Seeking In The Zeitgeist

A Beautiful HD Timelapse of Vancouver, BC

2010-01-30T19:27:00.001-05:00

This is just stunning. Of the cities that I’ve visited, Vancouver is one of my favorites. I look forward to seeing it featured this winter during the Olympics.

Full Video - Obama's Remarks at the Republican Retreat

2010-01-29T18:05:00.001-05:00

What the Earth Would Look Like if it Had Saturn's Rings

2010-01-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

Via: SFSignal.com

Jim Wallis On The The Daily Show

2010-01-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Jim Wallis

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy, CEO of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.

In Tribute to Doctor King

2010-01-19T01:00:00.001-05:00

Acceptance Speech

The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr’s Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1964

“Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time - the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall overcome!

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.

Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.

Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible - the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man. You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live - men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization - because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners - all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty - and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.”

From Les Prix Nobel en 1964, Editor Göran Liljestrand, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1965

The One Where I Share How Awesome it is to Have Many Views on a Post, But Secretly Wish I Had Posted it Here

2010-01-16T19:39:00.001-05:00

So yeah, this post has over 1,300 views and counting and for some reason, thought so little of it, that I relegated it to my newish and still not sure what to do with it yet, Posterous in the Zeitgeist blog. Good news: It’s gaining attention for a wonderful, biting and needed commentary; Bad News: I lost those views and analytics for my primary blog… uhm, this one. So yeah, kicking myself a bit but honestly just glad people are sharing this and found Robertson's “theory” so insane, ugly and abhorrent.

Read the Satan Responds to Pat Robertson’s Claims Posterous post.

Happy Religious Freedom Day

2010-01-16T09:49:00.001-05:00

Our founding fathers established a religiously neutral nation, and a tragedy of our time is that so many people are striving to undo all that was accomplished by the wisdom of the founding fathers who framed for us a constitution that would protect the religious freedom of everyone regardless of personal creed.

An even greater tragedy is that they many times hoodwink the public into believing that they are only trying to make our nation what the founding fathers would want it to be.

Separation of church and state is what the founding fathers wanted for the nation, and we must never allow anyone to distort history to make it appear otherwise.

I’ve studied history, America’s and the rest of the World. I know the oppression and evil that can occur when a religion becomes the State or vice Versa. Some of the more heinous and memorable acts under a Religious State include: Drowning and burning heretics and witches in the colonies including the murder of Quakers; the Catholic Church’s burning Nicholas Copernicus at the stake and imprisoning of Galileo for life for the crime of claiming the Earth was round; The Crusades; The Spanish Inquisition; the burning of the library at Alexandria; Selling indulgences; and The Church Tax that was collected throughout Europe whether you believed or not. We have only to look at Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban to see the dangers in our own time.

So celebrate your religious liberty today. Say a prayer, a chant, an incantation, a meditation or just a friendly nod to this very important freedom. This means you have the right to practice or not practice any religion you choose. It means the United States government may not force you to practice or support a religion or church that you don't want to support.

That is what a right is. It is a sphere of activity in which the citizen may participate without interference from the government. As such, you are free to practice your own religion or lack thereof.

As President Obama said in his proclamation:

On Religious Freedom Day, let us pledge our constant support to all who struggle against religious oppression and rededicate ourselves to fostering peace with those whose beliefs differ from our own. In doing so, we reaffirm our common humanity and respect for all people with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

The Latest Palinism From Lady BlahBlah

2010-01-15T02:07:00.001-05:00

Palin From the January 14 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

"I think he (Reid) is driving a bus that is headed towards a train wreck in America; and he, Pelosi and Obama want us to be on it… ."

I enjoyed this comment on the Media Matters site, I had to share it.

“by RKAllen (January 14, 2010 10:30 pm ET)

I am struggling with this metaphor...
"... driving a bus that is heading for a train wreck that is going to happen in America..."
So, are we supposed to be the bus...? America I mean? Or is the bus a metaphor for a program that Reid is pushing that is heading us to a catastrophe that has already happened... i.e. the train wreck? And why are we stopping at a train wreck? And this train wreck... is it supposed to be a metaphor for something that has already happened and we are going to be witnesses to its aftermath as we pass by in the bus?
Is... is Reid promoting a National bus tour of famous train wrecks...?
... a little help? Anyone?”

