Monthly Archives: July 2009

The Watering Hole: July 16 – The Atomic Age

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On this date in 1945, the United States detonated a plutonium based test device at Trinity Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Only three weeks later, a uranium based device was deployed over Hiroshima Japan. According to unsubstantiated reports, the US had only two more bombs in its quiver, the last destined for Tokyo.

Trinity 1

Trinity 1

The effort to develop the devices carried the designation of The Manhattan Project. Management of the project was under control of the Army and the OSS. The project was so secret that when Harry Truman became president upon FDR’s death, he was approached by a group of officers who basically said — “Mr. President, we have something to tell you.”
It is more than tragic that humanity’s introduction to the power of the atom had to be unveiled in this manner. Not only did hundreds of  thousands of innocent people unnecessarily die or suffer the consequences of radiation, but a more peaceful path could well have tempered the success of the oil and coal industries in suppressing the development of atomic power.

The Watering Hole: July 15 – The Rossetta Stone

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On this date in 1799, The Rosetta Stone was found by Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.

What made this find important was the fact that it contained three renditions of the same text in Classic Greek, Demotic Egyptian and Hieroglyphic Egyptian. Since Classic Greek was known and Demotic was obscure at the time, an opportunity was opened to provide interpretation of Egyptian texts and inscriptions, making what had been prehistory turn into history. The sum of these translations cataloged human written history back to 3200 BCE.

Where Are They Now? Norma McCorvey

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Who Were They Then?

Norma Nelson was born Sep 1947 in a small town in Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. From the age of ten she was in and out of trouble with the law and at the age of sixteen she married Woody McCorvey, a sheet-metal worker. When he learned she was pregnant, he turned violent and she left him after only two months. She gave birth to a little girl, Melissa, who was adopted by Norma’s mother, against the baby’s father’s wishes. In 1967, Norma gave up another child, Paige, for adoption and hasn’t seen her since. Then, in 1969, after a casual fling, Norma found herself pregnant for the third time. Working in a circus, not knowing where her next meal would come from or where she would spend the night, she could not imagine bringing another child into the world. As she would later write of this time, Continue reading →

Why do we pay so much attention to Sarah Palin?

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By Guest Poster misscoleopteramolly

Why do we pay so much attention to Sarah Palin? I’m guessing it’s the same reason Florence Foster Jenkins was so popular in her time.

For those of you unfamiliar with FFJ (and I only know of her historically, since she died before I was born), she was a woman who had always wanted to sing, and once she had inherited a sum of money that allowed her to pursue her dream, she went for it. God love her, she was so talentless that listening to cats fighting in an alley was probably a better musical experience than listening to her. But she never allowed anything to discourage her, and categorized herself with the other (genuine) great sopranos of her day.

Her popularity was due to people finding the way Mrs. Jenkins murdered the classics to be highly entertaining. Tickets to her recitals were highly sought after, and her single Carnegie Hall performance in 1944 was sold out weeks in advance. Her performances were delivered in serious earnest, and she seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she provided her audience with comic instead of musical entertainment.

And here we have Sarah Palin. A woman so completely unfit for national office that it’s laughable. This laughter keeps her in the public eye, of course, but her popularity appears to have given her the idea that she’s statesmanlike, politically intelligent, and a leader of her party.

She really doesn’t have a clue that her party regards her only as a token woman when they needed one, an attention-getter who could draw a crowd, someone who looks good on the teevee, and a sock puppet for the PNAC and other party power.

And the rest of us regard her as an endless source of entertainment — a guilty pleasure. Because a Sarah Palin interview (or speech, or column) makes as many people laugh today as an aria sung by Florence Foster Jenkins did over 65 years ago.

Articles about Florence Foster Jenkins

Demjanjuk and the Bush Administration

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What’s the connection?

Demanjuk has been extradited to Germany where he has been formally charged with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder for his role as a guard at one of Hitler’s death camps.

