Another late post. I'll try harder tomorrow but I do have physio in the morning and my back is saying hooray!
Puzzle — Today’s took me 2:53 (average 5:07). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football
| Points | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Team | W-L-T | Pct | Stk | Waiver | For | Against |
| 1 | 10-3-0 | .769 | W3 | 10 | 1,331.62 | 908.14 | |
| 2 | 9-4-0 | .692 | W2 | 9 | 1,277.98 | 1,010.86 | |
| 3+1 | 8-5-0 | .615 | W1 | 8 | 1,302.94 | 1,163.54 | |
| 4+1 | 8-5-0 | .615 | W1 | 7 | 1,250.88 | 1,119.02 | |
| 5-2 | 8-5-0 | .615 | L1 | 6 | 1,267.68 | 1,066.88 | |
| 6 | 6-7-0 | .462 | L1 | 5 | 1,108.04 | 1,187.58 | |
| 7 | 5-8-0 | .385 | L3 | 4 | 1,186.50 | 1,298.38 | |
| 8 | 5-8-0 | .385 | W1 | 3 | 1,150.72 | 1,320.78 | |
| 9 | 4-9-0 | .308 | L6 | 2 | 1,009.92 | 1,294.98 | |
| 10 | 2-11-0 | .154 | L1 | 1 | 877.96 | 1,394.08 | |
* Rank change shown is from week 12 – 13
Short Takes
Mother Jones — In early 1945, the federal government started to open the internment camps where it had held 120,000 Japanese Americans for much of World War II. Seven decades later, photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. has been tracking down the internees pictured in wartime images by photographers like Dorothea Lange (who photographed Kitagaki's own family—see below).
So far, he's identified more than 50 survivors, often reshooting them in the locations where they were originally photographed.
Seven-year-olds Helene Nakamoto Mihara (left, in top photo) and Mary Ann Yahiro (center) were photographed by Lange as they recited the Pledge of Allegiance outside their elementary school in San Francisco in 1942. Both were sent to the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. Yahiro (right, in bottom photo) was separated from her mother, who died in another camp. "I don't have bitterness like a lot of people might," she told Kitagaki.
Click through to read some of the personal stories of Japanese Americans interned in camps after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 07 December 1941. Some never recovered from this forced internment. In Canada, it was much the same as noted in Wikipedia :
Japanese Canadian Internment refers to the detainment of Japanese Canadians following the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong and Malaya and attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent Canadian declaration of war on Japan during World War II. This forced relocation subjected Japanese Canadians to government-enforced curfews and interrogations, in addition to job and property losses.[1] The internment of Japanese Canadians was deemed necessary by the federal Cabinetheaded by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, largely due to existing racism. This was done so, despite evidence supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Department of National Defence that this decision was unwarranted.[2]
Beginning after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and lasting until 1949 (four years after World War II had ended) all persons of Japanese heritage were systematically removed from their homes and businesses and sent to internment camps. The Canadian government shut down all Japanese-language newspapers, took possession of businesses and fishing boats, and effectively sold them. In order to fund the internment itself, vehicles, houses and personal belongings were also sold.[1]
In August 1944, Prime Minister Mackenzie King announced that Japanese Canadians were to move east into prisoner of war [POW] camps and internment camps as had been previously encouraged. The official policy stated that Japanese Canadians must move east of the Rocky Mountains or be repatriated to Japan following the end of the war.[3] However, by 1947 many Japanese Canadians had been granted exemption to this enforced no-entry zone, and by 1949 legislation was enacted that allowed Japanese Canadians the right to vote provincially as well as federally, officially marking the end of internment.[4]
One noted difference between the US and Canadian internments was the end date . . . in the US, internment ended in 1946, while in Canada the end was legislated in 1949. The reason for the internment in both countries was blatant racism and not the declared "danger to society" used at the time.
If we listen to Republicans and the right wing nut jobs, the US will head down this path again. As posted by TomCat today in his On the Edge–12/8/2015, Senator Jeff Merkley (D – Oregon) spoke elequently.
Daily Beast — The principle of “one person, one vote” sounds simple. But this week, the Supreme Court will hear a case that reveals how not-simple it really is, and how race lurks in the background of profound legal questions.
According to the Constitution, states determine how their state and local legislative districts are drawn. For more than a century, many were based on geography, which led some sparsely populated rural districts to have as much representation as cities.
