Open Thread for February 20, 2022

 Posted by at 6:34 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 202022
 

Yesterday, the opera radio broadcast was “Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky. The title role is for basses what the role of “Norma” is for sopranos – the pinnacle which everyone wants to reach but few can. Having just written about Ryan Speedo Green, and notoced that one of his teachers said his voive is still growing and will be growing for years, I wondered whether one day he would sing this. He was actually in this production in a supporting role. That gave me a smile.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – ‘Freedom Convoy’ Leader Pat King Arrested While On Facebook Live
Quote – He was told he was being arrested for counselling to commit the offence of mischief, counselling to obstruct police and counselling to commit the offence of disobeying a court order. King told the officer he would like to call his lawyer. “I have the right to a lawyer?” he asked, to which the police officer responded: “Of course you do.”
Click through. Police in the United States should watch this to learn how it’s supposed to be done. (And I love Canada’s use of he term “counselling” where we would say “inciting.’

Letters from an American – February 18, 2022
Friday is supposed to be a slow news day, but Heather cites four stpries, any one of which could be fron page news:
1. Yes, there was classified information in the documents Trump** took to Mar-a-Lago. And that’s not all.
2. Fake special counselJohn Durham alleges that RWNJ frenzy caused by hs reporting is not his problem.
3. In addition to the Humpty Dumpty – 1984 lawsuits, another Judge (Amir P. Mehta) declined to dismiss three other lawsuits against Trump** et al filed by member do Congress for conspiring to obstruct them in the performance of their duties.
Finally, President Biden’s address on Ukraine prompted political scientist (and journalist) David Rothkopf to point out that, in this address, Biden was speaking as the leader of the free world – and that ““It has been a long time since a U.S. president filled that role.” Sadly, the speech also made it clear that the president is pretty sure Russia will attack Ukraine.
Click through for details. Her letters are long-ish, but this one is unusually juicy.

Black History – Wikipedia – James Armistead Lafayette
Quote – In 1781, after getting his enslaver’s consent, Armistead volunteered to join the army under Lafayette. Lafayette utilized Armistead as a spy, with the latter posing as a runaway slave. Armistead joined the camp of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, the turncoat who was leading some British forces in the area. Pretending to be a spy for them allowed Armistead to gain Arnold’s confidence to the extent that Arnold used him to guide British troops through local roads. After Arnold departed north in the spring of 1781, James went to the camp of Lord Charles Cornwallis and continued his work. He moved frequently between British camps where the officers would speak openly about their strategies in front of him.
Click through for everything we know about him. I wish it were more. I would have loved to quote the entire sections on “Emancipation” and “Later Life” but then it would not have been a short take. At least he was appreciated in his lifetime.

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Open Thread for February 19 2022

 Posted by at 6:39 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 192022
 

Yesterday, I watched Ari Melber  Claire McKaskill, and a third person discuss a judge calling Trump’s lawyers arguments Humpty-Dumpty-esque for over 14 minutes – and NOT ONE of them mentioned what the judge must have meant by that. It’s clearly a reference (and they did mention Alice in Wonderland) to Through the Looking Glas where Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” As Alice pointed out, it doesn’t work that way (though he was not convinced and babblrd on about how he was paying them to do his bidding.) It’s quite a conversation – and it is exactly like Trump** and Trump** lawyers. But they all seemed to think the judge was alluding to Humpty Dumpty’s fall. I think not. Anyway, I also got my groceries in and mostly put away. The frozen and refrigerated stuff immediately, of course, but the rest could wait longer (for me to be rested between trips.) I didn’t receive everything – but at least there were no substitutions.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – My Family Lost Our Farm During Japanese Incarceration. I Went Searching for What Remains.
Quote – The anti-Japanese sentiment that allowed for such a drastic action to take place did not spring up suddenly after Pearl Harbor, but had been simmering for decades, stoked by white labor and business groups resentful of Japanese workers and farmers. Japanese Americans who were forced off their land lost property worth an estimated $3.7 billion in today’s dollars, and $7.7 billion worth of income.
Click through.  Today is the day. The eightieth anniversary of that executive order. And, yes, it was racism, but specifically the fear aspect of racism. Who benefits from keeping people in fear? Certainly not the people who are terrified.