Bush, and nearly everyone involved in the Abu Gahrib scandal, continue to roam freely. It is alleged that Bush led the United States into a war of aggression based on lies. If true, that would be an international crime. Estimates range from over 100,000 to around 1,000,000 Iraqi childrne, women, and men killed as a result of Bush’s war against Iraq.

In an unjustified war of agression, Bush, and all those who carried out his orders, could be held accountable. However, it is likely that low-level soldiers, who neither knew nor could have known the illegality of the war, would be held to criminal charges. Those on the top, however, who knew the intelligence was being manufacured, would not be so insulated.

It may well be that those individuals may be hunted down, much in the same manner as former nazis.

“Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, welcomed the filing of formal charges.

This is obviously an important step forward,” Zuroff said by telephone from Jerusalem. “We hope that the trial itself will be expedited so that justice will be achieved and he can be given the appropriate punishment.”

Therein lies the connection. There is no statute of limitation on international war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator,” Zuroff said.

If Obama fails to hold the Bush Administration accountable, perhaps some future president will have the courage to do so.

The Watering Hole: July 13 – It’s cookie day!

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Cookies by gummitch

Cookies by gummitch

Good morning, all!

Gummitch taunted me mercilessly yesterday about his cookie baking day, so I decided to snag his picture and declare this Cookie Day.

Recipes are welcome, even if it’s too hot to bake.  And since this is your daily open thread, everything else is on the table as well.

Interesting cookie facts from the Wiki:

Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14th century, they were common in all levels of society, throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors.

With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which traveled especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was the jumble, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and water.

Cookies came to America in the very first century of English settlement (the 1600s), although the name “koekje” arrived slightly later, with the Dutch. This became Anglicized to “cookie”. Among the popular early American cookies were the macaroon, gingerbread cookies, and of course jumbles of various types.

Enjoy!

Cheney ordered CIA program kept secret (Updated)

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According to the New York Times, former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to keep a counter-terrorism program secret from Congress — for eight years.  CIA Director Leon Panetta informed the House and Senate Intelligence committees about the program after he learned of it on June 23,

Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney

and shut down the program immediately.  The purpose and activities of the program remain secret.

The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees “are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.” But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done “to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters.”

In addition, for covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says that briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

Cheney’s involvement in the secret counter-terrorism program came to light through the inspector general’s report, which featured the former vice president’s primary role in keeping secret the NSA’s eavesdropping activities from all but a small number of government officials.

Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.

The secret program, begun just days after September 11, 2001, was so secret, so closely held to the vest by the Bush administration, that it’s effectiveness was questionable at best.

A report released on Friday by the inspectors general of five agencies about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program makes clear that Mr. Cheney’s legal adviser, David S. Addington, had to approve personally every government official who was told about the program. The report said “the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program” frustrated F.B.I. agents who were assigned to follow up on tips it had turned up.

House Rep Jan Schakowsky has written to the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Rep Silvestre Reyes, demanding an investigation, and Rep Pete Hoekstra doesn’t want to be too “harsh” in his judgment of the agency.

In Newsweek, there’s a statement by the CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, regarding the demand of seven House members that Director Panetta correct his previous testimony to the Intelligence Committee, in the light of this newly-discovered secret program:

Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said Panetta has nothing to correct: “Director Panetta took the initiative to raise the issue with the Hill. He did so promptly and clearly, as the oversight committees themselves recognize. He stands by his statement that it is neither the policy nor the practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. He believes, as his actions show, in the importance of a candid dialogue with Congress.”  (Emphasis added)

Well, of course it’s not the official policy of the CIA to lie to Congress.  No one is going to put that kind of thing in writing, right?  Continue reading →

Jimmy Carter: The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

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Guardian.co.uk/The Observer

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status …” (Article 2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when th e convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief – confirmed in the holy scriptures – that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.

Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries. The male interpretations of religious texts and the way they interact with, and reinforce, traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant and damaging examples of human rights abuses.

At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

Go here to read the rest of this excellent article.