We Say Fight Back!

The Guggenheim Museum offered President Trump a solid gold toilet from its collection as a “long-term loan” for the White House.

Trump and first lady Melania had asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting from the museum, but the Guggenheim responded that it could not accommodate the request and offered the toilet instead,  ….

the artist who created the toilet, Maurizio Cattelan, “would like to offer it to the White House for a long-term loan,” the Post reported.

Cattelan in the past described the toilet as “one-percent art for the ninety-nine percent,” and said “whatever you eat, a two-hundred-dollar lunch or a two-dollar hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” according to the Post. thehill.com/homenews/administration/370740-guggenheim-offers-to-loan-trump-white-house-a-golden-toilet

These San Diego activists were arrested for feeding homeless people in a park

Shane Parmely and her 14-year-old child were among a dozen people arrested in El Cajon, Calif., for breaking a local ordinance that prohibits the distribution of food on city-owned property.

Parmely is a volunteer with the Break the Ban, an activist organization that set up tables to hand out food and toiletries in Wells Park on Sunday with the express purpose of defying the food-sharing ban in the San Diego County city.

“This is part of a longterm legal strategy that is used in most civil rights movements,” Parmely told As It Happens host Carol Off. “You have to be arrested and you have to fight it in court.”  www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.4488066/these-san-diego-activists-were-arrested-for-feeding-homeless-people-in-a-park-1.4488069

Boomers Teach the Grandbabies
More Lies Ahead About the Wars on Vietnam

They are at it again.

They need to beat their own dead horse to death once more.

The insufferable Ken Burns series is running as a veritable loop on PBS, driving me beyond my usual state of self-righteous fury.

The US rout in Vietnam must be mystified again–to unite a nation reeling from the promise of endless war, the obvious reality of booming color-coded inequality, a flatly failed political system and ruling class, and increasing repression.

And to fashion the possibility that a similar war could become popular in the future–even World War III.

Why Vietnam now?

Perhaps because it is the looming 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive of January, 1968; that turning point when the quantitative work of the mass of Vietnamese people, leading a peoples’ war against yet another invader empire (in order, the French, the Japanese–and the Chinese Kuomintang–the French again, and then the US), and the efforts of the US anti-war movement, came together to prove to the majority of Americans that the war could not be won–and that the nations’ leaders had lied about everything important. richgibson.com/BoomersVietnam.htm

The Vietnam Wars 1954-1980 and Beyond

www.richgibson.com/vietnam/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPJgeg6hpA

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www.facebook.com/DurhamMinersGala/videos/748912915303952/

.Throwing thieving politicians into the trash link:

www.facebook.com/direitabrazuca/videos/342286999565336/

Swiss protesters hang ‘Trump not welcome’ banner at Davos

The Little Red Schoolhouse

You’re quitting school? After everything we sacrificed for you?

UT-Austin Professors Join Campaign Against Faculty-Productivity Company

University of Texas at Austin this week became one of the most prestigious research institutions to join a faculty rebellion against Academic Analytics, a data company that promises to identify low-performing professors.  www.chronicle.com/article/UT-Austin-Professors-Join/242332

 Politico:

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WEIGHS IN ON FREE SPEECH DISPUTE: The Justice Department sided in court Thursday with two conservative student groups in a high-profile case involving conservatives Ann Coulter and David Horowitz and free speech policies at the University of California, Berkeley. The conservative groups have challenged what they describe as “discriminatory” free speech policies at the university.

– The Justice Department move ratcheted up the Trump administration’s support on an issue that has rattled the higher education community. “The United States has a significant interest in the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms in institutions of higher learning,” the brief said. “As the Supreme Court has noted, ‘teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.'”

– Berkeley issued a statement calling the suit’s allegations “unfounded” and said it will “vigorously” defend itself

Bond Ratings Lowered for San Ysidro School District

San Ysidro School District’s bond ratings have been lowered after it failed to make a bond payment in September 2017 amid the firing of both its Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent last fall.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P), a global credit rating agency, lowered the District’s general bond rating from “A” to “BBB+”, and lowered the rating on Certificates of Participation (COPs) from “A-” to “BBB”, the lowest rating still considered investment grade. The next lower rating is considered to be junk bond status.

