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Political forecasters Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg both recently predicted that the Republicans are likely to win forty or more House seats in the midterm elections. While two months is an eternity in politics, it is worth considering what Republican control of the House would mean.
First and foremost, it will mean that Republicans will finally have to take some responsibility for governing the country. The 1994 Republican takeover emboldened Newt Gingrich and the conservative crowd to throw their weight around with the Contract with America, followed by the ill-advised decision to shut down, albeit temporarily, the entire federal government. As a result, President Clinton’s approval ratings shot up as the Republicans’ ratings tanked.
We can fully expect the Republicans to continue their stonewalling and obstructionism — and probably even ramp it up with the addition of newer Republican House members drinking the Tea Party Kool-Aid. If they take over the House, they will not only be able to block President Obama’s initiatives, but also launch their own agenda, which will undoubtedly include everything from repealing health care reform to gutting social programs. However, if the Republicans use their veto in the House to try to turn back the clock by eviscerating Medicare or Social Security, cutting unemployment or veterans benefits, or stripping funds from education or the state budgets, they could certainly face a wrathful public.
What would all this mean for the Obama White House? This administration came into office facing the worst economic downturn in eighty years, and, as a result, a sizeable chunk of the public has turned against Obama and the Democratic party. However, the public has certainly not morphed into big fans of the Republican party either. The populist sentiment now sweeping the nation — as in times past — is aimed at both parties and their leaders. The outcry from both the left and right is for a change in the political culture, which is besotted with money from special interests, relies on rigged electoral districts and is myopic about social changes in the country.
The reality is that, even with the populist hue and cry, around ninety percent of House incumbents will be re-elected (down from the usual 95% or more) and it will be back to business as usual, which means a virtual stalemate. If the House is controlled by the Republicans, an even more serious deadlock will ensue as Republicans continue to stonewall the White House. If the economic recovery stalls out, this will put Obama in an even tougher position than FDR was in the midst of the Depression, when the Democrats had large majorities in the House and Senate.
What the president can do — as FDR did when he encountered resistance both inside and outside his own party — is to go over the head of the politicians to the American public. Although Obama has made lots of speeches and appeared frequently in public, the message has often been muted or confused. Like FDR, Obama would benefit by aggressively attacking his opponents on their policies — whether it is cutbacks in Social Security or Medicare or extremist proposals like repealing the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Republican party, which is now driven by the radical viewpoints of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, should be vehemently called out by the president on their specific proposals to turn back the clock to a more intolerant and crueler America that persecuted minorities, demonized religious groups and left the old and disabled to suffer on their own. A more aggressive and focused message from the president is not only a good campaign strategy for the midterms but also is a stronger approach to governing, whether the Republicans take over the House or not.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In “The Summer Man,” the change of season brings a changed Don. Anna’s death was a wake up call, and we see Don finally trying to pull himself up out of his downward spiral. The last episode closed with him leaving his door open, in an attempt to leave himself open as well. A start. Fast-forward a month or so (What’s the date? Anyone know Gene’s birthday?), Don’s actually cleaned up, has a routine, and is continuing to open up by writing down his thoughts and feelings. This introspection is so not Don, but neither is waking up sober. He’s strayed so far that he needs to change to regain control of his life. He opens with the first step, acknowledging his drinking problem. “They say as soon as you have to cut down on your drinking, you have a drinking problem. My mind is a jumble, I can’t organize my thoughts. ” He sits at a sparse table in the corner of his apartment, with light finally shining through the window. The quality of the voiceover gives the episode a different dear-diary kind of feel. Instead of watching him experience subtle and intense emotion, he’s actually telling us what he’s thinking, taking control of the narrative as he’s trying to take control of his life. He’s questioning everything, even saying, “I should’ve finished high school, everything could’ve been different.” He knows though, “I feel like a little girl, I’m writing down what happened today.” With Anna’s death, he lost a major piece of his identity, and he knows he needs to redefine himself. He had lost all control, and he needs to get it back to figure out what kind of person he wants to be.
The episode opens with him diving into a pool and swimming laps. The swimming imagery perfectly captures his state, metaphorically mimicking both his drinking and his rehabilitation. While swimming, he’s strong and powerful, but he’s terribly out of shape, heaving and coughing as he comes up for air. Someone asks if he’s alright. He’s not, but he’s trying to be. He sits at his desk and writes, (yes, a little corny) “A list of things I’d like to do. One, climb Mount Kilimanjaro [...] Two, gain a modicum of control over the way I feel. I want to wake up. I don’t want to be that man.” He says that as he lets the air out of his lungs sinks towards the bottom of the pool. It’s the image of what he’s been doing to himself all season: he’s been drowning himself in alcohol, he’s been letting himself sink towards the bottom. He’s been underwater — zoned out and blurry — but now he’s pulling himself up for air. He’s trying to regain control.
If the last episode dealt with the women most important in his life, this episode deals with the women in his romantic life — and women in general — the power of the Poontang!
The Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” plays in the background as Don steps out into a sunny day, signaling Don’s status. He looks at women, “the smell of perfume” hits him and he’s on the prowl — so he calls Bethany, his standard go-to girl when he’s tries to resume respectable dating. Bethany, young and forward, calls Don out. “Every date feels like a first date with you,” annoyed that he won’t let her in. She asks, “Don’t you want to be close to anyone?” He replies, “I do,” emphatically. He does, but he’s just started, and he doesn’t want to be close to her.
The most exciting part of their date is the run in with Betty and Henry — finally! A showdown we’ve been waiting for. Betty is visibly flustered and jealous. Now she’s the one acting like Don, going straight for the bar. Betty’s acting childish as ever. She doesn’t even acknowledge Don or Bethany when they go over to say hello, she just looks away. She watches Don angrily from her table, staring and smoking, downing her drinks, and running off to the bathroom to freak out. When Don tells Bethany that was his ex-wife, she appropriately gasps, “What? HER?? Childish or not, Betty is stunning, and Bethany is obviously intimidated seeing who she’s being compared to. She looks at her in awe and then goes back to her meal, probably pleased to be in the same category. Notice their similar up-dos (Betty’s, by the way, I thought looked fabulous when it was all messed up in the morning). Bethany is similar to a young Betty (not angry yet) — remember she’s the supernumerary who doesn’t speak and just fills a role — the role Betty played as Don’s wife.
It’s interesting that Henry keeps calling Betty Elizabeth. It’s as though he’s trying to train her to act more grown up — but, in doing so, he’s parenting her, treating her like a child, which in turn seems to allow her to behave this way. On their way home, their father-daughter roles really come out, as she slumps against the window while he scolds her. “What are you? A wino? [...] That is not something you’re allowed to say.” She fights back like an angry teenager. “I hate him [...]You’re right who cares about him!” and tries to get out of the car. Henry, who I find annoying, actually is an adult, and is right. He tries to explain the proper way to feel, ” I have an ex-wife, she bothers me, I don’t like seeing her, but I don’t hate her.” Henry tells her obviously she cares about Don, “he’s taking up too much space in your life, maybe in your heart.” He finally says, “Look, maybe we rushed into this.” He obviously regrets marrying her. He didn’t realize her anger and feelings towards Don wouldn’t subside once he whisked her away. He gets fed up and yells at her, “Shut up Betty, you’re drunk.” Betty also apologizes to him like a child who’s stepped out of line. “I don’t want to have to defend myself all the time.” She whines, “I’m really sorry, Henry” and then tells Francine, “I misbehaved.”
Henry is over dealing with all this Draper crap and makes a power play against Don. Annoyed by Don’s presence in his household, from the boxes to Betty’s heart, Henry tries to get rid of some of the Draper clutter. He calls Don and tells him he needs to move his stuff because he wants to park his new boat there. Manly. I feel bad for Henry, I don’t think he realized what he was signing up for when he galloped in on his white horse to save to the blonde, beautiful damsel-in-distress.
Their car ride home is directly contrasted with Don’s ride home, as he and Bethany make out in the taxi. Bethany, “makes him more comfortable” and goes down on him in the cab. HA, always such a gentlemen, Don’s voiceover cuts in, “She’s a sweet girl”…now we know what he really means by that. She gets out of the cab, and says, “To be continued.” He writes, “I bet she’s been thinking of that line all night,” and he would think that, Mr. Ad Man. He writes, “People tell you who they are but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be,” a true and insightful thought. It rings true in a lot of relationships, especially to Betty and Henry. He ignored who she was, the way she was acting when she was married to Don and imagined a fanciful future for them instead. Then Don muses, “I like sleeping alone, stretching out like a skydiver, cool patches to roll on to.” He’s becoming more comfortable with himself, with being alone. “I should appreciate it more,” sleeping alone. He’s finally appreciating sleep now that he’s not drunkenly passing out into it.
Back in the office, Miss Blankenship is recovering from cataract surgery, “I was blind and now I see.” Her cataracts were like Don’s drinking — blocking his vision. Now she can see clearly, and so can he. Holding back on drinking is tough in the office where it’s such a standard part of their daily routine. He watches Peggy and the boys drink in slow motion, then takes a sip, and completely zones out as the alcohol takes over him for a moment–but snaps out of it. With only one sip, he’s participating but restraining himself, trying to strike a balance. He sees how many bottles Miss Blankenship got for him and tells her to bring them back, looking horrified by how many bottles she brings, how many she expects him to drink.
There’s lots of excitement over the vending machine. Peggy says, “I feel like Margaret Mead,” watching the boys jumping around, trying to figure out how to deal with the machine. The vending machine represents progress, and change. It removes a person necessary to sell the food, it combines the two steps, something they haven’t had before. For Joan, the vending machine is a step towards making her role obsolete. She’s losing control of the office, not respected by the young guys. Joey, in particular, is a complete ass and shockingly shameless. She takes him into his office to yell at him. He responds to her, “What do you do around here besides walking around like you’re trying to get raped [...] I’m not some young girl off the bus, I don’t need some Madame from a Shanghai whore house to show me the ropes.” First of all, holy shit, Joey just called Joan an old whore. The rape line is ironic remembering when husband Greg raped her in the office. Joey’s rudeness is beyond comprehension, it’s too cruel (what’s his problem?), and startles Joan, who should’ve kicked his ass. She’s like twice his size, she could take him out. Joan tears up and leaves for the day. She’s not used to being treated this way, no one has ever dared speak to her like that in the past. Joey’s never had any respect for the older partners, he was always inappropriately insulting Don. Maybe he doesn’t respect them, but it’s weird he’s not worried about his job. Peggy defends Joan — for Joan and for herself, as a woman. Peggy warns him not to mess with Joan, “she’s important around here.” Joey, who thinks he’s much more important than he is, says, “We’re creative, and she’s an overblown secretary [...] There’s a Joan at every company, my mother was a Joan.” (So then where’s the respect for his mother? He obviously has some mommy-issues of his own). Peggy tries to set him straight, “She’s not your mother and she and Lane basically run this place.” He says “message received” but obviously not — He then goes so far as to draw a picture of Joan giving Lane a blowjob (the second of the night!) in his office with a caption “Tally Ho!” and tapes it up on her window. Joan takes care of that by calmly telling the boys, laugh now, but when you’re dying in Vietnam, remember I never liked you. So cold that it works. Thinking about her own husband in Vietnam, perhaps?
When Joan goes home to Greg (BTW who’s going to be on this season of Gossip Girl), it seems like they actually have a nice relationship — much nicer than I expected. She says, “What am I gonna do? Who am I gonna talk to?” suggesting a real level of intimacy and closeness. She bursts into tears when he says, “You’ll talk to your friends at work.” Her world is falling apart. She’s not where she wants to be, she’s not important enough at the office or at home, at the office for respect or at home to keep her husband from going away. Her composed exterior is breaking down, I hate to see her like this. Roger Sterling to the rescue?
Peggy and Don’s working relationship is moving forward nicely since their bonding session last week. He’s training her to be a boss, helping her progress. She brings him a problem, the ‘Tally-Ho!’ drawing which Don comically admits is weirdly well-done for Joey. She tells him she told him not to do it and he did anyway. Don says, “I wouldn’t tolerate that if I were you.” She wants him to do something about it and he says, “Look Peggy, just go fire him.” Instead of handling it for her, Don’s teaching her to handle it for herself. He tells her if she wants any respect she’s going to have to go get it for herself–and he gives her the confidence to do so. She does it, and handles it beautifully. Joey, as usual, doesn’t take her seriously and tries to undermine her, “We’ll see what Don has to say about that.” She shoots back, “Don doesn’t even know who you are,” reminding him, you work for me. She dismisses him, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” and he smirks at her with contempt and says, ” Well, I was wrong about you,” — and he was. He was wrong not to take her seriously, wrong that she wasn’t one of them. She is. Get it straight.
The Peggy-Joan elevator face-off was perhaps the most significant scene of the episode. Peggy, pleased with herself, gets in the elevator expecting Joan to thank her for defending her and firing Joey, but she gets a different reaction. In her high-pitched-Joan-voice, Joan says, “Now everybody in the office will know that you solved my problem and that you must be really important, I guess.” Joan is the problem-solver and doesn’t need anyone going over her head, even if Peggy’s just trying to help. As the most powerful woman in the office to the next, Joan warns Peggy, “You want to be a big shot, well, no matter how powerful we get around here, they can still just draw a cartoon. So all you’ve done is prove to them that I’m a meaningless secretary and you’re another humorless bitch.” This is the epitome of the problem for women. No one would’ve thought there was a chance one of the younger guys would treat Joan this way, but they can, and Joey did. Even though Peggy and Don don’t support it, Stan and Harry laugh (I’d expect more from Harry, he’s been around long enough) and it’s impossible to truly rid the work environment of sexual stereotypes. Peggy tried to do so by stripping in the hotel room, and kind of did by out-liberating Stan. We see a transfer of importance from Joan to Peggy. Joan was it, the top dog of the stereotypical female role, taking it even farther as an office manager with her own pseudo-office. Now we see Peggy who’s going to be able to go so much farther. Joan’s role is fading–with both the vending machine and the complaint hotline, there’s less of a need for her. Peggy on the other hand, is becoming more important. She’s becoming one of the guys, but Joan’s warning her that as much as she thinks she’s one of them, she never really will be. She’s upset she made her look like a stupid secretary, by exerting more power than Joan could have (Joan could have gotten him fired, but could not have done so directly), Peggy reduced Joan’s role without realizing it.
Faye, like the other women in this episode, Betty and Joan, is breaking down, screaming at her ex-something on the phone, “Go shit in the ocean!” They all have their problems. So Don, getting his mojo back, realizes this is his moment to swoop in and finally gets his date (two in one week–he’s back, ladies). We know it was coming, she obviously wanted to go out with him, but she demands a more proper proposal. More proper than just tagging it on to the workday, and certainly more proper than drunkenly trying to take her home after the Clios. She’s good for him, she helps guide him. A psychologist is exactly what Don needs right now, and since he’s too proud to see one, he might as well date one (or the closest he can find). “You smell good,” apparently his go-to line. Don, in direct contrast to his date with Bethany, immediately opens up, and tells her about his swimming therapy. “I’ve been a little out of sorts lately, and its an effort to get in the water but when you do you’re weightless and you don’t even sweat and in the end you’re wrung out.” The swimming is a metaphor for his rehabilitation, it’s an effort to get in, but once he does he’s weightless, he’s in control. He’s wrung out because he needs to get back into shape, because he, and his body, needs to adjust to healthy activity. It also sounds like a metaphor for drinking, once you start, you feel weightless, invincible and then wrung out — but differently. But anyway…the date. Faye’s dad is in cahoots with the mafia! Who knew that was a responsibility of a candy store? In that case, Don better be on his best behavior. She tells him her dad is a “handsome, two-bit gangster like you,” commenting on his lifestyle.
He tells her it’s Gene’s second birthday (has it really been two years??). He says he’s not going, “because I’m not welcome there. He thinks that man is his father. Maybe that’s okay.” Faye responds with advice, “All he knows of the world is what you show him.” Then Dr. Faye quotes Aesop’s fable about the wind and the sun. In a competition to get the traveler’s coat off, the wind blows fiercely while the sun shines warmth — the sun wins. “Kindness, gentleness and persuasion win, where force fails.” As Don’s trying to pull himself back together, he needs to be more like the sun. It’s summer now, the sun is shining, and he can now get what he wants through warmth over force–courting women instead of drunkenly hitting on them. He thinks he’s so smooth when he says, “so what you’re saying is you want my coat” — its definitely better, hitting on her with kindness, but no, that’s not what she was saying — she lets it go, she wants him. They have a passionate, I’ve-been-wanting-this-for-a-while kiss in the cab (also in contrast to the less interesting one with Bethany) and she offers to go home with him, but he says he’s just going to take her to her door, “because that’s as far as I can go right now and I’m not ready to say goodnight.” That was smooth. That’s as far as he can go because he’s trying to be honorable and he’s still working on himself. He’s rebuilding and wants to get himself together before taking the next step with Faye, which shows that he takes her seriously (or maybe he’s just scared of her dad). More seriously, say, than a taxi blowjob. Do you think this could turn into a real relationship? As an analyst she’s good for him, and could help him rediscover himself. In any case, Don turning down sex is a major change. Also note that her hair is distinctly different from Betty and Bethany’s.
He comes up from his first lap in the beginning gasping and coughing, but has visibly improved by his final lap. A younger swimmer threatens to pass him by and he speeds up and manages to keep his lead, and comes up just normally out of breath. When he feels the triumph of that control he feels the confidence to go to the party. He had been thinking about Gene. He writes Gene was “conceived in a moment of desperation and born into a mess.” He’s deciding what kind of father he wants to be, the kind of man he wants to be, and even though he says decidedly throughout the episode that he can’t go to the party — all of a sudden, he can. Gene will only know what Don shows him — he takes Faye’s words to heart (she’s already helped him). He wants to be his father, make sure Gene knows that he, not “that man” is his father. So, he shows up, with a stuffed elephant in hand (HA! because Don’s the elephant in the room). The same way Gene will only know what he shows him — the world will only know what he shows it. Don doesn’t want to be that man, he wants to change to show the world who he really is, not just a drunk mess. While he was in a bad place he wouldn’t go near the children. He was building up confidence in other areas but he couldn’t quite deal with the family. Now that he’s finally facing them, it shows actual improvement.
As Don throws Gene up in the air, you see a shift in him–he’s getting his priorities in order. Betty looks at him longingly as he plays with Gene–she sees the dad she wanted him to be–it recalls when Don wrote, “we’re flawed because we want so much more. We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.” That’s exactly how it seems like Betty feels–she wanted more but maybe now she just wants Don back? As Don gets better, and has more positive interactions with the kids, I see Betty (secretly) trying to get back together with him and him turning her away. Her situation is only getting worse as his is getting better.
Best moment of the episode: Harry trying to convince Joey to become an actor–”You’re so handsome, I showed them a picture.” Harry’s so underrated, he’s my favorite–and peeling that orange, he’s amazing.
Obviously Stan has a crush on Peggy after the whole hotel stripping fiasco. Notice how when Stan says, “Peggy Olson, pioneering the science of wet blanketry,” Joey mumbles, “you love her.” He definitely does. Any potential there??
WHERE IS ROGER??
Also, lets see more of Lane–He has little figures of the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty on his desk — and the Mets flag on the wall — so cute, America loving.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Donna was one of the first to get that she had enough fashion in her to do two lines… one for the working woman (DKNY) with that kind of budget, and one who wants fashion at any price, high up on the corporate ladder or the benefit benefactor list to afford the best materials and workmanship (Donna Karan Collection). On Sunday Karan let loose her DKNY looks for spring, with grosgrain ribbon as belts, to the all global looking scarf loosely and effortlessly wound around the neck a la Francaise.
She is setting the trend of femininity defined by flounces and flowers and… get this… yep, the mid-length skirt… Its baaaaaaaack.
Will it stay?… Check out what our cameristas captured.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Camille Paglia has published a long piece in the British Sunday Times Magazine in which she articulates her dislike for Lady Gaga and dissatisfaction with what she calls “Generation Gaga.”
Paglia is an entertaining and brilliant cultural critic, but she has a habit of throwing out too many ideas and references and in the end securely grasping only a few–she’s like an octopus determined to juggle with all eight tentacles when two would suffice.
Here, in an essay that mentions everything from the old Hollywood production code to Holly Woodlawn, she principally makes the objection that Lady Gaga is not sexy. On that point Paglia is absolutely correct. Gaga’s body, despite her willingness to display it, is gangly and awkward, and her dance moves are almost desperately clunky. Nor does she does look particularly alluring wrapped in yellow police tape. When she sings about sex you get the feeling she finds it generally predatory, incomprehensible and weird.
Does this mean, though, that Gaga “represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution,” as Paglia asks? Isn’t it possible that Gaga is instead a female performer whose main interest is producing hit music, rather than projecting a sexual persona? At her age and this early in her career, she may not actually know what she’s trying to say, regardless of the rhapsodic, school-girlish grandeur of some of her interviews–there’s something unformed about her, and about her parade of outrageous looks.
At any rate, if you like to be photographed wearing a gown of Kermit the Frog dolls or a dress made of raw meat, sex appeal would seem to be beside the point.
Still, sexual iconography is an irresistible topic for Paglia, so she dives into a quick history of great pop-cultural sirens, pausing long enough to let us know that we probably should not believe rumors that Clara Bow “bedded the entire University of Southern California football team.” Then she settles into a discussion of Marlene Dietrich (“the cardinal sexual pioneer”) and Madonna. They both represent vital carnality, sex as the life force, DH Lawrence in a bustier, and for Paglia they are the bee’s knees. Not so poor Gaga. In her case, sex “is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture.”
But, again, why should Gaga have to be descended from Dietrich, who herself ended up looking like a piece of Lladro?
Paglia’s soundest point is to suggest that Gaga is closer in spirit to Bette Midler. That’s Paglia’s only concession to the possibility that Gaga is actually funny, or at least campy. An earlier point of reference might even be Carol Burnett, with her talent for masochistic comedy and fantastic costumes. And if this isn’t sexy, so what? Paglia herself admits that audiences still have “tigresses” who include “Beyonc, Shakira, Rihanna, Lily Allen, Nelly Furtado.” Gaga is doing something different.
Again, though, what is she doing?
I can’t pretend I understand the outre, even grotesque style and barbaric melodrama that characterize Gaga’s videos; or why she thinks of herself and her fans as monsters and freaks; or why her face and expression are always masked (literally and otherwise). Paglia doesn’t really understand, either, treating Gaga as a hypocrite for creating a bizarre public image that has nothing to do with her privileged Manhattan upbringing or corporate deals.
These issues, though, are all secondary to the sheer power of Gaga’s yowling, throbbing voice (Paglia doesn’t care for her singing), and her charismatic, brazen love of performance–a fundamental force so strong that she’s somehow at her best when she dares to be most absurd. (Standing frozen beneath a preposterous, phone-shaped wig, she becomes an angel of death in the “Telephone” video.) Yes, Paglia is right, Gaga borrows from everyone, particularly Madonna. My guess is that she believes she can make any music her own–like Mozart improving on Salieri or Bob Dylan appropriating a folk song. It’s hubris and it’s shameless but, for the most part, she’s right. “Alejandro” is an infectious homage to/pastiche of/ripoff of “La Isla Bonita” as well as ABBA’s “Fernando,” and more entertaining than either.
This is a more plausible explanation for Gaga’s popularity than Paglia’s argument, which is not only that Gaga isn’t sexy but also that young people wouldn’t know a true sexual icon if she stepped out of a laptop and offered a free lapdance. Their world has been pathetically attenuated by too much technology: “Their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages.” But Gaga’s voice isn’t atrophied or atomised. It has both snarling command and an unpinnable mystery that suggest the breakthrough, not the absence, of inchoate emotion.
If we’re going to discuss Lady Gaga in terms of venerable sexual personae, I’d say she’s Bette Davis to Madonna’s Joan Crawford–the repulsive yet riveting oddity to the controlled goddess. I’ll take the first.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Lately, our headlines have been taken up by tragic applications of our right to free speech. One bonehead from Florida can set the stage.
I say let’s look at a different group of people getting together for entirely the opposite reasons.
On September 15th, a small group of individuals and organizations are participating in Sudan Freedom Walk 2010, a 22-day march from New York to the Congress in Washington, DC. Go to http://sudanfreedom.org/ to see the complete schedule.
It will be a walk for Muslims and Christians, Northerners and Southerners, anyone marginalized or anyone supporting marginalized people’s rights. It will be made of groups who consider each other former enemies. It has been endorsed by the Save Darfur coalition and Amnesty International.
The first walk happened in 2006. It started at the United Nations. It featured Simon Deng, a tireless Sudan activist and former slave, and a short speech by Manute Bol. Manute is no longer with us, but his words that day are still true: “Sudan Government are very aggressive so they scared off peacekeeping… I don’t want to have happen to Western Sudan what happened to Southern Sudan.” In other words, Northerners and Southerners must stick together. And so must the various international groups that raise awareness, lobby and provide on-the-ground support. The first walk took weeks and wound down the eastern seaboard. In the Capitol, the marchers were met by Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sam Brownback. At that time, the public paid a lot more attention to Sudan.
American citizens, much besieged by domestic politics, don’t realize the serious implications of the next 100 days. Our government has not taken up the task of educating them. That is really what the marchers want. Your attention. The 2010 march has been called because South Sudan will vote to decide whether or not the South will becomes it’s own country. Sudan-watchers like the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof has written that he and many others support the vote but fear that the vote may trigger a resumption of civil war. I personally don’t think that’s the case, but the last war killed over 2.5 million just in the South. By letting Khartoum know that people around the world are watching the outcome of the Referendum, we can create pressure for peace.
And while separation may help the Southerners, those in Western Darfur — The Darfuris — have faced a surge in random violence in the IDP camps and against civilians in villages akin to the worst months of genocide six years ago. Dafuri civilians and rebel groups have been pinned down, pummeled, and picked off for months. The West may not put boots on the ground, but you — a well-intentioned American civilian — can also do more to put pressure on Khartoum.
At the very end of last year, I visited the refugee camps in Chad along with the Darfur Human Rights Organization. I was only there for a week, and three babies died at birth out of a population of 20,000. My presence, in and of itself, created danger as more than 20 NGO workers had been kidnapped or killed in the previous six months. I interviewed the president of the refugee camp. He had a very serious complaint. President Obama and the leaders of many western countries had flown in for a visit to his camp, but since then, he’d heard nothing. In fact, a few months later, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to reduce the number of peacekeepers working in that volatile area.
Freedom Walk 2010 is a strategic demonstration of solidarity that exists between Southern Sudanese Christians and Northern Sudanese Muslims, at the very moment that war may break out along the religious fault line that divides the country. Estimates are that 85% of Southerners will vote in January for secession. This Freedom Walk is not a statement of whether Southerners should vote for unity or secession. This walk is a statement that whether united or separate, the Northern and Southern Sudanese do not want war. A quick review of internet discussions on the referendum by Southern Sudanese reveals that the vast majority of those who want secession are not motivated by enmity towards Northerners, but by distrust of the oppressive elite that controls Khartoum.
By marching with these amazing and interesting people, you will be able to work closely with dedicated men and women who themselves are from opposite sides of fence back at home. Volunteer by creating news coverage in your area and spreading the news widely. If you have ever wanted to be part of a group of people working to stop genocide, now is your chance.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

