Archive | June, 2009
Mark Sanford: Republican Super A-Hole
AP Newsbreak: SC Governor ‘Crossed Lines’ with Women
Tamara Lush & Evan Berland, AP, June 30, 2009.
Criminal Probe Darkens Sanford’s Political Prospects
Patrick Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 2009.
Sanford Admits to More Contact with Mistress
Chris Cillizza, The Fix, Washington Post, June 30, 2009.
GOP’s Coleman Concedes, Sending Franken to Senate
Brain Bakst, AP, June 30, 2009.
Manna in the Desert
by Ana Grarian on Tue, Jun 30, 2009
Herd About It?
by Ana Grarian
I’ve been reading an article in Harper’s magazine (June 2009) about feeding the almost 1 billion starving people of the world (Let Them Eat Cash by Frederick Kaufman). I was struck by one paragraph “..almost none of the food riots had emerged from a lack of food. There was plenty of food. The riots had been generated by a lack of money to buy food, and therein lay what may have distinguished today’s hunger from the hunger of years past.”
The world produces enough food to feed the world twice over.
There was a time when farming was a very local, family based enterprise. People – most people – farmed, or at least gardened to supply their own food. Surplus was sold for the supplies and luxuries that weren’t grown. Perhaps the carpenter bartered for a beef but his yard likely held a garden and some chickens. Even doctors and preachers accepted product in exchange for services. My Great Grandmother accepted food in exchange for rent in the 1920′s and 30′s in what is now the bedroom communities of NYC. Her extended family ate a lot of chicken. My paternal grandparents had a big garden in the Adirondacks where the growing season is short that supplemented the venison and other game that was hunted in that vast forest. I still have neighbors who fill vast pantries with beautiful jars of canned fruits and vegetables, homemade ketchup and relishes, jams, even homemade mincemeat. When I first came to the community we had a project called “The Lord’s Acre”. The premise was to set aside one acre of land to produce income that was donated to the church. For some folks it was literally the income from the sale of one acre of grain, for the others it was the sale of an animal, garden produce, or handcrafted items. For those of us who worked in “the city” it was a part of our paycheck..
According to the article, and my thinking, one of the major problems with food supply today is that we must trade money for food. Even farmers raise crops for sale and then live off the cash generated by that sale. In part that’s because of the monoculture’s of our agri system.
In the hunger talks depicted in the article, while 25,000 people die every day from hunger, members of the conference discussed how “high food prices and increasing demand present a huge, historic opportunity”. Do you smell a rat looking for profits?
The programs have some good aspects. At one time most contributions to the World Food Program were food. Now contributions are monetary. This could allow local farmers to be paid for food to feed local populations, thus being a help to all in a community or region. Unfortunately life is more complex than that. Farmers grow what will bring in the most money, not what is most needed (due to International markets they are not always the same thing). Governments and corporate farms will often sell agricultural products in the market rather than using them to feed their starving populations.
To some extant this is an old story.
In Old Testament times farmers were taxed a portion of their crop which was stored in the event of famine. (That’s how Jacob of the coat of many colors was reunited with his brothers, when they went to Egypt to get grain during the famine). Farmer’s were encouraged to not too carefully harvest their fields so that the poor could go in afterwards and get their meager share (an early work for welfare program?).
Greed is an old story too.
Serfdom, share cropping etc could have worked if greed did not drive the landowners to demand an unfair amount of the yeild during hard times. The famine in Bangladesh in the mid 1970′s occured during a time of peak food. During the Irish potato famine, boat loads of grain, livestock and food were shipped from Ireland to England. In Ethiopia in 1973 food moved out of the hardest hit province to the more profitable capitol.
Ah…. maybe money is the root of all evil, because unlike the manna in the desert, it can be stored up and hoarded for the future, and allow us to develop unhealthy appetites.
Cynthia Davis Deserves a Break Today!
by RS Janes on Sun, Jun 28, 2009
“Davis lives in St. Charles County, one of the wealthiest districts in Missouri. If she doesn’t see hunger and poverty where she lives, in her mind it doesn’t exist.”