“The rating actions reflect our view of the District’s management practices and internal controls following its late principal and interest payment in September 2017,” said Benjamin P. Geare, primary credit analyst for S&P. “The negative outlook reflects our view of lingering effects from the District’s history of poor internal controls could lead to additional unforeseen events that would pose financial stress and affect the District’s ability to make timely debt service payments.”

The lower rating means future bonds the District issues will require it to pay higher interest rates, translating to higher payments for taxpayers in the District for decades to come. A 2015 report by inewsource, a San Diego online news outlet, revealed that San Ysidro School District residents already pay the second highest debt payments in the County of San Diego, after Rancho Santa Fe residents.

District Superintendent Julio Fonseca resigned at its Sept. 2, 2017, board meeting after a harassment complaint was filed against him by a female employee he had been dating. Fonseca had served as Superintendent since July 2015.

The Board elevated then-Deputy Superintendent Arturo Sanchez-Macias to fill in as Superintendent as they considered options to replace the lead role in the District. Macias had served as the chief financial officer under Fonseca since late 2015.

Macias managed all financial and operations for the District. Before being hired at San Ysidro, Macias had worked at Bassett Unified School District in Los Angeles, where he also worked with Fonseca.

The bond payment was missed during the time Macias served as Interim Superintendent.  laprensa-sandiego.org/featured/bond-ratings-lowered-for-san-ysidro-school-district/

The president of Michigan State University won’t resign in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar scandal, according to a university trustee.

Joel Ferguson, vice chairman of Michigan State’s governing board, said emphatically during a radio program on Monday that its embattled president, Lou Anna Simon, won’t end her tenure at the 50,000-student university because of something “somebody else did.”

“That will not happen,” Ferguson told WVFN. “Period. She’s a fighter. Her overall, what she’s done for this university, she’s not going to get ran out of there by what somebody else did. I’ve been on the board for 30 years and she by far is the best president we’ve ever had.”

The decision wasn’t even a difficult one, Ferguson said, but rather a unanimous one made in just 10 minutes. nypost.com/2018/01/23/michigan-state-shrugs-at-larry-nassar-its-no-sandusky/?utm_campaign=iosapp&utm_source=facebook_app

Contract for departing MSU president includes faculty job, lifetime perks

Getting into Public Schools? It’s Not Always Easy

Last month, we took a look at how San Diego Unified established itself as the public agency most hostile to transparency.

We listed plenty of examples. The district takes, on average, 80 days to complete requested records (media outlets waited 110 days, on average). It illegally withheld emails we sought and was forced to pay more than $52,000 for fees that our attorney accrued while fighting for the documents. And parents across the district have expressed frustration with their inability to get answers to basic budget questions.

But while San Diego Unified has been singled out for its hostility — last year it won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Wall Award, which recognizes a public agency that displays an outstanding lack of transparency — this type of behavior is not uncommon for school districts.

“Education reporters all over face similar issues,” said Alexander Russo, a media watchdog who writes about hits and misses in education reporting at The Grade.  www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/learning-curve-getting-public-schools-not-always-easy/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=ce6709d70f-Learning_Curve&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-ce6709d70f-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-ce6709d70f-81862829

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

America’s military path in Africa

There is a real — but largely concealed — conflict taking place throughout the African continent. It involves the United States, a reinvigorated Russia and a rising China, and the outcome is likely to define the future of the continent and its global outlook.
It is easy to pin the blame on US President Donald Trump, his agenda and statements, but the truth is the current US military expansion in Africa is just one more step in the wrong direction. It is part of a strategy that had been implemented a decade ago, during the administration of George W. Bush, and actively pursued by Barack Obama.
In 2007, under the pretext of the “war on terror”, the US consolidated its various military operations in Africa to establish the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). With a starting budget of half a billion dollars, AFRICOM was supposedly launched to engage with African countries in terms of diplomacy and aid. But, over the course of the last 10 years, it has been transformed into a central command for military incursions and interventions.
However, that violent role has rapidly worsened recently. Indeed, there are hidden US operations in Africa being carried out in the name of “counter-terrorism”.  www.arabnews.com/node/1222016

Top enlisted leader: The military must grow to meet rising threats

Top Marine warns a ‘big ass fight’ with North Korea will not go according to plan

Illustration by Harry Campbell

Funerals in Yemen are traditionally large affairs. When prominent figures die, hundreds or even thousands of people come to pay their respects and to pray for them. Abdulqader Hilal Al-Dabab, the mayor of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, could expect such treatment. But Hilal used to ask for a simple burial. “If I get killed when I’m in office, I don’t want a state funeral,” he told his sons. He wanted to be buried in a grave he’d reserved next to his father’s.

