Archive Category: Politics
The Freshman Mayor: 19-Year-Old John Hammons Won Mayoral Race
Meet John Hammons, a 19-year-old college freshman at the University of Oklahoma. He was just elected mayor of Muskogee, a city of 38,000 in northeastern part of the state!
Hammons, who will be sworn in next week, said he plans to continue his college education but expects to transfer to a school closer to Muskogee.
"Being elected does not change my desire to continue my education," he said. "We will schedule our time in an appropriate fashion so that I can be mayor and stay in school."
Seven U.S. Presidential Nicknames (at least, ones we can print)
George W. Bush has plenty of nicknames, including some for whether you are a supporter or not. Dubya/W., of course, Bushie, Shrub. And obviously Bill Clinton didn’t escape his two terms un-nicknamed – Slick Willie, Bubba, Teflon Bill. But Presidential nicknames go all the way back to George Washington. Some of them you might be familiar with; others might surprise you. Either way, you will at least be entertained.
John Adams
Ouch. Poor John Adams didn’t have many fans. His nicknames included His Rotundity, which was made up after Adams suggested that George Washington be referred to as “His Majesty”. And Ben Franklin liked to refer to Adams as “Your Superfluous Excellency”. He did have a couple of more flattering nicknames, though, such as “Father of the Navy” and “The Colossus of Debate”. The latter was given to him by Thomas Jefferson because of his stellar argumentative skills.
James Madison
“Little Jemmy” was only 5′4″, the smallest president ever. It’s perhaps for this reason that Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) called Madison “Withered Little Apple-John”. Madison was also called “The Fugitive President” because he and celebrated wife Dolley had to flee the White House during the War of 1812.
John Tyler
After Tyler was named president, he pretty much abandoned his former party, the Whigs. Because of this, the nicknames “The President Without a Party” and “Traitor Tyler” were coined. He was also called “His Accidency” because he was the first Vice President to take over when the previous President (William Henry Harrison) died in office.
Andrew Johnson
As the first president to be impeached, Johnson didn’t really inspire any friendly monikers. When he was sworn in as Lincoln’s V.P., he was rather drunk, apparently to try to numb the pain of his raging typhoid fever. This earned him the nickname “Andy the Sot” before he even became president. He was also called the Tennessee Tailor, after his previous profession, and Sir Veto, because he was notorious for nixing just about everything that crossed his path.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Because his party “stole” the election from Democrat Samuel Tilden, Hayes was called “Rutherfraud”, “His Fraudulency” and “The Usurper”. An investigation was done of the whole affair and the committee found in his favor – a close vote of eight to seven, thus garnering him the name “Old Eight-to-Seven”.
After that drama died down, he earned the names “Granny Hayes” and “Queen Victoria in Riding Breeches” because of his extremely straight-laced ways: no smoking, drinking or gambling combined with lots of prayer and family togetherness. Nothing wrong with that, maybe, but it irritated some members of D.C. society.
William Howard Taft
As the largest president we’ve ever had, you would think that his nicknames would call more attention to Taft’s size. And “Big Bill” was, but “Old Bill”, “Peaceful Bill” and “Godknows Taft” were not. Godknows Taft originated when a member of the press asked the President what a man who is out of work or starving should do to rectify the situation. Taft replied, “God knows. I don’t.”
Richard Nixon
Old “Tricky Dick”, of course, and “The Trickster”, but did you know Nixon was also called “Iron Butt”? Apparently his law school buddies called him that because he studied so hard. Also, “Richard the Chicken-Hearted” for refusing to debate opponent Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 campaign.
New York Policemen Didn’t Recognize Their Own Off-Duty Chief!
Some of NYPD’s finests are in trouble: two undercover police officers ordered a black man out of his parked car with guns drawn … without realizing that the guy’s an off-duty NYPD chief!
"How you can not know or recognize a chief in a department SUV with ID around his neck, I don’t know," a police source said.
Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.
One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said.
What happened next is in dispute. In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said.
After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.
Trivia: Microsoft Wingding Controversy
In the Wingding Controversy, if you type out "NYC" in Microsoft’s wingding font, a skull and bones, Star
of David, and a thumbs up glyphs appear.
