Rouge Forum Update: Vote With Your Feet! Vote in the Street! October 7th!
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Networking vs Organizing by Malcolm Gladwell : By the following Monday, sit-ins had spread to Winston-Salem, twenty-five miles away, and Durham, fifty miles away. The day after that, students at Fayetteville State Teachers College and at Johnson C. Smith College, in Charlotte, joined in, followed on Wednesday by students at St. Augustine’s College and Shaw University, in Raleigh. On Thursday and Friday, the protest crossed state lines, surfacing in Hampton and Portsmouth, Virginia, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and in Chattanooga, Tennessee. By the end of the month, there were sit-ins throughout the South, as far west as Texas. “I asked every student I met what the first day of the sitdowns had been like on his campus,” the political theorist Michael Walzer wrote in Dissent. “The answer was always the same: ‘It was like a fever. Everyone wanted to go.’ ” Some seventy thousand students eventually took part. Thousands were arrested and untold thousands more radicalized. These events in the early sixties became a civil-rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade—and it happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter…www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljp_gk3VRkQ
Little Red Schoolhouse
WHY HAVE SCHOOL? We can fight to rescue education from the ruling classes. Everything negative is in place for a revolutionary transformation of society (distrust of leaders, collapse of moral suasion from the top down, financial crises, lost wars, massive unemployment, booming inequality, imprisonment of only the poor, growing reliance on force to rule, eradication of civil liberties, corruption and gridlock of government at every level, etc.) What is missing is the passion, generalization, organization, and guiding ethic to make that change. Time is short. www.counterpunch.org/gibson09072010.html
Conference Notice: International Conference on Critical Education (Athens, Greece): 12-16 July 2011,
Organized by the journals:
JOURNAL OF CRITICAL POLICY EDUCATIONAL STUDIES (UK) www.jceps.com/
CULTURAL LOGIC (USA/CANADA) clogic.eserver.org/
KRITIKI (GREECE) www.hpdst.gr/book/export/html/48
RADICAL NOTES (INDIA) radicalnotes.com/journal/category/india/
Schmidt Family Lucks Out–the Perfect Enemy (arrogant, immature, mean-spirited, utterly predictable, bratty, loser Obamagogueite Emanuel) Returns to their Lair: President Obama is scheduled to give his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a formal send-off from Washington on Friday, as Mr. Emanuel officially announces his departure from the West Wing to run for mayor of Chicago, www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/us/politics/01obama.html?_r=1&hp
NBC, Duncan, and Weingarten–Praise for the Tyrant: Broad’s Bob Bobb: “In Detroit Public Schools we have new teacher contracts and a new teacher evaluation system put in place,” Bobb said “We have to have an effective way in which we can evaluate teachers, not just teachers, but we have to look at the entire system.” Duncan noted that Detroit’s schools have been a “disgrace” for “far too long.” He praised Bobb’s reforms. “The children are desperately underserved,” he said. “Detroit is going in a better direction thanks to Robert Bobb.” Bobb’s efforts have aided the district in securing $500.5 million bond issue to build and modernize 18 schools. Reforms, including expanded time for reading and mathematics, tutors for pre-kindergarteners, advanced placement classes at each high school and new safety and security features, are in place this fall throughout the district’s 142 schools. www.detnews.com/article/20100926/SCHOOLS/9260316/Bobb-defends-Detroit-school-district-reforms-on–Meet-the-Press-
Education Journalism is Demagoguery: NBC News president Steve Capus said that his network’s Education Nation summit this week — a multi-day affair that included interviews with President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan — would be a fair, serious look at public education today. It wasn’t even close. voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/the-wrong-way-to-cover-school.html
Total Shocker! San Diego Runs a Racist School System: For San Diego Unified, gaps in enrollment and success in college-prep classes are found mostly along lines of ethnicity. While 59 percent of white students and 58 percent of students of Asian background successfully meet college-entrance standards, only 31 percent of black students and 33 percent of Latino students have the same success. www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/29/sd-unified-struggles-college-standards/
Good Plan: Privatize the Libraries and Make the Addicted Users Pay: A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system….And the volunteers are still showing up — even if their assistance is now aiding a private company. “We volunteer more than ever now,” Mr. Ceragioli said. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html?_r=1&hp
Nine Years Ago, Deregulating Libraries was a Joke: We need to let the free market standardize the library systems through the invisible hand of peoples’ choices. We need to let the free market also set firm accountability measures for the bibliocrats so they can no longer work their one-worldly magic behind the backs of Americans. www.richgibson.com/LibraryDereg.htm
No Public Schools For Obamagogue Babies (Get out the Vote, Liberals!): Obama was asked by a woman in a television audience whether a public school in his home city could measure up to the standards of his children’s private school. “I’ll be blunt with you: The answer is no right now,” the president replied. The D.C. public schools, he said “are struggling.”