My Favorite Tweet Of The Week

2010-01-12T10:38:00.001-05:00

This tweet made me literally LOL and then just made me sad and a little mad. I mean, other than being the daughter or an (alleged) war criminal, what gives Liz Cheney any reason to be a well listened to or respected pundit?

Let's Fire Up the Wayback Machine, Shall We?

2010-01-10T18:51:00.002-05:00

This is a very well preserved, and amazingly well shot film of Moscow Clad in Snow (Moscou sous la neige) from 1908. It was filmed by Joseph-Louis Mundwiller (1886 - 1967) an Alsatian cinephotographer who worked in French Cinema most of his 25 years in the business. It was shot for Pathé Frères, and the music is Aleksandr Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880). Enjoy.

My Favorite Movies of 2009

2010-01-09T23:38:00.001-05:00

Tie for 10th:

The two that didn’t quite make the list
Watchmen, Moon

Movie that I wish had been better than it was
Wolverine

“She’s Real”

2010-01-09T16:34:00.001-05:00

I was listening to The Slate’s Culturefest podcast and they mentioned this New York Review of Books review for Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue by Jonathan Raban, and it is amazing. It’s an exceedingly honest and downright devastating analysis of the Palin phenomenon that has swept America in the past year. It clearly, logically explains the demonizing effect Palin has had on America and political discourse, without ever using the word demonizing. Here’s an excerpt:

Her nasal voice, pitched in the upper register, with the upsy-downsy, singsong delivery of a kindergarten teacher, became, rather improbably, a great electoral asset. Her diction and accent were shaped more by class than region, and spiced with faux-genteel cuss words like “dang,” “heck,” “darn,” “geez,” “bullcrap,” and “bass-ackwards.” It was a voice unspoiled by overmuch formal education and boldly unafraid of truisms and clichés; a perfect foil for Obama’s polished law-school eloquence. In the narrative of the McCain campaign, she was the exemplary real American, Obama the phony one, and when people are now interviewed in the interminable lines for her book signings, by far their most common remark about her is “She’s real.”

Alaska, the particular reality from which Palin hails, is so little known by most Americans that she was able to freely mythicize her state as the utopian last refuge of the “hard work ethic,” “unpretentious living,” and proud self-sufficiency. Her anti-tax rhetoric (private citizens spend their money more wisely than government does) and disdain for “federal dollars” were unembarrassed by the fact that Alaska tops the tables of both per capita federal expenditure, on which one in three jobs in the state depends, and congressional earmarks, or “pork.” So, too, she mythicized the straggling eyesore of Wasilla (described by a current councilwoman there as “like a big ugly strip mall from one end to the other”) as the bucolic small town of sentimental American memory. Listening to Palin talk about it, one was invited to inspect not the string of oceanic parking lots attached to Fred Meyer, Lowe’s, Target, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot, or the town’s reputation among state troopers as the crystal meth capital of Alaska, but, rather, the imaginary barber shop, drugstore soda fountain, antique church, and raised boardwalks, seen in the rosy light of an Indian summer evening.

Now, Go read the whole thing.

Jon Stewart Slams Brit Hume

2010-01-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Temple of Hume

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Perhaps there are a few Million Buddhists out there Chanting for Brit? Who knows? Though maybe not Lisa Simpson….

My Favorite Book of 2009 – A Review (with Steampunk Zombies)

2010-01-06T02:56:00.001-05:00

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

My rating: ★★★★★

This book contains all the standard tropes of Steampunk, including airships, goggles, and mad scientists but makes something fresh of it by adding in alternate history and Steampunk Zombies. It's primarily entertainment -- the literary equivalent of an action movie. But, a very good book and a very good action movie.