Some people interpret this as an approving message of killing jews in New York City. Microsoft strongly denied that this was intentional. The company did, however, intentionally arrange the glyphs of an eye, a heart, and a city skyline as the "NYC" sequence in the later-released
webding font.
Border Fence To Put US Business in the Mexican Side
Golfers who want to play on the Fort Brown Golf Course near the US-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas will soon need a passport.
That’s because the Department of Homeland Security, in an attempt to build a more or less straight fence, decided to put the US golf course
on the Mexican side of the border fence!
Imagine being a United States citizen having business … a business in the United States and then finding out the Department of Homeland Security is building its Mexican border fence with you on the Mexican side!
Podcast by Dick Helton at KNX1070 Newsradio - via LA Times
Quote: Dan Quayle on Losing One’s Mind
"What a waste it is to lose one’s mind- or not to have a mind. How true that is."
- Dan Quayle, 44th Vice President of the United States
Beer-Loving, Porn-Watching, iPod-Listening Yacht Owners: California Wants to Tax You
Watch out beer-loving, porn-watching, iPod-listenin’, yacht owners! The big meanie State of California is out to tax you:
As state leaders hunt for politically palatable solutions to the swelling budget shortfall, some Democrats are proposing unorthodox ways to generate cash.
Strip clubs, six-packs, grocery bags and iTunes downloads are all in their sights as alternatives to broad income or sales tax hikes. So are gas guzzlers and yachts — and a tax loophole for criminals. [...]
Calderon said he was moved to push for levies on downloads such as iTunes because state sales tax laws do not reflect the high volume of purchasing that Californians do online. Consumers can download music from the Internet through Apple’s iTunes and other services tax-free, Calderon noted, while they pay sales tax for buying the same music on a compact disc at a store.
His proposal would empower state authorities to collect sales tax on the downloads, increasing the cost of a typical 99-cent song to roughly $1.07. Calderon projects that the bill (AB 1956), which could also apply to pornography downloads, cellphone ring-tones, online books and feature films distributed on the Internet, would raise about $500 million for the state budget.
The idea stalled in committee this month in the face of fierce industry opposition. But like the other proposals, it could be revived at any time, most likely when legislative leaders hammer out a budget agreement this summer.
Calderon said the resistance to his bill did not surprise him. But he is perplexed that he hasn’t been able to get more traction for another proposal: a 25% tax on sex toys, strip shows, pornographic magazines and videos and anything else sold in an "adult entertainment venue."
Assemblyman Charles Calderon’s bill, needless to say, are unpopular:
"Some people are e-mailing, threatening to come and slug me," said Assemblyman Jim Beall (D-San Jose), who hopes to see a $1.80 tax added to the price of every six-pack of beer sold in the state. "We’re getting some pretty nasty comments."
But at least, it’s bringing some people together:
A coalition of porn stars, strippers and others in adult entertainment roamed the halls of the Capitol recently to lobby against the Calderon bill (AB 2914).
Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link
Is $120 Oil Actually Good For Us?
Sure the price of gas is hurting a lot of us right now, but there are some that say $120 oil is actually good for consumers in the long run:
"Nobody at Goldman Sachs wants to see a fuel truck pull up and say "Ok, here’s your 60,000 gallons of gasoline,’" said Michael Cosgrove, president of the commodities brokerage Amerex Brokers, which handles transactions for both banks and end users of oil like refineries. "Ultimately, it’s the consumer."
Which is one reason why $120 oil is necessary - to limit demand in a supply-constrained world.
"I think the market is working," said Joseph Stanislaw, an independent energy adviser at the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. "It forces us to make decisions as individual consumers that will change our behavior. It needs to be done."
Chinese Companies are Finding US to be a Bargain!
After decades of US investments in China, it seems that the pendulum is swinging back. Today, many Chinese firms are pleasantly surprised to find that land, energy, and operating costs are actually cheaper in the United States as compared to China!
Liu Keli couldn’t tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It’s as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans.
But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China.
Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg — less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn’t have to put up with frequent blackouts.
About the only major thing that’s more expensive in Spartanburg is labor. Liu is looking to offer $12 to $13 an hour there, versus about $2 an hour in Dongguan, not including room and board. But Liu expects to offset some of the higher labor costs with a payroll tax credit of $1,500 per employee from South Carolina.