– ChattahBox, “Republican Missouri Rep. Derides Gov. Spending to Feed Hungry Children: They can Get Free Food at Church or Get a Job!” June 22, 2009.“Davis is correct, hunger can be a motivator. One hopes it ‘motivates’ folks to replace her next election, those that hunger for better leadership in Missouri.”
– Comment by garyro on June 23rd, 2009 8:39 am at ChattahBox.com.Post a comment...“As a region the South has the largest number of children going hungry. Of the 10 states with the highest rates of food insecure children under 5 years of age, eight are in the South: Louisiana has the highest rate (24.2 percent) of food insecurity in the country followed by North Carolina (24.1), Ohio (23.8), Kentucky (23.3), Texas (23.3), New Mexico (23.3), Kansas (20.9), South Carolina (20.7), Tennessee (20.4), Idaho (20.2), Arkansas (20), West Virginia (19.8), and Missouri (19.8).
[...]
“Totalling the number of food insecure children for the 13 Southern states included in the Institute for Southern’s Studies coverage map, the data provided by Feeding America shows that more than 4.7 million children face hunger in the South – 1.2 million of those are under the age of five.”
– From “5 Million Children Going Hungry in the South,” The Institute for Southern Studies.”“In her June newsletter, State Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-MO) provided several “commentaries” to a press release from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services on a summer food program. The program provides ‘food during the summer for thousands of low-income Missouri children who rely on the school cafeteria for free or reduced-price meals during the regular school year.’ Davis, who serves as the chairwoman of the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families, questioned whether the program is ‘warranted,’ and extolled the hidden benefits of child hunger:
“Who’s buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted. [...] Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another. [...] Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break. [...] It really is all about increasing government spending, which means an increase in taxes for us to buy more free lunches and breakfasts.”
– Lee Fang, Think Progress.org, June 21, 2009.Read also:
“The State of Missouri’s Children 2009,” (.pdf file), Center for Family Policy and Research, University of Missouri-Columbia, January 2009.“Statistics on Poverty in Missouri & the US,” National Center for Children in Poverty fact sheet.
Ye Olde Scribe’s Spy Fly on the Wall Update
by Ye Olde Scribe on Sun, Jun 28, 2009
Although kept secret, Scribe’s spy fly on the wall recorded the results of an investigation…
“Wait, ‘assistant’ means you ‘assist.’ Why don’t you have his clothes off yet?”
“I… just… couldn’t…”
“Big fan?”
“No, I just found him CREEPY.”
“Yeah, I don’t find this autopsy much of a THRILLER, either.”
Silence. Not even the birds found it funny.
“OK, let’s get his pants off. Damn they’re tight. Oh, now that explains THAT. Now we know. White? Or Black? Definitely BLACK. But look at the size of that schlong. Guess Madeline Kahn had it wrong. In this case: it’s NOT ‘twue.’ Hmmm… some kind of problem here. Big bump. I’ll do an incision and… ‘press here?’ Some kind of device. OK, I’ll bite. Hmmm… bad choice of words. I’ll press the little button and…
Beat it!
Beat it…
“Oh, it’s a music playback device for when he was enjoying himself. Wonder if I press it again…”
Just a little bit of you
Will surely keep the Doctor Away
Eeny weeny teeny bit of your love
“‘Eeny weeny…’ got that right… OK, let’s get the shirt off. DAMN. This guy’s Black on the bottom… literally… and white on top: face just a bit more Black. What is this, a Star Trek episode? Speak of ‘oreo.’ And look at the tattoos! Satanic, every religion… even the weirdest ones. Wait, do you hear another song?”
Love is as welcome
As a sunny, sunny day
No grown up thoughts
To lead our hearts astray…
“Seems to be coming from in here. Well, time to get the old trusty saw out. Hmm, ain’t nothing to it. Like cutting through crepe paper. Or should I pronounce that ‘creep?’ OK, give me the Smokey Bones brand rib spreader.”