F*ck cancer! Go ahead, say it out loud. Whether or not cancer has affected your life, it can’t be ignored. Last year, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, I emblazoned the words “F*ck Cancer” on a T-shirt as a private source of strength for her. Being the firecracker she is, mom wore it everywhere!
Soon after, I founded FCancer as a nonprofit and charity to raise awareness about the importance of early detection, and the statement grew into an international movement. While many wonderful organizations have raised money for cancer research, FC’s mission is to activate Generation Y to engage with their parents about early detection of cancer, and encourage them to stay on top of their regular cancer screenings. Over 90% of all cancers are curable if found in stage one. Early detection really is the best cure for cancer right now.
FCancer has found support with Gen Y, and their parents. They are embracing new online tools to kickstart frank and open conversations about their health. Interestingly, it is children nagging their parents (and not the other way around) that is driving this campaign, as parents are more likely to listen to their children over anyone else in their lives, including friends, partners, and healthcare professionals. Gen Y has the ability to encourage and educate their elders, and, in the process, educate themselves about how to look for cancer before they’re in the highest risk demographic. My mom was lucky to have found her cancer early, but there are too many comments and stories on our website that tell of not-so-happy endings. Because of this, it’s really important to me that I do all I can to teach people how to look for cancer instead of just find it.
There’s no time like the present to start the life-saving dialogue around early detection. Before marking our one year anniversary next month, FCancer is turning September into “F-tember,” launching a month-long campaign during which you can help raise awareness through your social networks.
Through the Facebook App, generously donated by the interactive agency Invoke, you can donate your Facebook or Twitter status by sharing one (or several!) of the attention-grabbing cancer facts and detection tips shared each day of this month. The great thing about this app is that is actually achieves one of the movement’s goals — to teach people about the earliest warning signs of cancer. Even if your friends and family skim past the posts in their newsfeed, they can’t help but absorb some of the message! The app makes it as easy as possible to educate and raise awareness about early detection. It’s time to speak up and say F*ck Cancer!
You can help make F-tember a success by donating your status today – or any day this month – at http://www.facebook.com/letsfcancer

