I AM A DIASPORAL JEW OF THE ASHKENAZ TRIBE AND I HEREBY DECLARE BUELAHMAN AND LYNDA OF BUELAHMAN'S REDSTATE REVOLT TO BE ABSOLUTELY FREE OF ANTI-SEMITISM OF ANY KIND. THEIR VIEWS ON AMERICA'S ISRAEL POLICY IS THE SAME AS MINE. IT IS THE SAME AS WELL OVER 30% OF THE ISRAELI PEOPLE AND OVER 70% OF THE DIASPORAL ASHKENAZ COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE BOTH THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL.
When George Harrison passed away in November 2001, the music world paid tribute to him through the now infamous, Concert for George. Held at the Royal Albert Hall a year after Harrison’s death, it was organized by Eric Clapton and contained performances from several of Harrison’s friends including Clapton, Tom Petty, and Paul McCartney. While that show was a very fitting tribute to his life and music, it often overshadows the performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.
After being inducted by fellow Traveling Wilburys’ members Jeff Lynne and Petty, several musicians took to the stage for one of the best covers of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” that’s out there. Petty played lead acoustic guitar alongside Dhani Harrison, now a member of thenewno2, while Lynne played rhythm electric guitar. Many other musicians packed the stage to fill in the sound of record. Both Lynne and Petty shared vocal duties with Petty singing the chorus and Lynne handling the verses. Both of their vocals help make this a great performance as they capture the sad tone of the song as well as holding true to Harrison’s original version found on The White Album.
Although Dhani doesn’t have much to do during the song besides play along and sing backing vocals on the chorus, you can’t help but watch him. While it’s clear that all the people on stage are emotionally invested in the performance, the late ex-Beatles’ son is on a whole different emotional level. Even though his face, an almost spot-on copy of a young George, doesn’t reveal this, it still feel like he’s making the most of what he can in honor of his father.
While the performance is good all around, it’s the ending that really takes it to another level. Just when it seems that the song is winding down, Prince, another 2004 inductee, appears out of nowhere and launches into a stunning solo that lasts for almost three minutes. Decked out in a red fedora and shirt, Prince shatters all the tricks in the book, as he runs the pick up and down the neck of the guitar, intentionally falls backwards off the stage only to be caught by a stagehand (earning a big smile from Dhani), and even appears to play with his teeth for a second. This might sound overdone for a song like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” but the solo really works for the performance due to the emotion put into it. The repeated singing of the last line of the chorus by Petty allows Prince to start up a new part of the solo every time it’s sung.
This cover version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is one of the best out there. The emotions of George Harrison’s friends and family seem to burst out through Prince’s solo at the end. At first, you may think the song is a mourning of Harrison’s death but by the end, you realize that it’s really a celebration of his life.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told his colleagues during a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday that the best way to fund the war would be to use unspent stimulus funds, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the third-ranking Republican.
Wonder why Mitch blamed Lamar for this ploy?
Wonder why the third ranking Rep is telling the 1st ranking Rep what to do?
Better yet, why do Tennesseans put up with an elitist fool like this who would rather give YOUR tax money (Stimulus) to another country instead of for YOU and this country’s immediate needs?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told his colleagues during a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday that the best way to fund the war would be to use unspent stimulus funds, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the third-ranking Republican.
Facts
Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States.
By the fall of 1621 only half of the pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast.
Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.
The Plymouth Pilgrims were the first to celebrate the Thanksgiving.
The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620.
The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to reach North America.
The pilgrims sailed on the ship, which was known by the name of ‘Mayflower’.
They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day in the fall of 1621.
They celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The drink that the Puritans brought with them in the Mayflower was the beer.
The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.
The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the first Thanksgiving feast in the year 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians also to the feast.
The first Thanksgiving feast was held in the presence of around ninety Wampanoag Indians and the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, was also invited there.
The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days.
President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in the year 1789 and again in 1795.
The state of New York officially made Thanksgiving Day an annual custom in 1817.
Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor with a magazine, started a Thanksgiving campaign in 1827 and it was result of her efforts that in 1863 Thanksgiving was observed as a day for national thanksgiving and prayer.