Take like so easy, nice and easy
Like a child so GAY and so carefree…
“There’s that song again…”
“We’re so close
I can almost taste it…”
“Hmmm, it changed tunes… do you hear a cry for help? OH, MYFRICKINGODDAM… there’s a little boy in there! And he’s alive. How long have you been in there? How did you survive? ‘They’ helped you? What did you eat? ‘They fed you,’ what does that mean? How did you breathe? ‘They’ gave you mouth to mouth? ‘They’ who? ‘Not who… what?’”
Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we’ve been looking for…
“No. NO! Oh, God no. Help…”
Rats pour out of the corpse, devouring everything.
“They’re out to get you. There’s demons closing in on every side…”
“Somebody shut that damn music offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff………………………”
End of recording, rats crunching on bones.
Tune in next week for Dr. Frankenstein Has an Itch to Reanimate Jacko or Gotta Jacko Jocko Itch?”
Gotta an itch ya need to scratch?
Sanford and “Hon”
by Ken Carman on Sat, Jun 27, 2009
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Found this at BC. It was so good: couldn’t resist.
I think someone could have a lot of fun with another idea I heard on Thom Hartmann’s show. A caller suggested someone do a spoof on the old 70′s show and call it Sanford and Hon.
How does a guy wind up getting a girlfriend way the hell down in Argentina, anyway? Do Right Wingers make such connections while visiting old Nazis, or what?
Post a comment...The Tattlesnake – Sanford Scandal Lays Bare American Inequality Edition
by RS Janes on Sat, Jun 27, 2009
There’s Justice for the Mark Sanford’s and Then There’s Justice for the Rest of Us
“The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.”
– Lady Marguerite Blessington
The Tattlesnake isn’t quite as forgiving as was Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown June 26. Alter said he felt sorry for Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) and concluded he was a ‘nice guy.’ Sanford’s having an extramarital affair is really none of our business, and even his lying about it, to an extent, is understandable, but there are some other dimensions to the lurid Sanford saga that display a ‘public servant’ who is considerably less than what most would consider a ‘nice guy,’ aside from his towering hypocrisy.
First there was his attempt to deny $700 million in federal financial aid to South Carolina’s schoolchildren and unemployed, merely to score political points with the GOP base with an eye to a 2012 presidential nomination. That doesn’t sound very ‘nice’ to me.
Then there’s the fact that, after all of the soap-opera revelations regarding his affair with a married Argentinean woman, and outrageous lies concerning his whereabouts as he disappeared for seven days, followed by tearful public apologies, he still refuses to resign.
Moreover, he has confessed to violating South Carolina state law prohibiting misuse of public funds and adultery – yet Sanford has not been arrested for either.
Many years ago, someone I didn’t know well, but well enough to verify that this happened, broke up with his wife and went on a three-day bender – he didn’t call in to work, he didn’t tell anyone where he was. When he reemerged sick, sorry and sober on the fourth day, he discovered he had been fired and no amount of pleading or apology was going to get his job back. It’s not hard to imagine that most of Sanford’s constituents would be in the same sorrowful unemployed state were they to vanish incommunicado for a week from their workplace. Yet Sanford still has his job. Incredible, but a perfect illustration of the two tiers of social justice in modern America: one for the rich and celebrated; another for the peons.
In another case, the wife of a friend, desperate to pay the family’s bills, developed the bad habit of ‘borrowing’ money from the petty cash box at work, which she always dutifully replaced when she got paid. Then one day she was caught red-handed. Not only was she dismissed from her job on the spot, but she was charged with petty theft and had to appear in court. Even though she offered to pay back what she had stolen, and begged the company to drop the charges, her boss was adamant – she had to be found guilty in court to teach her a lesson, and also to make it damn hard for her to find another job.
Sanford sails through over $8,000 in state funds obtained for the fraudulent purpose of visiting his South American firecracker and he doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist. Not only that, but I have yet to read one report emanating from our Big Media demanding that he be charged with any crime. Sanford has announced he’s going to pay back all or part of it, no one’s sure at this point how much, but there will apparently be no day in court for this louse.