That changed in 1964, when the Supreme Court ruled, in the case of Reynolds v. Sims, that the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution required districts to be based on population, not geography. “Legislators represent people, not trees,” wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren. And the Constitution requires that “the vote of any citizen is approximately equal in weight to that of any other citizen in the state.” The principle of “one person, one vote” was born.
I like Earl Warren's statement “Legislators represent people, not trees,”. Considering that only citizens can vote, but all people within a district must live with the determination that voters make in that district, IMO, setting district boundaries by population is the correct method. No method is 100% fair but Evenwel needs to get over it! Arguments are being heard Tuesday. It will be interesting to see how the Roberts court rules.
The Hill — The top two Republican leaders in Congress on Tuesday denounced Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States in a remarkable rebuke of the party’s presidential front-runner.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) collectively ripped the plan as unconstitutional, putting on stark display the rupture between the Republican establishment and Trump.
The fierce blowback from the GOP leaders was echoed by many rank-and-file Republican lawmakers — and did not go unnoticed.
It is about time that the Republican Party dealt with Trump.
Huffington Post — "However, by saying on Monday that all Muslims overseas, even U.S. citizens who are abroad for business or pleasure, will be refused re-entry to the United States, he would effectively deny them their citizenship rights," he [Max Paul Fiedman] wrote. "Like Jews in Germany, they would be rendered stateless."
The cover of the New York Dail News has Trump down to a tee. Check out their front page on Huff Post.
My Universe —
16 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 08/12/2015”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
MJ: Photos of present and past, it speaks a thousand words. I am humbled.
The Hill & HP: There are a LOT of Texans that believe the hateful rhetoric of Thump. It's also very difficult for me to see how and why these folks think this way. I can't wrap my head around the hate. Didn't he say he was going independent now? ugh.
My Universe: I'm in agreement with you, and Dr. Farmer. So sad.
Busy, busy, I do love my volunteering though. Hope your physio goes well.
Thanks, Lynn.
Don't forget to take care of yourself too, Lynn. You're not under contract with TomCat for seven posts per week, are you? Not with Judi, Nameless, Joanne and TomCat himself of course chipping in so frequently, I hope 😉
Mother Jones/Wikipedia: This is a part of history I'm not familiar with. I knew about the Japanese interment camps in America and Australia – which also interned Germans and about 20% of its Italian population – but I wasn't aware that Canada also did this. The way it is described, sadly is very much akin to the way the Germans first interned the Jews, Roma and any others they didn't "like", by also confiscating their belongings and selling it off. Governments all over the world have been using the racism/xenophobia they had stirred up to gain financially too, and by the looks of it, the Republicans are still doing it, no matter the costs in human terms.
We seem to learn nothing from the past because we allow ourselves to forget about it and hide it away. Racist populists like Donald Trump have no trouble making the same mistakes all over again, they have no conscience to bother them.
Daily Beast: Being such a large country with 50 states each having their own way of making election rules for them, things can get very complicated, lacking transparency and open to tampering. In all countries known to me with voting districts (America, Britain, Australia) "one person, one vote" combined with "all votes are equal", something goes wrong with equal representation. At election time I'm always glad Holland is small, every citizen above 18 is eligible to vote without registering to vote first, and all votes are equal and go towards a percentage of the one total of eligible voters. I just hope SCOTUS will not further the problems they have created earlier with their decisions. This SCOTUS is not well known for doing what is right after all.
The Hill: Hypocrites. Where were they when Jeb wanted to let in Christian Syrians refugees only? The whole Clown Car has been saying similar things, but slightly more veiled, to Trump. But they need to go all out now or they'll have no Republican voters left but the fringe.
Huffington Post: People now start to point out that the consequences of what Trump suggests are unconstitutional, need new laws, make people stateless and so on. But really people, do you honestly think that Trump or his followers give a frack about that? They go for the sound bites, as most Republicans do, and they love what they hear. Donald's only intention is to get media attention and boy, has he gotten their, and everyone's, attention. Tomorrow he'll say he never said it, never apologize for it and the day after he'll have thought up a new, even more shocking sound byte. And his base loves him for it: so honest, telling it like it really is, no political niceties. The Tea Party has unleashed a monster that even they can't get get back into its cage again.
My Universe: The world has been wrong since mankind developed a brain and started thinking this way.
No Lona, no contract with TC. TC did not even know I was posting at first. I started posting using his format to help you guys bide time while we tried to locate him and get info. I remember this first one was a Friday or a weekend. I made a commitment to you guys for at least 4 per week. But I have been able to manage 7 per week, and sometimes more. Once TC is running at full steam, I'll back off a bit.