Abraham Lincoln issued a ‘Thanksgiving Proclamation’ on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving. Whereas earlier the presidents used to make an annual proclamation to specify the day when Thanksgiving was to be held.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt restored Thursday before last of November as Thanksgiving Day in the year 1939. He did so to make the Christmas shopping season longer and hus stimulate the economy of the state.
Congress passed an official proclamation in 1941 and declared that now onwards Thanksgiving will be observed as a legal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November every year.
Over 30 years ago– I had read a small leather-bound book about the Shroud. I enjoyed the starting point that the researcher used . Art. It was amazing and thought provoking. Anyway– since then I have always found the research facinating. Of course I am lost when it comes to why no DNA research– but thats just me. lol
Sun, Nov. 22, 2009
Researcher says faint text proves shroud’s authenticity
By Ariel David
Associated Press
ROME – A Vatican researcher asserts that nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves that the artifact revered as Jesus’ burial cloth is authentic.
The assertion made by Barbara Frale in a book drew immediate skepticism from some scientists, who maintain the shroud is a medieval forgery.
Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, said Friday that she used computers to enhance images of faintly written words in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic scattered across the shroud.
She asserted that the words include the name “Jesus Nazarene” in Greek, proving that the text could not be of medieval origin because no Christian at the time, even a forger, would have labeled Jesus a Nazarene without referring to his divinity.
The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ’s image was recorded on the linen fibers at the time of his resurrection.
The fragile artifact, owned by the Vatican, is kept locked in a special protective chamber in Turin’s cathedral and is rarely shown.
Skeptics point out that radiocarbon dating conducted in 1988 determined it was made in the 13th or 14th century.
While faint letters scattered around the face on the shroud were seen decades ago, serious researchers dismissed them because of the test’s results, Frale said in an interview.
But when she cut out the words from photos of the shroud and showed them to experts, they concurred the writing style was typical of the Middle East in the first century A.D. – Jesus’ time.
She believes the text was written on a document by a clerk and glued to the shroud over the face so the body could be identified by relatives and buried properly. Metals in the ink used at the time may have allowed the writing to transfer to the linen, Frale said.
“I tried to be objective and leave religious issues aside,” Frale said. “What I studied was an ancient document that certifies the execution of a man, in a specific time and place.”
Frale is noted in Italy for her research on the medieval order of the Knights Templar and her discovery of unpublished documents on the group in the Vatican’s archives.
Earlier this year she published a study contending the Templars at one time had the shroud in their possession. That raised eyebrows because the order was abolished in the early 14th century and the shroud is first recorded in history about 1360 in the hands of a French knight.
But her latest book, The Shroud of Jesus Nazarene, in Italian, raised doubts even among experts.
“People work on grainy photos and think they see things,” said Antonio Lombatti, a church historian who has written books about the shroud. “It’s all the result of imagination and computer software.”
Lombatti also rejected the idea that authorities in the time of Jesus would officially return the body of a crucified man to relatives after filling out some paperwork. Victims of the most cruel punishment used by the Romans would usually be left on the cross or were disposed of in a dump to add to the execution’s deterring effect.
Accidentally last night, I watched a PBS documentary titled “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin”. I cried so hard. I had no idea about this little known, to me, huge part of history. I Immediately flashed back to the time of my daughters and my reunion. It was filmed live-time in 1998 for The Learning Channel– and as a heart felt thank you, I will never ever forget or regret giving Boris [ the TLC Reunion cameraman-- from Moscow] my ‘Meet the Beatles’ album! I never fully understood his weeping when I gave it to him… not until now. I sincerely hope that you can watch this program . It is just Awesome, and above all just plain humbling. I never knew– I just never knew. Below are 6 links to the documentary that someone was awesome enough to post on youtube!!!