Hilal had seen enough devastation to know to make plans for his demise. In the past three decades, Yemen has had nine wars, two insurgencies, and a revolution; Hilal governed a region with strong ties to Al Qaeda, and had survived an assassination attempt. A father of eleven, he was a former marathon runner who won North Yemen’s inter-university challenge three times. In Sana’a, Hilal kept a garden with a gazebo, where he received guests. Stephen Seche, the former United States Ambassador to Yemen, recalled sitting there while Hilal explained Yemeni politics. Other diplomats saw him as a moderating force, someone who could negotiate the intricate mesh of tribal, business, and political affiliations that make up Yemeni society.

Yemen’s most recent conflict began in early 2015, when Houthi rebels, from the country’s northern highlands, overran Sana’a and a Saudi-led coalition began bombing them. The Houthis allied with a former President and co-opted tribal networks in an effort to solidify and expand their power. Now they control much of the northwest of the country, while the internationally recognized government holds the south and the east. The Saudi coalition is made up of nine Middle Eastern and African countries, and is supported by the United States.  www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/how-the-us-is-making-the-war-in-yemen-worse

We Can’t Win in Afghanistan Because We Don’t Know Why We’re There

‘It’s a Massacre’: Blast in Kabul Deepens Toll of a Long War

The Taliban drove an ambulance packed with explosives into a crowded Kabul street on Saturday, setting off an enormous blast that killed at least 95 people and injured 158 others, adding to the grim toll in what has been one of the most violent stretches of the long war, Afghan officials said.

The attack came days after a 15-hour siege by militants at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul that left 22 dead, including 14 foreigners.

On Saturday, hospitals overflowed with the wounded, and forensic workers at the morgue struggled to identify the dead.

The casualties were another reminder of how badly Afghanistan is bleeding. Over the past year, about 10,000 of the country’s security forces have been killed and more than 16,000 others wounded, according to a senior Afghan government official. The Taliban losses are believed to be about the same.

And about 10 civilians were killed every day on average over the first nine months of 2017, data from the United Nations suggests.

The surge in violence across the country, particularly deadly attacks that have shut down large parts of Afghan cities, comes as the government is in disarray.

President Ashraf Ghani has struggled to build consensus and has recently found himself in a protracted showdown with a regional strongman, a dispute that has taken up much of the administration’s energy. The strongman, Atta Muhammad Noor, a powerful governor, was fired by the president but has refused to leave his post, raising fears that escalating political tensions could further undermine the country’s fragile security.

The recent carnage is also tied, analysts said, to President Trump’s decision last month to increase pressure on Pakistan, long seen as supporting the Taliban as a proxy force in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump made a gamble to try to tilt the war in Afghanistan toward a resolution, holding back security aid to Pakistan for what he called the country’s “lies and deceit.”

At the time of the announcement, many Afghan officials feared an immediate escalation in violence in retaliation and wondered whether their shaky government could absorb the blows.  www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/world/asia/afghanistan-kabul-attack.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

 How Hillary Holds Up the Spirits

But let’s be tough-minded and think this new controversy through: According to a Times report by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, during the 2008 presidential campaign, a senior Clinton aide named Burns Strider was accused of sexually harassing a woman who had the bad luck to be working in his office. Clinton’s campaign manager recommended he be fired. Instead, the candidate opted for sending him to counseling and docking him several weeks’ pay. The law firm that worked for the campaign said it had set up a process for handling sexual harassment complaints and this was “appropriate action.”

One of the deep, deep ironies of this story is Strider’s job, which was “faith adviser.” Among his duties was sending Clinton scriptural passages every morning.

“I don’t understand why any political campaign would have a ‘faith adviser’ on paid staff,” said Gloria Steinem, one of the multitudinous women who were poring over the story and trying to decide what it all meant.

Strider was a Mississippian with a good-old-boy affect. “He’d become kind of known as the faith guru for the Democrats,” recalled Sarah Posner of the Nation Institute, who reports on religion and politics. “Somebody who supposedly held the key to how Democrats could reach voters of faith.”

