Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Vacation. The celebration of my sister and brother-in-law's 50^th wedding anniversary was a real treat. Amazingly even though 65 friends/family were invited and the town small, the surprise was complete and a good time was had by all!

Fall is coming........ Albeit a bit slowly here in Denver. There was some very light snow on the mountains. The neighborhood columbines (our state flower) have gone to seed. Other flowers are having their last fling, only the pansies are flourishing with the ever cooler nights. The changes will be quite noticeable at the condo in Breckenridge which has beautiful hanging baskets all along Main Street.

Political Parties. The link below entitled “The United States of Weakness,” gives one view of America in the 21^st century, noting changes that have altered our day-to-day political reality.  Today's reality has markedly changed the world view and operation of political parties, the media, the public, the military, and, finally, the presidency.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/united-states-of-weakness-96518.html

Egypt and Syria. A friend in D.C., a long time student of the Middle East, notes a major fissure in Egypt because “Al Qa’ida despises the Brotherhood as infidels!” Most Americans have no conception of the many “faces” of Islam, no more monolithic than America's myriad of Protestant churches.

     Last Thursday's news brought a story about about a heretofore secret Al Qa'ida unit formed to produce CW-s.

During the Iraq – Iran conflict in the 1980s, US intelligence became convinced that Iraq intended a major attack through an opening in the front lines and, further, had reason to believe that Saddam's forces would use CW to gain a major victory, but did not pass this intelligence to the Iranians. In short, the US was complicit in a CW attack that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, Iranian troops. Just another reason for the continuing enmity Iranians feel for the US.

     For a look “behind the headlines,” see the article from Foreign Policy, what the administration knew but did not share with the public. Also note that the major, widely read news organizations did not know – or chose not to publicize – this information. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/19/the_spies_inside_damascus_mossad_syria?page=full

Mother Jones. The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, called Mother Jones, an Irish-American trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hell-raiser". She was a part of the Knights of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party of America, the United Mine Workers of America, and the Western Federation of Miners, organizations all considered as subversive at one time or another by many.  

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/obama-financial-crisis-anniversary-speech  

Here are five things President Obama didn't mention in his Monday (16^th) Financial Crisis speech: continued weak employment, foreclosure relief failure, household wealth non-recovery, too big to fail may still be with us, and shadow banking (i.e. derivatives) still lurk in the shadows.

A very scary book.  Do not even think about reading this book to your kids. It relates much about the numerous incidents/accidents involving America's nuclear weapons, near misses, many right here at home. The Cuban missile crisis almost pales in comparison. And thousands of the nucs – many outdated or in need of serious updating – are still with us. http://www.motherjones.com/print/232731

Text book changes and censorship.  "Once again, culture warriors in the state board are putting Texas at risk of becoming a national laughingstock on science education," said Kathy Miller, the president of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that monitors religious extremists and "far-right issues." TFN and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) obtained the review panel documents in response to a state open-records request. How does this effect your local school district, charter school, or private school?  Consider this: because Texas has such a huge public school system, its text book review board can arguably dictate what textbooks will and will not include and these Texas censored textbooks then become the only option for schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Can any publisher be expected to print two versions of, say, a long-standard text such as, Maguder's American Government?  Perhaps, but only if one/both versions is made available only online as an e-text. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/creationist-science-texas-textbook-review-evolution-climate-change If you are inclined to look further, here's a link from Slate on the text book controversy. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/texas_science_textbooks_creationists_try_to_remove_evolution_from_classrooms.html To give full disclosure – and if you are interested in reading the other side's arguments – here is the link to Friends of the Texas Public Schools site. http://fotps.org/

The desire to serve. In today's political climate, the desire to serve runs headlong into the reality that an elected official's serving comes with a prologue fraught with seemingly endless fundraisers and debates with your opponent(s). Regrettably, the fund raising continues immediately on election night – if you have any thought of a second term, especially for those offices that have only two-year terms (as in the US House). Former White House chief-of-staff Bill Daley is dropping his bid to be Illinois governor, telling the Chicago Tribune he had been struggling with the decision and realized he didn't want to spend the next five to nine years living life this way.

Whither to now? From NPR's “Morning Line,” September 18^th, re. government shutdown &/or debt ceiling limits vs. defunding Obamacare. Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) declared, "None of the Republicans are willing to stand up to these anarchists....[House Republicans aligned with the Tea Party who] are obsessed with a bill that passed four years ago, a bill that was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. They can't get over that."

On the same topic, Senator McCain (R, AZ) said, "Republicans ought to understand if we shut down the government, Congress always gets blamed -- rightly or wrongly....We've seen the movie before. It's just some of them weren't around at the time; I was."

Tasty meat, you say? The link below tells the story of a pilot program in use by the USDA (agriculture), a program that has allowed large amounts of tainted meat to enter the market place. These failures not withstanding, a budget conscious Congress will probably continue to cut funding for meat inspection. Switch to a veggie-burger? Perhaps, but consider that Monsanto has pumped millions into a campaign to defeat a Washington state ballot initiative which would require the labeling of food items containing GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Where is the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Teddy, who according to legend, pitched his morning sausage out the window as he read reading The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's muckraking book about the then unregulated meat packing industry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/usda-pilot-program-fails-to-stop-contaminated-meat/2013/09/08/60f8bb94-0f58-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html

The Harvest Moon. Spectacular pictures from all over the globe abound on the internet. A now deceased friend, a Navy pilot, acquainted me with the naval aviators's phrase, “commander's moon,” which applied to full moons throughout the year. To maintain flight proficiency, carrier qualified navy pilots are required to make a certain number of nighttime carrier landings. For older aviators landings were easiest when there was a cloudless night sky and a full moon – a “commander's moon.” Hence, these prized, nighttime carrier landing slots were traditionally reserved for older, senior pilots.