Brief::
Mon, November 9 | 9PM How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin
This is the extraordinary and untold story of how the Beatles punctured the Iron Curtain. In August 1962, award-winning director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film, in Liverpool’s Cavern Club, with a raw and unrecorded group of unknown rockers — the Beatles. Twenty-five years later, while making a series of films in Russia, Woodhead learned just how powerful Beatlemania was in the Soviet Union. Even though the Beatles never performed there, their music and rebellious style had soaked into the lives of a generation of Russian kids. This film features personal stories from members of Russia’s Beatles generation, who talk about how the Fab Four changed their lives, gave them hope and helped to undermine the foundations of the Soviet system. The music was the number one enemy of the State, and teens learned English, revolution and gained strength to over throw the Communist system by listening to underground recordings made using old x-ray film negatives called ‘bones’. To this day, the Beatles remain engrained in the life changed hearts of a once hostage entire youth of a nation .
After several weeks of protests at Senate hearings and health care events by single payer advocates (visit singlepayeraction.org), six physicians from Oregon, with 191 years of combined real-world medical experience, are crossing the country in a 27-foot Winnebago making stops in nearly 30 cities, to debate, educate and advance full medicare for all. Everybody in, nobody out.
Calling themselves “Mad as Hell Doctors,” these physicians are already drawing crowds and expect thousands to turn out at each city that they visit, culminating in a large arrival demonstration in front of the White House around October 1. (Visit www.madashelldoctors.com)
They have written President Obama asking for a meeting “to discuss the future of health care as well as the moral, social, and fiscal imperative of enacting a single-payer system for America at this moment in our history.”
The White House turned them down flat, not even leaving the door open for reconsideration. Mr. Obama has met countless times with the CEOs of large corporations, whose greed and callousness causes so much of this crisis. Though he believes in single payer “if we started from scratch,” he has yet to meet with any single payer delegation.
The White House has shown that it lacks smarts. The formless, waffling Obama health insurance proposal is being shattered by the Republican cluster of Limbaugh-driven lies and the Blue Dog renegades in the Democratic Party, who are busy cashing mounds of campaign checks from the so-called health business. By ignoring and excluding the majority-supported single payer approach, the White House stifles any kind of insurance reform worthy of the name.
Publicized lies are translating into fears among people who should be supporting full medicare for all. FactCheck.org reports that “a notorious analysis of the House health care bill contains 48 claims. Twenty-six of them are false, and the rest are mostly misleading. Only four are true. For example, false are claims that the bill includes an order for end-of-life plans or health care for illegal aliens or assertions that ‘your health care will be rationed.’”
So wild are the falsehoods, fueled by runaway internet traffic, that the Republican National Committee implied in a fundraising letter that Democrats may structure the overhaul in a way to deny medical treatment to Republicans!
As with war, truth is the first casualty when it comes to the health care debate. The Democratically-controlled Congress, on its return after Labor Day, needs a wide-ranging personal, evidence-based series of public House and Senate hearings to again publicize the compelling story of avoidable suffering, fraud, waste, egregious profiteering and top executive self-enrichment – all subsidized by taxpayers.
Take the enormous and shocking information researched by Harvard Professor Malcolm Sparrow-an applied mathematician whose knowledge of health care billing schemes and regulatory deficiencies is without peer.
Mr. Sparrow is no arm-chair commentator. He has dug deeply into the enormously comprehensive frauds on medicare and consumers. He has found payments for medical services ordered by deceased doctors or huge payments in treatments for deceased patients-many gone for years.
Highlighting the widespread fraud on medicare by criminal behavior, he argues that these actions should be treated as “a crime problem” not just a “claims-processing problem.” Without criminal prosecutions, there is no deterrent stopping this massive robbery.
How massive? Read these words in recent testimony by Professor Sparrow:
The units of measure for losses due to health care fraud and abuse in this country are hundreds of billions of dollars per year. We just don’t know the first digit. It might be as low as one hundred billion. More likely two or three. Possibly four or five. But whatever that first digit is, it has eleven zeroes after it. These are staggering sums of money to waste, and the task of controlling and reducing these losses warrants a great deal of serious attention.
In the early 1990s, the Congressional Government Accounting Office estimated that billing fraud accounts for 10% of health care spending annually. That would be about $250 billion this year. In 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno declared that health care fraud was the number two crime problem, after violent crime in the country.
With someone as carefully authoritative as Malcolm Sparrow, the Democrats can make this crime spree front and center during the health care debate. People want to be assured that their health insurance dollars are protected. Instead the “license to steal,” which is the title of Mr. Sparrow’s groundbreaking book, continues. And the Republicans continue to sidetrack priorities for action with seedy prevarications.
