Rouge Forum Dispatch: We are the Turnip* that Must be Bled to Soothe the Greed Fever.
We say Fight Back!
UAW Members Picket UAW–but too few, too late: Dozens of angry and flustered auto industry workers gathered in Detroit Saturday to call for an end to the two-tier wage structure becoming prevalent at U.S. automaker plants.
The pay inequality is causing divisiveness on the factory floor and pitting membership against each other at a time when workers need to present a unified front in fighting more concession during this year’s round of contract talks, these UAW-represented workers say. http://www.detnews.com/article/20110813/AUTO01/108130405/Angry-UAW-workers-demand-end-to-two-tier-wage-structure
Detroit Teachers Picket against Pay and Benefit Gutting–too few too late: Hundreds of union members who work for Detroit Public Schools gathered Tuesday outside the district’s headquarters to protest pay and benefit cuts ordered by Emergency Manager Roy Roberts.
The protesters held signs that called the pay cut unfair. Late last month, Roberts ordered all district employees to take a 10 percent pay cut and pay 20 percent of their health care costs. www.detnews.com/article/20110816/SCHOOLS/108160413/Hundreds-of-DPS-workers-protest-pay–benefit-cuts\
Wiil California Grocery Workers STRIKE again? Don’t make the same mistakes:
The southern California grocery strike involving 70,000 United Food And Commercial Workers members from October 2003 to March 2004 was one of the most significant actions the U.S. labor movement took in the last twenty years.
What happened? The workers lost, betrayed by their union leaders. This defeat was devastating, setting up a spiral of attacks on the lives of people who must work to live, particularly on the minimal health benefits that a few working people still have. The old labor saw, “An injury to one just goes before an injury to all,” is already felt in teacher-union contract negotiations.
Could this have been won? Yes, it could, but not within the confines of the law, and not in the confines of the structures of the unions, not within the philosophy of the “labor movement” http://clogic.eserver.org/2004/gibson.html
South Africa’s Municipal Workers go on Strike: 
South African council workers started a strike to demand an 18 percent pay increase, said Tahir Sema, a spokesman for the South African Municipal Workers’ Union.
More than 200,000 employees in the municipal and water industries will stop working today, Sema said by phone from Johannesburg. The South African Local Government Association, which represents 278 councils across the country, said yesterday it can’t afford the pay rise demanded by labor unions. South Africa’s annual inflation was 5 percent in June.
“There are no meetings with the employers scheduled today or any time soon,” Sema said. “If they come to us with a reasonable offer and are prepared to meet with us, we’re prepared to call off the strike.”
Strikes have affected South Africa’s petroleum, mining and chemical industries in the last month www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/municipal-workers-in-south-africa-strike-over-18-salary-increase-dispute.html
Thousands Protest Inequality (that would be capitalism) in Isreal
The Little Red Schoolhouse
“Schools are like munition factories and ought to be turning out a constant supply of living material.” Reverend Kettlewell, headmaster of the South African boys’ school in Grahamstown, South Africa on the dawn of WWI (p67, To End All Wars, by Hochschild).
Against the Common Core Standards: The fact is China and its continued manipulation of its currency, the Yuan, and iron-fisted control of its labor pool, has a greater effect on our economic strength than if every American child scored at the top of every international test, the SAT, the ACT, the GRE, or the MAT. www.susanohanian.org/show_commentaries.php?id=879
Obamagogue’s Rahm Turns Chi Principals into Begging Dogs doing Tricks: Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made principal recruitment, training and evaluation a centerpiece of his overhaul of Chicago Public Schools and has secured $5 million in private donations to help boost salaries for the city’s best-performing principals. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-merit-pay-20110816,0,7366542.story
And 104 LA Schools Voluntarily offer to get Rahmed Too: urrently, 104 schools are participating in a voluntary trial of the evaluation system. Deasy wants to have a permanent new evaluation in place by the 2012-13 school year.
Spurred by the Obama administration, which has partly tied some federal grants to states’ willingness to use data to judge teachers, districts around the country have begun changing their evaluation systems. Many have also begun incorporating a “value-added” analysis, which measures students’ test scores against their past performance, theoretically providing districts with a more objective way to measure teachers’ effectiveness.