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

DC is talking about cutting Social Security for working people at the very same time it is talking about extending tax breaks for the wealthiest people in history. This is a result of our county’s shift away from democracy and toward plutocracy. This post is about the astonishing change in attitude toward regular people that is the result of this shift.
There is a DC “Deficit Commission” that is supposed to be cutting budget deficits (that result from tax cuts for the wealthy and increases in military spending) but is instead talking about cutting Social Security. Get this: Social Security is a fully-funded program that uses no tax money. By law it cannot borrow so it cannot contribute to the deficit! At the same time, the huge military budget (we spend more than all other countries combined) is completely unfunded and faces a huge shortfall every year — but cutting that is off the table.
The real problem: Social Security built up a huge trust fund that was spent on tax cuts for the rich, and that money is coming due. DC thinking is to cut Social Security instead of paying back what was borrowed. One proposal under consideration is to raise the retirement age, recently increased to 67, to 70! This at the very time that every social indicator is saying that we should be increasing Social Security and lowering the retirement age. Increasing because people’s savings have been slammed by the financial collapse so they need Social Security as their fall-back position, and lowering because so many people over 50 can’t find work.
What About The People Affected?
Almost no one has been talking about how this will effect the people whose benefits will be cut. This is because there has been a change in attitudes in America. We are becoming a not kinder, not gentler nation. The crippled compassion component of conservative ideas about citizenship continues to cut into what’s left of our consciences.
Kudos to the NY Times for sending a reporter out from a comfortable desk in their air-conditioned offices to look at what cutting Social Security means to actual people who actually work. Retiring Later Is Hard Road for Laborers,
A Washington Post story the next day looks at the flood of desperate people trying to get on Social Security disability because their unemployment benefits are exhausted and they can’t find work. Jobless are straining Social Security’s disability benefits program,
McClatchy looked at desperate older people who can’t get jobs and are “taking early retirement” even though it means dramatically reduced monthly checks. Social Security surplus hit by joblessness, early retirement,
Led by aging baby boomers and older workers frustrated by the tough job market, record numbers of eligible Americans started receiving Social Security retirement benefits in 2009. . . . Annual jobless rates for men and women age 55 and older were higher in 2009 than at any time since the government started collecting the data in 1948, Johnson said. That forced many to claim retirement benefits at 62, their first year of eligibility, instead of waiting to collect at the full retirement age of 66.
The findings: People really need the help that Social Security offers.
Cut Social Security? Really? We spent trillions bailing out the wealthy Wall Street elite, we gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, we spend hundreds of billions on unaccountable “defense” contractors with shadowy addresses concentrated around DC, and we are seriously considering cutting Social Security?
The New American Attitude
But this is the new America. We’re helping the rich and taking our frustrations out on the unfortunate and weak: “the help.” I wrote about this attitude change in Simpson Social Security Comments Highlight Battle Of Democracy Vs. Plutocracy
These battles over cutting Social Security and extending tax cuts for the wealthy expose the competing worldviews of We, the People democracy vs corporatist plutocracy. Is our country a community of the people, by the people and for the people? Or are we “the help,” only here for the benefit of the wealthy few.
In the democracy worldview we are a community that takes care of and watches out for each other. We are each citizens with equal rights and equal value, to be respected equally. Our government and economy are supposed to be for us. In the democracy worldview we should be increasing Social Security’s benefits because people really need it.
An effect of moving to plutocracy is that the rest of us need to “know our place.” I mean, just who do we think we are? We have been acting like we own this place, like We, the People are in charge here! We think we are entitled to … entitlements. Things have changed and we need to get with the new program. Our job now is to shut up and be thankful for anything we receive the the behest of the country’s new owners.
This is the new attitude: Make Them Work – Citizens As “The Help”
That’s right, you have to make them work, or they’ll just sit around and wont be “productive.” They wont face up to the “consequences” of unemployment. These parasites will just suck the blood out of the producers. You hear language like this all the time from conservatives. The unemployed are “lazy,” or “on drugs” etc. They are not “productive.” They are mooching off the rest of us.
This is all in sharp contrast to the noble rich, who are an entirely different species biologically and spiritually. They are the “wealth producers” who we must treat with kid gloves and certainly not ask them to pay for their use of infrastructure or government services lest they decide to stop working. They just want to keep working, and what they do is so important, so pure, so necessary to the sustenance of the rest of us that they must be coddled at all times lest we lose their golden-egg magic touch!
This is the new attitude: If You Feed Them They Breed — And Other Dehumanizing Conservative Idiocy We Should Ignore
The latest nonsense they are spreading is that helping the unemployed keeps them from finding jobs. Good Lord! This is basically the old “if you feed them they just breed” storyline. They say “it makes them dependent” as if hard-working people laid off because of Wall Street’s scams are squirrels. Or, to hear the nasty way conservatives talk about these human beings, they are like rats. “Hobos,” one Congressman called the unemployed! And the DC elite listen, chuckle and repeat.
This battle over Social Security, at the very same time as DC fights over extending tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, points out how it will be as our democracy slides away. If we sit back and accept these changes, we lose. To fight this we need to come back to an understanding of what it means to be a citizen in a country where We, the People are supposed to be in charge. A government of We, the People should be about taking care of each other, protecting and empowering each other and respecting each other. WE are supposed to be the boss of you here. And we are supposed to be in charge.
Please add your name to the “Hands Off Social Security” petition. The Deficit Commission should get on to figuring out how to reduce the deficit (clue: it was caused by tax cuts for the rich and military spending increases) and keep their hands off Social Security!
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
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For too long, tricks and traps in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial transactions have stripped wealth from working families. This is insane. Our policies should build the wealth and success of families, not undermine them.
That’s why one of the most important provisions of the Wall Street reform bill was the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). For years, American families have been taken to the cleaners by clever clauses written into fine print and legal gobbledy-gook. The CFPB will change this. Finally, there will be a cop on the beat who can make sure people get a fair shake.
This new consumer watchdog will only be effective, however, if it has strong leadership. There is no doubt in my mind that Elizabeth Warren is that leader. She has been America’s leading voice on behalf of financial fairness for families and the driving force behind the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As a Harvard Law professor specializing in bankruptcy and as Chair of the TARP Oversight Committee, she is more than qualified to lead the nation’s consumer watchdog. Her experience also had the breadth of understanding to foresee the impact of predatory mortgages on families and the economy.
Capitol Hill is abuzz with the expectation that the President will appoint a Director of the CFPB in the next few days and that person will be Elizabeth Warren. Such action should be applauded. I am confident that she will fight for transparency, accountability, and most of all, fairness for our working families. I am confident that she will establish a tradition of common sense approaches that will benefit working families across the country and place our nation on a firm footing for decades to come.