It is a remarkable commentary on the state of the White House and Congress that the Democrats appear befuddled in dealing with the kind of coarse, cruel, fear-mongering that an FDR and Lyndon Johnson would have overwhelmed and sent packing.
Meanwhile, join the “Care-A-Van” of roadtripping Oregon physicians and their efforts to bring the message of health care for all to Washington, DC.
These “health care fairs” are popping up all over the country as currently almost 50 million Americans have no real health care. Is this the kind of reform the health insurance corporations suggest we have?
Last night at the cultural rally in Seoul one of the songs had a chorus line that went: “Say good-bye to the world you thought you lived in”……a fitting way to describe America’s race to the bottom of the barrel.
Isn’t it past time that we began to demand more and to fight for it?
We have become a colonized people in the US by the corporate powers but we still seem to suffer from the illusion that we are a democracy and that the people are in charge. The sooner we wake up from this misbegotten dream the better for us all.
And then California does THIS (h/t WorldProutAssembly):
A state board voted Thursday to begin terminating health insurance for more than 60,000 children Oct. 1 as a result of the budget amendments signed into law recently by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those children would be up for an annual review of their coverage next month, but instead they may be dropped from the California Healthy Families program under the action by the state Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board. The board is scrambling to secure funding from other sources, including money set aside by voters for early childhood education, but so far it has come up short. If additional funds are not found, board officials said, the program could ultimately drop 669,296 children in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2010. Currently, 921,000 people age 18 and younger are enrolled in Healthy Families.
By Patrick McGreevy and Evan Halper
Yes, cut healthcare for the neediest. I know I ain’t no California Dude, but this sure seems fucked up to me.
Heather, at C&L, has a clip of Real Time’s Real Reporter, Dana Gould, as he examines the difference between visiting the right-wing nutcases and the RAM gathering in California. Can you imagine the upside down rationale for the people WITH healthcare being all pissed off about Single payer (or any kind of change), when the people hurting the most are the most cordial and helpful?
done
But the Brutal Truth About America’s Healthcare is described by the founder of RAM, Stan Brock in this interview and article first published at The Independent/UK and also featured at CommonDreams. You keep hearing the Rush maniacs scream at TownHall events, but they are mum about this issue. Here is a snippet:
…
President Obama’s healthcare plans had been a central plank of his first-term program, but his reform package has taken a battering at the hands of Republican opponents in recent weeks. As the Democrats have failed to coalesce around a single, straightforward proposal, their rivals have seized on public hesitancy over “socialized medicine” and now the chance of far-reaching reform is in doubt.
Most damaging of all has been the tide of vociferous right-wing opponents whipping up skepticism at town hall meetings that were supposed to soothe doubts. In Pennsylvania this week, Senator Arlen Specter was greeted by a crowd of 1,000 at a venue designed to accommodate only 250, and of the 30 selected speakers at the event, almost all were hostile.
The packed bleachers in the LA Forum tell a different story. The mobile clinic has been organized by the remarkable Remote Area Medical. The charity usually focuses on the rural poor, although they worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now they are moving into more urban venues, this week’s event in Los Angeles is believed to be the largest free healthcare operation in the country.
Doctors, dentists and therapists volunteer their time, and resources to the organization. To many US medical professionals, it offers a rare opportunity to plug into the public service ethos on which their trade was supposedly founded. “People come here who haven’t seen a doctor for years. And we’re able to say ‘Hey, you have this, you have this, you have this’,” said Dr Vincent Anthony, a kidney specialist volunteering five days of his team’s time. “It’s hard work, but incredibly rewarding. Healthcare needs reform, obviously. There are so many people falling through the cracks, who don’t get care. That’s why so many are here.”
Ironically, given this week’s transatlantic spat over the NHS, Remote Area Medical was founded by an Englishman: Stan Brock. The 72-year-old former public schoolboy, Taekwondo black belt, and one-time presenter of Wild Kingdom, one of America’s most popular animal TV shows, left the celebrity gravy train in 1985 to, as he puts it, “make people better”.
