We're getting there. Just because we don't know right now everything about how to carry on the struggles we'll need to have for a more equal and humane society with our guy as the new impediment in the White House, that doesn't mean we can't learn.Much of the recent online-based progressive infrastructure was built during the Bush years and developed effective strategies for opposition. It's been a steep learning curve this past year as these groups wrestle with reinventing those techniques to push legislation, especially when it comes to finding allies in Congress and then working with them.
Doesn't sound like this is all going very well. Juan Cole reported today that Afghan Senators are calling for the execution of foreign troops that keep making "mistakes" such as the one on Tuesday that killed 21 civilians. General McChrystal has apologized....the Afghan people have "crystallized their frustration" on the issue of civilian casualties.
"It's crystallized a disappointment with the international intervention that's been growing since about 2003," said Sarah Chayes...
"I actually think the issue is broader," she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "And so the impact on the Marjah (offensive) is really going to depend on what else happens in that operation." ...
"I remember early cases of civilian casualties where I was actually surprised at the level of tolerance for it on the part of the people I was living amongst," she said.
"But it was because they felt that the international intervention was really doing something for them ... or they still held out the hope that it would."
She said the view of Afghan people on civilian casualties depends on issues such as whether they believe they are being governed by a responsive and respectful institution and whether they are seeing any prospects for economic improvement. "You need to protect the population and earn the population's trust," she said.
Chayes strongly criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai's approach to tackling corruption in government, saying his administration is operating like a "criminal syndicate."
The old colonial power and the mainland South American nation can't even agree on what to call the islands. The population, seventy percent of whom are of U.K.-origin, were made British citizens after the last Falklands war. That episode brought down one set of dictatorial Argentinian generals -- and cemented the loathsome Margaret Thatcher's prestige as a war-fighting Prime Minister.A number of Latin American countries have rushed to offer their support to Argentina in its long-running territorial dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands.
This week Britain began drilling for oil in the waters off the archipelago, despite opposition from Buenos Aires which claims sovereignty over the islands it calls Las Malvinas. The project has reignited tensions between the two countries, who fought a brief war over the islands in 1982, with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner accusing London of ignoring international law.
Argentina says the natural resources around the islands, which lie in the South Atlantic Ocean off the Argentinean coast, should be protected, and Britain must accept international resolutions labeling the Falklands a disputed area.
According to the DC-area gay pub Metro Weekly, the version of health care reform put forward by the President ahead of the ballyhooed "summit" leaves out the gay-affirming provisions that lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) got included in the House version of the bill. My household actually pays that extra tax since the Feds don't recognize our relationship, so I'm a directly interested party.Most LGBT and HIV activists had supported the House bill because it included key LGBT specific provisions.... In addition to ... data collection [on LGBT health issues], it prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the provision of health care; enabled people with HIV and low incomes to obtain Medicare coverage earlier in the course of their illness; and eliminated the tax that gay employees must pay if their same-sex partners or spouses receive health coverage from their employers' plan. Straight employees don't pay that tax but, for gay couples, the coverage is characterized by the federal government as additional income for the gay employee.
Baldwin said Monday she would ''continue to fight for all of my priorities in the final health care reform bill, including those related to LGBT health."
To me, this is yet again an instance in which the ruling Democrats, either led or not by President, confront an opportunity to treat LGBT people as full citizens -- or deny that we fully belong. Mostly, they choose the second option. It looks easier. Nothing that matters is easy.President Obama's proposal Monday ''an important step forward'' that ''helps to regain our momentum'' on health care reform efforts.
They may like President Obama in Europe, but they don't like his war -- in fact, they gave him a fancy prize in the hope he'd follow a peaceful track. He hasn't.The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war's critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.
"If the Dutch go, which is the implication of all this, that could open the floodgates for other Europeans to say, 'The Dutch are going, we can go, too,' " said Julian Lindley-French, professor of defense strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. ..."The majority of the Dutch people say, 'Go, we’ve done enough. Let other countries do it now.' That’s a big majority and also the majority in the Parliament," said Nicoline van den Broek-Laman Trip, a former senator from the Liberal Party...
Once upon a time -- a time less marked by imperial overreach -- nations formed alliances more to avoid wars than to prosecute them ..."It was by no means inappropriate that at the NATO Treaty-signing ceremony in Constitution Hall, Washington, on April 9th 1949, the band played 'I've Got Plenty of Nothing...'...The French thus welcomed NATO as the guarantee against a revived Germany... The Dutch and Belgians saw in NATO an impediment to future German revanchism. The Italians were included to help shore up [Prime Minister] Alcide De Gasperi's domestic support against Communist critics. The British regarded the NATO Treaty as a signal achievement in their struggle to keep the US engaged in Europe's defense. And the Truman Administration sold the agreement to Congress and the American people as a barrier to Soviet aggression....