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Reversing its embarrassing oversight, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has added one final public hearing on coal ash regulatory proposals, to be held fittingly in Tennessee, the state that suffered the worst coal ash disaster in U.S. history in December 2008.
An EPA spokesperson confirmed that the final public hearing will take place the week of October 25th in Knoxville, Tennessee, although the exact date and location have yet to be announced.
So far, the public hearings on proposed coal ash regulations have been well-attended. ENS reported that the Dallas hearing last Wednesday was “packed” with “hundreds of residents from four states… urging the agency to adopt the stronger of two plans to regulate the waste from coal-fired power plants.”
But the intensity of the hearings picked up significantly today in Charlotte, NC, where the comments kicked off with a standing-room-only crowd ready for a marathon 13-plus hour hearing that could possibly stretch until midnight as hundreds of concerned residents, and a handful of coal industry lobbyists, voice their opinions.
As of 5pm EST, only 120 of the 453 people signed up to comment had been heard from, ensuring a late night ahead. According to hearing attendees I spoke to earlier, the EPA has been very accommodating of walk-ins who did not pre-register to comment, and appears to be making every effort to hear from anyone who shows up.
I have heard several examples of some of the powerful testimony offered by coal ash victims so far today, including a Pennsylvania woman who presented homemade jam and garden vegetables that were grown with water from her coal-ash-contaminated well, asking the EPA officials whether they would eat the products knowing about the contamination.
And of course, Duke Energy, headquartered in Charlotte, has been a hot subject among commenters. Most of the 13 coal ash ponds in North Carolina belong to Duke Energy, and Duke has two coal ash ponds near Mountain Island Lake, the main source of Charlotte’s drinking water.
Sierra Club member Bill Gupton testified today that, “These aging coal ash ponds – one built in 1957 – are both still unlined, both are still leaching hazardous substances into the ground and contaminating our ground water – a fact documented by Duke Energy’s own data.”
Upper Watauga Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby told me that comments so far have leaned roughly 60-40 in favor of Option C, which would label coal ash as “hazardous waste” and require more federal oversight of coal ash operations. But Lisenby expects that proponents of the industry-friendly Option D will become sparser as the coal lobbyists punch their timecards and head home.
Lisenby reported excellent representation from minority communities in South Carolina who are living with the effects of coal ash every day, and a strong showing of youth traveling from local universities to take part in the hearing. The faith community is also present, including a minister who blessed some people on the forehead with coal ash, Lisenby says.
Appalachian Voices released a statement this afternoon noting that one of the victims of the 2008 TVA coal ash spill – Steve Scarborough, who owns a house that was damaged in the massive Tennessee coal ash disaster – traveled to Charlotte to testify.
The EPA will hear from a lot more Tennessee victims of the TVA spill, thanks to the belated but wise decision to host the final coal ash hearing in Knoxville, just over an hour’s drive from the site of the spill.
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has applauded EPA’s last-minute change of heart.
“The EPA made exactly the right decision. Having hearings on coal ash without asking Tennesseans what they think would be like having hearings on Katrina without asking people in New Orleans what they think, or on the oil spill without asking people who live on the Gulf what they think,” Alexander said in a statement.
The Knoxville hearing is sure to have an emotionally-charged atmosphere, since it is closest to the site of the TVA disaster. It is still a 350-mile, six-hour drive away for Uniontown, Alabama residents who live near the landfill that is receiving the coal ash from the TVA spill, but perhaps some will make the journey to comment in front of EPA representatives.
The public comment period closes November 19th, so anyone is welcome to tell EPA what you think about the proposed coal ash regulations.
In the meantime, follow the action in Charlotte by checking out Charlotte Business Journal’s live blogging, and follow the action on Twitter via the hashtag #coalash.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Try this recipe for your next dinner party: Begin with eggs from a genetically engineered (GE) female Atlantic salmon with DNA from both Chinook salmon and Ocean Pout (an eel-like fish). Add irradiated sperm from an Arctic Char (a different fish species), mix, and put under pressure to produce a generation of all-female GE salmon with two sets of chromosomes from their mother and none from the Arctic Char. Then add 17-methyltestosterone to turn the GE salmon females into “neomales” — genetically female fish that produce milt (sperm). Combine their milt with the eggs of non-GE Atlantic salmon females, place under pressure, and — voila! — you’ve got a batch of all-female, triploid (having three complete sets of chromosomes instead of two) GE Atlantic salmon. Yum! Smoke that up and put it on your bagel.
Doesn’t sound appealing? Well, that describes the new GE salmon AquaBounty Technologies seeks to commercialize as the AquAdvantage salmon — the first genetically engineered animal to directly enter the U.S. food supply. They claim it grows to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of the usual 30. And, just before Labor Day, the FDA ruled that it is safe.
Despite the obvious gross-out factor of the “neomales,” the truly important thing to focus on is the quality of AquaBounty’s science ensuring us that their GE salmon are safe. They tested the fish for physical and behavioral problems, hormone levels, several chemistry and hematology components, and allergenicity to humans. Unfortunately, the science behind many of these tests was so sloppy that it’s hard to determine from them whether the GE fish are safe or not.
For example, in many tests, they used sample sizes as low as six (far less than the 30 one would need to establish statistical significance). In other cases, they disregarded the most unfavorable results as “outliers” and instead focused on only the data that made the GE fish look as good as possible and simultaneously made the non-GE control group of fish look as bad as possible. And then there’s the test of 73 fish for hormone levels, in which none of the fish had levels of growth hormone above the detection limit. In that case, AquaBounty concluded that there was no detectable difference in growth hormone levels in its GE fish compared to the non-GE controls.
It’s not terribly shocking that a corporation would fudge its own safety data to try and convince government regulators that it was safe (BP, anyone?). But it’s wholly unacceptable that the FDA accepted the sloppy and misleading science behind the GE salmon to rule on its safety. Now the FDA is gearing up for a series of meetings September 19-21 for the next step in the GE salmon approval process.
The significance of this issue extends far beyond the GE salmon. This is the first time the FDA has given its regulatory process for GE animals a test drive. The case of AquAdvantage salmon will set a precedent, for better or for worse. It’s certainly possible that, despite the shoddy science used to “prove” the safety of GE salmon, that people will be able to eat GE salmon without any problems. But what happens when we allow the next GE animal to go to market without solid science proving its safety? And then next? And the next? We need to start insisting on solid science now, sending a signal to all biotech companies that sloppy science is not enough.
You can see the actual data behind the FDA’s determination that AquAdvantage GE salmon are safe here (or you can check out a longer piece I wrote on it based on an interview with Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist at Consumers’ Union, here) — and you can tell the FDA that we need better science before we allow a precedent-setting GE animal into our food supply here.

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It’s not news… many people in our country are suffering. Uncertainty over our economy continues with high unemployment, which in turn has triggered many more home foreclosures. The lack of jobs has left a lot of people understandably angry, fearful and cynical about what they will face in the days ahead.
It’s natural to want to stop the pain, to find a fast solution or look for a quick fix to end the agony of the last twenty months. But it took many years (eight) to unravel the policies and regulations that both protected our economy and kept it strong, and it is going to take time to rebuild and restore it.
The patience of the American people has worn thin. However, as we head into a midterm election, we must not make decisions based on frustration or anger, and revert back to the party and the leaders that turned a $236 billion budget surplus left by President Clinton into a $1.2 trillion deficit left by President Bush. We cannot, out of fear, go back to the same party and policies that created this economic meltdown, abused the system, and did little to help those who were left victimized by the greed of Wall Street and the special interests from K Street.
Republicans spent eight years creating and supporting the destructive policies of the Bush Administration, which systematically debilitated the economy as well as weakened our regulatory system. They created the biggest disparity between the ultra rich and the poor, while working to relax and eliminate rules governing banks, corporations, and financial institutions. Now, as we near Election Day, they are again asking hardworking Americans to trust them with their vote. Why should we trust them? They spent twenty months stonewalling the President’s efforts to recharge our economy and put Americans back to work.
My question to the Republican Party is: What actions would you take that would differ from the actions that originally got us into this mess? Would you extend the Bush tax cuts that primarily benefit the top 1% of our country? Continue to block energy policies that will create millions of new green jobs? Keep policies in place that reward corporations that ship American jobs overseas? Oppose strong financial reform that insures that transactions, loans and credit cards are fair and transparent? Oppose a jobs bill that helps small businesses get the loans and the tax cuts that they need to prosper? Those are not the decisions that will lift America out of its difficulties and make our country stronger.
Week after week, on the 24 hour cable news cycle, Republican officials and prominent GOP leaders twist, distort and misrepresent the facts in order to place blame on others, while they continue to obstruct progress. It’s like the old saying that if you tell a lie big enough and you keep repeating it often enough, people will eventually come to believe that it is true. Whether they are discussing financial regulation, health care, jobs, the economy, energy policy…virtually every important issue our country is grappling with today, the Republican Party that once stood for something, now refuses to engage in constructive conversation about anything, all the while, offering virtually no new policy alternatives in return.
Since President Obama took office, the Republican narrative has been to serve their party over serving the people. They have been committed to blocking progress at all costs in order to insure the failure of this President. But now is the time to give President Obama a chance to fulfill his promise of reviving the spirit of hope and possibility that has always allowed our country to dream and to make the impossible possible. The only way he will be successful is if he has a Congress that dreams with him and an American electorate that gives him the chance!
I believe that Americans truly want a government that represents the middle class and working families of this nation, not the extremely rich, the bankers, and the CEOs. We have experienced a difficult recession, but due to the President’s policies, the country has avoided a total depression. What matters as we move forward is that consumers are protected, Wall Street is regulated, children have health care, and our representatives in Washington are committed to working for the people, not the private interests. I only hope that we can all take a deep breath and show the patience that is required to give our smart, committed and hopeful young leader the time he needs and the elected allies in Congress he requires to lift us all into a new time of innovation and prosperity.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