Today, Brock has no money, no income, and no bank account. He spends 365 days a year at the charity events, sleeping on a small rolled-up mat on the floor and living on a diet made up entirely of porridge and fresh fruit. In some quarters, he has been described, without too much exaggeration, as a living saint.
Though anxious not to interfere in the potent healthcare debate, Mr Brock said yesterday that he, and many other professionals, believes the NHS should provide a benchmark for the future of US healthcare.
“Back in 1944, the UK government knew there was a serious problem with lack of healthcare for 49.7 million British citizens, of which I was one, so they said ‘Hey Mr Nye Bevan, you’re the Minister for Health… go fix it’. And so came the NHS. Well, fast forward now 66 years, and we’ve got about the same number of people, about 49 million people, here in the US, who don’t have access to healthcare.”
“I’ve been very conservative in my outlook for the whole of my life. I’ve been described as being about 90,000 miles to the right of Attila the Hun. But I think one reaches the reality that something doesn’t work… In this country something has to be done. And as a proud member of the US community but a loyal British subject to the core, I would say that if Britain could fix it in 1944, surely we could fix it here in America.
Healthcare compared
Health spending as a share of GDP
US 16%
UK 8.4%
Public spending on healthcare (% of total spending on healthcare)
What will it take for all you lemmings to get full of the herrings being forced fed you. Do you like the taste so much or are you truly that stupid? Do you consider those elected into office to be more deserving of good, quality Single Payer healthcare than you? Did you know that those fighting against this, use it, even tho “Socialized medicine” (read as “Devil’s Healthcare” in the mind of fools) is Sooooo bad? Or are you aware that the brainwashing is so deep that the elderly and others on Medicare are being brainwashed into thinking that their beloved Medicare is actually “Socialized Medicine”?
When will you think for yourself? Ever?
These criminals, with the exception of a very few, use the Devil’s healthcare and don’t want you to have it… all the while lining their campaign pockets with the very ones that cause your bankruptcy or sickness and death due to limiting or denying your care when the worst comes? Ask your old Mama to give her “Socialized Medicine” up and see what happens. She’ll slap the shit out of you. Ask a vet to give up his VA healthcare for the private plans and watch out for the M16. ask a Congressman to give his up and watch out for the… (crickets chirping).
Single Payer: Listen to the Doctors!
What a concept! Listening to the people who work in our broken healthcare system every day and can tell you exactly what needs to be done from a first hand perspective!
And please watch John’s Homework assignment in a RealNews segment down below highlighting Glen Ford as he explains how they are pulling off Health “Insurance” Reform, when what we need Health “Care” Reform. We do not need health “insurance” reform, unless you call cutting the head off of health insurance companies all together, “reform”. THAT is what is needed and any sane person knows this.
For you “conservatives” out there that keep insisting Obama is “liberal”, consider that he has played to the conservatives at each and every turn in this debate (and virtually every other debate). This man is no more a liberal than YOU are. You fall for the Kabuki Dance and look very stupid doing so, for the most fiscally conservative way to health “CARE” is Single payer. For you “liberals” or “progressives” out there, when will you begin to understand what those terms are and actually mimic their meaning? I’m just asking, because otherwise you are just as foolish and ignorant as your despised two-party headed counterparts in the dance.
Health reform: dead or alive?
Ford: By excluding single payer plan, Obama allowed the right to dominate the reform debate
Maybe all you need, Mr Conservative, is for one of your very own heroes to admit the truth. Is Jon Stewart really this brilliant or is Billy Boy Kristol as stupid as I think he is? Maybe Billy has come to his lying senses, or maybe he just got caught in a trap. Either way, watch some truth come out and explain why the Armed Services “deserve” superior treatment and other Americans don’t. I mean, don’t they say that your reward is the “adventure”, not the job (including benefits)?
I wonder if the following segment from Countdown (guest hosted by Governor Dean) interviewing Wendell Potter, the CIGNA insider who has been forthcoming with the truth about healthcare, would help you understand why the Kabuki Dance moves on and how, if the congress is allowed to carry forward, we will see an even worse situation arise.
I hear ya, Marie, but if you didn’t figure out the bastards were lying to you before you actually voted for the lying scumbag, then all that can really be said about you is that your judgment is shit.