In this tale, the American Civil War has bloodily dragged into the late 1880s, the Klondike Goldrush happened earlier, and Seattle (Washington Territory) is home to tens of thousands of settlers. Due to an experimental earth-drilling invention that went awry, (the Boneshaker) a vein of gas (known as the Blight) has infected downtown Seattle. The town has to be walled off from the Outskirts. Within the walled city are roaming bands of rotters (think zombies), and some people crazy enough to venture inside and eke out a living among the rotters and Blight gas. When 15-year-old Zeke sneaks into the city to clear his father's good name. His mother, Briar, heads in after him and that's when things get really interesting. The Mother and son combination reminded me a bit of Sarah and John Connor (minus the world-saving destiny part), and the subsidiary characters were plentiful, clearly realized and interesting. As always, Preist's women are three-dimensional and strong. Tor's printing and book design (cream paper with sepia-brown ink) shows real care and thought. Priest's storytelling shows the same. She has, as proven by her Civil War tales, a wonderful grasp of the American Victorian Era, and being somewhat knowledgeable of that time myself, only added to my enjoyment of it.

My very favorite book of 2009. Not the best book I read, but absolutely a wonderful, fun and even interesting diversion. View all my reviews >>

Zombocalypse Now – A Review

2010-01-06T02:02:00.001-05:00

Zombocalypse Now by Matt Youngmark

My rating: ★★★★★

As a child of the late 70s/early 80s, I loved the choose your own adventures books so when I read about this book on some Geek site a while back, I HAD to do it. It was awesome!!

You're a snarky, chain smoking chainsaw wielding stuffed pink bunny. You're in the middle of a Zombie-apocalypse, living in a world where stuffed animals walk, talk, and intermarry with the human population. There's even a moment where you let out the battle cry "Leeeeeeroy Jenkins!"

I was killed by ponies, deer, mackerels, kittens and a pack of Catholics. I teamed with a cop named Mittens (who isn't a stuffed animal) and survived only once. The author states that there are 112 different endings (only 7 that you don't die). Go buy, rent or borrow it now! View all my reviews >>

Books Read in 2009

2010-01-02T18:54:00.001-05:00

Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors

2010-01-01T13:29:00.004-05:00

This NPR All Things Considered story is a very powerful tale of quiet heroism. It’s about living one's faith in the challenges of derision, and circumstance.

In September of 1942, Warren Sawyer, a 23-year-old conscientious objector, reported for his volunteer assignment as an attendant at a state mental hospital. The young Quaker was one of thousands of pacifists who had refused to fight and instead were assigned to work in places few outsiders got to see — places like Philadelphia State Hospital, best known as Byberry. What these young men saw horrified them and tested their faith. Using photography, they decided to blow the shameful secrets of these institutions wide-open.

Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. Prominent Americans, including Eleanor Roosevelt, ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, author Pearl S. Buck, actress Helen Hayes, and African-American activist Mary McLeod Bethune, supported the efforts of the young men.

These men and their brave actions, give a new meaning to the phrase "the greatest generation.”

To listen to the NPR story go here [10 min 37 sec]
To watch a powerful audio slideshow: A Mental Ward Exposed
The original article published in LIFE magazine: Bedlam, 1946
To order - Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors (or you can preview it at Google Books)
Read an article from Friends Journal – US Conscientious Objectors in World War II

My Favorite Protest Signs of 2009

2009-12-31T12:01:00.001-05:00

My, there were a lot of folks protesting and tea-bagging this past year. Unless you’re at a die-in, then you’re gonna need a sign.

Sharing a Fun 2009 TV Moment, ‘Cause That’s Just How I Am

2009-12-31T07:26:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite shows is the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. This year, Kristen Bell appeared on the show five times, sometimes as a guest, sometimes just reading an except from Craig’s new book.

I think this Dec. 2nd appearance is my favorite of the year. At the 3:30 mark she does a great impression of the viral Surprised Kitty video that made its rounds in the last two months of ‘09. She also explained to guest Paul Shaffer why he shouldn’t bring bagpipes to visit Craig, warns against creepy facebook relationships, and sits in Craig's chair. Watch and enjoy and Happy New Year!

Cost of Sending One Soldier to Afghanistan Could Pay Health Insurance for 690 Children For a Year

2009-12-30T14:00:00.001-05:00

Reblogged from Other Views - Chicago Sun-Times

BY MICHAEL MCCONNELL AND LINDA ENGLUND

Thirty thousand more troops to Afghanistan is a $30 billion decision because, according to the White House, it costs about $1 million to send one soldier there.