Tuition at Sidwell is more than $31,000 a year, according to the school’s Web site. Some of Obama’s critics say it is hypocritical of him to spend that kind of money on private school while allowing a federal voucher program in the District to lapse .
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/27/AR2010092701766.html?hpid=topnews
Bloomberg (NYC) Attacks Tenure: Mayor Bloomberg launched a nationally televised attack on cushy job protections for teachers yesterday — vowing to upend tenure by requiring teachers to improve student performance for two straight years in order to earn it. His bold move to tackle a staple of the school system comes as the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ” is bolstering the call to reform union sacred cows such as teacher tenure and seniority job protections. www.nypost.com/p/news/national/free_ride_over_teachers_mayor_YLg2vMDfijyLrxGUdQDrII
Christie (next door in NJ) Boosts Merit Pay: Instead, the Republican governor wants to ban using seniority alone to determine teacher pay and restrict the bumps for additional degrees to areas such as math and science, where “graduate degrees have proven to be effective markers of improved teacher performance,” according to a press release from the governor. www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/gov_christie_advocates_merit_p.html
Wilson, Exec Boss of NEA on Waiting For Superman: “I think the films are a blip. They will come and go, but the union will still be there, our members will still be in these schools,” he said. “We don’t see any advantage of going to war with documentarians.” www.sacbee.com/2010/09/24/3052921/documentary-films-ratchet-up-pressure.html
Detroit Schools Run Bribes to Get Kiddie $s: Detroit Public Schools will offer $20,000 in Target gift cards — including five $1,000 prizes — to DPS parents who bring their children for a full day on Count Day. Breakfast and lunch also will be served to every DPS student at no charge.
GropenFuhrer Vetoes University Funding Transparency Bill: Subsidiary organizations linked to California’s public colleges and universities will remain free from increased scrutiny.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday vetoed a bill requiring university foundations and auxiliary associations to comply with the California Public Records Act.
A loophole in the law previously has allowed the nonprofits to bypass the disclosure requirements that apply to higher education institutions. www.fresnobee.com/2010/09/30/2100080/governor-vetoes-disclosure-bill.html
Perpetual War
Embedded Video Confessions. Children of the Poor Killing Other Children of the Poor on Behalf of the Rich, Over Time=Barbarism: Specialist Jeremy N. Morlock, one of five American soldiers accused by Army investigators of taking part in the murders of three Afghan civilians this year, appeared at a hearing to determine the formal charges against him.
Specialist Morlock was accused by the Army of taking part in all three killings during his deployment in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, as The Lede noted in a prior post on the killings. Other soldiers in the unit told investigators that the accused ringleader, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, collected fingers and other body parts from Afghan corpses after the killings and said that he had gotten away with similar killings in Iraq. thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/soldier-describes-murder-of-afghan-for-sport-in-leaked-tape/?hp
The CoverUp is On and In the Open: The war-crimes investigation is the gravest to confront the Army in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. In echoes of the Abu Ghraib scandal that unfolded from Iraq in 2004, the Army is scrambling to locate dozens of digital photographs that soldiers allegedly took of one another posing alongside the corpses of their victims. Military officials worry disclosure of the images could inflame public opinion against the war, both at home and abroad. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092904137.html?hpid=topnews
War Criminal Photo Gallery (try to ignore the Amex ad) www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/09/18/GA2010091804326.html?sid=ST2010092904531
Pakistan Closes Key Supply Routes After US Attack: Pakistan temporarily suspended a key NATO supply route to Afghanistan in response to the strikes. Hours after the Torkham pass border crossing was closed, more than 100 NATO trucks were reportedly lined up and waiting to cross into Afghanistan. www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0930/NATO-helicopter-strike-on-Pakistan-shows-new-strategy-of-hot-pursuit