L.A. Unified officials have issued public value-added scores for schools and privately provided thousands of teachers with their scores. The scores have not been incorporated into evaluations. www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teacher-evals-20110814,0,2223607.story
Questions and Answers About how Teach For America Overcame University of Washington’s COE:
Steven Brill Debases an Important Notion: Class Warfare– Brill undercuts much of his witnesses’ prior testimony in an abrupt and jarring about-face. This chapter isn’t wrong. But it underscores a truth Brill spends most of the book trying to avoid: his case is not airtight, and reasonable doubts remain about his subjects’ prescriptions for reform. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/books/review/class-warfare-by-steven-brill-book-review.html?_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema1&pagewanted=all
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Ok. For the Third Time: Who wants a War with China (shutup Taiwan and you too Hillbillary): This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.
According to the defense trade press, Pentagon officials are seeking ways to adapt a concept known as AirSea Battle specifically for China, debunking rote claims from Washington that it has no plans to thwart its emerging Asian rival. A recent article in Inside the Pentagon reported that a small group of U.S. Navy officers known as the China Integration Team “is hard at work applying the lessons of [AirSea Battle] to a potential conflict with China.”
AirSea Battle, developed in the early 1990s and most recently codified in a 2009 Navy-Air Force classified memo, is a vehicle for conforming U.S. military power to address asymmetrical threats in the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf — code for China and Iran. (This alone raises a crucial point: If the U.S. has had nothing but trouble with asymmetrical warfare for the last 45 years, why should a war with China, or Iran for that matter, be any different?) It complements the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, a government white paper that precluded the rise of any “peer competitor” that might challenge U.S. dominance worldwide. The Planning Guidance is the Pentagon’s writ for control of what defense planners call “the global commons,” a euphemism for the seaways, land bridges and air corridors that are the arteries of international commerce. For a foreign power to challenge this American dominion is to effectively declare war on the United States, and that is exactly what China appears to be doing in the South China Sea, a resource-rich and highly contested waterway in Southeast Asia. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/08/13/sino_us_stephen_glain/index.html
Mission Accomplished. 86 More dead in Iraq: Insurgents across Iraq launched their most significant and wide-ranging attacks in months on Monday, killing 86 people and wounding over 300, in the most violent day in Iraq this year http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?hp
Above, Charlotte Despard, Feminist and Communist who Resisted WWI, at a price.
US Good Will Mission Donates $360 million to Taliban: After examining hundreds of combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both. hosted2.ap.org/IDMOS/e0478123c3cf489bb836130ffdbd2b5f/Article_2011-08-16-US-Afghanistan-Corruption/id-62e41f31647a4cd2b7d207b60f81b389
The World’s Longest Running War (60 + years on–explanatory video embedded): In February 1949, members of the Karen ethnic minority launched an armed insurrection against Myanmar’s central government. dozen ethnic rebel groups waging war against the army in their fight for self-rule. Now, the war is entering a new and bloody stage.
Myanmar is the only regime still regularly planting anti-personnel mines. But it is not only the army that uses them. Rebel groups also regularly use homemade landmines or mines seized from the military.
As the conflict escalates, civilians are trapped in the middle of some of the worst fighting in decades. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/101east/2011/08/201181073919760492.html
US Ally, Assad of Syria, continues to Massacre Civilians: Syrian tanks again opened fire on besieged districts in the northern port city of Latakia, residents said, in the fourth day of a military assault aimed at crushing protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
Troops were removing bodies from the main square in the city on Tuesday, and some areas were on lockdown, sources told Al Jazeera.
A resident of the al-Ramel al-Janoubi neighbourhood, who called himself ‘Ismail’, told Al Jazeera that random shelling from gunboats and tanks continued in Latakia. He said five people had already been killed, and snipers were stationed around the city, shooting at anyone who ventured into the streets. english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/20118167523985930.html
Video: Chalmers Johnson speaks on Japan TV about US Emire of Base and the Spurious Rule of Law in Japan: vimeo.com/10126828
“…we have come to accept war as a way of life in our country right now. It isn’t even something that we talk about. And that’s a big difference.” JIM ROSENBERG responding to a PBS question about what September 11 changed.