"I was surprised," said the 63-year-old president of Shanxi Yuncheng Plate-Making Group. "The gap’s not as large as I thought."
(Photo: Don Lee / Los Angeles Times)
California: Veggie Oil-Powered “Grease Car” Owners Are Scofflaws
Californians who converted their cars to run on vegetable oil pride themselves for saving gas money, as well as promoting alternative or "greener" fuels. Unfortunately, they are also learning that no good deeds go unpunished, especially by the gub’ment:
Dave Eck, a Half Moon Bay mechanic, had attracted a media spotlight with his fleet of vehicles fueled by used fryer grease from a local chowder house. So when Sacramento called, he figured officials wanted advice on promoting alternative fuels.
Not at all. The government rang to notify Eck that he was a tax cheat. He was scolded for failing to get a "diesel fuel supplier’s license," reporting quarterly how many gallons of grease he burns, and paying a tax on each gallon. [...] The state offered Eck only a potentially large fine — and not just for failing to pay taxes. He can also get in trouble for carting kitchen grease away from eateries without a license from the state Meat and Poultry Inspection Branch.
Or for not having at least $1 million in liability insurance, in case he spills some of the stuff. Or for not getting permission from the state Air Resources Board to burn fat in the first place.
The regulations are so burdensome that even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, trying to set an example for Californians by driving a Hummer that burns cooking oil he buys at Costco, had not complied.
(Photo: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
4 year olds arguing poltics over the dinner table
Ha - this is pretty good. A four year old boy and girl argue Obama vs. Clinton over the dinner table. It is a little bit difficult to hear their voices in the beginning, but stick with it - they end up speaking much clearer by a minute or so in. Voices are raised, accusations are made. I wonder if any minds were changed? “I didn’t vote for Bush! I wasn’t even BORN!” [YouTube]
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+SUThe Fading of America: Is American Dominance in the World Ending?
Every
great civilizations fall. From the Romans to the ancient Mayans, history
is littered with kingdoms and nations who "ruled the world"
for a period of time only to descend into obscurity afterwards.
So, when I read this interesting Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria, an excerpt of his book The Post-American World, I couldn't help but think: Is it America's turn?
Perhaps not: American technology, ideas, and economic powers are still very strong, but the rest of the world is catching up fast:
American anxiety springs from something much deeper, a sense that large and disruptive forces are coursing through the world. In almost every industry, in every aspect of life, it feels like the patterns of the past are being scrambled. [...] for the first time in living memory—the United States does not seem to be leading the charge. Americans see that a new world is coming into being, but fear it is one being shaped in distant lands and by foreign people.
Look around. The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.
These factoids reflect a seismic shift in power and attitudes. It is one that I sense when I travel around the world. In America, we are still debating the nature and extent of anti-Americanism. One side says that the problem is real and worrying and that we must woo the world back. The other says this is the inevitable price of power and that many of these countries are envious—and vaguely French—so we can safely ignore their griping. But while we argue over why they hate us, "they" have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.
Illustration: Joe Zeff Design / Newsweek
“Legal Weed” Beer is Illegal According to Feds
Vaune
Dillmann, a craft brewer from Weed, California, thought that he got a
cute marketing gimmick by labeling his beer bottle caps after the name
of his town ("Try Legal Weed"). But the Federal alcohol regulators
didn't get the humor:
The agency responded that the message on the caps amounted to a drug reference. In a letter explaining its decision, the agency said the wording could "mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage."
Dillmann scoffs at the notion that his label has anything to do with smoking pot.
"I've never tried marijuana in my life," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I don't advocate that. It's just our town's name."
Apparently, making fun of the town's name is somewhat of a sport with its inhabitants:
A sign posted on the way out of town reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed," while another says "100 Percent Pure Weed." Dillmann noted those examples in an appeal letter he sent to the alcohol bureau, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Once, Dillmann said, his wife, a former teacher, was delayed on a field trip to San Francisco as tourists clamored to pose next to the school bus, which said "Weed High."
Link - via Beyond Madison Avenue
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
California Teacher Fired for Not Signing Loyalty Oath
Wendy Gonaver lost her teaching job at Cal State Fullerton one day before class was scheduled to begin, because she refused to sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn’t expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."