Too damned late and another election gone due to the gullible fools who call themselves “progressives”. Another 4 years of the same old shit.
Ask for your money back now, Marie, but I hold you and all of the rest of you idiots responsible.
I gave $20 a week for seven months, plus $60 every once in a while for a t-shirt and sticker. I gave of my modest purse joyfully. Once I add that all up, it makes a grand total of… $106 billion?! Wait a minute, I thought I was supporting change I could believe in, not more of the same bloodshed and war!
Betrayal is a part of life. After awhile, you just come to expect it. Yet, the initial shock always hits you as a surprise. Alas, the nature of betrayal. Humans are vulnerable to being betrayed because underneath our husky shells, our pain and hardened hearts, we are soft and trustful creatures. We want to believe in people.
I’m not that young, so I possess some cynicism. But I’m not that old either, so I manage some idealism. Sure, I am used to being betrayed by my government. But I thought my days of calling the White House in tears were over. To think that Barack Obama preyed on this naive hope in me and millions like me is unforgivable.
I expect the Republicans to throw money at the Military Industrial Complex. Yet, from the Democrats, I was promised a different direction (like OUT of the Middle East). Regrettably, there has been miniscule change. There is still nothing to believe in.
It is against my religion to say the Pledge of Allegiance. (I am a Christian so I pledge allegiance only to God.) I did, however, pledge my time and treasure to Barack Obama. On November 4, 2008, I danced in the streets waving the American Flag, feeling proud to be an American. I was pathetically close to bustin’ out some Toby Keith ditties.
It’s not just the $106 billion that makes me feel betrayed. It’s not just the fact that Gitmo probably won’t be shut down after all. It is not even the president’s assurance to Republicans that he will not release the photos of detainee abuse.
It is the rumors of intimidation and strong-arming that are, to me, the greatest betrayal.
That President Barack Obama sent Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi to bully anti-war Democrats into voting for the supplemental (and threatening to withdraw the leadership’s support for their re-elections if they didn’t) is a shameful misuse of power. Where’s the humanity I once saw in Barack? It’s just more of the same and I can’t stomach it.
I knew I was naïve; yet like millions of Americans, I had no choice but to believe. Our hearts were desperate for hope. We saw Barack Obama as an oasis in the desert. To think that he may be just a mirage is heartbreaking.When you have a minute, give Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold a call at (202) 224-5323. He was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against the war funding (along with three Republicans and an Independent).
Oh, and please consider supporting my grassroots campaign to get my $680 back so I can donate it to the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center. Thanks.
The Obama Promise Tracker is an electronic tool with which to follow all the promises the new President has made – 895 by its inventor Todd Smiths count. Of these 895 promises, made between February 10 2007 – the day he announced his candidacy – and November 4 – the day he was announced President-elect – 14 are tagged under “Foreign Policy, Israel”.
The first, “I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security”, is a commitment hard to define. Obama also promised to make the peace process “a key diplomatic priority”. This is easier to check, and one Obama is evidently serious about. Proof: the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the Arab-Israeli peace process.
Mitchell is not new to this contentious conflict. He was in the Middle East over eight years ago, appointed by President Bill Clinton, to report on the raging second intifada. The report was not very helpful. The intifada continued. One of his recommended measures was not well received by the Israeli government: to halt development in the settlements, including measures taken to meet the needs of “natural growth”.
“We can’t ask people not to have children. We can’t ask the children not to live with their families,” Israeli opponents claimed.
Mitchell is coming back to a different Middle East. In the past eight years Yasir Arafat died, the intifada was defeated, Israel evacuated Gaza and Hamas was elected. Mitchell will find a Palestinian leader who is willing but incapable and a new Israeli government that needs time to organize. A realistic, modest approach will have to be formulated. One thing can ignite some friction: the man who wanted a total settlement freeze cannot be expected to let Israel off on illegal outposts. The promise that Israel made to evacuate them will have to be executed. This might be possible for a government of the right-centre (more likely) or centre-left (less so, according to polls). It will be very difficult for a government of the right, headed by Likuds Binyamin Netanyahu and supported by right-wing parties only. Netanyahu knows that for his own good, he needs Labor, Kadima or both as part of his coalition.
