story is one of the most popular. The only problem is, the woman he talked about didn’t exist. There is some evidence that elements of this story may have been based on facts, but the descriptions of abuse by an actual woman were wildly exaggerated by Reagan.
The Right loves to make shit up (see: lie). This would be a great example.
Myth: “Most welfare recipients are minorities and illegal immigrants.”
Fact: TANF benefits were paid out to roughly the same percentage of white and black recipients in 2010, according to the HHS report. In fact, the percentage of black families receiving welfare benefits has declined by almost 7 percent since 2000. Regarding illegal immigrants: those who are in the United States illegally are ineligible for benefits other than emergency Medicaid.
Many of those white folks are rural poor in deep red states. If they could only realize that the people they support are essentially lying to them with religion and are actively trying to fuck them, every state would basically be blue.
Welfare falsehoods really piss me off. Spread this post and the included links around and don't let the Right continue their lying.
Myth: “People on welfare are lazy and sit at home collecting it while the rest of us work to support them.”
Fact: The welfare reform law that was signed by President Clinton in 1996 largely turned control over welfare benefits to the states, but the federal government provides some of the funding for state welfare programs through a program called Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF). TANF grants to states require that all welfare recipients must find work within two years of first receiving benefits. This includes single parents, who are required to work at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families are required to work 35 to 50 hours per week. Failure to obtain work could result in loss of benefits. It is also worth noting that, thanks to the pay offerings of companies such as Walmart, many who work at low wage jobs qualify for public assistance, even though they work full-time.
Right. People that get assistance are already working. Their jobs simply don't pay enough. And bitch all you want about federal spending on food stamps but the states are the ones that largely control aid to the poor.
Myth: “There’s a woman in Chicago. She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards. … She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000″ – Ronald Reagan
Fact: Ah, the “welfare queen.” Ronny loved to tell his stories, and his welfare queen story is one of the most popular. The only problem is, the woman he talked about didn’t exist. There is some evidence that elements of this story may have been based on facts, but the descriptions of abuse by an actual woman were wildly exaggerated by Reagan.
The Right loves to make shit up (see: lie). This would be a great example.
Myth: “Most welfare recipients are minorities and illegal immigrants.”
Fact: TANF benefits were paid out to roughly the same percentage of white and black recipients in 2010, according to the HHS report. In fact, the percentage of black families receiving welfare benefits has declined by almost 7 percent since 2000. Regarding illegal immigrants: those who are in the United States illegally are ineligible for benefits other than emergency Medicaid.
Many of those white folks are rural poor in deep red states. If they could only realize that the people they support are essentially lying to them with religion and are actively trying to fuck them, every state would basically be blue.
Welfare falsehoods really piss me off. Spread this post and the included links around and don't let the Right continue their lying.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Finally
Apocalypticism.
They, along with the Tea Party and many other conservatives, think the End Times are nigh. And guess what? It's all the fault of the liberals.
There are so many great lines in this piece I don't know where to start. Let's see if I can limit myself to just three and then urge y'all to go and read the rest.
They believe America teeters on the brink of destruction, and hold as an article of faith that liberals, gays, Democrats, atheists and the United Nations are to blame. This “end-times” world-view is a foundational precept of the evangelical movement, from which many of the so-called Tea Party favorites spring.Of course, the Tea Party is not just composed of members of the Christian right. Many are genuine libertarians. Some nurse an unreconstructed Confederate grudge, while others harbor a thinly disguised racism. However, the real energy, the animating force for the movement comes from evangelicals, of whom Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin are the most strident. These are the modern-day ”apocalyptic prophets.”
See, you don't have to be a Christian to believe in the apocalypse. Kevin Baker isn't a Christian. Neither is juris. Yet there is something in their libertarianism that helps them along to end times thinking. McLean does a good job of explaining the history of end times thinking. But how does that fit in to today?
For these apocalyptic prophets, the issues aren’t even political anymore; they’re existential, with Obamacare serving as the avatar for all evil. In this construct, any compromise whatsoever leads to damnation, and therefore the righteous ends justify any means. Now if you are battling the forces of evil for the very survival of the nation, there can be no retreat, no compromise, and no deals. Like the Jewish zealots at Masada, it’s better to commit glorious suicide than make peace with the devil. There can be no truce with the Tea Party because its apocalyptic zealots can never take “yes” for an answer.