California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath.
"The position of the university is that her entire added material was against the law," Potes-Fellow said.
In February, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word "nonviolently" when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention.
It is hard to know how many would-be workers decline to sign the pledge over religious or political issues. Some object because they interpret the pledge as a commitment to take up arms. Others have trouble swearing an oath to something other than their God.
Here’s an interesting story at the Los Angeles Times by Richard C. Paddock: Link
(Photo: Mark Boster / LA Times)
Lesbos Islanders Mad About the Word “Lesbian”
People of the Greek Island of Lesbos [wiki], the original Lesbians, are suing gay organizations from using the term "lesbian" to mean a homosexual woman:
The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.
He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos’s inhabitants.
By the way, the word "lesbian" is derived from the erotic poems of the ancient Greek poet Sappho [wiki], who was born around in the 7th Century BC in the island of Lesbos.
Link - Thanks CheeseDuck!
Barack Obama vs. Mike Gravel
I’m a fan of both Barack Obama AND Mike Gravel, but I don’t know quite what to make of this new video by my amigo “rx” of Dick is a Killer fame. Here’s his YouTube channel. Enjoy - or flame away!
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUD.C. Madam Found Dead: Was it Really Suicide?
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who was convicted of running a high-end prostitution ring in the nation’s capital (her nickname is the "D.C. Madam"), was found dead of an apparent suicide today (CNN and ABC News have the story)
Now, just how many of you believe that it was a suicide?
Silly Political Parties (of the non-elephant-or-donkey variety)
It’s only April. That means we have another six months to hear all about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. While it’s obviously a very important decision that we all need to be well-informed about, I must admit, I’m getting a little tired of hearing about it. So, for something completely different, let’s discuss frivolous political parties (and no, I don’t mean Democrats or Republicans).
The Deadly Serious Party
The Deadly Serious Party of Australia was anything but. In the 1980s, the DSP was formed and promised to send a flock of trained, killer penguins to protect the Australian coasts from an invasion from Argentine.
Beer Lovers Party of Belarus
Yes! A party I can get behind. Apparently Beer Lovers political parties weren’t that uncommon in post-Soviet states. Their platform was “cleanness and quality of the national beer, state independence and the neutrality of Belarus, freedom of economic relations, personal inviolability and inviolability of the private property”.
The chairman of the party, Andrey Romashevsky, was arrested in 1995 for “hooliganism”. I had no idea that was a criminal offense. After he was released, he moved out of Belarus and the Beer Lovers Party pretty dissolved. Its mascot is a drunken hedgehog, which is a stereotype from Russian jokes (maybe someone can explain that to me?)
The Rhinoceros Party
The Parti Rhinocéros, AKA the Rhinoceros Party, was registered in Canada for more than 30 years. They issued “A promise to keep none of our promises.” Members of the party claimed to be the “spiritual descendants” of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhino that was elected to São Paulo’s city council in the 1950s. They claimed that the rhino was the perfect symbol for a political party, because, among other things, they are “slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out the middle of their faces.” Promises the party made (which they had already promised not to keep) included repealing the law of gravity, paving Manitoba to make the world’s largest parking lot, ending crime by abolishing all laws and that they would enforce higher education by building taller schools.
Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements
The UCWSE was a shockingly successful silly political party started in Denmark in 1979. Jacob Haugaard, the founder, was rather unexpectedly elected to the national parliament of Denmark in 1994. During his ‘94 campaign, he promised better weather, better Christmas presents, more pieces of Renaissance furniture in IKEA, Nutella in the army field rations and more bread for the ducks in parks. He actually accomplished the last two during his four-year term, and also had a public toilet placed in the park in Aarhus. This was especially important to him, because after each election he served beer and sausages in the Aarhus park to his voters.
Although the UCWSE was a joke, Haugaard was not expecting to actually be elected and took his duties very seriously when he was. He retired from politics in March 1998 when his first (and only) term was up. Photo from InternationalReports
The McGillicuddy Serious Party
The McGillicuddy Serious Party formed in 1984 in Hamilton, New Zealand, and had a strong Scottish theme. This seemed a little strange to me until I did some research – Hamilton is named for Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, the Scottish commander of the HMS Esk. He was killed in Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Land Wars.