That $1 million could be spent in many other ways. It could pay 30 caregiver stipends to family members of severely disabled veterans who have come back from Afghanistan and Iraq, providing them with first-rate care. It could support 70 unemployed people for a year. It could give tax credits to small business to create 77 new jobs. It could provide 102 full college scholarships for a year. It would pay for health insurance for 690 children for a year. It could refit 1,330 homes with renewable energy.

That $1 million could -- and should -- be used here to positively affect so many lives. As a nation, we are investing more into the war and occupation of two countries than we are into the economic and educational revitalization of our own.

This hemorrhaging of resources contributes to the economic deterioration of the United States.

At home, military spending increases the debt, debilitates hundreds of thousands of our vets returning home and hurts our credibility in the rest of the world. It drains our treasury of needed resources that could be applied to solving such security issues as climate change, unemployment, public health and infrastructure repair.

No matter where people stand on the morality or effectiveness of the wars, the simple fact remains: We cannot afford them!

We cannot afford the loss of our own young people either to death or to wounded lifetimes. We cannot afford to lose our sympathetic standing internationally, reawakened by the election of Barack Obama. We cannot afford to drive our nation deeper into debt, ignore the decay of our neighborhood schools or the plight of young people forced to drop out of college because they cannot pay for it.

We cannot afford the weight of innocent civilians killed in these wars, for their deaths will haunt not only our dreams but also our attempts at a new foreign policy based not on militarism, but cooperation.

The war in Afghanistan is neither good nor necessary. The sooner this nation realizes and acts on that fact, the sooner we can apply that $1 million per soldier to rebuilding our economy and creating jobs, taking care of the educational and health needs of our children and our veterans, and forging a foreign policy based on humanitarian aid.

Michael McConnell is the Chicago-based regional director of the American Friends Service Committee. Linda Eglund is a member of the Chicago chapter of Military Families Speak Out.

Violence Happens Any Time We Violate the Integrity of the Other

2009-12-30T10:49:00.001-05:00

One of the wise public intellectuals of our time, Quaker writer, traveling teacher and activist Parker Palmer works with people from all walks of life at the intersection of spiritual, professional, and social change, and stresses the need to acknowledge the inner life of human beings as a source of reality and power. This is one of a series of interviews he did for The Center for Courage and Renewal, a non-profit he helped cofound.

Via: C. Wess Daniels's I'm a Trapeze Artist

My Favorite TV Shows of 2009

2009-12-24T22:10:00.006-05:00

Battlestar Galactica (Syfy):
This reboot of a short-lived 1970s NBC Star Wars rip-off set the bar as high as its ever been set for science Fiction on TV. Beginning with a mostly unknown cadre of talented Canadian and English actors, BSG marked its final year and wrapped up some of the story-lines this year. Even though I liked the series finale, BSG did miss the mark with it. But the last few episodes leading up to it provided several moments of almost unbearable tenderness and poignancy. BSG shone when it forced us to look at ourselves. It touched on Bush era themes of terror, faith, and free will and played those themes out in the far distant galaxy that its rag-tag fleet inhabited. The SFX budget sometimes didn’t equal its bold vision, but BSG more than made up with a stable of amazing writers, directors, art designer, and composers; all of whom thoroughly understood their subject. BSG was my second favorite show of 2009, but easily gets my vote for best show of the Decade. Yes, even over The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood or The Shield.

Read more after the jump...

Chuck (NBC):
I can’t express how great Chuck was this year any better than the critic who “Saved Chuck” last year. Alan Sepinwall of NJ.com.

“The second half of the spy comedy's second season inspired its fans into such a frenzy that they bought Subway sandwiches (a notable "Chuck" sponsor) en masse the night of the finale to prod NBC into renewing it. And it's not hard to understand why, as "Chuck" was firing on all cylinders, be it action (a kung fu fight inside a tiny sports car), farce (two of Chuck's co-workers form a heinous, wedding-crashing prog rock band known as Jeffster!), guest casting (Scott Bakula as Chuck's dad, Chevy Chase as his sarcastic nemesis), or romance (Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski camethisclose to finally hooking up). A joyful, exciting, hilarious confection, and the sandwich-buying paid off: the new season starts on January 10.”