HuffPost – Child Poverty Spiked After Tax Credit Expired, Early Research Suggests
Quote – Democrats failed to extend a credit late last year, due to the opposition of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The last monthly check was paid out to parents on Dec. 15. After this tax season, the credit will return to its previous $2,000 level and parents with no income will no longer be eligible. Manchin told colleagues and constituents he thought parents wasted the money on drugs. Though he avoided taking a clear public position on the policy, he suggested it should have a “work requirement.”
Click through for details/ I would file this under “No shit, Sherlock.” And it really frosts me when people, especially in the media, say “Congress” when what they should be saying is “Republicans” (and, in this case, a DINO.)

CBS News – Ryan Speedo Green: From juvenile delinquency to opera stardom
Quote – As a 12-year-old in Virginia, Ryan Speedo Green was the author of an impressive rap sheet. He was so violent he was banished to a class for delinquents. And when he couldn’t be contained there, he was sent to a juvenile lockup. Those who knew the boy with the unusual name, could see that the child was writing a tragedy. Now, as a man, tragedy has become the dominant theme in his life, but in a way that no one could have imagined.
Click through for bio. Or, if you’re in a hurry, click here for this video from September 28, 2016, the night before he opened the season at the Met (hanky alert). I just didn’t want to ley the month go by without sharing this remarkable story.

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Video Thread 2/18/2022

 Posted by at 11:59 am  Open Thread, Politics
Feb 182022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Rep. Raskin, Jan 6 Committee Member, says Trump is “Guilty as Sin” & “Will Get His Comeuppance.”

Lincoln Project – Putin’s Allies

Meidas Touch – Steve Schmidt: President Biden needs to say THIS during the State of the Union

American Bridge 21st Century Launches Bridge to Democracy

Thom Hartmann – Is There Time To Stop Sneaky Attack on Medicare?

MSNBC – Pentagon All Ears For Ideas On How Bunny Penetrated Security To Access Inner Courtyard

Beau – Let’s talk about the CRT Republicans love….

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Open Thread for February 18 2022

 Posted by at 6:49 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 182022
 

Yesterday, I actually finished one of the “buttonhole neckline” sweaters I’ve been working o. Sorry no picture yet. I’m not fluent in photography. But I do remember that has been requested and will be working on it. I found a brand new Rocky Mountain Mike parody (based on Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”) – it’ll be in Saturday’s video thread.-  And, I placed a grocery order to be delivered today.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Letters from an American – February 16, 2022
Quote – Parker’s Washington Post story showing the Freedom Convoys as the expression of a radical fringe was an important reality check to the breathless stories from the American right hailing the Freedom Convoys as a popular movement. The story that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton allegedly spied on then-candidate Trump’s campaign in 2016 illustrates the importance of the sort of reality-based corrective the Washington Post published about the Canadian truckers.
Click through for both stories. We may never be able to reach loony-tunes RWNJs, but it’s still important – maybe even more important – for sane people to have access to the truth.

The 19th – How Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pursuit of success as a lawyer and parent got her a potential Supreme Court nod
Quote – After another stint in private practice, Jackson was nominated by then-President Barack Obama to serve in a full-time capacity on his Sentencing Commission. She was confirmed to that post in 2010. It was the first of three times that she has gone through a Senate confirmation process. “This for me was an opportunity of a lifetime, and it was well worth enduring what I can only say was the extremely nerve-wracking nomination and confirmation process,” she said at the University of Georgia. “I actually taught myself to knit as a way to channel my nervous energy during that time. If anybody wants a scarf, I’m your source.”
Click through for details. It is far from certain who will actually be nominated, but she is a top contender, and has ahown good judgment (pun intended) in some of the 1/6 trials. Not only that, she has a sense of humor.