My friend’s wife took a couple of hundred a month, which she paid back at the end of every month, and she gets a criminal record; Sanford purloins $8K – that we know of so far — and no one even calls for his arrest. This is justice?
And let’s not even get into Sanford violating the South Carolina state law banning adultery; we can be pretty sure that only applies to the poor and middle-class and not Republican Grandees like the Governor.
The AP reports that, on Friday, Sanford compared his pathetic transcontinental bedroom farce to the Biblical story of King David; is he really trying to goose up sympathy for himself among the Religious Right in this way?
Alter’s wrong – as they say in Brooklyn, Sanford is definitely no nice guy.
And, as they say most everywhere else but in the Big Media ‘Village’ of Washington, when you do the crime, you should do the time.
Or, at least, resign.
Contact the author at editor@ltsaloon.org
© 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org.
Inspection- In Response to Dull-witted Applications of Ockham’s Razor
by Ken Carman on Fri, Jun 26, 2009
To provide my own dull wit to a word, why is it whenever I hear “Ockham,” I want to say “bless you?”
From answers.com…
Ockham’s Razor: (Note: apparently, according to Answers, both “Occam” and “Ockham” work. I had always spelled it “Occam,” and found out after I had changed it to “Ockham” my correction fetish doesn’t always serve me well when editing.)
A rule in science and philosophy stating that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known. Also called law of parsimony.
I am here, typing this now, to argue with a certain interpretation of the Razor, and maybe even whether it is true at all. How many times have you heard “Occam’s Razor proves?” Occam’s Razor proves nothing. It suggests. I even argue with that suggestion.
I suppose it boils down to this question… how many real simple answers are there?
Occam’s Razor is often used for 9/11.
Observe this post of mine at Volconvo, a debate site, responding to how according to one poster the official story regarding 9/11 is more simple; therefore win in a Razor-off …
Re: Occam’s Razor
Let’s see…
Somehow all these bin Laden supporters either didn’t squeal or not loud enough to be heard or believed…
They managed to get through what security there was at the time and even have, as devote Muslims of the fundamentalistic kind, a wild party the night before that still didn’t raise enough suspicions.
Managed to take over planes with no more than box cutters.
Three out of four succeeded to fly unchallenged into the towers, not even much of an attempt… if any… to stop them. And the one that didn’t make it only failed because of passengers. I would assume it would have hit without challenge too: unless someone can prove the shot down theory; the same theory that many consider also to be nutso. (I don’t. It actually makes some sense if we are to consider Razor applicable at all.)
Did anyone ever disprove that the terrorist IDs were found, undamaged, scattered over the ruins? How “Razor” is that?
I’m sorry but Ockham’s Razor doesn’t apply here… no matter which way we spin it. That’s the problem with Ockham’s Razor. Complex things do happen, and simply because it’s the most simple explanation doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right one. It’s simply the easiest one to sell. Because a good portion of the public is dull-witted enough to believe Ockham’s Razor is a proven construct: gospel. It’s an interesting guideline. That’s all.
Example: before we knew as much as we did and had the tools to measure, wouldn’t Ockham’s Razor dictate the sun moved around the Earth at one point in our history, or earlier that the Earth was flat? What we know is always limited by what we see, what we know how to test and our intellectual development. Atoms? Molecules? Electrons? Oh, common, it’s simply just God particles created during that Adam and Eve “poof” moment!
Back to 9/11…
Not to mention getting the terrorists here, training them all those years before, and after, they got here… including indoctrination. Positioning them. Flying lessons.
No matter what scenario we choose to believe regarding 9/11, there’s an inherent complexity… unless you wish to believe God did it. Poof! Even Satan doing it would require a lot of God doing squat and Satan plotting, planning, sending these lost souls to do his work that complicates it all. With God doing it, well… he was teaching us a lesson. All are guilty, all are sinners…
Ah, blessed simplicity! Just like the sun revolving around the Earth, at least until we get a little more complex in our observations.