Compromise as damnation...yep. McLean also notes what I have been stating previously. The GOP establishment and business wing of the party is fighting back. The coming civil war in the Republican party is going to be bloody. But how will it all end? McLean says either the pragmatists win or the hardliners revolt and leave. Either way, a center right party emerges that will enjoy support.
Not surprisingly, these moderates have both liberal and conservative views. 64% support gay marriage, 63% support abortion in the first trimester, 52% support legalizing marijuana, and they support a strong social safety net by wide margins. But 81% support offshore drilling, 90% support the death penalty and 57% are against affirmative action. So a new moderate coalition might well attract significant support from the moderate middle, establishment Republicans, Independents and centrist Democrats too.
Whatever way you cut it, my three commenters, along with the Tea Party and the right wing blogsphere, aren't going to get what they want. Oh well. At least they'll have plenty to complain about. Hey, maybe we could help them set up their own community with all the rest of the doomsayers. They could walk around all day preaching apocalypse to each other and leave the rest of us sane people out of it.
Shades of Gray Willfully Ignored
It always stuns me when conservatives and, in particular, the gun community, make truly thoughtless statements. One such statement popped in comments a while back which can be essentially summed up as this: if someone is too mentally ill to handle a gun, they are too mentally ill to be out in society.
Setting aside the complete lack of intelligence in terms of mental health issues, how people are institutionalized and...well...that the world is shades of gray (not so black and white), statements like this show just how religious these folks are about guns. It's not about the 2nd amendment anymore. It's about proselytizing. Worse, it really illustrates just how ignorant these folks are regarding human nature and how they completely misunderstand, either by free choice or pure ignorance, the fact that low levels of responsibility are the norm, not the exception, in this country. It's this simple fact that will eventually bite them hard in the ass.
These thoughts really crystallized for me a couple of days ago when two separate events occurred. The first one was a story my wife told me about a fellow parent at my son's school. She was having a conversation with another mom that turned to video games. My wife was pretty shocked to learn that this mom let her son play whatever games he wanted (like Call of Duty) even though he has had mental health problems. Compounding this waiting disaster was the mom's admission that she and her husband were going to get their conceal and carry permits and how they were going to start taking their 11 year old son (the one with the mental health problems and love of Call of Duty) to the range on a regular basis to "turn him into a man." It's nice to know the next Adam Lanza will be just a few short blocks away.
Later that day, I went and played tennis with a younger guy who was clearly on the autism spectrum. He was very picky and jumpy throughout the match, admonishing me for not handing him the balls in the right way on the changeover. A couple of times he just wigged out because he thought he saw a ball flying onto the court from another court and in reality, there was nothing. He apologized after the match, noting his mental health issues, and asked me to give him a break. We never talked about guns but it occurred to me that, while this guy was just fine to be out in public, he would decidedly not be fine given a firearm.
There are many people in this country that are not dangerous in and of themselves. But you start adding in elements to the mix of a perfect cocktail and you can very easily have an explosion of violence. It's not as black and white as the commenter assured me (shocking). Everyone is different and each mental issue is complex with each individual. To say that they should all be institutionalized simply because they can't be trusted with a gun is completely myopic.
And I am real tired of the annual culling that goes on from gun violence as a result of this ignorance.
Setting aside the complete lack of intelligence in terms of mental health issues, how people are institutionalized and...well...that the world is shades of gray (not so black and white), statements like this show just how religious these folks are about guns. It's not about the 2nd amendment anymore. It's about proselytizing. Worse, it really illustrates just how ignorant these folks are regarding human nature and how they completely misunderstand, either by free choice or pure ignorance, the fact that low levels of responsibility are the norm, not the exception, in this country. It's this simple fact that will eventually bite them hard in the ass.
These thoughts really crystallized for me a couple of days ago when two separate events occurred. The first one was a story my wife told me about a fellow parent at my son's school. She was having a conversation with another mom that turned to video games. My wife was pretty shocked to learn that this mom let her son play whatever games he wanted (like Call of Duty) even though he has had mental health problems. Compounding this waiting disaster was the mom's admission that she and her husband were going to get their conceal and carry permits and how they were going to start taking their 11 year old son (the one with the mental health problems and love of Call of Duty) to the range on a regular basis to "turn him into a man." It's nice to know the next Adam Lanza will be just a few short blocks away.
Later that day, I went and played tennis with a younger guy who was clearly on the autism spectrum. He was very picky and jumpy throughout the match, admonishing me for not handing him the balls in the right way on the changeover. A couple of times he just wigged out because he thought he saw a ball flying onto the court from another court and in reality, there was nothing. He apologized after the match, noting his mental health issues, and asked me to give him a break. We never talked about guns but it occurred to me that, while this guy was just fine to be out in public, he would decidedly not be fine given a firearm.