He was also a co-founder of the American Values Network, and we are going to stop here for just one second to note that “values” is beginning to be almost as overworked as “freedom” in American politics. Wordwise, values has lost its value.  www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/hillary-clinton-harassment-sexual.html

Why Is President Obama Embracing Hillary Clinton Now–election time? (Maybe “personifications of capital and empire?”)

“Look, I’ve gotten to know Hillary Clinton really well, and she is a good, smart, tough person who cares deeply about this country,” Obama said in an interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush, which was conducted last Friday and published on Monday. The President also described Clinton as “really idealistic and progressive,” evidently addressing the perception among some Democrats that she is too moderate, and noted that Clinton’s experience and her mastery of policy issues would be a big help to her in the Oval Office. “It means that she can govern, and she can start here, [on] day one, more experienced than any non-vice-president has ever been who aspires to this office,” he said.

The President made some favorable comments about Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders, too, saying that he has “great authenticity, great passion, and is fearless.” But Obama also suggested that crowds were flocking to the Vermont senator because of his novelty, whereas Clinton was being hamstrung by factors beyond her control. “Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose. I think Hillary came in with the both privilege and burden of being perceived as the front-runner,” Obama said. “You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before. That’s a disadvantage to her.”https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-is-president-obama-embracing-hillary-clinton?mbid=social_facebook

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason

 MARGARET ATWOOD

It seems that I am a “Bad Feminist.” I can add that to the other things I’ve been accused of since 1972, such as climbing to fame up a pyramid of decapitated men’s heads (a leftie journal), of being a dominatrix bent on the subjugation of men (a rightie one, complete with an illustration of me in leather boots and a whip) and of being an awful person who can annihilate – with her magic White Witch powers – anyone critical of her at Toronto dinner tables. I’m so scary! And now, it seems, I am conducting a War on Women, like the misogynistic, rape-enabling Bad Feminist that I am.

What would a Good Feminist look like, in the eyes of my accusers?

My fundamental position is that women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They’re not angels, incapable of wrongdoing. If they were, we wouldn’t need a legal system.

Nor do I believe that women are children, incapable of agency or of making moral decisions. If they were, we’re back to the 19th century, and women should not own property, have credit cards, have access to higher education, control their own reproduction or vote. There are powerful groups in North America pushing this agenda, but they are not usually considered feminists.

Furthermore, I believe that in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period, including the right to fundamental justice, just as for women to have the vote, there has to be a vote. Do Good Feminists believe that only women should have such rights? Surely not. That would be to flip the coin on the old state of affairs in which only men had such rights.

So let us suppose that my Good Feminist accusers, and the Bad Feminist that is me, agree on the above points. Where do we diverge? And how did I get into such hot water with the Good Feminists?

In November of 2016, I signed – as a matter of principle, as I have signed many petitions – an Open Letter called UBC Accountable, which calls for holding the University of British Columbia accountable for its failed process in its treatment of one of its former employees, Steven Galloway, the former chair of the department of creative writing, as well as its treatment of those who became ancillary complainants in the case. Specifically, several years ago, the university went public in national media before there was an inquiry, and even before the accused was allowed to know the details of the accusation. Before he could find them out, he had to sign a confidentiality agreement. The public – including me – was left with the impression that this man was a violent serial rapist, and everyone was free to attack him publicly, since under the agreement he had signed, he couldn’t say anything to defend himself. A barrage of invective followed. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/

If you wish to skip to the funny part–it’s around 53: CSPAN book tv

www.c-span.org/video/?439577-1/michael-wolff-discusses-fire-fury

Poland moves to make phrase ‘Polish death camps’ a criminal offence

Polish politicians have given the green light to a bill to criminalise statements which suggest Poland bears responsibility for crimes committed by Nazi Germany.

Phrases such as “Polish death camps” would be made a criminal offence, punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine.

The bill will also make it illegal to deny the murder of around 100,000 Poles by units in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Second World War.   www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-polish-death-camps-nazi-germany-holocaust-auschwitz-criminal-offence-a8180471.html

Raising Kids in Delhi’s Worsening Air

To live in New Delhi these past years has been to witness a city coming to the slow, sickening realization of a terrible crisis.