NBC News – Scientists have possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time
Quote – An American research team reported that it has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time. Building on past successes, as well as failures, in the HIV-cure research field, these scientists used a cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that they expect will expand the pool of people who could receive similar treatment to several dozen annually. Their patient stepped into a rarified [sic] club that includes three men whom scientists have cured, or very likely cured, of HIV. Researchers also know of two women whose own immune systems have, quite extraordinarily, apparently vanquished the virus.
Click through for story, including caution from Dr. Fauci. We have ONE cure from this treatment. It’s definitle hopeful, but at best hopefully definite.

Footnote: Tuesday I featured Rober Smalls. Turns out Keith Knight (“Ye Olde Gentleman Cartoonist”) is a big fan of his.

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Video Thread 2/16/2022

 Posted by at 11:34 am  Open Thread, Politics
Feb 162022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Biden to Nominate Black Woman to Supreme Court; Ted Cruz is “Outraged”; and a True Story About Hope

Meidas Touch – Republicans BURYING THEMSELVES by making 2022 about Hillary Clinton!! Let them!

Lincoln Project – Twilight Struggle

MSNBC – How One Small Town Fought Off A QAnon Invasion

Robert Reich – Are Both Sides Actually Getting More Extreme?

Meet This Buddhist Cat Who Will Find Buddha Inside You    Do click on the “Watch on YouTube.”  Trust me, it is worth it.

Beau – Let’s talk about the Superbowl and trucks….

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Open Thread for February 14, 2022

 Posted by at 6:39 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 142022
 

Yesterday, as much time as I spent trying to get organized, all I really accomplished was putting together my pills for the next tao weeks – and was happy to do that.

Cartoon –


Short Takes –

Lwtters from an American – February 12, 2022
Quote – Lincoln figured out the logic of a world that permitted the law to sort people into different places…. “It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?—You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.”
Click through for the complete essay. The way Lincoln put this huge moral and ethical leap inot words strikes me as very similar to Freya’s method of demolishing the individualism myth.

The Hill – A retired Russian general’s criticism may signal a larger problem for Putin
Quote – Retired Russian Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, the head of the All-Russian Officers Assembly, has gone public with a statement that calls for Russian President Vladimir Putin to resign over the confrontation involving Ukraine. To remove any doubt as to his message, Ivashov, 78, followed the public statement with an interview on a liberal Russian media outlet, Echo Moskvy, insisting that he was speaking in the name of the assembly of retired and reservist Russian officers which he heads.
Click through for story. I know what you’re thinking, because it stunned me too – “What? There’s a liberal media outlet in Russia?” But seriously, Putin may just have triggered his country’s equivalent of our Smedley D. Butler. And with that at his back, he may very well reconsider marching forward into Ukraine.  We can certainly hope so.

Black History – Wikipedia – Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks
Quote (from Brooks, not from Wiki. Probably her best known.) –
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Click through for full bio. She is better known than most of the people I am featuring, but I’m including her today because I once had the privilege of meeting her. And that is a sweet memory.

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Open Thread for February 13, 2022

 Posted by at 6:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 132022
 

Yesterday, The opera broadcast was not an opera, but the “Requiem” by Giuseppe Verdi. It was a special presenation on last fall’s opening night to recognize and memorialize the losses of the pandemic, and to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Verdi was criticized at the time for making it “too operatic.” As if the Day of Judgment were not a subject worthy of opera. (Not to mention there are some pretty dramatic passagesin Mozart’s Requiem – and even in Brahms’s “German Requiem,: which was intended to be kinder and gentler than the usual requiem.) The soloists were all fine singing actors, but it was Eric Owens singing bass who choked me up with his vocal depiction of shock and awe – and that (along with the FFT) is the Black History tidbit for today. There was other stuff which needed to be said.