There are many people in this country that are not dangerous in and of themselves. But you start adding in elements to the mix of a perfect cocktail and you can very easily have an explosion of violence. It's not as black and white as the commenter assured me (shocking). Everyone is different and each mental issue is complex with each individual. To say that they should all be institutionalized simply because they can't be trusted with a gun is completely myopic.
And I am real tired of the annual culling that goes on from gun violence as a result of this ignorance.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Huh?
Linguists have found the first universal word, a word that is in every language spoken on earth.
Huh?
Yes, it's the word "huh?" The authors of the study published in PLOS One call it an "other-initiated repair," an element of language
But still, the pronunciation of huh? is amazingly consistent: a single syllable, nasal, low front to middle vowel, never ending in a consonant. The intonation is rising in all languages except those having a falling interrogative prosody (to keep it consistent with other question sentences).
Some people might argue that huh? isn't even a word. I might have agreed until a few years ago, when my sister suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and lost her ability to speak. She can now form words only with extreme difficulty, and after many successive repetitions, when the signals finally get from her brain to her throat, tongue and lips. And still it sounds like a rusted gate opening, clumsy and nothing like her original voice. She knows exactly what she's trying to say, but her injured brain simply cannot force the sounds out. Even with words as simple as yes and no.
But when she says huh? she sounds exactly like her old self, no hesitation or mispronunciation. That implies that huh? is part of a lower-level universal vocabulary.
This makes me wonder if there are other utterances that are part of this ur-vocabulary. After trying unsuccessfully to form a sentence, my sister sighs with frustration, just like anyone else might. Is the sigh of frustration universal? Laughter seems to be universal, though individual laugh "accents" differ greatly. How widely understood are "uh-uh" or "mm-mm" for no, and "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm" for yes?
In any case, this means that when someone blurts at you in a foreign language, responding with "huh?" will get the message across loud and clear.
Huh?
Yes, it's the word "huh?" The authors of the study published in PLOS One call it an "other-initiated repair," an element of language
in which one participant produces a turn at talk, the other then signals some trouble with this turn, and finally the first produces a next turn which aims to solve the trouble, usually by means of repetition and/or modification. In some languages the interjection, or an item similar to it, was also found in other sequential environments, for instance to mark surprise or to pursue a response.The exact pronunciation of huh? varies somewhat from one language to another, much like the word "dog" might be pronounced "dawg" or "dowg" or "dahg" or "doug" or "doh-oog" in different parts of the world.
But still, the pronunciation of huh? is amazingly consistent: a single syllable, nasal, low front to middle vowel, never ending in a consonant. The intonation is rising in all languages except those having a falling interrogative prosody (to keep it consistent with other question sentences).
Some people might argue that huh? isn't even a word. I might have agreed until a few years ago, when my sister suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and lost her ability to speak. She can now form words only with extreme difficulty, and after many successive repetitions, when the signals finally get from her brain to her throat, tongue and lips. And still it sounds like a rusted gate opening, clumsy and nothing like her original voice. She knows exactly what she's trying to say, but her injured brain simply cannot force the sounds out. Even with words as simple as yes and no.
But when she says huh? she sounds exactly like her old self, no hesitation or mispronunciation. That implies that huh? is part of a lower-level universal vocabulary.
This makes me wonder if there are other utterances that are part of this ur-vocabulary. After trying unsuccessfully to form a sentence, my sister sighs with frustration, just like anyone else might. Is the sigh of frustration universal? Laughter seems to be universal, though individual laugh "accents" differ greatly. How widely understood are "uh-uh" or "mm-mm" for no, and "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm" for yes?
In any case, this means that when someone blurts at you in a foreign language, responding with "huh?" will get the message across loud and clear.
Simply Wrong
For the most part, I think it's best to not use comparisons to slavery in this day and age. But if you are Sarah Palin and want to get attention, then I guess it's OK!
Ignoring the obvious offensiveness of the statement, it's simply wrong as I have demonstrated just recently. Our debt is not entirely owned by the Chinese. For the most part, it's money we owe ourselves and it isn't that big of a problem.