On this anniversary of 9/11, the disconnect between a real war’s losses and any virtual victory was stirred when I read “War Games” in this Sunday’s New York Times magazine. Citing the telling fact that while movies such as The Hurt Locker gross only $16 million in theatres, “video games that evoke our current wars,” like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (set in Afghanistan), has made “Avatar-like profits.” Why do real wars lose our attention while virtual ones engage millions?
What happens to our brains and our imaginations when we spend so much time in the fictional killing fields — as opposed to witnessing and understanding the two very real and complex wars that our country is engaged in fighting? If a video warrior is beating the Taliban in Afghanistan does that “win” somehow deny and even demean the losses on the actual ground where real soldiers are ambushed and die?
Video games strip war of its complications and paradoxes, its lovers who cross enemy lines, its Catch-22 dark comedy. They are not stories; they are statistics. And what do they teach our children and us about how to live?
Do video war games do anything to increase our empathy and connection to the actual wars or the soldiers and their families who are suffering? Do they lessen the distance and distrust between human beings — as does the best reporting and the greatest fiction? Does a virtual world inspire understanding of the other side, even if it is our so-called enemy?
And how about the environment — mountain caves blown up in search of Osama bin Laden, the greatest oil spill in world history during the Gulf War, and real city markets with innocent people blasted to smithereens by suicide bombers? Or, Twin Towers falling.
The Hurt Locker is the most grueling and realistic war film I’ve ever seen. It took me three nights to endure its tense authenticity. Though it won an Academy Award, it was not a blockbuster. I guess following the story of the gritty and sacrificial work of soldiers defusing bombs in Iraq pales next to the giddy bloodlust of video war games.
A soldier patrolling Iraqi streets or Afghan mountains never knows who is an insurgent and who is an ally — and a real life may be lost. But a Pac-man video warrior risks only in his imagination. As one of the video gamers casually tells the New York Times reporter, “I killed a lot and was killed a lot.”
War gamers are “adults mostly between ages 18 and 29 (though some were in their 50s), largely Americans and almost all men.” Some video game designers, like Will Wright (SimCity and The Sims) argues, “games are about agency (the ability to navigate a virtual world), not empathy (relating emotionally to the particulars of the world). So manual dexterity trumps mindfulness.”
Critics of these lucrative war games claim that it is war profiteering — and worse. A mother of a Marine rifleman who was killed in the Fallujah fighting said of the banned “Six Days in Fallujah” action game, “they don’t show the heartache of family members who are left without a spouse, or a father, or a child who does not return.”
So what is the difference between playing a video war game and witnessing a film like The Hurt Locker? Everything.
When one reads a novel, such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace with young Prince Nicolai wounded on the battlefield or watches the characters in The Hurt Locker bravely suiting up to face a ticking bomb — one becomes all of those characters — even the antagonists. Villains are often as complex and tragic as heroes. When we inhabit a fictional world created with the full spectrum of human folly and glory, we engage our whole selves. The finest fiction evokes the miracle of empathy. We participate in the whole story, not just the body count.
In both worlds, the costs are real. In his books, On Killing and Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a psychology professor at West Point, decries the video war games. He believes that bloody, but unrealistic “murder simulation” is not only unethical, but dangerous — especially for young people.
“We are leaning to kill,” Grossman warns, “and we are learning to like it.” He worries that we’ve “taken the safety catch off our nation.”
The virtual killing field of war games, with its simplistic rewards, desensitizes us to the genuine shock of slaughter. Soldiers in real wars lose limbs, friends, hope. Sometimes when they return home, shattered, they lose their families and futures. How to we jive the record suicide rate of Iraq and Afghan soldiers with the soaring sales of video war games?
The truth about war is that it is ugly, horrifying, and heartbreaking. This is why every soldier suffers. War stories should evoke our compassion, a word that means “to suffer with.” The virtual war is about detachment; the real war is about engagement.
There are no winners in war. War is much too subtle to score. Imagining war without complexity, compassion, or consequences makes us all losers. So if you have the courage — go see The Hurt Locker. And give that trigger finger a rest.
Brenda Peterson is the author of many books, including Duck and Cover, a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year” and the new memoir I Want To be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth.
http:/www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com

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Voters are angry, and for good reason. Jobs are gone; poverty is up; one in four homes, the leading source of savings for Americans, is underwater, worth less than the mortgage. Many who voted for Obama are discouraged; some argue there isn’t a whit of difference between the parties. An increasing percentage say they will vote against the incumbents simply to protest what is going on.
But there is a great difference between the two parties. It’s personified by the contrast between the positions of President Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner.
On taking office, faced with an economy losing 750,000 jobs a month, President Obama called for a bold recovery program, a package of tax cuts, infrastructure spending, support for education and renewable energy, and extended unemployment benefits, food stamps and health care support for those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Although he supported bailing out the banks, Boehner said no to helping out Main Street, with zero Republicans voting for the plan in the House. In the Senate, Republicans worked to weaken the plan, making it smaller and stuffing in upper-end tax breaks like the alternative minimum tax that have little jobs impact. In the end, the Recovery Act spending, according to any independent economist, helped to stave off a far worse collapse, but wasn’t big enough to create the jobs we need.
Now President Obama calls for adding $50 billion in investment in roads, runways and rail, for creating an infrastructure bank to mobilize private capital to rebuild America, for a range of tax breaks for small business owners. Boehner’s plan is to keep tax rates where they are — and to cut $100 billion from domestic spending next year — a folly that would add hundreds of thousands to the ranks of the unemployed.
President Obama is for ending the deduction for Wall Street managers that enables them to pay a lower rate of taxes than their chauffeurs. Boehner is for protecting the tax break, as well as the Bush tax cuts for millionaires earning more than $250,000 a year that would add $700 billion to the deficits over the next decade.
President Obama is for investing in renewable energy, increasing fuel standards and driving the U.S. to recapture a lead in the new green industrial revolution that is sweeping the world. Boehner mobilized oil and gas interests to help dilute and stop energy legislation.
President Obama pushed to regulate the big banks, and establish a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would protect consumers from abuse by banks, insurers and credit card agencies. Boehner mobilized the bank lobby to oppose reforms, and calls for repeal of the consumer bureau.
President Obama pushed to extend unemployment insurance; Boehner opposed.
President Obama pushed health care reform, not only to extend coverage to all, but also to end abusive insurance company practices of denying those with pre-existing conditions, or setting a cap on what is insured each year. Boehner joined the insurance lobby in opposition.
Obama says we need a new foundation for the economy, with investment in education and training, in research and development and in modernizing our infrastructure. Boehner is opposed.
Obama would repeal the tax break that rewards companies that move jobs overseas. Boehner defends the tax break, and calls for more of the same trade treaties that helped lose one in three manufacturing jobs over the last decade and left the U.S. borrowing more than $2 billion a day from abroad.
And this is only on economic questions. For those thinking of staying home or casting protest votes, take another look. Boehner recently opened a Boehner for Speaker Fund, raising millions from corporate political action committees and lobbyists for Republican congressional candidates. The first big check came from a Wall Street bank.

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Failure to repent is much worse than sin. One may have sinned for but a moment, but may fail to repent of it moments without number. Chasidic saying, from the book, Day by Day by Chaim Stern
On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement which begins at sundown on Friday, Jews around the world repent for the past year’s sins, wiping the slate clean for another year. But this year, how about anybody who acted out badly seeking some repentance as a way to start clearing the hateful air? You don’t have to be Jewish to ask for forgiveness and to show willingness to change.
I don’t attend temple services, although I used to be a rabbi’s wife. But I know about this holiday. And Jews in almost all of the 800 or so Reform congregations in the States — almost a million people — use the prayerbook my late husband Rabbi Chaim Stern wrote and edited, Gates of Repentance.
This Day of Atonement would be a fitting time for some of the worst offenders — non-Jews as well — to show some true repentance, more than the standard, often insincere, often forced “I’m sorry.”
And here’s a great example of how it can be done:
In 1998 President Clinton had offered a weak apology for the Monica Lewinsky situation. The public didn’t buy it. So he offered a stronger, introspective apology at a prayer breakfast in Washington, with an acknowledgment of the need to change. He mentioned that a friend had given him a copy of Gates of Repentance, and mentioned some of his childhood traumas, and then quoted from one of the book’s passages:
A week later, on September 18, the president sent my husband the manuscript of that speech. As he wrote in the accompanying letter: “I deeply appreciate … Gates of Repentance. As you know I was very moved by the passage on “turning,” and I thank you for your wisdom and spiritual inspiration.” (Read more about this in the NYT article here.)
True repentance is more than an apology. It does require “turning,” a real effort to change bad behavior. As Chaim wrote in the prayer book: “What is genuine repentance? When an opportunity for transgression occurs and we resist it, not out of fear or weakness, but because we have repented.”
Here are the sins, wrongdoings and transgressions we all commit at some time or another, listed alphabetically from Gates of Repentance and read at Yom Kippur services:
I can think of many people in the news who have made weak apologies or none at all for wrongdoings this past year. For starters, I suggest these non-Jews follow President Clinton’s lead, and atone in this season of change:
– Rush Limbaugh, for maligning the president
– Glenn Beck, for being a rabble-rousing hypocrite
– Sarah Palin, for inciting hatred and for lying
– Terry Jones, the man who wanted to burn the Quran
– Newt Gingrich, for so many reasons, and because he should no better
– Mel Gibson, for his abuse of almost everybody
– And the teabaggers who spew hate
That’s a start.
I know you can think of other notable transgressors of this past year. They can resist repeating their offenses by making amends and turning their behavior on this Day of Atonement. A way to start afresh in a country that badly needs it.
Suggestions?