Holy Crap! The Afghans Cheat in Elections! Not Like US! In some places, election officials themselves are alleged to have carried out the fraud; in others, government employees did, witnesses said. One video showed election officials and a candidate’s representatives haggling over the price of votes. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/asia/25afghan.html?th&emc=th
Bacevich on Woodward’s Fatuous Obama’s Wars: Obama’s Wars also affirms what we already suspected about the decision-making process that led up to the president’s announcement at West Point in December 2009 to prolong and escalate the war. Bluntly put, the Pentagon gamed the process to exclude any possibility of Obama rendering a decision not to its liking. Pick your surge: 20,000 troops? Or 30,000 troops? Or 40,000 troops? Only the most powerful man in the world — or Goldilocks contemplating three bowls of porridge — could handle a decision like that. Even as Obama opted for the middle course, the real decision had already been made elsewhere by others: the war in Afghanistan would expand and continue. www.tomdispatch.com/post/175300/tomgram:_andrew_bacevich,_the_washington_gossip_machine__/
Sensitive Karzai Weeps for Peace (Video): www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092803253.html?hpid=artslot
Obamagogue and CIA Want Ability to Shut Down Internet: Cyberterrorism is such a threat that the U.S. president should have the authority to shut down the Internet in the event of an attack, Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said. www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-internet-security,0,4054676.story
Stratfor on Obamagogue’s Failing Wars: The guerrilla lives in the country. He isn’t going anywhere else, as he has nowhere to go. By contrast, the foreigner has a place to which he can return. This is the core weakness of the occupier and the strength of the guerrilla. The former can leave and in all likelihood, his nation will survive. The guerrilla can’t. And having alternatives undermines the foreigner’s will to fight regardless of the importance of the war to him.
The strategy of the guerrilla is to make the option to withdraw more attractive. In order to do this, his strategic goal is simply to survive and fight on whatever level he can. His patience is built into who he is and what he is fighting for. The occupier’s patience is calculated against the cost of the occupation and its opportunity costs, thus, while troops are committed in this country, what is happening elsewhere?
Tactically, the guerrilla survives by being elusive. He disperses in small groups. He operates in hostile terrain. He denies the enemy intelligence on his location and capabilities. He forms political alliances with civilians who provide him supplies and intelligence on the occupation forces and misleads the occupiers about his own location. The guerrilla uses this intelligence network to decline combat on the enemy’s terms and to strike the enemy when he is least prepared. The guerrilla’s goal is not to seize and hold ground but to survive, evade and strike, imposing casualties on the occupier. Above all, the guerrilla must never form a center of gravity that, if struck, would lead to his defeat. He thus actively avoids anything that could be construed as a decisive contact….
STRATFOR has long held that Islamist-fueled transnational terrorism does not represent a strategic, existential threat to the United States. While acts of transnational terrorism target civilians, they are not attacks — have not been and are not evolving into attacks — that endanger the territorial integrity of the United States or the way of life of the American people. They are dangerous and must be defended against, but transnational terrorism is and remains a tactical problem that for nearly a decade has been treated as if it were the pre-eminent strategic threat to the United States.
…strategic analysis aside, the president is not going to order a complete withdrawal of all combat forces any time soon — the national (and international) political alignment won’t support such a step. At the same time, remaining in Afghanistan is unlikely to achieve any goal and leaves potential rivals like China and Russia freer rein.