Modern Family (ABC):
Just a wonderful take on the modern sitcom. It owes much to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office and Arrested Development. It’s the best comedy on TV since Arrested Development. How great is it that 20 years after Married With Children we have Ed O’Neil playing such a great, deeply fleshed out Dad/Grandad here and Katie Segal’s amazing performance week after week as the biker gang matriarch on FXs Sons of Anarchy.

Torchwood: Children of Earth (BBC America):
As an ongoing series, Torchwood (a Doctor Who spin-off) at times tried to be a monster of the week scifi sex romp with salty language. Reinvented as a five-night miniseries about alien invaders wanting to take 10 percent of Earth's children, this narrow-focus caused the series to became deeper, scarier and vastly more thrilling. It was some of the most compelling television I’ve watched in a long, long time.

Dollhouse (Fox):
Why, why would Dollhouse come back for its second season with two fairly lackluster episodes, get canceled by FOX and then...then air 6 episodes in two hour blocks on consecutive Friday nights that were purely amazingly, mind-bendingly, action-packed pieces of Whedenesqeue awesomeness? Why!? It’s both fun and frustrating to watch. I can’t wait for the series finale, Epitaph II (with Felicia Day) set in the same post-Dollhouse apocalyptic dystopia as the DVD only season one finale, Epitaph One.

True Blood (HBO):
This is my guilty pleasure. It’s a mess story and plot wise but it makes up in the talent of its actors and just pure fun. Where BSG was often guilty of taking itself too seriously, True Blood definitely doesn’t. It’s just a bloody fun vampire soap-opera. I turn my brain off, and just enjoy.

LOST (ABC):
In its penultimate season, LOST finally and firmly embraced science fiction. The island (and/or its inhabitants) traveled in time, with the bulk of our Losties eventually winding up stranded in the 1970s, living undercover in the hippie golden age of the Dharma Initiative. Its talk of destiny, philosophy and temporal loops probably scared off some viewers, but it also had some of the series' best action, acting (not only from Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn as Ben and Locke, but also from Josh Holloway as Sawyer) and comedy (Hurley and Miles moments) all while filling in huge gaps in the show's mythology. I can’t tell you how many times I watched LOST this year literally on the edge of my seat (or on the floor, or standing up, or pacing…) the finale was heartbreaking and powerful. I mean, seriously, how do you beat a manual detonation of a Hydrogen bomb by one of the shows main characters? I can’t wait for the 6th and final season to begin this Feb. 2nd. LOST was my favorite show of 2009 and has my vote as the most ambitious show of the decade. As NPRs entertainment blogger said recently about LOST:

"If TV shows are compared to toys, LOST had the big sticker that said "ALMOST ALL ASSEMBLY REQUIRED."

My Favorite Comics of 2009

2009-12-23T18:55:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer, Due to circumstances, I don’t read many comics at the moment, so I have to be choosey. I’m also not a comics blogger.

Planetary #27
Published: October 07, 2009
Publisher: DC Comics
Imprint: Wildstorm
Price: $3.99 (USD)

Many things have changed since writer Warren Ellis (The Authority) and artist John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men) began their long, strange trip into the bizarre underbelly of the WildStorm Universe. Its first issue was published in 1999, and the penultment issue #26 came out three years ago. What is it about? Uhm… best to click on the title link up there and read the over-view.

Finished unearthing the mysteries of the 20th century, Planetary is now in the business of solving humanity's problems. As was promised by Elijah Snow in issue #26, however, one vexing problem remains unsolved – the fate of Ambrose Chase. Did the former Planetary team member die from a gunshot wound way back in issue #9, or did he somehow use his powers to stop time and delay his death? Full of mind-bending twists and resolutions, it was almost worth the long wait just for Drummer’s explanation of time-travel and paradoxes.