If we are to believe Ockham as it is commonly interpreted the the simplest answer must be right. “God did it.” Poof!
Let’s bring it down to basics. “A butterfly flies because it has wings.” Very Ockham’s Razor-ish. But a butterfly doesn’t fly because it has wings, otherwise chickens would fly too. There’s so much involved including genetics, the development of this creature through evolution, how they have been kept or not in captivity, physics in regard to flying… or not, aerodynamics, atmosphere as it exists here vs. other environments. (Otherwise a butterfly should be able to fly in space or near the ocean floor.)
That’s the short, but still complex, list.
Once you look into anything, simplicity slips away and the true complexity of life, death and reality take hold.
Occam’s Razor has its uses. Once a theory becomes needlessly complex it helps guide us towards what might be a better solution… until we learn more. But that’s all. It is not “proof” of anything, and it is a weak guideline at best. The overly complex may still be the right path to take. One of the best applications of this dull version of Razor might be the old concept that every element, every facet of reality and what we see, hear, feel and taste, is controlled by one deity. Not even just one God. One deity each. Otherwise we add to the complexity that one deity would have to have. An all powerful, all knowing, eternal God would indeed be a quite complex being.
No complexity to how gravity works, no black holes, no naturally occurring hurricanes, tornadoes and all the laws of physics and such that apply…
All the “poof” work of one deity each.
Of course where all these deities reside… that might be a bit too complex for some who push Occam’s Razor.
Life is complex.
Reality is complex.
Those who claim simplicity often understate the complexity of what they support, and these same “understaters” usually only point out the complexity when it comes to what they disagree with.
It’s that simple.
Or is it?
(Chuckle.)
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
© Copyright 2009
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved
The Sanford Affair — How It Really Went Down
by RS Janes on Fri, Jun 26, 2009
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The News Pauper: On the Unfortunate Evolution of Corporate Personhood
by W.B. Dunne on Thu, Jun 25, 2009
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By W.B. Dunne
Once upon a time, a person that made something of his life in this country was made to feel compelled to give something back. When a robber baron would endow a library, or form a foundation to benefit some cause, his name would be attached to said cause and down the ages that name would take on the philanthropic association and the nature of the man who made the thing would be forgotten.
The great corporations that now plaster their logos and company names all over our stadiums and charities never seem to garner the same graces the old regime got. In spite of the groveling of the team players they’ve populated their offices with, human beings at large will never identify with a brand as they do with a name.
CEOs do not and cannot understand that they are humans like the rest of us. Leaders of all ilk’s have tried to elevate themselves to the status of deities since before written history. They all have one thing in common: ultimately they fail.
The News Pauper never holds himself above the lowest of the low. Perhaps this is the reason he is often graced with some insight that eludes others that dig and dig. No grand company association protects me or gives my opinion more power. The only thing that I have going for me is that not a penny will ever taint or compromise the position I take. I am curious as to what compelled the robber baron of old to assuage his conscience with philanthropy. I doubt it has much to do with the people that received the blessings of the largess. I would be impressed if the same formula would apply to the greedy boards that control the functions of our great corporate super-persons.
If I were a great CEO, I would see the writing on the wall. I would see that the only hope for my future would entail my turning my members of the board upside down. I would drive the agenda to insure the company was known not for how many skyboxes it had, but how much good it had accomplished through sacrifice for the good of the community that supported it.
If I were granted the position of a super-person, I would do something great with it. I wouldn’t squander it on a house in the Hamptons or a big party with all the celebrities I could gather. I would make my own product obsolete if it would move the world in a better direction. I would make homes for people that needed them; I would bring drugs to those that needed them. I would make the hermits and monks blush at their excess in order to educate and feed the next generation.
Who knows, perhaps they’ll begin to get it. Things are changing in tone and fact for many around us. Here’s to hoping.
Contact the author at WBDunne@ltsaloon.org
© 2009 W.B. Dunne. All Rights Reserved.
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by RS Janes on Tue, Jun 30, 2009
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