(By permission from Stratfor) www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100927_pakistan_and_us_exit_afghanistan?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100928&utm_content=readmore&elq=7408e98cbbb64e32926122c6d60d584f
Gideon Levy. The Most Hated Man in Israel: These fake peace talks are worse than no talks at all, Levy believes. “If there are negotiations, there won’t be international pressure. Quiet, we’re in discussions, settlement can go on uninterrupted. That is why futile negotiations are dangerous negotiations. Under the cover of such talks, the chances for peace will grow even dimmer… The clear subtext is Netanyahu’s desire to get American support for bombing Iran. To do that, he thinks he needs to at least pay lip-service to Obama’s requests for talks. That’s why he’s doing this.” www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-gideon-levy-the-most-hated-man-in-israel-or-just-the-most-heroic-2087909.html
There Goes the Economy
JP Morgan Moves to China: JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to triple private banking assets in Asia, its fastest-growing market, over the next five years after moving one of its top executives to the region. The unit, which manages money for wealthy clients and employs 400 people in Asia, intends to increase headcount in the region by 40 percent this year and next year, after growing at a similar pace in 2009, Douglas Wurth, chief executive officer for international private banking at New York-based JPMorgan, said in an interview…JPMorgan’s expansion comes as the number of millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region reached 3 million in 2009, matching those in Europe for the first time, according to the report by Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit and Capgemini. The millionaires’ assets rose 31 percent to $9.7 trillion, it said….The private bank will expand its services in Asia to people with investible assets of more than $10 million, from those with about $50 million, Wurth said. JPMorgan will also expand in markets like India and China, where it will hire more than half of its new staff, he said. The private bank manages more than $700 billion of assets globally, Wurth said. www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-28/jpmorgan-plans-to-triple-private-banking-assets-in-asia-over-five-years.html
More Banks Collapse: Lenders in Florida and Washington collapsed today, pushing the number of U.S. bank failures to 129 for the year, as financial firms suffer losses on loans tied to real estate. Wakulla Bank, based in Crawfordville, Florida, was seized by a state regulator, according to a statement posted on the website of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named receiver. Shoreline Bank, in Shoreline, Washington, was also closed, the FDIC said. The two actions drained $154.8 million from the FDIC deposit-insurance fund. The agency’s list of “problem” banks climbed to 829 lenders with $403 billion in assets at the end of the second quarter, a 7 percent increase from the 775 on the list in the first quarter. The U.S. may lose about a third of its banks as the weakening economy weeds out the least healthy institutions, said John Kanas, chief executive officer of BankUnited.
But JP Morgan Can’t Even do Foreclosures Right: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., acknowledging possible problems with documents it filed on mortgage foreclosures, said it was suspending the foreclosures until a review of its filing process is completed. The company said the suspension affected 56,000 home loans that were currently in some stage of the foreclosure process and were made in the 23 U.S. states in which foreclosure was handled by the courts. online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575522320380463374.html
Poverty Booming in Wealthy San Diego:The county’s poverty rate rose to 12.6% in 2009 — from 11.1% in 2007, before the recession. The rate was 14.3% for the city of San Diego. Of the 374,000 county residents living below the federal poverty line, more than 121,000 were children — a staggering 17% childhood poverty rate. www.onlinecpi.org/article.php?list=type&type=379
We Say Fightback!
It’s Painful to Submit to Bosses and Unwise to Choose Them
Chicago Whittier Occupation Holds Strong: Parents their supporters have been staging a sit-in at the Whittier Field House for more than two weeks, demanding that the building be converted into a library, which the school does not have. The Chicago Public Schools has been trying to evict the protesters from the building so that it can demolish the building and clear the land as part of a politically hot plan to convert the entire area into a soccer field that will primarily be used by a nearby Catholic school, www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1693§ion=Article
GM Workers, Perhaps Too Late, Vote “No Concessions,” Rejecting Bosses and Union Bosses:
A months-long battle to save a General Motors Co. stamping plant here that pitted rank-and-file UAW members against top union officials over whether autoworkers should accept pay cuts to keep jobs ended bitterly today.
Addison, Ill.-based JD Norman Industries said it is dropping its effort to buy the factory after an announcement late Monday that United Auto Workers members had voted 457-96 against accepting the concessions. “A lot of people are trying to intimidate us and now they are saying we are trying to intimidate them, but the only real issue is the UAW International is allowing our contract to be violated,” www.detnews.com/article/20100928/AUTO01/9280386/1148/Union-rejects-concessions-at-GM-plant-in-Indianapolis
Workers Rise All Over Europe: As thousands of demonstrators marched in European capitals on Wednesday to protest recent austerity measures, officials in Brussels proposed stiffening sanctions for governments that fail to cut their budget deficits and debt swiftly enough…the nation’s transportation network were brought to a standstill by the country’s first general strike in eight years. Here in the capital, laborers angry over the spending cuts and new labor rules that make it easier to fire workers clashed with the police. In Brussels, the police estimated that 50,000 workers from across Europe had converged on the Schuman area,
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/europe/30europe.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
Solidarity Forever
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE5H8k8VE2M
Fake Labor’s Sham October 2nd Rally Can Be Something Better!
richgibson.com/fakelabor.html
Buy American? The Half-Witted Lorena Gonzalez of the AFL-CIO: ensure we are buying American-made products to support the value of putting fellow Americans to work. It’s something that has slipped our collective mindset.