But for most Israelis, Obama’s commitment will not be tested in Palestine, but rather in Iran. Smith’s Promise Tracker notes three promises: “incentives” for Iran to abandon its nuclear program; a promise to “tighten sanctions”; and “direct diplomacy, without preconditions”. This will be enough only if Iran agrees.
Obama has not always been consistent regarding Iran. Earlier this week, I sent Smith a quote from my May 2007 interview with Obama: “I don’t think it would be appropriate for us to engage in full-scale diplomatic discussions without some progress or some indication of good faith on the part of the Iranians,” the then senator said. “I do think the US needs to send a signal to Iran that if they change their behavior that they have avenues available to them for improved international relations.”
This assertion somewhat contradicts his later promise for unconditional high-level talks. Smith will add the quote to the next edition of the Obama Promise Tracker. This will present a dilemma to those following these promises: do they want the first promise to materialize, or the second?
Of the many remarkable words uttered by America’s new president during his inauguration Tuesday, perhaps the most exceptional were the first: “I, Barack Hussein Obama.”
There was a palpable catching of breaths among the masses of onlookers crammed in front of the towering white US Capitol when he spoke, and then tears of emotion and joy from supporters who knew they were witnessing a triumph of history at hearing that name adorned with the title of president of the United States.
For it encompasses a first name more easily pronounced by Israelis than Americans; a last name with a cadence in striking contrasts to the Johnsons and Adamses and Bushes that proceeded him; and a middle name shared with an arch-foe of America.
And thus, as the first black man to take over the White House, with a moniker that can’t conceal his otherness, he had only to recite his name while taking the oath of office to begin the change he made a central campaign slogan and promise.
And he did not stop there. He spent the 18.5 minutes of his inaugural address attempting to break with his immediate past by taking a different stance from his predecessor on issues, well packed in code terms, ranging from global warming to torture to Iraq. He spoke of the need to “begin again the work of remaking America” and that “we are ready to lead once more.”
Still, in the few policy prescriptions he offered Tuesday, there was little new. Instead, he echoed campaign promises of more international engagement and bold work to stabilize the economy, or further sketched out the moderate pragmatism demonstrated by his personnel choices, such as his promise to leave Iraq “responsibly” rather than immediately, despite a quick withdrawal’s being a central demand he heard on the campaign trail. Actually, the withdraw date of ‘combat’ troops had already been established by the previous administration.
In fact, despite the criticism Obama faced during those many months, that he would be a weak defender of America and abruptly change the way national security is approached, his inaugural address merely gave a softer version of his predecessor George W. Bush’s own articulation of America’s determination to prevail against its enemies.“We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense,” he maintained. “For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
SO, CONCEIVABLY, his freshest departure was the extent to which he laid the blame for these problems not at the door of the past administration or evil outsiders, but at the feet of the American public.
“Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,” he said at one point, adding that “a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
At another, pushing Americans to move past “the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas” of politics as usual, he reminded them, “in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.”
If he staked out one specific theme in this address, it was his call for sacrifice and ownership of the challenges ahead. “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.”
He struck a sober tone in comparison to the rhetorically soaring form that he honed on the campaign trail and brandished as a key weapon in the arsenal that allowed him, a largely unknown freshman senator, to slay the giants of his party and the dragons of the opposition.
SOME PUNDITS panned the address for failing to live up not only to the inaugural speeches of the greatest presidents who preceded him, but also to the campaign speeches of his own pen. But Obama is no longer looking to stir up Americans; he is seeking to sustain them.
While his words of being “in the midst of crisis” and of blame for Americans’ own role in their misfortune might have seemed a jarring notion for the candidate who made hope a centerpiece of his campaign, his focus on the “we,” on the shared obligations of the population, actually pointed to the real engine of change.
If the American people are the ones who need to effect change, rather than forces beyond anyone’s portfolio, it provides some degree of hope, because it offers a course for action to be taken.
“This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall,” he declared.
And the success of shaping that uncertain destiny will depend more on collective action than individual will, even when that individual is one Barack Hussein Obama.