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“Corporate interests are buying the elections? Oh no”, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, told the New York Times this week. “It’s much worse than that. We don’t know who’s buying the election.”
Sure enough, but we do have an inkling. The first since the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case, which lifted a ban on direct corporate spending — the 2010 elections are being bought by the highest bidder.
Looking at just August and spending on TV ads, while spending by the candidates themselves has been pretty even, in Senate races, Republican-leaning interest groups have outspent Democratic-leaning ones ten to one, and in the House, by roughly three to one.
And then there’s off-screen corporate pressure like this: the big health insurance profiteers, the ones who fought and misfigured health care reform, are raising premiums–and blaming reform — just ahead of the election.
“I would have real deep concerns that the kinds of rate increases that you’re quoting… are justified,” Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House’s top health official, told the Wall Street Journal.
Higher premiums will produce higher profits, and all the more cash for campaigning. And it’s true, federal disclosure laws make it next to impossible to know for sure where money for election ads comes from.
But as Molly Ivins used to say, “You dance with them that brung you” — and as long as politicians are bought and paid for by anyone other than the public, it’s not going to be our tune they’re jumping to.
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

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Not far from a strip club called “New York Dolls” and the site of the worst terror attack ever on American soil, stands the site of the proposed “Cordoba House”, an Islamic centre modeled much in the vein of New York’s storied 92nd St Y, that will include a swimming pool, restaurant and “meditation and prayer space”.
As Saturday’s opposing 9/11 rallies showed, debate over the issue remains fever pitch, with both sides seeming increasingly polarized and divisive.
And then there are the “Concerned New Yorkers”.
At first it was just patchwork over windows and signposts, and it’s deceptively simple. A piece of paper bisected by a black line with a helvetica-fonted survey question on each side: “The Ground Zero Mosque should not be built because” next to, “The Islamic Community Center should be built because”. Then it started appearing everywhere, spreading upwards like wildfire from Lower Manhattan. And then the people began responding.
Just who are these concerned New Yorkers? It turns out the same art collective behind the ingenious send-up of Mayor Bloomberg’s unprecedented third electoral run with their own Shepherd Fairy-esque campaign for another less than scrupulous billionaire by the name of C. Montgomery Burns. Garnering media attention and the most write-in votes (!), the Burns For Mayor campaign was a smash: a clever skewering of politicians making the rules up (or just buying them) as they go along.
The new campaign seems to take it a step further. According to Kenny Komer, who along with fellow artists Adam Wissing and Boris Rasin, is a founder and principal member of this “rotating group of 20-something artists, designers, writers and musicians”, the goal is to take this schismatic issue directly to the streets.
“Instead of filtering the results, we are letting people speak for themselves and have their responses viewed for every passerby to see, rich, poor, young, old, internet access or not”. He notes with a smile, that the response so far has been heavily in favor of the center being built, as most media outlets have reported New Yorkers to be largely against it.
Adam Wissing sees the project as a “civilized and personal debate platform” as the debate over a piece of real estate goes global.
“We want to document what people are feeling. The debate over Park51 has become so heated, so politicized, that we thought this platform would lend a voice to people who normally aren’t heard over the protestors.”
Coming on the heels of repugnant recent events that include an inebriated man urinating on a prayer rug in a mosque in Queens and the igniting of a Koran at the rally in Manhattan over the weekend, as well as the jingoistic declarations of hopeful politicians in this heated midterm election season, the ubiquitous posters are serving as a profoundly effective forum where arguments against the center range from vitriolic (“cause Muslims suck”) to empathic (“I have 13 friends died [sic] in there”).
As the debate continues to rage, it will be interesting to see how the populist-minded Concerned New Yorkers manage to document it. Perhaps even more interesting however was the remark made by one camera-clad tourist wading his way through the crowd at last Saturday’s protests. “Can someone tell me”, he inquired politely, “where the twin towers actually were?”

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While organized labor spends close to $100 million to propel Democrats to victory in November, members of the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union/UFCW (RWDSU/UFCW) Local 220 on Monday won perhaps labor’s most important victory of the fall.
The Mott’s applesauce plant workers went on strike in Williamson, N.Y., on May 23, after Mott’s parent company, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, demanded what amounted to a $3,000 per year wage cut for every worker across the board, as well as cuts in pension and healthcare. Companies and unions across the country were watching the Mott Applesauce Strike as a sign of bargaining trends to come. So Monday’s settlement is being seen as a “victory” because it stopped profitable companies from demanding wage cuts.
But was the “victory” at Mott’s really a victory? For the first time, Mott’s workers were forced to accept a two-tier employee structure–a system that breaks union solidarity over the long run by pitting new hires against older employees. Under the new system, new hires will not have guaranteed pension plans like current workers, but instead have riskier 401(k) plans. Likewise, the company will decrease its matching payments to all retirement plans as well as force employees to pay healthcare contributions of 20 percent.
As Stephen Franklin reported on this website last week, Snapple argued that because the average worker in the Williamson area was making $14 an hour, while Mott’s workers were averaging $21 an hour, Mott’s workers should accept wage cuts because the local area contained so many workers who would work for less. Mott’s demanded this despite boasting one of its best annual profits on record last year–$550 million, up from $312 million the year before.
As Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said, “This is the first time a very profitable company has come to us and asked for concessions, and I’ve been with the union for 23 years.”
Yes, the new agreement does “restore” wage levels for current employees. But it also freezes them for three years.
One has to wonder how much of a victory this truly is for labor. At a time when Mott’s overall profits are increasing, workers wages’ should be increasing. By threatening massive wage cuts, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group was able to force the union to accept small benefit concessions and a two-tier employee system that saves Dr Pepper Snapple money.
The fact that a corporation was able to force these concessions on workers while making record profits is a testament to the weakened state of organized labor, and the desperation of American workers.

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Dr. Tom Moulton arrives cradling an orchid in one hand and a loaf of home-made soda bread in the other. My white phalaenopsis is wilting, so he rushed right over.
“Oh, it didn’t make it! But don’t worry, the white ones are common,” he says soothingly as he presents me with the yellow orchid he brought as a replacement. “You can easily find another one.”
Tom is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center who takes care of kids who have sickle cell anemia. He doesn’t wear a scary white lab coat or an off-putting tie. He treats his patients like family, and they keep him close to their hearts.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Dr. Tom, as he is called, makes house calls for plants and people.
Through clinical work, research and teaching, he’s devoted his life to the health care needs of children, especially those in poorer communities, and dreams of a sickle cell cure. You’ll see him Saturday in the Sickle Cell Thalassemia Patients Network’s annual fund-raising walkathon in Central Park.
Tom’s a most modest fellow; he has enough plaques and awards to fill a hospital ward. But mention them, and he gets as bashful as a teen on his first date.
And his sinfully sweet peanut brittle, oh, good grief, he can’t take credit for that either. That’s his grandmother’s recipe.
But the facts are the facts. At the hospital, Tom is the doctor who brings in the bagels to the nurses and secretaries. At church, he’s the lector and eucharistic minister who bakes the communion bread, sets up the socials and drives souls to and from services. At home, well, there’s nary a neighbor who hasn’t called upon him for a house call.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Tom with Bashful, one of the cats who call him Dad.
He once spent hours on the phone trying to persuade immigration authorities to allow his patient’s sister to come to New York from the Dominican Republic to see whether she was a match for a stem cell transplant. Despite the immigration roadblocks, the sister was eventually allowed into the United States, and the family was reunited.
Then there are the cats. Well, it’s as though Tom’s their Pied Piper. All he has to do is walk down the street, and the strays can’t stay away.
“I have always found physical biology fascinating,” he says. “I knew I either wanted to work in pediatrics or geriatrics. I found that I much prefer working with children because they bounce back so much easier than adults.”
The seventh of eight children, Tom grew up in Brimfield, Ill., an insignificant dot on the map near Peoria. His parents weren’t in the medical profession, but his grandfather was a pharmacist who was the inspiration for Mr. Morgan, the druggist in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Tom has a great bedside manner, even with cats.
“Mr. Wilder sent him a copy of the book in the 1940s with a personal note that said something to the effect of ‘Mr. Morgan may sound somewhat familiar,’” Tom says.
It was in Brimfield that Tom learned to bake and garden. “We had 10 acres, and we had a vegetable garden,” he says. “I planted cantaloupe — nobody else could get them to grow. My mother had orchids, but she didn’t have time to take care of them. I can’t stand to see anything wilting or dying, so I took care of them. And my sister and I baked and made candy when we were kids.”
What with so many children in the family, Tom quickly learned to make his own way in life. Tom, the high school’s valedictorian, mowed lawns to earn money to attend Case Western Reserve University, a private college in Cleveland. He graduated cum laude. He went to graduate school at Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago and did a pediatric residency at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. He then went on to do a hematology/oncology fellowship at Columbia University.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Tom is an orchid whisperer, too.
From there, he eventually got a job at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, where he worked until last year when he transferred to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center.
Tom, by his own admission, is shy. Of course, when he married filmmaker and gay-rights activist Brendan Fay, all hope of staying on the sidelines vanished.
He and Brendan met at a mass held by Dignity/USA, a gay Catholic group, at St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church.
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
It’s so like Tom to stay in the background and put Bashful in the spotlight.
“I had broken up with a longtime boyfriend, and I started going to church to meet people,” Tom says. “I don’t smoke or drink, and I was a wallflower. I used to sit in the back, and I never went to the social events.”
One Sunday when Brendan was running late, he found himself sitting in the back pew next to Tom. He introduced himself and before Tom knew what was happening, Brendan asked him to help arrange an event for the Lavender Green Alliance, an Irish gay group.
“He called me the next night, and I thought, ‘He must be desperate to get help for the event.’ As it turned out, that was our first date.”
It was Brendan who gave Tom his public role. “We’re constantly in the newspapers,” Tom says. “The publicity doesn’t bother me. Most of it is on Brendan. I’m just tagging along, but I’m very happy to support him. And if it hadn’t been for him, I never would have gotten to Ireland or Poland.”
Photo by Nancy A. Ruhling
Tom lulls Bashful to sleep.
Their wedding made international headlines, and to mark their fifth anniversary, Tom asked everyone to send donations to a foundation for Polish children who had cancer. He recently returned from Poland, where he visited the foundation leaders and spoke at the pediatric oncology department at the children’s hospital in Krakow.
But all in all, he’d be just as happy to be puttering around the garden, where he’s planted a fig tree, a lilac bush and six big blueberry bushes. Or tending to the orchids. Or playing with the cats.
Speaking of orchids, Tom tells me that I must replant the biggest one when its blooming cycle ends. He gives me instructions, but he knows as well as I that when the time comes, I’ll call him again. And he’ll come, gladly, bearing gifts.
Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com.
Copyright 2010 by Nancy A. Ruhling