Israel Punishes Gaza (some more): An Israeli air strike on the Gaza town of Rafah has killed six people, Palestinian medics and news agencies said, just hours after a series of deadly attacks in southern Israel.
Israeli military sources confirmed on Thursday that air strikes were carried out in Gaza shortly after the attacks in Israel that killed at least seven people.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem Cal Perry reported that another attack occurred later on Thursday in southern Israel, even after the Israeli military unleashed its air strikes.
“There has now been a fourth shooting attack near Eilat, where the earlier attacks took place,” Perry said.
Perry described the Israeli strikes on Gaza as “clearly a targeted hit by Israel”.
“They are certainly ratcheting up the violence. After the evidence they say they found today it’s clear they are stepping up their attacks on Gaza,” he said. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/201181893519247218.html
Wargaming that which is not a Game: War in Korea–
The United States and South Korea have totally disregarded North Korea’s repeated objections by launching the 10-day joint war games Ulchi Freedom Guardian on August 16, involving 530,000 forces from the United States, South Korea and seven other countries.
The number of US-led multilateral combat troops is more than enough to undertake a surprise invasion of North Korea. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MH20Dg01.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuhmMlW3tkk&feature=related
As Fighting Continues in the CIA sponsored war on Libya, what have the Historians Against the War said? Nothing. Still. Not a whisper. How come?
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Roubini: Marx was Right: Nouriel Roubini cited an even more controversial economist than himself this week when explaining the state of the world’s turbulent economy.
“Karl Marx got it right, at some point capitalism can destroy itself,” said Mr. Roubini, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “We thought markets worked. They’re not working.”
Mr. Roubini also said there is more than a 50% chance the world will plunge into another global recession and the next two to three months will reveal the economy’s direction.
“We are at stall speed right now, and we do not know if we are going to go up, or down,” he said.
Known as Dr. Doom for his prediction of the 2008 financial crisis among other dire forecasts, the economist said more monetary policy is needed from central banks to avoid another meltdown.
“There could be QE3, QE4, QE5 in the long-haul,” in the United States, he said.
But monetary policy alone will not be enough, and business and governments are not helping.
Developed economies such as the United States and countries in the eurozone are implementing austerity programs to try to fix their debt-ridden economies, when they should be introducing more monetary stimulus, he said.
And by slashing labour costs and sitting on capital, U.S. businesses have created a “catch-22.”
“Because you cannot keep shifting income from labour to capital without not having excess capacity and lack of aggregate demand. And that’s what’s happening,” the economist said. http://business.financialpost.com/2011/08/12/roubini-says-more-than-50-chance-of-global-recession/
Dickens Revisited: 44% of California Kids live in Poverty: A new report released Wednesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation says that children have been among those hardest hit by the crisis, with the number of children living below the child poverty rate — “a conservative measure of economic hardship” — increasing 18% between 2000 and 2009. The report also said that a stunning 42% of the nation’s children are in households struggling to make ends mean. That number was higher in California, where 44% are said to be living in poverty. (The threshold used by the study cited a family of two adults and two children living on $43,512 a year.) (add the obligiatory appeal to nationalism—“”This isn’t just a bleeding heart notion that ‘We oughta take care of poor kids.’ It’s about how are we going to build the kind of work force and contributing members of society that will make us strong and keep us globally competitive,” he said.) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/08/new-report-spotlights-hidden-victims-of-the-economic-crisis-children-.html
The Liquidity Freeze up and the End of the Euro: The Keynesians are right that it is a political choice. But it is not one that the supporters of capitalism want to make, for two reasons. If government spending is not financed by taxation but by borrowing through the printing of money, it will eventually drive up inflation. That eats into the living standards of households, but more important for capitalist production, it drives up interest rates and thus reduces profitability. And that matters for capitalism.