Well, after watching ‘history’ today… I noticed a topic I do desire to ask all of you about. Bear with me as I set this topic up and then ask a few questions. Do those who chose to be the ones ‘recording’ history for our country as well as the world have the right or obligation to alter the ‘realism’, truth of reflection regarding it? To delete, or ignore parts etc out of it as a rationalization of using kindness or respect? Sounds nice and right– but I disagree! I can recall critics of the Statue of Iwo Jima [which was made after the photograph of those who actually did raise the flag]… say that that statue should of reflected a black, an Indian and a woman. Well that to me would have been a distorted reflection and not true at all.
So– when the reality of the history today was recorded… those who held the power over the audio and cameras decided to not pan the masses when Bush was announced… and turned down the audio. This to me was not a ‘real’ entry into the ledger of history. No matter the day– the chips should of fell the way he himself had caused his presence to effect the people of this country. Obama didn’t hedge in his speech regarding those that failed the country. He even made many pointed remarks about Bush in my opinion.
>
“…a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some,…”
“…false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics….”
“…that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply…”
“..And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government….”
“…we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals…” [I love that nice way of calling someone a liar]
This only took 8 years to do!!
“..”Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].” <
So, whatever did or didn’t happen in that slice of time will only be told by those there… independently.
If we demand that Cheney turn papers over for historical reasons, we demand truth in all things, then I personally took offence to the fact that the media decided to edit anything. The media must join the train of change… and what led us all to the gates of hell prior to this day, was our own complacency. Today was not the day to not expect the true reflection of all things about this day that made it what it was.
Our troops in Afghanistan prove they’ve retained their
sense of humor with the following:
“YOU MAY BE A TALIBAN IF….”
1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral
objection to beer.
2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher,
but you can’t afford shoes for your kids.
3. You have more wives than teeth.
4. You wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider
bacon “unclean.”
5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and
suicide.
6. You can’t think of anyone you haven’t declared Jihad
against.
7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry
explosives in your clothing.
8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses
other than setting off roadside bombs.
9. You have nothing against women and think every man
should own several.
10 You’ve always had a crush on your neighbor’s goat.
Vibration White Finger can cause numbness and disabling pain
British miners have been awarded compensation after they developed Vibration White Finger, a condition caused by working with vibrating machinery such as chain saws and drills. The condition is one form of Raynaud’s Disease which affects one in 10 women, usually with mild symptoms. Women are nine times more likely to suffer from the disease as men. What is Raynaud’s Disease?
Raynaud’s is caused by a restriction in the blood supply to the extremities, usually the fingers and toes.
It can also affect the ears and nose. The parts initially turn white and dead-looking and then become inflamed. An attack may be accompanied by significant pain, numbness or a tingling sensation.
With Vibration White Finger (VWF), the fingers may go into spasm.
This is due to an intermittent lack of blood supply to the fingers.
The condition is usually not severe and attacks only cause minor discomfort. But it can lead to skin ulcers and even gangrene.
And it can be progressive over a period of several years.
VWF is triggered by continuous use of vibrating hand machinery, but some forms of primary Raynaud’s have no trigger.
The disease can also be genetically inherited.
However, in these cases, the attacks are usually mild.
Secondary Raynaud’s is less common and more severe. It is linked to underlying diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
What triggers attacks?
Prolonged exposure to the cold is a major trigger for the disease.
Smoking and stress are also thought to be factors and the disease can be caused by a reaction to beta blocker drugs.
People who work with vibrating machinery are more likely to develop VWF, which can become irreversible.
Vibration White finger (VWF) causes the fingers to become numb and begin turning white.
Symptoms include:
Tingling and numbness in the fingers which often continues after the machinery has been switched off;
One fingertip temporarily turns white and may start to ache;
The finger turns white with increasing frequency;
Other fingers begin turning white, but the thumb is not usually affected. After several fingers turn white, the disease is probably irreversible;
The person suffers increasingly frequent painful attacks at any time.
Eventually, the person may lose their fingers. This only happens in extreme cases, for example, when people are working with vibrating machinery in very cold conditions, but it is more common in the forestry industry among people working with chainsaws.
Treatment–
Discontinuing the use of vibrating equipment and keeping hands warm and dry.
BuelahMan
Lynda
kelsosnuts
