It's a Friday, and after a long and ugly week of news, there's nothing more that we'd enjoy than focusing exclusively on positive news items. Topics like the announcement by Chelsea Clinton that she her husband Marc Mezvinsky are expecting their first child, or the amazing success of Obamacare are indeed worthy of celebrating.
We still believe in leaving our readers on Friday with a bit of positivity, now more than ever - especially in the face of the kinds of amazingly stupid racism, ignorance, and hatred that were displayed around the world this week. At times like this, we believe it is more critical than ever not to spend our column inches and pixel space solely on lighter news fare.
After all, in the Ukraine right now, people who are Jewish, ethnically or by choice, are now being forced and threatened to register their "status" as a Jew with the government. Even with the newest deal between Ukraine and Russia, brokered by Secretary of State Kerry, many Ukrainians feel as though their government is being undermined from the inside, and threatened from the outside, by their neighbors in Russia.
This is also the same week three Americans were killed in Kansas City by a former member of the KKK, who mistakenly thought his victims were Jews.
In Nigeria, more than 70 people were killed in a terrorist bomb blast. In the Central African Republic, deadly violence is killing dozens daily. Off the coast of South Korea, more than two hundred people - many high school students on a once-in-lifetime trip - are dead, their bodies lost to the ocean, after a ferry capsized this week.
This is also the same week that Fox "News" and the right wing media were inciting violence in Nevada, against American citizens. The supposedly law-and-order right-wing media stood firmly in support of a freeloading cattle rancher who'd been using Federal lands to graze his cattle for 20 years, while refusing to pay the same tiny grazing fee all other ranchers in similar situations already pay. When the Federal government finally decided a million dollars in unpaid back fees was too much to ignore, they got a court order to take the rancher's cattle. When the Federal Bureau of Land Management acted to enforce the law, the right-wing media cheered as domestic anti-government types blocked public interstates, and aimed fully automatic weapons at Federal agents who were merely doing their jobs, enforcing the law.
Thankfully, the Federal agents in the BLM in Nevada take their job of protecting both the land and the Americans who use it very seriously - so the agents temporarily backed down once again, to prevent needless loss of lives.
We've warned for years about people who are "terminally stupid" - that terrible combination of selfishness, arrogance, and ignorance that all too often leaves either the terminally stupid person or someone around them unnecessarily dead. Unfortunately, terminally stupid people come in every shape, size, color, and any other description you can imagine. They don't take holidays, they don't give you a few days to recover, and they will never, ever completely go away, everywhere in the world.
There is good news, though - and while we believe it's crucial you know what's really going on in the world, we also think it's more important than ever that you remember to focus on the positive, even in the face of all the ugly racism, ignorance, and hatred in the world.
Chelsea Clinton's news is worth celebrating, as are the Obamacare enrollment numbers. The continued successful recovery of former Rep. Gabby Giffords - and her continued fight for smart gun safety reforms - are also worthy of celebration. U.S. economic numbers also continue to look up, and President Obama announced another $600 million jobs program this week too.
To top off that brief list of positive items, Passover was this week, Easter is this Sunday, and today is - literally - Good Friday.
As you can see, even with all the stupidity and evil, there are plenty of reasons to remain positive.
Be the master of your future. Stay positive.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Robots Versus Humans
As we were winding ourselves up to put together Thursday's edition, our staff noticed a curious yet telling difference in the way many candidates of both major parties are handling complex issues this election cycle.
As the outside funding and dark money groups wind up their candidates for 2014 - candidates that are overwhelmingly Republican - key facts on issues like Obamacare, unemployment insurance, birth control, and the minimum wage seem to have completely bypassed many of those running for office. We say this because of the ridiculous robotic rhetoric we're hearing bleated by candidates, like the comments by GOP Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on the Affordable Care Act, or GOP Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida on making the minimum wage a living wage.
It doesn't seem to matter to these candidates that more Americans want to keep Obamacare and fix the few things that aren't perfect with it, or that Americans from all parties overwhelmingly support raising the minimum wage. They just keep repeating their talking points like little robots, as we're sure their dark money donors want them to do.
This robotic reaction phenomenon isn't only happening to less well-known politicians - or just on the local level.
On Wednesday, President Obama released a statement calling out House Republicans for doing absolutely nothing on the issue of immigration reform. A few hours later, the President called House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to wish him a happy Passover. During the call, the two apparently disagreed about the President's statement earlier in the day on immigration, though according to the White House, Obama's conversation with Cantor was "pleasant" overall.