Anyway, Clan McGillicuddy discovered an extremely distance relationship to the Stuart pretenders of the royal family and suggested one of their own as a replacement for Queen Elizabeth II. They challenged the New Zealand army to a winner-take-all pillow fight battle for the crown. The challenge was declined.
To select political candidates, the party held a battle with newspaper swords and water balloons. Whoever lost the battle would become the candidate for that particular election. A game of musical chairs was another option.
The various policies of the party over the years included free dung, leaving beer on all of the beaches so any invading army would abandon attack and get drunk instead, a potato famine, limiting the speed of light, free castrations and putting accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Arguably the most famous frivolous party so far, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered party in the U.K. started in 1983 by David Sutch, AKA Screaming Lord Sutch. The party had some pretty solid backing in Commander Bill Boaks, a retired WWII hero who was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck.
Their platform included refusing to sign up to the euro, but inviting the rest of Europe to use the pound; letting motorists drive straight over a roundabout when no traffic was coming; and the introduction of a 99 pence coin to save on change. Despite their bizarre manifesto, some of the things the OMRLP asked for have come to pass in the U.K., including a voting age of 18, passports for pets and all-day pub openings.
Eventually, the some members of the party split off into other factions, most notably the Raving Loony Green Giant Party and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Loony Party. Photo from BBC News
President Bush’s State of the Union Addresses Infographics
Inspired by the amazing infographics of Stephanie Posavec’s "On The Map," David Sparks of The Arbitrarian blog put together his own set of sentence diagrams, focusing on the State of the Union Addresses given by President Bush over his 8 years in office:
In eight State of the Union Addresses, President George W. Bush spoke almost 50,000 words. People around the world were listening, and his words were chosen with care, conveying precisely the right message. These sentence diagrams are in attempt to relate some of the substance of the words President Bush used. Starting at the black dot (and ending at the red), each line segment represents the length of each sentence spoken. Each sentence is in turn colored according to its subject: our nation in general (American, nation, citizen, etc.), national ideals (freedom, hope, liberty, etc.), fiscal/economy (budget, economy, funding, etc.), domestic policy (health, reform, insurance, etc.), security/foreign policy (terror, Iraq, troops, etc.), and everything else. From these rough outlines a short list of President Bush’s most frequently used uncommon words, one can get a general idea of the nature of each Address, and we can begin to envision the legacy established by Mr. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States of America.
Link | Link to the infographics [png image file] - Thanks D. Sparks!
Previously on Neatorama: State of the Union Address Analyzer
Refuse to Carry Frenchmen and Dogs …
Photo: Club.chinaren.com
There was an anti-France/anti-Carrefour/anti-Tibetan independence protest in China over the weekend (Carrefour is a large supermarket chain based out of France), and this taxi driver was quick to capitalize on the anti-French mood! Maybe it’s just because the French don’t tip well …
Free Tibet Flag … Made in China!
Oh the irony! Thousands of the Snow Lion Flag or the "Free Tibet" flags turned out to be … made in China!
Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say. The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning. But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.
Link - Thanks Justin!
Chastity Belts Making a Comeback in Indonesia
To combat prostitution, many massage parlors in Indonesia are requiring masseuses to wear … chastity belts!
Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times wrote this interesting report:
Chastity belts, which went out of fashion with knights in shining armor and damsels in distress, are making a comeback in the massage parlors of East Java.
In a bid to prevent any hanky-panky between masseuses and their clients, several massage parlors in the hill resort town of Batu are insisting that the women wear padlocks across the zippers of their work pants.
Franky Setiawan, owner of Doghado Massage Parlor, says he came up with the idea when men "bombarded" his staff with demands for sex after local authorities shut down the town’s brothels. In recent years, conservative Islamic values have gained influence in a society that has long enjoyed liberal freedoms, such as easy access to alcohol, gambling and the sex trade.
"We had a hard time rejecting this kind of client because they try over and over and over again, persuading our workers with their dangerously sweet words," Setiawan said by phone this month from Batu, explaining that he wanted his 14 masseuses to feel safe and morally upstanding, while protecting the massage industry’s image.
Not everyone’s happy about it, though:
But Meutia Fardia Hatta Swasono, minister for women’s empowerment in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, calls the return of the chastity belt an affront to all women.
