In today’s New York Times, there was a depressing story about the ongoing, and strategic, public incarceration of the new “World Trade Center” area before it is even officially open to the public. Where once the citizenry roamed with wild and interested abandon in the area, the Police State have now taken over with barricades and station houses and checkpoints.
If you had access to a 3D printer and could create only one thing out of plastic, from scratch, what would you make? An implantable human ear replacement? A filter for pumping clean water in thirsty third-world nations? What about forming something fun and whimsical like, say, an acoustic guitar? Or, would you take the tunnel of least resistance, and the road of the lowest common human morality, and choose to print a plastic gun for killing people?
Jason Collins stepped out of the dark closet and into the pure light of day to make history as the first Gay professional athlete to “come out” in the four major USA team sports: Football, Basketball, Baseball and Ice Hockey. Some in the New York media have dismissed Jason’s bravery with indifference, “So what if he’s Gay?” they bleat. That sort of false nonchalance is an attempt to undercut Jason’s history-making move by belittling him for being something special when they think he is not.
George W. Bush is back in our nightmares with the opening of his massive Presidential “library” on the campus of Southern Methodist University — all built not to remind us of what a killer he was in the world, but rather what a great a guy he was as he meandered the halls of the White House choking on pretzels while Dick Cheney did all the dirty work as President-in-situ.
Yesterday, I watched a fantastic documentary on PBS called “The House I Live In” by Eugene Jarecki. The film reveals the 40-year failure of America’s precious War On Drugs. In the USA, we’ve spent over $1 trillion on arresting over 45 million people and we still have a major drug problem. The War On Drugs is a failure when it comes to getting people straight, but wildly successful when you consider the increase in long-term incarceration, guaranteeing profits for private jails and communities that rely solely on prisoners to faith their economies.
Do you know there’s a move afoot to make it illegal for good people to make video recordings of the deeds of bad people breaking the law by hurting farm animals?
On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks.
Each video — all shot in the last two years by undercover animal rights activists — drew a swift response: Federal prosecutors in Tennessee charged the horse trainer and other workers, who have pleaded guilty, with violating the Horse Protection Act. Local authorities in Wyoming charged nine farm employees with cruelty to animals. And the egg supplier, which operates in Iowa and other states, lost one of its biggest customers, McDonald’s, which said the video played a part in its decision.
On December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment finally took their revenge against the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes for the Battle of Little Bighorn that took the life of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, and 268 others, 14 years previous. 300 unarmed Indians were surrounded by the 7th at Wounded Knee and summarily shot. 25 of the 7th were killed by friendly fire. The “Indian Wars” had finally come to a bloody conclusion at Wounded Knee massacre.
“David Cameron has blood on his hands.” Yes, I dare to write those words because, apparently, that is the most evil and disgusting thing I can say — at least according to one judge in the UK – who fined a disabled woman £450 for saying the same thing.
I spent Monday morning sitting outside our local council tribunal in Odemira waiting for a civil case to be heard.
I came face to face with one of the few things in this life that makes me physically and mentally uncomfortable. Unusually for a tribunal on the civil circuit as opposed to the criminal circuit — the local GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana, the Polícia de Portugal) were “tooled up” — yep I was in the same room as a gun — in fact not just one gun — but four.
Do you find yourself complaining a lot, suffering a lot of let downs and disappointments? Is your life blighted by ongoing sagas about poor service or products that do not perform as they should?
When faced with being let down, or being disappointed, do you look for someone to blame — or do you acknowledge somewhere in your psyche that the problem may actually be one of your own making — the problem of false expectations?
I was originally going to title this article — “Against Gullibility” — until I saw this image of Sarah Palin going down on a Big Gulp yesterday at the CPAC convention, and she wrote the new headline for me. I couldn’t think of a better image to estimate just how low the political dialogue has dropped in the conservative coin of the realm. Ms. Palin is sucking the very life out of us all.
The trial of Gilberto Valle, the “Cannibal Cop” began in Manhattan this week. The New York Police Officer is charged with Federal kidnapping conspiracy. The charge sheet can be found here. The evidence consists largely of e-mails and instant messages in which Officer Valle was “discussing plans to kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook and eat body parts of a number of women.”
His defence team is arguing that this was just a sexual fantasy and that Valle had no intention of carrying out any of these crimes.
I am dumbfounded by news today from South Africa that legless Olympian runner Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murdering Reeva Steenkamp, his longtime girlfriend, with four gunshots. Why would a man like Oscar ever raise a gun in fear or anger? Hasn’t his life taught him that obstacles are to be overcome and never under-gunned?
Meanwhile, in North Korea — while the whole world is watching the Vatican — the next round of Nuclear Bomb testing takes place. North Korea threw themselves back into the arena as one of the most undesirable rogue governments today by conducting a third round of nuclear tests. They met with universal condemnation, even from their biggest ally, China.
BEIJING — China said Tuesday that it firmly opposed North Korea’s testing of an atomic device and called for stability and a halt to nuclear proliferation in northeast Asia.
“The Chinese government calls on all parties to respond calmly, solve the problem of denuclearization of the peninsula through dialogue and consultation in the framework of the six-party talks,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