Conservatives like to talk about how it's all "simple math" yet they completely ignore our assets as a country (hundreds of trillions of dollars), our economy ($17 trillion and growing), and our very steady revenue stream (just south of $6 trillion a year). Their irrational screeds about spending sound more and more like sermons and proselytizing and less like actual facts. Of course, Sarah Palin can best be summed up like this...
Ignoring the obvious offensiveness of the statement, it's simply wrong as I have demonstrated just recently. Our debt is not entirely owned by the Chinese. For the most part, it's money we owe ourselves and it isn't that big of a problem.
Conservatives like to talk about how it's all "simple math" yet they completely ignore our assets as a country (hundreds of trillions of dollars), our economy ($17 trillion and growing), and our very steady revenue stream (just south of $6 trillion a year). Their irrational screeds about spending sound more and more like sermons and proselytizing and less like actual facts. Of course, Sarah Palin can best be summed up like this...
When You Hear Their Answers...
As I have said many times, the biggest impediment to progress in this country is the conservative movement as it stands today (see: apocalyptic cult). While we are seeing signs of them moving away from psychosis, they seem unable to grasp that our country has one direction: forward. Yet, it is not simply the conservative that are holding us back. Another big impediment are the liberals themselves.
Liberals are, by their very nature, diplomatic and reflective. So when conservatives say things like climate change is a hoax perpetuated by people want to control us or that having universal background checks means a national registry, we pause and wonder if what they are saying might be true. That's where the first mistake is made. We take their assertions at face value. The second mistake is then the movement toward the playing field that they want to play on (i.e. where they can "win"). By even considering that climate change legislation is going to lead to internment camps or that a national registry is really, really bad, we feed into their paranoia and, sadly, embolden their argument.
So, the lesson is quite simple. Refuse to allow them to set the table. Ignore the impulse to be diplomatic and fair minded when they say something ridiculous. Instead, ask questions. Why is a national registry bad? What happens after that? Who are those people whose backgrounds are not checked now? What should we do with them instead? What should we do about climate change?
When you hear their answers, it will become obvious very quickly that these people should not be in charge of anything.
Liberals are, by their very nature, diplomatic and reflective. So when conservatives say things like climate change is a hoax perpetuated by people want to control us or that having universal background checks means a national registry, we pause and wonder if what they are saying might be true. That's where the first mistake is made. We take their assertions at face value. The second mistake is then the movement toward the playing field that they want to play on (i.e. where they can "win"). By even considering that climate change legislation is going to lead to internment camps or that a national registry is really, really bad, we feed into their paranoia and, sadly, embolden their argument.
So, the lesson is quite simple. Refuse to allow them to set the table. Ignore the impulse to be diplomatic and fair minded when they say something ridiculous. Instead, ask questions. Why is a national registry bad? What happens after that? Who are those people whose backgrounds are not checked now? What should we do with them instead? What should we do about climate change?
When you hear their answers, it will become obvious very quickly that these people should not be in charge of anything.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Veteran's Day Thoughts
When most Americans think of veterans, they imagine an older man in a baseball cap with United States flag on it. Certainly, there are plenty of veterans out there who fit that description. If you see one today, walk up to them, touch them on the shoulder and thank them for their service.
Yet there are plenty of young veterans as we can see in the photo below from USATODAY.
These are the faces of an entire new generation of veterans that very much need to be recognized for their service in the last decade. Two, three, four and even five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on the minds of young veterans and turned the spotlight onto the issue of mental health and PTSC (post traumatic stress disorder). Two people very close to me have struggled with mental illness after their service in Afghanistan. One was a marine who served three tours in that country and has struggled enormously with the guilt of surviving where so many of his brothers...close friends in his unity...have died.
They need our support and it can be something as little as just spending time with them and checking in regularly to make sure they are OK. Monetary donations are always nice but your time is much more valuable. Show them how grateful we all are!
Yet there are plenty of young veterans as we can see in the photo below from USATODAY.
These are the faces of an entire new generation of veterans that very much need to be recognized for their service in the last decade. Two, three, four and even five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on the minds of young veterans and turned the spotlight onto the issue of mental health and PTSC (post traumatic stress disorder). Two people very close to me have struggled with mental illness after their service in Afghanistan. One was a marine who served three tours in that country and has struggled enormously with the guilt of surviving where so many of his brothers...close friends in his unity...have died.
They need our support and it can be something as little as just spending time with them and checking in regularly to make sure they are OK. Monetary donations are always nice but your time is much more valuable. Show them how grateful we all are!
Sunday, November 10, 2013
True Geography
As someone who occasionally teaches geography, it's important to remember this lesson.