The Flash: Rebirth #2
Publisher: DC Comics
Published: May 6, 2009
Price: $2.99 (USD)

Rebirth #2 certainly picked up the pace and gave us some answers as to why Barry Allen is back. Loved the cover which was an homage to the classic Showcase #4 cover.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #26-30
Publisher: Dark Horse
Published: July – November, 2009
Price: $2.99 (USD)

Joss Whedon and company continue the TV series with this Eisner award winning, canon comic series. #26 – 30 is the Retreat saga written by veteran Buffy writer and most recently writer and executive producer on Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, Jane Espenson. It offers a more nuanced Buffy, new powers, old friends and a powerful new Big Bad and wonderfully leads up to the conclusion of Buffy, Season Eight!

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? – Batman #686 and Detective Comics #853
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.99 (USD)

Written by the amazing Neil Gaiman, with art from Andy Kubert. The story was pure masterpiece, paying homage to every incarnation of Batman and showcasing the power and importance of this iconic and archetypal character. It wasn’t just a farewell to Bruce Wayne (whom we all knew was coming back) but more of a love letter to childhood: a tribute to the mythology of the superhero.

It’s more than a simple, beautiful elegy (though it certainly is that, too); it’s a philosophical exploration of one of the most complex psychologies in comic book history. Batman has always thought he’s fighting to avenge the deaths of his parents, and given little thought to reward or the afterlife. But his mother provides chilling clarity when she tells him, “You don’t get Heaven, or Hell. Do you know the only reward you get for being Batman? You get to be Batman. And—when you’re a child—you get a handful of years of real happiness, with your father, with me. It’s more than some people get” It’s one of the few comics to move me to tears.

Love Weighs More Than Gold

2009-12-23T12:50:00.001-05:00

No letter or cards. No gifts but ones I’ve made for the kids. No baked goods. No turkey or ham. No tree. No stockings. No child-like anticipation.

In Cancer, isolation, and poverty perhaps I've rediscovered the simplicity, and the meaning of Advent and Christmas?

Remember this December, that love weighs more than gold! ~ Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

Merry Christmas and a very blessed New Year!

Top Ten Worst Things About the Bush Decade

2009-12-22T07:28:00.001-05:00

I rebloged this from juancole.com

Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade;
Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

By spring of 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president, and he went on to dominate the rest of the decade. If Dickens proclaimed of the 1790s revolutionary era in France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the reactionary Bush era was just the worst of times. I declare it the decade of the American oligarchs. Just as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the emergence of a class of lawless 'Oligarchs' in Russia, so Neoliberal tax policies and deregulation produced American equivalents. (For more on the analogy, see Michael Hudson.) We have always had robber barons in American politics, but the Neoliberal moment created a new social class. At about 1.3 million adults, it is not too large to have some cohesive interests, and its corporations, lobbyists, and other institutions allow it to intervene systematically in politics. It owns 45 percent of the privately held wealth and is heading toward 50, i.e. toward a Banana Republic. Thus, we have a gutted fairness doctrine and the end of anti-trust concerns in ownership of mass media, allowing a multi-billionaire like Rupert Murdoch to buy up major media properties and to establish a cable television channel which is nothing but oligarch propaganda. They established 'think tanks' like the American Enterprise Institute, which hires only staff that are useful agents of the interests of the very wealthy, and which produce studies denying global climate change or lying about the situation in Iraq. Bush-Cheney were not simply purveyors of wrong-headed ideas. They were the agents of the one percent, and their policies make perfect sense if seen as attempts to advance the interests of this narrow class of persons. It is the class that owns our mass media, that pays for the political campaigns of 'our' (their) representatives, that gives us the Bushes and Cheneys and Palins because they are useful to them, and that blocks progressive reform and legislation with the vast war chest funneled to them by deep tax cuts that allow them to use essential public resources, infrastructure and facilities gratis while making the middle class pay for them.

Here are my picks for the top ten worst things about the wretched period, which, however, will continue to follow us until the economy is re-regulated, anti-trust concerns again pursued, a new, tweaked fairness doctrine is implemented, and we return to a more normal distribution of wealth (surely a quarter of the privately held wealth is enough for the one percent?) It isn't about which party is in power; parties can always be bought. It is about how broadly shared resources are in a society. Egalitarianism is unworkable, but over-concentration of wealth is also impractical. The latter produced a lot of our problems in the past decade, and as long as such massive inequality persists, our politics will be lopsided.