AFL-CIO Boss Trumka Blames China, and Chinese Workers, Not Capitalism:I t is time for the U.S. government to put an end to the unfair trade practices by countries like China that undermine the push for good jobs and clean energy investment. The AFL-CIO applauds the action by the United Steelworkers in filing a comprehensive clean energy trade case against the Chinese government. www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/prsptm/pr09092010.cfm
Who Killed Vincent Chin, and Why?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dG85Uh-h8o&feature=related
www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/who_killed_vincent_chin.htm
UAW Forces Odd Mail Ballot Vote After Workers Run Off Union Hacks and Reject Contract that Cuts Pay in ½: Regional officials are trying this end run because at an informational meeting August 15 attended by most of the membership, members shouted down the international reps who’d planned to present the concessions, who then left the meeting.
www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13025&highlight=
The Mandela/ANC Betrayal: In the 16 years since the end of apartheid, South Africa has followed the prescriptions of the West, opening its market-based economy to trade, while keeping inflation and public debt in check. It has won praise for its efforts, and the economy has grown, but not nearly fast enough to end an intractable unemployment crisis.
For over a decade, the jobless rate has been among the highest in the world, fueling crime, inequality and social unrest in the continent’s richest nation. The global economic downturn has made the problem much worse, wiping out more than a million jobs. Over a third of South Africa’s workforce is now idle. And 16 years after Nelson Mandela led the country to black majority rule, more than half of blacks ages 15 to 34 are without work — triple the level for whites. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/world/africa/27safrica.html?hp
Andy Stern A Crook? Naaahhhh! The FBI and the Labor Department are investigating prominent labor leader Andy Stern in a probe of corruption at the Service Employees International Union, according to two people who have been interviewed by federal agents.
The two organized labor officials met with federal agents this summer to answer questions about a six-figure book contract that Stern landed in 2006 and his role in approving money to pay the salary of Alejandro Stephens, a former SEIU leader in California who allegedly performed no work. The title of the book is “A Country That Works.”…Stern left his post two years before the end of his term, saying he wanted to focus more on his personal life. He remains a member of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission and a highly influential figure in the White House, where he was one of the most frequent visitors last year. He is also a research fellow at Georgetown University and a paid consultant for the SEIU.
www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-union-probe,0,2334513.story
Spy vs Spy
The Original Reverby Paper on US “Scientist” Fascists In Guatemala: In 1946-48, Dr. John C. Cutler, a PHSphysician who would later be part of the Syphilis Study in Alabamain the 1960s and continue to defend it two decades after it ended in
the 1990s, was running a syphilis inoculation project in Guatemala, co-sponsored by the PHS, the National Institutes of Health, the Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization), and the Guatemalan government…Cutler and the other physicians chose men in the Guatemala National Penitentiary, then in an army barracks, and men and women in the National Mental Health Hospital for a total of 696 subjects. Permissions were gained from the authorities but not individuals, not an uncommon practice at the time, and supplies were offered to the institutions in exchange for access. The doctors used prostitutes with the disease to pass it to the prisoners (since sexual visits were allowed by law in Guatemalan prisons) and then did direct inoculations made from syphilis bacteria poured onto the men’s penises or on forearms and faces that were slightly abraded when the “normal exposure” produced little disease, or in a few cases through spinal punctures. Unlike in Alabama, the subjects were then given penicillin after they contracted the illness. However, whether everyone was then cured is not clear and not everyone received…Deception was the key here as it had been in Tuskegee
www.wellesley.edu/WomenSt/Synopsis%20Reverby%20'Normal%20Exposure‘.pdf
They Did It! Pentagon Book Burners Fire Up 10,000: ..said that the book, Operation Dark Heart by Lt Col Anthony Shaffer, threatened to divulge state secrets. Lt Col Shaffer, a bronze star recipient, said he had no intention of jeopardising American lives or damaging national security.
Lt Col Shaffer also said that the “Pentagon wanted to shut this off until after the election”, because it was “more bad news”. Major congressional elections are being held on Nov 2.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8026220/Pentagon-destroyed-10000-copies-of-army-officers-book.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4_j4c7Bop0
Hey! Don’t Scan Me! Stim Me! news that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about “feds radiating Americans.“”This really trips up the creep factor because it’s one of those things that you sort of intrinsically think the government shouldn’t be doing,”
www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0929/Feds-radiating-Americans-Mobile-X-ray-vans-hit-US-streets
Magical Mystery Tour
Rock the Fort! Evangelicals and the US Army: The “Rock the Fort” event, which is being put on by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is being criticized for targeting both military personnel and adults and children in the surrounding community for conversion to Christianity.