"NATO was a bluff. As Denis Healey, a future British defense minister observed in his memoirs. 'for most Europeans, NATO was worthless unless it could prevent another war; they were not interested in fighting one.'"
I agree, even as I eagerly look forward to the relative health security of Medicare in a few years....this is a substantial achievement. It’s too bad that Americans must reach age 65 to receive this benefit. It’s doubly too bad that our over-65 population shows such tenuous commitment to providing other Americans with the same financial and health security.
I think for individuals who are fortunate enough to feel they have lived good lives (whatever they understand by that), that blunt statement of fact loses some of its terror as one ages; at least such has been the case for me.Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
The dream and promise of the United States as a democratic (small "d") "city on a hill" (Puritan pastor John Winthrop) or "last, best hope" (Abraham Lincoln) has been a perennial theme in our history, alongside and over against our mass extermination of those who lived here before us; the enslavement of many both as the literal property of others and by wage labor for others' profit amid grinding poverty; and the ongoing atrocities of empire. In 2008, we elected a President who traded in the hopeful aspects of the national myth, seeking to revive it in a contemporary idiom grounded in a more inclusive view of human and humane citizenship. This was very attractive after a decade of arrogant butch machismo and celebration of greed.Hope was the great lilting anthem of the Obama campaign, but for many people, hope now seems muffled, as if buried beneath snow. Indeed, in this season of discontent, alienation from the nation's public and private leadership appears to be hardening like the frozen winter ground.
Heady stuff, though hard to sustain when no good policy can move in Washington because we are learning that this very Constitution has gifted us with structures that privilege corruption and obstruction. In the face of economic misery, even the most obvious responses -- job creating stimulus, health security, financial regulation -- seem to be impossible. Even in the aspects of governance where this oh-so-eloquent President acts with less impediment -- foreign affairs and the administration of justice -- it is hard to see much course correction. Is the U.S. myth on the way to the garbage bin of history?... when the Union was turned back at Bull Run, and the Allies first landed at Omaha Beach, victory was very much in doubt. When the market crashed on Black Tuesday, and civil rights marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday, the future was anything but certain. These were the times that tested the courage of our convictions, and the strength of our union. And despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations and our fears, America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.
...We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we're all created equal; that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else.
Perhaps Stringfellow is right: perhaps I've invested too much hope in structures that are hopelessly evil, that will pass away. Many of my more leftist or simply cynical colleagues might agree. But even that dire theologian thought we were called, while staring down death, to "live humanly in the midst of the Fall.""Most Americans," says Stringfellow, "are naïve about the Fall, there is a discounting of how the reality of the Fall afflicts the whole of Creation, not human beings alone but also the "Principalities and Powers" as well…"
The "Principalities and Powers" are legion," says Stringfellow. "They include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols…beyond any prospect of full enumeration the "Principalities and Powers" are legion."
But it is the state that is the preeminent principality and power. "The state," says Stringfellow, "is regarded historically and empirically and biblically as the archetypal principality and possess a special status among the demonic powers."
And, in the midst of the Fall, their moral purpose and vocational imperative has been turned upside down. Thus, rather than serving life, they now serve death.
If anyone with a secular bent has followed this essay this far, they might like Chris Haye's very much aligned survey of the same ground without the religious overlay in The Nation. His conclusion is downright poetic.Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Photo by way of Kildare & Leighlin Diocese Lenten Resources.... one thing the Obama campaign got right was its faith in America's history of continually and fruitfully tilling the soil of democracy, struggling against odds until, at certain moments of profound progressive change, a new treasure is improbably found.
... Always searching and never quite finding is grueling and often dispiriting work. But there is simply no alternative other than to give in and let the field turn hard and barren
Okay, I could easily decide this guy just doesn't like women and doesn't want to be identified with us.People tiptoe around the topic, and I was like, "You know, I'm just going to say it: Effeminate men's skating is not my style of skating. In men’s skating I like to see power and strength."
... It's not the skaters' fault. It's the way the system has been rewarding them. You have to have a program that’s dynamic. If it's the same from beginning to end, and it's soft and doesn’t have dynamic strength and power and quickness, the routines become very much the same, and it becomes very boring.
...It doesn’t have anything to do with gayness.... It's the way you carry yourself. There’s a certain strength to it when a masculine skater steps onto the ice and attacks a program. With the feminine skaters, the use of the hands becomes very soft, down to the fingertips. There's a lot of little details, but essentially you can pick up on it in the first few movements. ..As a male skater I don't want to be considered a beautiful skater. I want to be a strong skater.