Second, a larger government sector created by extra spending encroaches on the private sector and the power of capital to make profits. So state spending must be cut as it’s not ‘productive’ and interferes with capitalist production. So the rising government debt in the major economies is a real problem for capitalism and not just an ideological argument…There is a stark choice facing the ruling elites in France and Germany. Do they wish to save the weak Eurozone states from default and preserve the euro in its current form, or not? The issue is being forced because Italy, Spain and even France have now been put in the frame by ‘speculators’ over the value and riskiness of their government bonds. These speculators are the financial institutions that buy government bonds and hold the bulk of the government debt. They fear that they will not be paid in full by those Eurozone governments running large budget deficits and with high debt levels. So they want higher interest rates for the extra risk of lending more. Of course, higher interest costs for governments just add to the debt and increases the problem of paying it back. It’s a vicious circle.
…The idea of imposing new taxes and higher interest costs on Germans to fund Greeks, Italians and French governments and banks which might not pay it back does not go down well in Germany. And so the German leaders are not willing to support extra funding for the distressed European governments yet. Instead, they are insisting on draconian cuts in public spending, wages and benefits in these countries – the Greek people face a 30% cut in living standards. The Germans and other northern European states hope this will convince the bond markets that the distressed European governments will not default and normality will be restored without further funding http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/the-end-game-for-the-euro/
Yet another Plunkett of Tamanny Hall (in a long string): Darrel Issa: Most wealthy members of Congress push their financial activities to the side, with many even placing them in blind trusts to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest. But Mr. Issa (pronounced EYE-suh), one of Washington’s richest lawmakers, may be alone in the hands-on role he has played in overseeing a remarkable array of outside business interests since his election in 2000.
Even as he has built a reputation as a forceful Congressional advocate for business, Mr. Issa has bought up office buildings, split a holding company into separate multibillion-dollar businesses, started an insurance company, traded hundreds of millions of dollars in securities, invested in overseas funds, retained an interest in his auto-alarm company and built up a family foundation.
As his private wealth and public power have grown, so too has the overlap between his private and business lives, with at least some of the congressman’s government actions helping to make a rich man even richer and raising the potential for conflicts.
He has secured millions of dollars in Congressional earmarks for road work and public works projects that promise improved traffic and other benefits to the many commercial properties he owns here north of San Diego. In one case, more than $800,000 in earmarks he arranged will help widen a busy thoroughfare in front of a medical plaza he bought for $10.3 million. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/politics/15issa.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
The Germans and the Euro (let us not upset the Germans again): Germany, Europe’s largest and presently strongest economy, accounts for about one-third of the euro-zone economic output and is funding a similar share of the the $600 billion program already approved to help rescue struggling neighbors such as Greece. Germany would also be on the line to help finance any increase in those emergency loans or any new initiatives. …Merkel cannot commit more money to the euro crisis without risking an open fracture between haves and have-nots in Germany. In recent years, Guerot said, “there have been extensive gains but they have been unevenly distributed.”
‘Not what we signed up for’
Germans joined the currency union a decade ago with some trepidation. They feared they could be stuck with the bill for other, less-productive economies in Europe and insisted on a “no bailouts” clause in the treaty establishing the union.
That clause was circumvented when European leaders created the recent emergency loan program. They said it was allowed under the section authorizing countries to aid each other in the case of natural disaster. The program is being challenged in the German courts.
“You can say it is better to share,” Guerot said, but “people will argue this is not what we signed up for: ‘We have options. We can go global alone.’ ” http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-euro-zone-crisis-german-leadership-is-fatigued-by-reform/2011/08/17/gIQA6PXoLJ_story_1.html
Solidarity Forever
You Do Not Need a Union to Surrender. You can Save Money and Give up Alone. NY State Workers Cave: Members of New York’s largest union of state employees, in a begrudging acknowledgment of the increasingly hostile mood toward public workers, have agreed to accept major wage and benefits concessions sought by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. ..The ratification was a critical victory for Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat whose plan to close the state’s budget gap relied in large part on a bet that state employees would be willing to stomach a freeze on wages and an increase in the cost of health benefits in return for safeguarding their jobs.The union’s president, Danny Donohue, said in a statement: “These are not ordinary times, and C.S.E.A. worked hard to reach an agreement that we believed would be in everyone’s best interest. C.S.E.A. members agree that this contract is reasonable and responsible for the long term and shows that C.S.E.A. members will do what is right for the good of all New Yorkers.”