I look out the window. Ominous clouds of vapor have erased the lime and jamun trees in the park across the way. I can barely see across the street and, beyond the curb, the world vanishes into mist.

“The air is really, really horrible today,” I text my friend Medha, adding a frowning face. This is a tacit cancellation of our morning walk in Lodi Gardens. …

Here in Delhi, it’s a cliché of our coughing metropolis that smog is the great social leveller. The bad air affects rich and poor alike, the chattering class likes to claim at cocktail parties and in editorial headlines.

But it’s simply not true. This is the dirtiest secret about dirty air: the wealthy buy their way around it. Slowly, I’ve acclimated to the idea that a small handful of residents can breathe safely, and the rest cannot…www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/raising-kids-in-delhis-worsening-air?mbid=social_facebook

Reminder for fascists

www.youtube.com/watch?v=swNHNEuBawU

Solidarity for Never

Spy versus Spy

Mysterious Bank Deposits Fueled Suspicion of Former C.I.A. Officer

While American intelligence authorities investigated a possible C.I.A. mole in recent years, they discovered that one former agency officer had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained bank deposits, current and former government officials said on Wednesday.

The money deepens the mystery surrounding Jerry Chun Shing Lee, the former C.I.A. officer, who faces a charge of keeping national security secrets in his notebooks after he left government. It helps explain why many American law enforcement officials suspected that Mr. Lee had provided information to China — a suspicion for which no direct evidence has surfaced.

The F.B.I. arrested Mr. Lee this month in New York after a lengthy counterintelligence investigation that began several years ago when the C.I.A.’s informant network in China was compromised and many of its assets were imprisoned or killed. It was a devastating blow to the C.I.A.’s ability to collect intelligence in China and is regarded inside the government as one of the worst compromises in modern American intelligence.

Mr. Lee, 53, is awaiting transfer to federal court in Northern Virginia, where he was charged. His family has declined to comment, and no lawyer has appeared on his behalf. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

A task force of F.B.I. agents and C.I.A. officers investigated Mr. Lee for years  (NYTimes Jan 24)

The Magical Mystery Tour

One forced dues collector backs another: Catholic Church Files Brief Supporting Union in Janus Case

Pope Francis sees origin of fake news in the snake’s lies in the Garden of Eden

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Triple treat: Supermoon, blue moon and lunar eclipse all coming to a sky near you next week

In the United States, the best view of the eclipse will be along the West Coast. For skywatchers in the central and eastern U.S., only a partial eclipse will be visible since the moon will set before totality.

The lunar eclipse on Jan. 31 will be visible during moonset,” said Noah Petro, a research scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Folks in the eastern United States, where the eclipse will be partial, will have to get up in the morning to see it.”

The eclipse will last almost 3½ hours from the beginning of the partial phase at 3:48 a.m. PT until it ends at 7:12 a.m. PT, according to Sky and Telescope. Totality lasts a generous 77 minutes, from 4:51 a.m. PT to 6:08 a.m. PT.

By that time, however, the moon will already have set in the eastern time zone.

www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/01/22/supermoon-blue-moon-lunar-eclipse-coming/1052215001/

www.facebook.com/seen.everything/videos/1507083336062865/

A Reader’s Guide to S.D’s Deadly Flu Outbreak (from an expert)

How bad is the flu this year?

From a historic perspective, it’s quite bad. The county says 142 people have died of the flu during the 2017-2018 season, as of Jan. 13, the latest numbers available.

That’s the highest flu season death toll in at least 20 years, dating back to when the county began tracking flu deaths. Since 2003, the annual flu death toll has ranged from as few as 4 to a previous high of 97 in 2014-2015. (See below for details about the deadliest San Diego flu season ever.)

County health officer Dr. Wilma Wooten said other numbers — of outbreaks, overall confirmed flu cases and the number of flu visits to intensive care units — are also at unusually high levels. “All the factors are higher than we’ve ever seen since we’ve been tracking the numbers,” she said.

As of Jan. 13, the state reported 68 flu deaths among people under the age of 65. The county reported 16 as of that date.  www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/the-ultimate-guide-to-s-ds-deadly-flu-outbreak/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=b8aacc19a4-Morning_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-b8aacc19a4-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-b8aacc19a4-81862829

So Long

Jazz Trumpet Great Hugh Masekela Dies at 78