For anyone who is honest about how today's Republican Party works, what happened next should be no surprise. Like the finely honed hate machine the right has become, Rep. Cantor's staff sent out a blistering press release of their own about the phone call. The Republican Majority Leader blasted the President on the issue of immigration reform, but then effectively guaranteed the issue won't see the House floor for the rest of this year.
Cantor's robotic response to a very complex issue might seem confusing to those Americans who only catch 10-second soundbites on cable news, or quick Tweets and Facebook posts from their friends. However, as Greg Sargent pointed out yesterday afternoon at The Plum Line, there's an important piece of nuance in the actions of Rep. Cantor and his staff that tell those of us who truly care about the issue what really happened yesterday afternoon.
Sargent noted, "House Republican leaders are refusing to even offer, let alone vote on, their own proposals to do something about the 11 million, even though some rank and file Republicans, and some major GOP-aligned constituencies (the business community; agricultural and tech interests; evangelicals; the GOP consultant class) have been clamoring for reform for months or years. The Senate bill is utterly irrelevant to the basic question on the table: Is there any set of terms and conditions under which a sizable bloc of House Republicans can bring themselves to support some form of legalization?"
On that question, we can confidently answer in the same robotic style that so many bought-and-paid-for Republicans are already mimicking: No. Republicans can't do it.
As the outside funding and dark money groups wind up their candidates for 2014 - candidates that are overwhelmingly Republican - key facts on issues like Obamacare, unemployment insurance, birth control, and the minimum wage seem to have completely bypassed many of those running for office. We say this because of the ridiculous robotic rhetoric we're hearing bleated by candidates, like the comments by GOP Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on the Affordable Care Act, or GOP Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida on making the minimum wage a living wage.
It doesn't seem to matter to these candidates that more Americans want to keep Obamacare and fix the few things that aren't perfect with it, or that Americans from all parties overwhelmingly support raising the minimum wage. They just keep repeating their talking points like little robots, as we're sure their dark money donors want them to do.
This robotic reaction phenomenon isn't only happening to less well-known politicians - or just on the local level.
On Wednesday, President Obama released a statement calling out House Republicans for doing absolutely nothing on the issue of immigration reform. A few hours later, the President called House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to wish him a happy Passover. During the call, the two apparently disagreed about the President's statement earlier in the day on immigration, though according to the White House, Obama's conversation with Cantor was "pleasant" overall.
For anyone who is honest about how today's Republican Party works, what happened next should be no surprise. Like the finely honed hate machine the right has become, Rep. Cantor's staff sent out a blistering press release of their own about the phone call. The Republican Majority Leader blasted the President on the issue of immigration reform, but then effectively guaranteed the issue won't see the House floor for the rest of this year.
Cantor's robotic response to a very complex issue might seem confusing to those Americans who only catch 10-second soundbites on cable news, or quick Tweets and Facebook posts from their friends. However, as Greg Sargent pointed out yesterday afternoon at The Plum Line, there's an important piece of nuance in the actions of Rep. Cantor and his staff that tell those of us who truly care about the issue what really happened yesterday afternoon.
Sargent noted, "House Republican leaders are refusing to even offer, let alone vote on, their own proposals to do something about the 11 million, even though some rank and file Republicans, and some major GOP-aligned constituencies (the business community; agricultural and tech interests; evangelicals; the GOP consultant class) have been clamoring for reform for months or years. The Senate bill is utterly irrelevant to the basic question on the table: Is there any set of terms and conditions under which a sizable bloc of House Republicans can bring themselves to support some form of legalization?"
On that question, we can confidently answer in the same robotic style that so many bought-and-paid-for Republicans are already mimicking: No. Republicans can't do it.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Of Canaries & Cattle
While every legitimate media and information source around the world is keeping at least one eye on the events happening in Eastern Ukraine, we've also been keeping a watch out for other terrorist events. This really doesn't surprise anyone in the media, who remember that mid-April includes quite a few anniversaries of terrorist acts, including the Virginia Tech and Columbine mass school shootings, and the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings.
Our vigilance this month, and that of others in the media, hasn't been an entirely empty one. We began to notice on Sunday an incredibly stupid fake terrorism tweet from a teenager to a U.S. airline, that finally reached major mainstream media outlets late Tuesday. There were also some suspicious bags left near the finish line of the Boston Marathon late Tuesday, that were detonated by Boston police without harm.