Savings from the five-year contract are expected to total $73 million this fiscal year, part of the $450 million in cuts that Mr. Cuomo’s budget counted on extracting from the state work force. And the governor’s office projected that if other unions agreed to the same terms total savings for the state would amount to $1.6 billion over five years. www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/nyregion/state-employees-union-accepts-wage-and-benefits-concessions.html?hp
Detroit Fed of Teachers Preps Members for Contract Destruction, More Cuts, more Layoffs and, perhaps, the End of the school sytem (you do not need a union for that either): HomeInsurance Changes, Open Enrollment [8.15.11]
Prior to July 26, deductions for health insurance and prescription coverage were combined on your paycheck. Effective with the July 26 paycheck, DPS separated prescription cost coverage from the health insurance cost, but there was no change in the total amount deducted from your check.
On July 29, the Emergency Manager imposed a number of cuts including an increase in the minimum employee share of health insurance from 10 percent to 20 percent of the HMO option. Members who elect PPO coverage will continue to pay for the difference in premium between the HMO and PPO options.
The district announced an open enrollment period from Aug. 15-22 to allow members to change their insurance elections before the higher cost-sharing amounts are imposed on Sept. 1. mi.aft.org/dft231/
Northville, Mich., Teachers Take Pay Cut and Pay 900% more in Health Benefits: Highlights of the agreement: There will be an overall 4% pay cut. Teachers at the top of the pay scale will see a 5% cut …Teachers eligible for a step raise will receive a quarter-step increase in each of the two years
Teachers will begin paying 20% of their health care premiums immediately
On Jan. 1, they’ll switch to a less expensive plan that includes a $1,250 annual deductible for individual coverage and $2,500 for family coverage. The district will pay 80% of the deductible. The average teacher will go from paying about $350 a year for health care coverage to about $3,500 a year. http://www.freep.com/article/20110818/NEWS02/110818024/Northville-teachers-pay-900-more-health-care-new-contract?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
CT State Workers Union Force Through another Concession Contract (say, concessions don’t save jobs!): “The whole thing is dirty and unjust, plain and simple,” said Robert Mills, a food-services supervisor at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, who voted against the agreement in June but in favor of it this time. “The government is using intimidation and scare tactics to force people to do what they want.” Of his “yes” vote, he said: “I did it because the threatening and bullying by the governor worked. I don’t want to lose my job; I don’t want my friends to lose their jobs.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/nyregion/connecticut-workers-approve-contract-they-had-rejected.html?_r=1&hp
Hey UC! Your Chance to dance like a Sea World Seal: Merit Pay! Many University of California faculty and staff members will be getting their first pay raises in nearly four years. In a letter to chancellors Wednesday, UC President Mark Yudof explained how departments should distribute merit pay money approved by the Board of Regents in November.
UC spokesman Steve Montiel says $140 million will be handed out systemwide to non-union faculty and staff members who earn less than $200,000.
Yudof says the merit pay is needed to help retain leading academics who are being courted by competing institutions.
He says the university needs to compensate employees who have not received raises in almost four years and were furloughed two years ago because of budget cuts.
Officials say most union-covered employees got negotiated pay raises during the fiscal crisis. http://www.kcra.com/news/28896190/detail.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Mass Popular Movement
Verizon Hires BLACKWATER Merc Scabs–Imperialist War Blows Back: Wait. What? Blackwater? That private, for-profit, trigger-happy army that killed 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007? Yeah. THAT BLACKWATER.
I have just confirmed with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1104 that Blackwater is indeed being contracted by Verizon for security purposes. At this moment, CWA Local 1104 was not able to say how many security contractors have been hired or where they will be working. I’m sure more information will follow. www.sott.net/articles/show/233698-US-Meet-Verizon-s-Newest-Security-Force-Blackwater
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE7AQ2KFzG8
Cameron’s Crackdown in Britain: Cameron is effectively scapegoating immigrants for his government’s cuts programme. The effect of this rhetoric is more hatred, more hysteria and more strife and division in society.