"It is not the right way to prevent promiscuity. It insults women as if they are the ones in the wrong," she told reporters this month. "It is not that we oppose the administration’s effort to uphold morality, but the problem is their way of treating masseuses as if they’re all committing prostitution."
The American Gun and Safety Paradox
There is a paradox about guns and violence in America - and sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to see it. Here’s an interesting article from the BBC about the relative safety of American towns and cities, even as there are more than 200 million guns in circulation:
Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver. [...]
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you. They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Student Twitters Himself Out of Jail
UC Berkeley graduate student James Karl Buck, who was in Egypt covering an anti-government protest when he was arrested, helped free himself with … twitter!
On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. "Arrested."
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted that he was being held.
Naturally, when he was released, James sent another one-word twitter: "Free"
CNN Article by Mallory Simon: Link (Photo: James Karl Buck)
Captain Capitalism on Why Saving is Bad for America
In this Flash comic "Piggy Bank Pinko", Captain Capitalism explains why it’s bad - heck, down right communistic - to save money.
Kid: Captain Capitalism! Wow! What are you doing here?
Captain Capitalism: I think the better question, son, is just what do you think you’re doing here?
Kid: Putting money in my piggybank …
CC: Cripping our nation by stagnating the economy and throwing us into another recession is more like it, commie!
Link | Check out more Captain Capitalism by Brad Graeber | Captain Capitalism Blog - Thanks Mangesh!
Day of Prayer in Sackcloth and Ashes in Birmingham, Alabama
Larry Langford, the mayor of the city of Birmingham, Alabama, has declared today, Friday April 25th, 2008 as a "day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes" in response to the city’s high homicide rates:
Birmingham Weekly reported two weeks ago that the mayor purchased 2,000 burlap sacks for ministers and other community leaders to wear at a Plan 10/30 summit.
To many Christians, sackcloth and ashes symbolize humility and repentance, but the mayor’s decree came dressed with the usual accoutrements - printed on fine, invitation-stock paper and wrapped in a bright silver folder, adorned by the magic hat logo Langford commissioned for the city last year.In the decree, Langford said that Birmingham’s crime problem “pails” (sic) in comparison to the biblical City of Nineveh.
The proclamation tells the Bible story of Jonah and the city of Nineveh: “Whereas Chapter 3, verse 5 & 6, of the Book of Jonah, Old Testament states, that the people of Nineveh believe God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them,” the resolution reads.
In the proclamation, the mayor puts himself parallel with the King of Nineveh (Jonah 3:7) who, wearing sackcloth and ashes, joined his citizens in prayer.
Link | Article at The Birmingham News - Thanks Charles K!
(Photo: acnatta [Flickr] - Thanks Andre!)
Anti-Teen Loitering Device: Is It Torture?
The Mosquito is an electronic "anti-teen loitering" device that emits an annoying sound akin to a mosquito buzzing in your ear that can only be heard by teenagers and people in their 20s (who still have sensitive hair cells in their inner ear).
After selling 1,000 units in the United States, the company that sells the device is now being criticized for torturing teens!
"It’s horrible, loud and irritating," said Eddie Holder, 15, who sprinted from his apartment for school one morning covering one ear with his hand to block out the noise. The device was installed outside the building to drive away loiterers. "I have to hurry out of the building because it’s so annoying. It’s this screeching sound that you have to get away from or it will drive you crazy."
The device has roiled civil liberties groups in countries where it’s in use, including England, Australia and Scotland. England’s government-appointed Children’s Commission proposed a ban. That group describes it as a weapon that infringes on the basic rights of young people and claims that it could have unknown long-term health effects.
The $1,500 device has also been challenged in some American cities and towns that have proposed installing it, with some criticizing the tactic as needlessly cruel.
Others, however, have praised the Mosquito:
"We’d have crowds gather in parking lots, and there’d be the usual trash talk, then you’d have fights," said Rick McGee, the school district’s emergency services manager. "Now, there’s no confrontation at all; they just get aggravated and leave within a few minutes."
No words on the effectiveness of the original anti-teen loitering devices, Mozart and Kenny G, as compared to the newfangled device: Link - via Boing Boing