World News Roundup
Turing to world news, the biggest story of the last few day is the massive destruction in the Philippines caused by what may very well be the biggest storm the world has ever seen. The images we have been seeing for the past couple of days have been positively heartbreaking. According to the BBC, Up to 10,000 are said to have died in Tacloban city and hundreds elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands are displaced.
The typhoon flattened homes, schools and an airport in Tacloban. Relief workers are yet to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm. In many areas there is no clean water, no electricity and very little food. There were repors of nearly 300mph winds felt across the islands in the area. One has to wonder if this was simply a fluke event or something that will be more commonplace due to our changing climate. We won't know for certain as this is simply an isolated weather event but if we see more events like this, then it will be the trend climate scientists have been predicting.
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Heartbreaking but in an entirely different way is the situation in the Central African Republic. The Seleka coalition of armed rebels ousted President Francois Bozize earlier this year. Since then the rebels have committed human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale," according to Reuters and Amnesty. The image in the link shows houses that have been burned in just one town.
Usually stories of violence in African nations are so common that people simply blow them off as just how things are there. They don't have to be, of course, and many of the solutions to the problems African nations face are rooted in structural flaws left behind by the exodus of European nations post imperialism. Direct aid helps but not as much as the nations of the Global North going into these countries and helping them create sustainable economies.
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The United States and Iran have failed to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Shocking, I know. What began as more hope then we have seen in years, ended abruptly when faced with hardliners political capital on all sides of the talks. In some ways, I agree with the hardliners like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran has to do much more than elect a new president who says nice things. Granted, President Rouhani has to deal with his own hardliners but with protests in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities that are deeply anti-American, his government is going to have to take significant action if they want movement on an end to the sanctions that are crippling his country.
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Finally, it seems there is one country in the world that would like to give up their guns: Yemen. It seems that the citizens of Yemen would happily hand in their guns if their government provided better security.
Like most Yemeni men, Mahmoud Shahra owns a gun and has known how to use it since childhood, although the 25-year-old activist used to leave his weapons at home. But since the politically motivated kidnapping of one of his close friends earlier this year, Shahra has carried a gun at nearly all times. He seems at ease with his AK-47, but his demeanor hides internal disquiet. “Even if I feel safer and more confident, I feel like I’m betraying my values when I carry a gun,” he says. “Still, the current security environment has forced me to do so.”
Values? Hmm...
The typhoon flattened homes, schools and an airport in Tacloban. Relief workers are yet to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm. In many areas there is no clean water, no electricity and very little food. There were repors of nearly 300mph winds felt across the islands in the area. One has to wonder if this was simply a fluke event or something that will be more commonplace due to our changing climate. We won't know for certain as this is simply an isolated weather event but if we see more events like this, then it will be the trend climate scientists have been predicting.
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Heartbreaking but in an entirely different way is the situation in the Central African Republic. The Seleka coalition of armed rebels ousted President Francois Bozize earlier this year. Since then the rebels have committed human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale," according to Reuters and Amnesty. The image in the link shows houses that have been burned in just one town.
Usually stories of violence in African nations are so common that people simply blow them off as just how things are there. They don't have to be, of course, and many of the solutions to the problems African nations face are rooted in structural flaws left behind by the exodus of European nations post imperialism. Direct aid helps but not as much as the nations of the Global North going into these countries and helping them create sustainable economies.
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The United States and Iran have failed to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Shocking, I know. What began as more hope then we have seen in years, ended abruptly when faced with hardliners political capital on all sides of the talks. In some ways, I agree with the hardliners like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran has to do much more than elect a new president who says nice things. Granted, President Rouhani has to deal with his own hardliners but with protests in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities that are deeply anti-American, his government is going to have to take significant action if they want movement on an end to the sanctions that are crippling his country.
---
Finally, it seems there is one country in the world that would like to give up their guns: Yemen. It seems that the citizens of Yemen would happily hand in their guns if their government provided better security.
Like most Yemeni men, Mahmoud Shahra owns a gun and has known how to use it since childhood, although the 25-year-old activist used to leave his weapons at home. But since the politically motivated kidnapping of one of his close friends earlier this year, Shahra has carried a gun at nearly all times. He seems at ease with his AK-47, but his demeanor hides internal disquiet. “Even if I feel safer and more confident, I feel like I’m betraying my values when I carry a gun,” he says. “Still, the current security environment has forced me to do so.”
Values? Hmm...
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