The twosome pictured didn't come close to winning the pairs; they placed 8th. But I loved their short program. Ukrainians Tatiana Andreëvna Volosozhar and Stanislav Morozov skated in what looked like Star Trek uniforms (she got to wear pants!) with power and zeal. That suited this viewer fine. I'd love to see what a solo woman skater who added visible power to grace could do in the solo competition. But we all know the sport's conventions would never allow that.As Knapp points out, the women jumpers don't actually want to jump against men; they want their own event in which to compete with each other. Knapp hopes that the Olympic Committee can correct this injustice by 2014.At the start of these Winter Olympics, American Lindsey Van held the record for the longest jump at the so-called normal hill (the smaller one) at the Whistler venue. Not the record for women, but for anyone, male or female.
At the time, no elite men's event had been held there. In the first round of the Olympic normal-hill competition, the maximum jump was 105 meters, half a meter less than Van's distance. In the final round, the longest jump broke Van's record, at 108 meters. The bronze medalist had the second-longest at 106.5 meters.Ski-jumping results combine distance and judges' style scores, so Van's 105.5 meters don't translate to guaranteed success among the men. But low body weight allows extra loft, to the extent that the men have developed eating disorders and the sport has regulated their weight as if they were jockeys, adjusting ski lengths according to body mass. The physical advantages most men have over women, particularly upper-body strength, don't play a big role here.
To modern thinkers, the prospect that a woman might be able to outperform a male medalist in the Olympic Games seems pretty fascinating. To stodgy IOC members, the thought must be terrifying.
So these guys knocked 511 potential candidates out of the running for the upcoming March 7 parliamentary elections by charging them with Baathism. Some have since been reinstated, but Iraqis cannot help but wonder if sectarian violence is about to break out again, bigtime. The whole business looks to Sunnis like just another ruse by Iranian-backed Shiites to keep them out of government....the de-Baathification genie has escaped and gone on a rampage.
The chairman of the 2003 De-Baathification Commission was Ahmad al Chalabi, the mercurial darling of the neoconservatives and distributor of false intelligence. The parliament passed a new de-Baathification law in 2008, but failed to appoint the members of a new commission; Chalabi retained his post by default, as did the director of the commission’s implementation department, Ali Faisal al Lami, Chalabi’s trusted aide.Al Lami, who was arrested by US forces in 2008 and accused of involvement with violent Iranian-backed groups, came out of prison in August 2009. He and Chalabi have joined a new Shiite coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), led by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. But both men retain their positions in the De-Baathification Commission, despite the glaring conflict of interest.
Is a state of law, candidates for parliament would have recused themselves from their tasks on behalf of an institution charged with screening candidates for parliament, but in today’s Iraq there is no enforcement of such salutary rules. Instead, personal vendettas and political score-settling are accepted practices along with rampant corruption and nepotism.
He finished 13th in his first race and spent his debut professional season in 2004 at Meribel in the French Alps, where he watched other racers and copied them. The last four winters have been in the Italian Alps, funded by his summer jobs around Milton Keynes, and by the work of his wife, Sena, at the Open University. The father-of-two said: 'All I had ever known about skiing was watching a James Bond film, so it really just took off from there.'
"Errol's got a good shot at the Olympics," [Olympian Johnny] Moseley said. "He's cut out for the sport."
Kerr's background helps in an event that is rowdier than Alpine ski racing, where one athlete races against the clock. In skicross, four competitors speed down a steep, winding the course together, taking on banked turns, berms and each other along the way. The first one across the finish line wins."It's very pure, very simple that way," said Moseley. "But there's a lot of contact, a lot of strategy and jockeying."
eight secondary school children from Woippy, a depressed suburb of eastern French town Metz that made headlines for riots last month. Azzimani, who grew up in a rough area of Colombes, outside Paris, simply wanted to share his dream with youngsters from a similar background.
I was prepared to spend a day at the show, as I have during years since 1985, but stayed only a few hours.Macworld is physically a much smaller show, with about 235 vendors occupying 28,000 square feet. Last year, in the final year of Apple's participation, there were 419 vendors taking up 75,000 square feet. ...
Kwame Weusi-Puryear, a Palo Alto Web designer, said he believes the absence of Apple frees the show organizers to be more inventive and fun. He said last year's show was not as interesting because Apple was the undisputed draw. While Weusi-Puryear initially thought Apple's pullout was the death of the show, he now sees no reason why it can't keep going for years to come.
"I think it can survive because the fans want it," he said. "Apple will always do their own thing, but the fans need this convention. Macworld is our mecca, so we'll keep coming back."