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When it comes to summer music festivals in Colorado, most visitors think of bluegrass in Telluride, folk in Lyons and the all-encompassing Mile High Music Festival just east of Denver.
Is somebody in Pagosa Springs trying to keep the Four Corners Folk Festival a secret?
This hidden gem tucked into the southwest corner of the state, about 50 miles east of Durango, has to be one of the most gorgeous high-elevation settings in the country. Like the overhyped Telluride Film Festival, its competition for the entertainment dollar that’s about a three-hour scenic drive to the northwest, the Four Corners Folk Festival is usually held over the first weekend in September heading into Labor Day. And while it takes several hours behind the wheel (about six from Denver) and some treacherous turns before arriving, the majestic beauty you discover along the way makes it well worthwhile. Even if you can only make it for the grand finale on Sunday.
Of the mountain music festival more than 7,000 feet above sea level, 19-year-old Sarah Jarosz, a New Emerging Artist nominee at the recent Americana Music Awards, said, “There’s no place I’d rather be than here.” Added gifted singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan of newgrass (with a classical twist) up-and-comers Crooked Still as the festival celebrated its 15th anniversary, “I really don’t think this weekend could be any better.” (Jarosz, right, performing with O’Donovan.)
Then there’s the wife-and-husband members of scene-stealing group Caravan of Thieves, singer-guitarist Carrie Sangiovanni and the band’s ringleader who goes only by the name of “Fuzz.” They were ebullient in their praise days after their first appearance at the festival run by event director Dan Appenzeller and executive director Crista Munro.
When asked to describe the overall experience, Fuzz and Carrie said in a joint e-mail interview, “To be honest, it was one of our favorite festival shows as the site was gorgeous, the staff was very accommodating and sharp and the patrons were some of the most appreciative and hip folks we’ve played to.”
No wonder the town located within the San Juan Forest attracts world-renowned musicians for three days (and nights) of virtual nonstop entertainment. Under the white tent on top of Reservoir Hill, about 1,200 concertgoers and campers unite to enthusiastically acknowledge an eclectic mix of artists that takes the word “folk” out of the Four Corners Festival and raises it to breathtakingly — and sometimes unexpectedly — higher ground.
Such was the case with Caravan of Thieves, a rowdy bunch of unpredictable party animals based in Connecticut that plays anything but just plain folk.
Although I was seeing them perform for the first time, I was familiar with most of the artists on Sunday’s bill, including: Jarosz (with accompanying whiz kids Alex Hargreaves, 18, fiddle, and Nathaniel Smith, 16, cello); Celtic group Solas, with a touching performance by fiddler Winifred Horan; and the night’s headlining act, bluegrass king Sam Bush (with a crown, right, to prove it) and his solid four-piece backing band. I was particularly looking forward to enjoying Crooked Still after interviewing O’Donovan for a May piece about Some Strange Country, their album that No Depression’s Kim Ruehl said “is easily one of the best records of 2010.”
However, I must admit I had no previous knowledge of Caravan of Thieves, those wild and crazy guys (and gal) who turned out to be the most pleasant surprise of the day.
This zany group brings a touch of vaudeville, over-the-top theatricality, performance art and an all-but-the-kitchen sink collection of percussion utensils (and a hubcap) to their brand of gypsy swing music. Think Three Stooges with a sexy sidekick and musical skills.
Fuzz, who grew up in Queens and Long Island but says his real name and age are “deep and very, very dark secrets,” offers a slapstick delivery and flamenco-style strumming. Sangiovanni, originally from Westchester, N.Y., is the alluring heart and soul of this gang of four. Handsome Brian Anderson (double bass) and string-bean Benjamin Dean (fiddle), who both hail from Connecticut, contribute mightily to their madcap shenanigans. (Dean, left, and Anderson, right, are shown with Sangiovanni.)
With fetching lace stockings and gloves, along with an acoustic blue guitar, Sangiovanni is the focal point, but there’s so much more to see. The group in perpetual motion slides through their set of broad comedy with ease. They offer up their own compositions from their self-released Bouquet while daringly taking on such covers as the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” earning a standing ovation in the process.
Covering Talking Heads shouldn’t be that mind-boggling because Fuzz, right, has performed for seven years in Tom Tom Club, the funky freestyle outfit created by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. That husband-wife/drummer-bass pairing provided the strong shoulders for the Heads’ avant-garde ensemble that became an international sensation under the experimental wizardry of David Byrne.
When they were a duo, Fuzz and Carrie also did a night of Talking Heads music with String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth and The Motet for a special Halloween show in Denver in 2008.
Of Frantz and Weymouth, Fuzz and Carrie said:
Asked if Caravan of Thieves was intimidated at the thought of playing a somewhat traditional folk festival in Colorado, the charming couple said:
Besides, they made it a point to interact with the fans before and after their set, partaking in Friday night’s late show at Ross Aragon Community Center just below Reservoir Hill and in the workshop tent at noon Sunday. They also encountered “magical experiences” in the campgrounds and around nightly campfires, playing for patrons who paid as much as $325 to hang out on the hill all three days. And they even performed a private concert for a man who was too ill to make it to Sunday’s mid-afternoon set.
Along with quirky songs from Bouquet (“Ghostwriter,” “Rattlesnake,” “Bar Isole,” “Freaks” and “Billy,” a tale about a guy who’s a bug) their memorable show under the tent also included a “montage” about the weather that was downright uproarious, bringing new meaning to “You Are My Sunshine” and “Singing in the Rain.”
Proving to be kid-friendly, too, Sangiovanni, left, and the rest of the band asked children of all ages to join them onstage for their usual set closer called “Raise the Dead,” co-written by the personable pair who compose much of the band’s original material.
Despite the gruesome title, the song’s actually an uplifting — rousing, even — singalong. With bursts of hand clapping and foot stomping, the number, according to Fuzz, is about “bringing all the wonderful and amazing people that are special in your life back” and “we’re gonna have a party for these folks.”
It can be found only in an “abbreviated form” as a hidden track on their recent live release,
Mischief Night, but Fuzz and Carrie said, “We plan to record the whole song in a studio this fall and it will be on a new album we will release early next year.”
Asked if they knew about Phantom Planet’s song of the same name, Fuzz and Carrie said: Not until now… Just when you thought you thought of something first! But after giving it a listen or two, the two songs seem very different, so it’s hard to compare. Their song is more indie rock/pop and seems to be a bit darker and heavier, where we see ours as a celebration of life… or death… or something like that.
Whatever it’s celebrating, Caravan of Thieves always seem to be the life of the party. In fact, as the remaining stragglers were filtering out the gates to board the buses heading down the mountain, Fuzz and Sangiovanni were still hanging tough. In their minds, the party wasn’t over until they said it was over, as evidenced by their comment to no one in particular:
“Let’s see if Sam Bush likes to take whiskey shots.”
Extras
See Michael Bialas’ slideshow from Day 3 of the Four Corners Folk Festival in Pagosa Springs, Colorado on September 5, 2010:

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Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)
–
“I’m gonna be a minister’s wife!”
True, Lettie Mae’s assertion that she’s turned her life around by having an affair with her minister may not be the most important moment of this year’s season finale, “Evil Is Going On,” but for me, that declaration sums up a lot of what has made this season great.
For one thing, it’s a funny, tacky line, especially the way that Adina Porter delivers it, and True Blood would be nothing without its tacky humor and excellent acting.
But Lettie Mae’s pronouncement, made to Tara as they stand on Lettie Mae’s porch, also suggests a yawning chasm of desperation… of the pain brought about by misguided love. And if you’ve been reading Sucker Punch this year, then you know I’ve been following that very theme for weeks.
The Lettie Mae moment also captures the specific tenor of this episode. When she tells her daughter that she has found peace in the arms of a philandering man of God, you can see Tara’s heartbreak… and heartbreak ties everything together this week.
Because really, despite the murders and the screaming and the visions of demons, this is one of the saddest episodes of the year. It’s pretty gutsy to close the season on such a devastated note, but as I reflect on it, it makes sense. True Blood spent the last eleven episodes showing us all the ways that love can hurt people, and more to the point, it showed people doing crazy things because of that love. By ending the year in a (relatively) quiet place, the show gives itself the freedom to explore new emotional terrain in 2011. Instead of picking up at the same fevered point, it can take a breath and adjust its tone, if it chooses.
Lord knows, there are plenty of interesting places to go next year. For one thing, Tommy’s heartbreak led him to steal from Sam, and as we see, that breaks Sam’s heart, too. But then black oil starts pouring out of the cracks, and Sam becomes the same vicious bastard we saw in those flashbacks a few weeks ago. When he shoots his own brother in the back, he essentially ends his current life. Who will he become now? Tommy’s death was inevitable—he was clearly in the Maryanne/Rene slot—but I wasn’t expecting it to come at Sam’s hands. Kudos to Sam Trammell for pulling of this transformation, particularly after that dubious meltdown in Merlotte’s in episode 11.
On the “terrible family” tip… how about Hoyt’s Mama? Ain’t nothing good coming from her decision to buy a gun. And is she the one who put the creepy baby in Hoyt and Jessica’s new house? Because that really freaked me out. Or is the baby part of Jesus’ witchcraft? Or Holly’s?
At any rate, witchcraft will clearly dominate the fourth season, and I’m down with that. If nothing else, it may give Lafayette more screen time. He spends this episode tapping into his cosmic ability to see horrible visions of the future (or of people’s souls, or whatever), which suggests he may be a fulcrum for the upcoming witchy doings. His mama did warn him that people wanted his light, after all.
But what willFay Fay’s cousin do? She seems caught between becoming an annoying, whiny victim yet again and actually sucking it up, getting strong, and doing something with her life. Personally, though I thought she had a decently interesting arc this year, I wouldn’t mind seeing Tara disappear for a season. There are only so many more “angry crying” scenes that I can take, and God knows I can’t take any more scenes where Sookie and Tara talk about being friends but don’t actually behave like friends. “Sookie, I love you so much! But you know how you’re terrifed right now? Well, too bad, hooker. I’m going to steal my cousin’s car.” “Oh, Tara, that’s okay. I love you, too! And since I got pissed off at you for not helping Bill after you got raped by a vampire, I kind of understand why you’re bolting right now.”
Ahem. You get my point. I love this show, but they need to work that mess out.
Another danger zone? Godric. His entire sanctimonious character gets on my damn nerves, and when I saw him floating above Eric like some jailbait Jiminy Cricket, I thought I was going to scream. That is, until I realized Eric was going to ignore Godric’s wisdom. Sure, Eric believes that Russell will find peace if he dies, but that’s exactly why he drags him out of the sun and then buries him in concrete: He doesn’t want Russell to have peace. He wants Russell to suffer forever.
Now that is some complicated plot development! Eric’s heart is so broken that he will not give up his quest for vengeance. (Conveniently, his concrete plan also makes room for Russell to return to the show. Hooray!)
Along those lines, I can’t help but feel for Russell—ashy, ashy Russell—as he watches the remains of Talbot get poured down Fangtasia’s garbage disposal. The King of Louisiana may be a psycho, but he’s still got feelings. On the other hand, I love the look on Anna Paquin’s face as she gets rid of Talbot’s remains. Did anyone else notice that that’s exactly the way she looks in The Piano when she betrays Holly Hunter?
Speaking of Stackhouses… I don’t know what to make of Jason Stackhouse, Mayor of Petticoat Junction. Lay aside the potential DEA conviction and the fact that Crystal just got dragged off by her inbreeding werepanther brother. What is Jason going to do with the people of Hotshot? I’m glad this season has awakened his sense of honor and purpose, but is he up to this challenge? I have no idea where this story will go, and that makes me want to follow it. (But whatever Jason does in Hotbox, can he please do it without a shirt on? Thanks.)
Of course, I guess Hotbox is nothing compared to FairyTown. Now that Sookie’s broken heart and fear for her safety have convinced her to follow the light, I don’t know what to expect for her, either. I’m praying that there’s at least one scene in FairyTown that involves a Tori Amos song. Right? What other contemporary pop artist would be better suited for that soundtrack? Maybe a little “Professional Widow” as Sookie dances in the Fairy Club? Or some “Cornflake Girl” as she eats a bow of Fairy Food?
But I digress. Half the reason Sookie flees is because she doesn’t trust Eric, but the other half is because she doesn’t trust Bill. The writers made it clear weeks ago that Queen Sophie-Anne sent Bill to Bon Temps to kidnap Sookie, but actually hearing it confirmed by Bill is shocking. And learning (thanks to Eric’s tattling) that Bill arranged the parking lot assault that made Sookie need his blood? Why, that means that Bill was “saving” her just so he could track her. Damn. That’s cold.
However, I believe Bill when he says he fell in love with Sookie. (It’s just like The Bodyguard: Rule number two, never fall in love.) I also understand why brokenhearted Sookie can’t believe him. It’s just a terrible situation all around.
And then there’s moment whn Bill’s heart breaks—when he’s clutching Sookie’s doorframe, being magically pulled out her house as she rescinds his invitation across her threshold. What a perfect image for collapsing love: Hanging on by your fingertips, even though it’s obvious you’re about to be blasted into darkness. That moment gives the finale a resonant emotional undertow, and it is my final Sucker Punch of the year.
I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed discussing True Blood with you. This has been my favorite season of the show, and my enjoyment has been magnified by our interactions.
As we wait for season four, I’d love to keep chatting with you at The Critical Condition. I’ll be discussing all sorts of pop culture there, and you’re welcome anytime!