Tuesday 4:57 But where is Brother Cadfael?
Mother Jones – Yes, it was blatant racism. It was fueled by irrational fears rather than by angry hate, but it was blatant racism. Today, at least in the US it seems that so many people have whizzed way past irrational fear and are way up in the angry hate zone. Probably like most people here, that scares me far more than any "others" who happen to be around. Kudos to Kitagaki.
Daily Beast – Another Republican plot to win by cheating. You are thinking of non-citizens, Lynn – I am thinking of citizens who, some because of paperwork issues and some simply because of learned helplessness – are a great deal more in need of representation than those who are running the show. Evenwel isn't the only one who needs to get over it. The entire Republican Party needs to get over it.
The Hill – Well! Wonder who in the Republican Party – and it had to be more than one person – was smart enough to realize the need and then accomplish the impossible, of putting some spine into the Speaker and the Majority Leader. I am afraid I consider their denunciation, however, to be equivalent of a piecrust promise (made to be broken).
HuffPo – I have already posted about US military service people, and Congressmen, who would be rendered stateledd by Trump. I won't belabor it again. I don't expect he ever had any Muslim veteran supporters, but he sure lost a lot of non-Muslim veterans with this.
Universe – Despite the misspelling here, I'm using this citation because the site author feels just as I do about this song.
Also – http://action.groundswell-mvmt.org/petitions/amid-anti-muslim-hate-sign-this-letter-of-support-to-the-muslim-community
And this – Keith Ellison is asking –
http://action.dccc.org/petition/trump-bigot
Petitions signed.
Wanting something good coming out of this whole episode.
Most likely not as the public has been whipped into a xenophobic frenzy by the GOP.
sigh…
Actually, I was thinking anyone that could not vote for any reason . . . probably didn't articulate it well enough. But if someone could vote but did not, I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Fantasy: Just out of curiosity, how much loner is the season including the playoffs?
MoJo: Wonderful article but sad at the same time of the Japanese American Internees of World War II. It should never have happened but it did and in Canada as well. This is an unusual undertaking of retracing Dorothea Lange's photo locations and using the people as before and after plus a discussion on their unusual stories and experienes.
I'm familiar with Lange's photographs of the people during the depression era of the 1930's, known as "social documentary photography." You might recognize some of those photos. I was not aware that Dorothea took photos on the interments.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Lange's+photographs+during+depression&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG8vqi18_JAhVP0GMKHVaID2IQsAQIKQ
Senator Jeff Merkley (D – Oregon) video – 3 minutes. Wonderul. Have a listen.
Daily Beast: I don't trust the Roberts court to do the right thing. The fact that the Supreme Court took the case instead of rejecting it is why.
Hill: Of course both Lyin' Ryan and Bought Bitch Mitch are denouncing Trump publicly and loudly but both do want to scare people into a fearful frenzy as to, perhaps, gain control of their own GOP group along with voters who are xenophobic about Muslims. In reality and quickly, they have voted to pass the discriminatory visa waiver bill yesterday by a 407 to 7 margin in the House of Representatives.
Guessing that Lyin' Ryan and Bought Bitch McConnell used and argued that barring Muslims would violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom to cover their stone cold asses.
Huff Po: Yep, the cartoon of Trump and the Head of the Statue of Liberty sure makes for conversation if the people only knew what it meant. Unfortunately, the public has less than a fifth graders' education to see what it really is. sigh…
Universe: Maybe it could be amended to say that the 1% of the 1% and the GOP/TP/Koch Party/Freedom Caucus lives are less… lol.
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Jim, according to nfl.com this is week 14, the final week of the regular season. Next week is week 15 quarter finals, week 16 is semi finals, and week 17 is the championship. So, we're almost there.
Thanks for the update.
3:34 I stopped off the check out the organic garden.
Merkely rocks, the Huff Post rocks, and I have seen with some real amazement, the N.Y.Daily News headlines, at any rate, moving towards a liberal presence! They have lambasted the Hairy presence among us!
Max Paul Fredman's comment abotu statelessness, echos Trump's comment to a Jewish group, recently, stereotyping about their wonderful capacity to "negotiate." In my head, this equaled his saying that they are good at "Jewing someone down."
Ryan and McConnell are simply quiet versions of Trump, as referred to above.
Thanks everyone! I am tired and going off to bed.
Me too. Sleepless in Sonoma… lol.