And the British National Party, the English Defence League and other racist and fascist organisations will thrive in such a climate.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has already tried this trick in France: attempting to undercut fascist parties by aping their language and conceding their demands. It didn’t work. Now we see Marine Le Pen’s Front National – a fascist party with close links to the BNP – riding high in the polls.
History shows that giving in to racist arguments does not make the racists go away. It endorses them and encourages them to demand more. uaf.org.uk/2011/04/camerons-dangerous-comments-will-only-encourage-racists-and-fascists/
Spy Versus Spy
Who Is the Kidnapped American, Really? A U.S. Embassy spokesman identified the man as Warren Weinstein, but would not give any further details about his background or the abduction. The name matches the LinkedIn profile of a man who works as the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a consultant for development projects in Pakistan and a host of other countries. According to the company’s website, the firm often works with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. government’s primary international aid organization. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-pakistan-kidnapping-20110814,0,6132972.story
Coco Chanel Was a Nazi Spy? Smells!
Coco Chanel was the best-dressed Nazi spy in the 1940s, according to a shocking new book on her life, which claims the creator and muse behind the Chanel brand was an intelligence operative for the German military organization Abwehr.
Journalist Hal Vaughan, born in America and who lives in Paris, lays out evidence of Chanel’s work with the Nazis during World War II in a new book, “Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War.” Vaughan reports that in 1940, Chanel was recruited into the Abwehr, having been introduced to the organization through one of her lovers, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a German agent who was honored by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels during the war. http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/chanel_spied_for_hitler_book_tZTJmc1kAEGK0XUtrycVkJ
The Magical Mystery Tour
Santa Muerte Fails to Save Drug Tunnel:
The Mexican army on Friday announced that it had discovered an unfinished drug tunnel that was apparently meant to stretch from Tijuana into the United States.
The tunnel was 328 yards long and hidden beneath a house under construction.
In November, a 650-yard tunnel was discovered.
This time, the smugglers apparently were hoping for some saintly assistance. An altar to the Santa Muerte, an icon said to be worshiped by drug smugglers, was found in the house.
It didn’t work. Ten people were arrested by Mexican authorities. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/mexican-drug-tunnel-into-california-included-holy-altar.html
Yes Virginia, They really are Crazy: “If he intends on using the religion card effectively beyond the Iowa and South Carolina caucuses and primaries,” wrote Berlinerblau, “Governor Perry will have to come up with something more inclusive than this.”
Yes, but first he has to win the nomination — and that will require the votes of millions of Americans who believe that biblical law should supplant the will of the people, and who think the Bible is the literal truth. Right now, they’re the ones who matter. And no reporter should be surprised by that.
As a nation, we’ve been headed down this path for more than 40 years. As the economic fortunes of the U.S. turn downward, we should expect the attraction of right-wing religion, especially its more charismatic and viscerally-felt forms, to expand. Anyone who doesn’t just hasn’t been paying attention. http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152053/why_the_mainstream_media_are_clueless_about_the_religious_right/?page=entire
The Worst Thing in the History of the World
28 People Shot in Detroit in 56 Hours: The shootings come at a time of increased violence in the city, highlighted by a series of 28 shootings in Detroit between 6 a.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday.
• Interactive map: Detroit weekend shootings interactive map and timeline www.freep.com/article/20110819/NEWS01/110819030/8-people-shot-Detroit-over-5-hour-period?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Best Thing in the History of the World
Mets? Schmets: On Tuesday, however, a federal appeals court in Manhattan appeared to settle a sizable chunk of the suit. Under its ruling, the team’s owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, could have to turn over at least $300 million to the trustee. It is a major financial setback for the owners who, faced with an unprofitable baseball operation, have already been forced to sell a portion of the team just to stop the bleeding of money. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/sports/baseball/madoff-decision-is-significant-setback-for-owners-of-mets.html?_r=1&hp
John S. Clarke’s Poem Written before WWI:
The landlord calls it rent and he winks the other eye,
The merchant calls it profit and he sighs a heavy sigh,
The banker calls it interest and puts it in the bag,
But our honest friend the burglar simply calls it swag.
So Long
USSR 20 Years On
*Turnip: richgibson.com/protectrebels.htm