Follow Mark Blankenship on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I’m rooting for perpetual crisis. I love it when our media and political leaders go ape over some nut burning (or not burning or almost burning) a Quran or some such. I love those militia stories too! Best of all is loony violence from wing nuts in whatever cause. I find the “Tea Party” virtually orgasmic!
So here is a news story that I want to ignore, as will any commentator worth his or her hysteria.
Horrible! Will someone please shut him up!
See, I’m a writer so I need crisis the way doctors need illness: doctors may want to cure patients, but let’s face it, they depend on dire misfortune for their paychecks.
But doctors find it easier to earn a living than writers do. Almost everyone will get cancer eventually, but no one has to buy a book, no matter what their prostate is doing!
The media gatekeepers who give me access to potential readers aren’t interested in my books, let alone actual constructive ideas (who reads these days?) but in selling advertising. So in order to let people know about my books I find ways to ride the media’s self-serving (ever-briefer) “news” cycles.
In other words, I react to news like playing a video game, which is the way the news outlets react themselves. For instance, a while back I wrote a book about growing up in a bizarre religious household. So whenever I saw a headline about religion-related news Bingo! I’d crash out an op-ed or blog. And then before that I had a bestseller on what it’s like to be a Marine’s dad in time of war. Hello! War is the one thing we never run out of in America. And our wars never end.
If I’m lucky with the choice of my subjects (call them “Outrages Of The Moment” when I’m on cable news and “Grave Concerns” when I’m on NPR) within a day or so of a blog or op-ed going “viral” I’ll be on a cable news shows or self-satisfied radio shows spouting off and the shows’ directors will cut to a shot of (or make mention of) my book as if it has something to do with the story at hand.
Of course it mostly doesn’t. But they need guests to hype their hype and I need them to sell my books. Exposure: it’s the way I get paid for giving my opinion and thus filling a few moments of otherwise dead air for whomever for free.
I pretend that the news show I’m on is more interested in news than in selling advertising and they pretend that I’m an “expert” more interested in their story-of-the-moment than in selling my book. Of course we’re fooling no one. But the great thing is that I give good outrage (and/or “concern”) and so they get lots of email and my Amazon numbers go up too!
Win/win.
These days panic and hysteria are what sell the “news” that sells the advertising that pays for the media platforms I use to sell my books.
Here’s the basic rule of playing the hysteria game: we commentators claim that everything is worse than it is and that if you listen to us we’ll help you save our country, economy, religious freedom, children, women’s rights — whatever.
We make a big deal out of nothing much again and again and again by pushing doom at fever pitch packaged as a news, commentary, op-ed or blog. But here’s the actual truth we commentators (of the left or right, center or fringe) — let alone the news business itself — won’t often let slip: America is not in need of saving from anything but hysteria and crisis-driven news!
Nor will we ever say that America is in great shape (compared to just about everywhere else.) And you’ll never hear us say these things either, for instance that:
When your average Republicans, Democrats and Independent voters (who supposedly hate each other) sit down together and talk about what really matters to most people — which is not what MSNBC or FOX News says but our spouses, partners, children and grandchildren — we “divided” “hate-filled” “culture warrior” “left” “right” Americans mostly agree that love is more important than politics.
We all get on remarkably well.
Few nations have ever been better protected or safer than America is today.
The economy is going to be fine sooner than later.
Terrorism isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Even 9/11 was minor compared to the casualties in most wars — say the flattening of whole cities in World War II by all sides.
We are incredibly rich.
Given what was on the president’s desk on Day One, the Obama presidency is going well and will be seen as historically successful.
America is not in decline, rather muddling along into an unknown future just like everyone else.
We commentators know that the people we’re “informing” by selling “crisis” to also know that we know that they know that what we’re actually doing is what they’re actually doing: making a living. And that’s not too terrible a thing to do, so long as we professional talkers don’t take ourselves too seriously, let alone confuse our relentless self-promotion and selling of advertising (mislabeled as “news” and “opinion”) with telling the truth.
Come to think of it maybe this Hyping-Of-The-News-Is-A-Crisis crisis can be turned into The Next Crisis to be hyped! It’s time to wax historical about being hysterical! I might even write my next sky-is-falling book on that!
Frank Schaeffer is a writer with no new book to sell…. (today).

Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Google’s mobile operating system (OS) — Android — is one of the most successful mobile OS’ in recent memory. According to Gartner — Android sales for 2010 are 47 million devices worldwide and by 2014 we will be looking at 264 million Android devices. This is not a bad figure for an OS that was released on February 9, 2009 – Android 1.1 (also known as Cupcake). Since then Google has rapidly deployed updates of the OS:
Android 1.6 — Donut on September 15, 2009
Android 2.0/2/1 — clair on October 26, 2009
Android 2.2 — Froyo on May 20, 2010
Android 3.0 – Gingerbread – will be the latest installation of the popular OS. Gingerbread is expected to be release Q4 2010. In lock-step with the various updates there has been a rash of Android handsets and tablets.
Handsets:
HTC G2
Samsung Vibrant
Samsung Captivate
Tablets:
Samsung Tab – Android 2.2 (Froyo)
Toshiba Folio 100 – Android 2.2 (Froyo )
Viewsonic ViewPad – Android 2.2 (Froyo)
These tablets are not yet available in the U.S. but are rumored to be released Q4 2010. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), mobile network operators (MNOs) and semi-conductor makers can’t get enough of Android.
Unfortunately, Android’s explosive growth has caused issues within the space and confused consumers. Google is realizing that the viral adoption of its mobile OS has a side-effect — fragmentation. According to Gartner — Android 2.2 (Froyo) is on about 29% of active devices and Android 2.0/2.1 (clair) is on 41.7% as of September 1. Additionally, there appears to be no minimum hardware standard with handsets or tablets. This seems to be translating into a mixed user experience.
One of the pillars of Apple’s success in the mobility space is its congruency. Google need not be a dictator — the company should simply support minimum requirements. Perhaps – Google could tap the Open Handset Alliance to help it draft a list of minimum industry standards. Google is showing signs of bringing the industry into alignment with Gingerbread. Unfortunately, much of the logistics are being kept close to the vest. Why — I am assuming that Schmidt simply does not want to upset the various OEMs, MNOs, semi-conductor makers and Android developers. After all — this is an ecosystem and the most minor change could adversely affect Android’s adoption.

Follow Ramon Nuez on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Ted Leonsis became the new owner of the Washington Wizards a few months ago. The team he now leads won only 26 games in 2009-10. But through the quirks of the bouncing lottery balls, the Wizards managed to land the number one pick in the 2010 NBA draft. And with John Wall now leading the team, Leonsis and the Wizards seem to be feeling good about the team’s future prospects.
Arturo Galletti – a mere blogger – is apparently less impressed. Mr. Galletti argued this past weekend that the Wizards have a chance to be the worst team in NBA history in 2010-11. Mr. Leonsis – via his own blog – took exception to this forecast.
As I will note below, I have some reason to be interested in the debate between these two individuals. Before I get to this reason, though, let me briefly discuss how I see Washington’s 2010-11 prospects.
The story of next season begins with where the team was last year. The table below lists the ten players who played the most minutes for the Wizards last year. It also reports each player’s Wins Produced (here is an explanation). As one can see, these ten players produced about 27.7 wins last year. In other words, whatever success the Wizards had last year can be linked to these players.
The second half of the table details how many wins the Wizards could have expected had their players maintained what they did in the past. And as one can see, if we knew how many minutes each player was going to play before the 2009-10 season started, we would have expected the Wizards to do about as well as they did. In other words, we should have expected the Wizards to be a below average team last year.
This analysis also tells us why the Wizards might have even more problems next year. The quartet of Mike Miller, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison were expected to produce about 23 wins in 2009-10. When the season was over, these four had produced 22.0 wins. The remainder of the roster, though, didn’t produce much more. And unfortunately, all four of these players will be playing elsewhere in 2010-11.
Who did Leonsis and the Wizards get to replace these four? According to ESPN.com and Yahoo.com, Washington’s depth chart currently is as follows:
Starters
PG: John Wall
SG: Gilbert Arenas
SF: Al Thornton
PF: Andray Blatche
C: Javale McGee
Bench
PG: Kirk Hinrich
SG: Nick Young
SF: Josh Howard
PF: Yi Jianlian
C: Hilton Armstrong
Of these players, only John Wall didn’t play in the NBA last year. The following table details what these nine veterans did last year. In looking at these numbers keep in mind that an average NBA player will post a 0.100 WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes]. As one can see, every single veteran on this team was below average last year.
If we make a guess at how many minutes each player will play per game we can estimate the number of wins each player will produce. Adding up what we see for all nine players and we see a team – before we get to John Wall’s contribution – that only wins six games. In other words, this is a very poor collection of NBA veterans.
Now there are two things to keep in mind. First, we have not considered the contribution of John Wall. Unfortunately, there is reason to think – as Mr. Galletti noted in his post – that Wall may not make much difference next year. One should remember, though, that we cannot forecast perfectly what rookies will do (and there is evidence the NBA doesn’t do this well either). So it is possible that Wall will defy Mr. Galletti’s analysis.
It is also possible that the veterans can do better. For example, Gilbert Arenas produced 8.6 wins in 2006-07. That same season, Kirk Hinrich offered 5.6 wins while Josh Howard produced 8.7 victories. And Hilton Armstrong – again back in 2006-07 – wasn’t nearly as awful as he has been every year since (he produced 1.1 wins that year). If these players return to what we saw four years ago (and yes, that is the best these four ever played in the NBA), the Wizards will be better next season.
Of course, hoping players will return to what we saw in what is now the ancient past appears to be the very definition of “grasping at straws.” And that illustrates why the Wizards look to be in trouble.
At the end of the day, wins do not happen by magic in the NBA. Someone has to take the actions necessary to create wins. Such actions include shooting efficiently, rebounding, getting steals, and avoiding turnovers. It is these tangible actions that produce wins in the NBA. And when you have a collection of players who haven’t produced wins in the recent past, it seems likely you will not be very successful in the near future.
In other words, it looks like Mr. Galletti is on to something. The Wizards may not be the worst team ever (then again, maybe they will be). But they are not likely to be very good next season.
For me to essentially agree with Mr. Galletti is not surprising. If you look at his blog post you will see he is also employing Wins Produced, the same method my co-authors and I detailed in The Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins.
Why should you believe what is written in these books? Well, let’s consider the following comment offered on Stumbling on Wins last May:
David Berri and Martin Schmidt have written a very interesting book called Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports.
I just concluded reading it. I recommend it highly to the passionate, opinionated fan. The stats speak loudly and clearly.
This is a wonderful counter cultural look at the world of sports by economists and math majors. Buy it today.
The author of this wonderful comment on our book was Ted Leonsis. Yes, the stats do speak loudly and clearly. And the message they send is that this collection of Wizards will probably be a very poor team in 2010-11 (and one suspects, this is not the message Mr. Leonsis is hearing from his employees in Washington).
A few more thoughts have been added to this story at The Wages of Wins Journal (see the bottom of the post in that forum).

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com