Cartoon – 13 Galileo Loaded

Short Takes –

The 19th – More states want to restrict how LGBTQ+ people, issues are discussed in schools
Quote – None have become law, although some — like Florida’s bill on classroom discussion, called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by advocates — are advancing in state legislatures, and more could be introduced as the year continues. These bills focused on schools are at the nexus of two movements: adding restrictions to LGBTQ+ youth and limiting what can be taught in schools. The fights over sex and gender are happening alongside those over teaching about bias and systemic racism.
Click through for article. At the rate we are going, the next edition of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is going to look like the Oxford English Dictionary.

Mother Jones – Let This Sweet Man Keep His Damn Pig
Quote – However, the Disney villains on the Canajoharie village board are threatening him with jail time unless he gets rid of her. Flatt currently faces a criminal trial and a potential sentence of up to six months in jail. On top of that, a civil case could fine him $20 for every day he’s had Ellie at his house—about $18,000 in total.
Click through – it isn’t long. This is what fascism is like. No common sense. No flexibility Conform or be run over. I am not a pig person, but those who are form bonds with them as strong as anyone;s bond with a dog or a cat – or sometimes even another human. Haven’t they ever heard of a variance, for heaven’s sake?

Letters fron an American – February 11, 2022
Quote – Sullivan told reporters that the administration believes that the world has entered the window of time in which IF Russian president Vladimir Putin is going to attack Ukraine, he will do so. The U.S., he said, is “ready either way.” It will continue its hefty diplomatic push, or it and key allies will respond to an invasion with severe economic sanctions, reinforce the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and continue to support Ukraine and its well-trained and equipped army. (emphasis mine)
Click through for the whole thing. All the media are saying “Putin is going to attack.” But that is not the same thing as what President Biden and his staff are saying. Fortunately for us, we have a President who can hold two ideas in his mind at the same time.

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Open Thread for February 12, 2022

 Posted by at 6:28 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 122022
 

Yesterday, my back pain was mild enough that I had time to use my TENS on one of my shoulders after finishing woth the back.That helped a lot – except now I need to do the other one. Hopefully, that will work out sometime this weekend.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

NBC News – Boy, 16, charged after predominantly Black D.C. schools receive bomb threats
Quote – A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with making terroristic threats after several predominantly Black schools in Washington, D.C., were targeted with bomb threats Wednesday, authorities have said. Among the schools targeted was one that had already received a threat just a day earlier during a visit from second gentleman Doug Emhoff. In a statement Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Department announced that the 16-year-old had been arrested. The agency said it continued to investigate the bomb threats with federal partners.
Click Through for details. One would expect that his parents had started on “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” early and aggressively.

(Hanky Alert) Mother Jones – Her Boyfriend Killed Her Baby While She Was at Work. Oklahoma Might Lock Her Up for Life.
Quote – In November, Hogue was convicted of first-degree murder, even though she never laid a hand on the boy. At a sentencing hearing on Friday, a judge will decide whether to send her to prison for life, as the jury recommended. How is that possible? Hogue was convicted under Oklahoma’s “failure to protect” law, which requires parents to shield their kid from physical harm if they’re aware, or should have been aware, that another adult is abusing the child.
Click through for full article (notice I don’t say the full story). This case reallymakes me wonder, notso much about thelaw or even the prosecutors, as about thejury. Because if there ever were a case where jury nullification would have been appropriate, it seems to me like this is it.

Black History Month – Wikipedia: Jane Bolin
Quote – On July 22, 1939, at the New York World’s Fair, Mayor of New York City Fiorello La Guardia appointed 31-year-old Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court. For twenty years, she was the only black female judge in the country. She remained a judge of the court, renamed the Family Court in 1962, for 40 years, with her appointment being renewed three times, until she was required to retire aged 70. She worked to encourage racially integrated child services, ensuring that probation officers were assigned without regard to race or religion, and publicly funded childcare agencies accepted children without regard to ethnic background.
Click through for full bio. As the first black woman Supreme court justice is undergoing cofirmation hearing, I though it would be good to memprialize the first black woman judge in the United States.

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