10. Stagnating worker wages and the emergence of a new monied aristocracy. Of all the income growth of the entire country of the United States in the Bush years, the richest 1 percent of the working population, about 1.3 million persons, grabbed up over two-thirds of it. The Reagan and Bush cuts in tax rates on the wealthy have created a dangerous little alien inside our supposedly democratic society, of the super-rich, with their legions of camp followers (sometimes referred to as 'analysts' or 'economists' or 'journalists'). The new lords and ladies are the Dick and Liz Cheneys and the people for whom they shill. They are the Rupert Murdochs and the Richard Mellon Scaifes, and they are guaranteed to own more and more of the country as long as more progressive taxation (i.e. pre-Reagan, not pre-Bush) is not restored. They are the ones who didn't want a public universal health option, did not want the wars abroad to end abruptly, did not want the Copenhagen Climate convention to succeed. They are driven by pure greed and narrow profit-seeking for themselves. They always get their way, and they always will as long as you poor stupid bastards buy the line that when the government raises their taxes, it is taking something away from you. It is the alliance of the Neoliberal super-rich with the new lower middle class populists led by W. and now by Sarah Palin that produces clown politics in the US unmatched in most advanced industrial countries with the possible exception of Italy.

9. Health and food insecurity increased for ordinary Americans. Health care costs skyrocketed. Most Americans in the work force who have health care are covered via their employers. 'From 1999 to 2009 health insurance premiums increased 132%" for the companies paying most of the costs of coverage to their employees. Euromonitor adds, "Average private health insurance premiums for a family of four in 1999 were US$5,485 per annum or 7.2% of household disposable income. 2008 premiums were estimated at US$12,973 per annum or 14.8% of average household disposable income." By Bush's last year in office, food insecurity among American families was at a 14-year high. About 49 million Americans, one in six of us, worried about having enough food to eat at some points in that year, and resorted to soup lines, food stamps, or dietary shortcuts. Some 16 million, according to the NYT, suffered from 'very low food security, meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.' Hundreds of thousands of children are going hungry in the richest country in the world. From being a proud, wealthy people, our social superiors reduced us to the estate of third-world peasants, so as to make sure their bonuses were bigger.

8. The environment became more polluted. The Bush administration was the worst on record on environmental issues. Carbon emissions grew unchecked, and the threat of climate change accelerated. In fact, Bush muzzled government climate scientists and had their reports rewritten by lawyers from Big Oil.

7. The imperial presidency was ensconced in ways it will be difficult to pare back. But note that its powers were never used against the oligarchs (unlike the case in Putin's Russia), but rather deployed to ensure the continued destruction of the labor movement and the political bargaining power of workers and the middle class, and to harass and disrupt peace, rights and environmental movements. A part of this process was the abrogation of fourth amendment protections against arbitrary search, seizure and snooping into people's mail and effects, and of other key constitutional rights under vague and unconstitutional rubrics such as 'providing material aid to terrorists,'(rights which seem unlikely ever to be restored).

6. The Katrina flood and the destruction of much of historic African-American New Orleans, and the massive failure of the Bush administration to come to the aid of one of America's great cities. The administration's unconcern about the unsound dam infrastructure, about climate change, and about the fate of the victims are all a wake-up call for what all of us have in store from the small social class that Bush served.

5. The Bush administration's post-2002 mishandling of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had been overthrown successfully in 2001 and were universally despised. The Bush administration's attempt to assert itself with a big troop presence in the Pashtun provinces, its use of search and destroy tactics and missile strikes, its neglect of civilian reconstruction, and its failure to finish off al-Qaeda, allowed an insurgency gradually to grow. It should have been nipped in the bud, but was not. Once an insurgency becomes well established, it is defeated militarily only about 20 percent of the time. Eight years later, the Neoconservative thrust into Central Asia (in search of hydrocarbon leverage, or in a geopolitical pissing match with Russia and China?) of the early years of this decade has bequeathed us yet another war, this time one that could destabilize neighboring Pakistan-- the world's sole Muslim nuclear power.