These kinds of incidents may seem minor at first, and may even be unrelated. After a major catastrophe, however, like the information about the Tsarnev brothers the Russian government 'forgot' to give U.S. officials, we're reminding you today that seemingly minor details can often end up becoming the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
With that thought in mind, we want to turn your attention to the hamburger you may have eaten recently, and the quiet giant rumbling through the grocery store that somehow you might have missed.
In case you don't keep as close an eye on your grocery receipts as we do, you may not have noticed that beef prices are now hitting record highs, and dairy and produce are also climbing. In fact, beef prices right now are at the highest level they've been since 1987 - and that price increase doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Even if you're a vegetarian, when the price of beef goes up, so do the costs of related items like pet foods and grains - meaning you'll feel the extra cost whether or not you eat that porterhouse.
Not surprisingly to us, the reason for the increased cost of beef right now is a nationwide cattle shortage, brought on by last year's massive drought in places like West Texas. The good news for the future is that the weather patterns for this year throughout much of the United States look less favorable for drought and more favorable for a healthy increase in the size of cattle herds.
The fact remains, however, that this temporary sharp increase in the price of beef may not be just a one-time blip on your grocery bill.
As David Sirota - journalist and professional acquaintance of one of our staff members - noted last year at Salon, studies confirm that humankind could reduce the pace of climate change, if we just ate less beef. Dietitians even recommend Americans eat less red meat overall. The larger issue though, as Sirota pointed out, is that the American consumer's voracious appetite for hamburgers only continues to increase the demand for more cattle. More cattle means more CO2 - which means more greenhouse gasses, and inevitably more volatile weather. Of course, more volatile weather means less cattle being available for our tables - and sooner rather than later, hamburgers costing as much as steaks.
So the next time you look at the unusual weather trends outside, and the high price of beef inside the restaurant or grocery store, remember - the costs for that quarter-pounder could be far higher in the long run.
Have a salad today. Save the hamburgers for the future.
Our vigilance this month, and that of others in the media, hasn't been an entirely empty one. We began to notice on Sunday an incredibly stupid fake terrorism tweet from a teenager to a U.S. airline, that finally reached major mainstream media outlets late Tuesday. There were also some suspicious bags left near the finish line of the Boston Marathon late Tuesday, that were detonated by Boston police without harm.
These kinds of incidents may seem minor at first, and may even be unrelated. After a major catastrophe, however, like the information about the Tsarnev brothers the Russian government 'forgot' to give U.S. officials, we're reminding you today that seemingly minor details can often end up becoming the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
With that thought in mind, we want to turn your attention to the hamburger you may have eaten recently, and the quiet giant rumbling through the grocery store that somehow you might have missed.
In case you don't keep as close an eye on your grocery receipts as we do, you may not have noticed that beef prices are now hitting record highs, and dairy and produce are also climbing. In fact, beef prices right now are at the highest level they've been since 1987 - and that price increase doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Even if you're a vegetarian, when the price of beef goes up, so do the costs of related items like pet foods and grains - meaning you'll feel the extra cost whether or not you eat that porterhouse.
Not surprisingly to us, the reason for the increased cost of beef right now is a nationwide cattle shortage, brought on by last year's massive drought in places like West Texas. The good news for the future is that the weather patterns for this year throughout much of the United States look less favorable for drought and more favorable for a healthy increase in the size of cattle herds.
The fact remains, however, that this temporary sharp increase in the price of beef may not be just a one-time blip on your grocery bill.
As David Sirota - journalist and professional acquaintance of one of our staff members - noted last year at Salon, studies confirm that humankind could reduce the pace of climate change, if we just ate less beef. Dietitians even recommend Americans eat less red meat overall. The larger issue though, as Sirota pointed out, is that the American consumer's voracious appetite for hamburgers only continues to increase the demand for more cattle. More cattle means more CO2 - which means more greenhouse gasses, and inevitably more volatile weather. Of course, more volatile weather means less cattle being available for our tables - and sooner rather than later, hamburgers costing as much as steaks.
So the next time you look at the unusual weather trends outside, and the high price of beef inside the restaurant or grocery store, remember - the costs for that quarter-pounder could be far higher in the long run.
Have a salad today. Save the hamburgers for the future.
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