The event, which will feature Christian bands Hawk Nelson and God Rocks and have activities for children and adults, has welcomed not only the 45,000 people stationed at Fort Bragg, but is open to the public.
abcnews.go.com/US/ft-bragg-evangelical-event-draws-fire/story?id=11727193
A New Bad Bishop! Four former members of a youth group he runs have accused him of repeatedly coercing them into homosexual sex acts, and of abusing his considerable moral authority over them while plying them with cash, new cars, lodging and lavish trips…Bishop Long cuts a flashy figure in Lithonia, the Atlanta suburb where he lives and has built his church. He is often seen in a Bentley attended by bodyguards. He tends to wear clothes that show off his muscular physique. He favors Gucci sunglasses, gold necklaces, diamond bracelets and Rolex watches. He lives in a 5,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, which he bought for $1.1 million in 2005.
His lavish display of wealth is in keeping with his theology. In his sermons, he often tells his congregation that God wants them to be wealthy and asserts that Jesus was not a poor man
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26pastor.html?_r=1&hp
Just Who Knows God Best? If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.
Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term “blind faith.”
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-religion-survey-20100928,0,3225238.story
Best Thing in the History of the World
Rouge Forum Cofounder, on September 28th, 2010, at 2:43 p.m., got his picture and facebook link on the front page of the Washington Post in the “Most Popular” section. The ever-modest Ross declined autographing. He did, however, demand more travel money. www.facebook.com/ewayneross
Judge Judy, America’s Last Moral Compass, Trumps Vapid Oprah:
Judge Judy” won a ratings verdict over “Oprah” last season to rank No. 1 among daytime series.
m.apnews.com/ap/db_8580/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=bD2QpX9Z
105 mph! the fastest pitch recorded in a major league game, a 105-mph fastball.
ca.sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=At92fjlXYKOPetRrxpeY5kTJbQM6?slug=sh-redspadres092410
Class Struggle and Herkimer Bottleneck: www.detroitkidshow.com/uptown.htm
October 2nd–It’s Earl Wilson’s Birthday! Earl Wilson, 70; April 23 2005 Former Red Sox pitcher who endured racism to become the first black American Leaguer to throw a no-hitter.
Worst Thing in the History of the World
Humorless Dems attack Colbert: The House’s No. 2 Democratic leader said today that comedian Stephen Colbert’s testimony last week on immigration was “inappropriate” and “an embarrassment.”
Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California invited Colbert to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. But other Democrats weren’t happy about her decision.
Jack in the Box Funny Ads Doomed: San Diego-based Jack in the Box Inc. plans to shutter 40 underperforming company-run restaurants before Sunday.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcuAIQyzB2s
Never Forget
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F37VQnMhssg
So Long Grace: Grace Bradley Boyd, who died Tuesday at age 97 at her home in Dana Point, was a 23-year-old Hollywood actress when she met the love of her life, William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd, in 1937. Boyd proposed to her three days later, and they were married three weeks after they met.The marriage lasted 35 years, until William Boyd’s death at age 77 in 1972.
latimesblogs.latimes.com/afterword/2010/09/william-hopalong-cassidy-boyd-falls-in-love-at-first-sight.html
So Long, Don Graves: Q: If you had to choose one thing teachers should do when teaching writing, what would it be?
Donald: Write yourself. Invite children to do something you’re already doing. If you’re not doing it, Hey, the kids say, I can’t wait to grow up and not have to write, like you. They know. And for the short term and the long term, you’ll be doing yourself a favor by writing. All of us need it as a survival tool in a very complex world. The wonderful thing about writing is that it separates the meaningless and the trivial from what is really important. So we need it for ourselves and then we need to invite children to do what we’re doing. You can’t ask someone to sing a duet with you until you know the tune yourself. www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4415
Thanks to Jack G, Sherry, Peter M, Dina, Marisol, Happy Birthday Mary!, Paul, Gene, Dennis, Lily, Johnny M, Don A., Steve, Ricky, Sand and Sally, The Susans, Adam and Gina, Faith, Craig, Paula, Sandra VB, Julia, Michael, Joel S, Gary, Marc and Bonnie, and Victoria.
Good luck to us, every one.
r