4. The Iraq War, which the US illegally launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displaced 4 million (over as million abroad), destroyed entire cities such as Fallujah, set off a Sunni-Shiite civil war, allowed Baghdad to be ethnically cleansed of its Sunnis, practiced systematic and widespread torture before the eyes of the Muslim Middle East and the world, and immeasurably strengthened Iran's hand in the Middle East. All this on false pretexts such as 'weapons of mass destruction' or 'democratization,' for the sake of opening the Iraqi oil markets to US hydrocarbon firms-- a significant faction of the oligarchic class. Cost to the US in American military life: 4,373 dead as of Dec 15 and 31,603 wounded in combat. The true totals of war-related dead and injured are higher, since 30,000 troops who were only diagnosed with brain injuries on their return to the US are not counted in the statistics, according to Michael Munk. The cost of the Iraq War when everything is taken into account will likely be $3 trillion.

3. The great $12 trillion Bank Robberry, in which unscrupulous bankers and financiers were deregulated and given free rein to create worthless derivatives, sell impossible mortgages to uninformed marks who could not understand their complicated terms, and then to roll this garbage up into securities re-sold like the
Cheshire cat, with a big visible smile of asserted value hanging in the air even as their actual worth disappeared into thin air. Having allowed the one-percent oligarchs to capture most of the increase of the country's wealth in recent decades, Bush and Paulsen now initiated the surrender to them of nearly a further entire year's gross domestic product of the US, stealing it from the rest of us by deficit budget financing that will have the effect of deflating our savings and property values and relative value of our currency against other world currencies. That is, we are to be further beggared for sake of the super-rich. And while the banks and bankers are held harmless, the hardworking Americans who have lost and will lose their homes are extended virtually no help. While 500,000 American children will go hungry at least some of the time this year, the Oligarchs at Goldman, Sachs, will get millions in bonuses, on the backs of the ordinary taxpayers. It seems likely to me that the creation of a pool of vast excess liquidity for the super-rich by the Reagan-Cheney tax cuts was what impelled them to develop the derivatives, since they had too much capital for ordinary investment purposes and were restlessly seeking new gaming tables. The conclusion is that until we get our gini coefficient back into some sort of synch, we are likely at risk for further such meltdowns.

2. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda, an organization that stemmed from the Reagan administration's anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s and which decided that, having defeated one superpower, it could take down the other. Al-Qaeda's largely Arab volunteer fighters had confronted the Soviets over their occupation of a major Muslimm country, Afghanistan. Bin Laden was himself a Neoliberal Oligarch, but he broke with the Gulf consensus of seeking a US security umbrella, thus creating a fissure within his powerful social class. Al-Qaeda viewed the US as only a slightly less objectionable occupier, though they were willing to make an atliance of convenience in the 1980s. But they were increasingly enraged and galvanized to strike, they said, by the post-Gulf-War sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children, the debilitating Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, and the establishment of US bases in the holy Arabian Peninsula (with its oil riches that Bin Laden believed were being looted for pennies by the West, aided by a supine and corrupt Saudi dynasty). Al-Qaeda was a small fringe crackpot group of murderous conspiracy theorists, since most of what they considered an American 'occupation' of Muslims was no such thing. The leasing of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia was comparable to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? They intended to make themselves look like a world-historical force, and the US new Oligarchs, who no longer had the international Communist conspiracy with which to scare the American public into letting them have their way, were happy to buy in to the hyping of al-Qaeda, as well. But the catastrophe was not only the attacks, deadly and horrific though they were, but the alacrity with which Americans surrendered their birthright of yeoman liberties to a Bonapartist regime that ran roughshod over law, the constitution, the Congress, and anyone, such as Ambassador Joe Wilson, who dared oppose it.

1. The constitutional coup of 2000, in which Bush was declared the winner of an election he had lost, with the deployment of the most ugly racial and other low tricks in the ballot counting and the intervention of a partisan and far right-wing Supreme Court (itself drawn from or serving the oligarchs), and which gave us the worst president in the history of the union, who proceeded to drive the country off a cliff for the succeeding 8 years. And that is because he was not our president, but theirs.

End/

posted by Juan Cole

via juancole.com

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