It didn't take

It hasn't escaped notice that the folks at The Nation don't carry on so much anymore about how Nick Clegg once upon a time interned there.

$15.15 or Fight!

As with affordable health care (and countless other matters), the job of moderate Democrats is to release the build up of pressure for real change (such as universal affordable health care insurance aka single-payer aka Medicare for All) by promoting incremental improvements. The president tonight will call for raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Context: Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently cited a study that suggested the federal minimum wage would be nearly $22 an hour today if it had kept up with increased rates in worker productivity. Progressives should be chary of embracing the president's proposal, because, as with health care reform, we have one shot at getting it right. $10.10 will lock millions of American workers in poverty forever, even if, as is unlikely, future increases are tied to the cost of living. Restaurant workers were on the money in calling for a $15 minimum in actions this year, but that won't fly politically. The president's $10.10 needs to be answered with something more just. Instead of $10.10, how about $15.15?

The real state of the union:

From Business Insider:

1. New income generated since 2009 that has gone to the top 1 percent: 95 percent
2. Financial wealth controlled by the bottom 60 percent of all Americans: 2.3 percent
3. Record combined wealth of the top 400 richest Americans: $2,000,000,000,000
4. Real decline in median middle-class incomes since 1999: $5,000
5. Percentage of Hispanic and African-American children living in poverty, respectively: 33.8 percent; 36.7 percent
6. Amount that food stamps will be cut in 2014: $5 billion
7. Federal minimum wage: $7.25
8. What the minimum wage would be if it had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968: $21.72
9. Number of U.S. workers laboring at or below minimum wage: 3.6 million – the near equivalent of the population of Los Angeles.
10.Stealth taxpayer subsidy to the fast-food industry, paid out as safety-net benefits to McWorkers earning poverty wages: $7 billion
11. Global carbon dioxide levels measured in parts per million: 397
12. Maximum concentration of the greenhouse gas that scientists deem sustainable: 350
13. Years since the turn of this century that have ranked among the warmest 15 on record: All 13
14. Rank of 2013 on that list of the warmest years on record: Number Four
15. U.S. defense spending as of 2012: $682 billion
16. Dollar amount by which that surpassed our nearest plausible military rival, China: $516 billion
17. Federal deficit last year: $680 billion
18. Number of Americans disenfranchised from voting for felony convictions: 5.9 million
19. Share of those disenfranchised voters who are African-American: 37 percent
20. Number of Americans arrested annually for marijuana possession: 658,000
21. Total incarcerated U.S. population: 2.3 million
22. Total population on probation/parole: 4.8 million
23. States that could be entirely filled by all of the Americans under correctional supervision: Nevada and Kentucky
24. Official unemployment rate: 6.7 percent
25. Alternate rate including Americans who've given up looking for work, or have only been able to secure part-time employment: 13.1 percent
26. Number of jobs the United States is still down from 2008 employment peak: 1.69 million
27. Number of Americans who were cut off from long-term unemployment benefits at the turn of the year: 1.3 million

Remember.

The mainstream obits for Pete Seeger are as irritating as the ones for Nelson Mandela and as the encomia for Martin Luther King on his feast day. These men were radicals. Anyone of them would have been happy to pull the plug on capitalism. Oligarchs try to control the future by controlling the past. Don't let them.

Search me

Google "Nuclear accidents?"
Nuclear accidents - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better.

"war machine?"
war machine - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better.

"Hillary Clinton?"
Hillary Clinton - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better.

"Toe cheese?"
Toe Cheese - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better. Shop for Toe Cheese at Walmart.com and save. Buy great products at a great price.

Anals of the 4th Estate

Here's how the media is handling the atomic wedgie murder according to TheWire):

Avoiding the issue:
Man Arrested In Murder Of Stepfather In McLoud -- News9
Murder arrest: Stepson jailed in death of stepfather in McLoud -- The Shawnee News-Star

Saying what happened, but being classy:
Authorities: Okla. Man Suffocated With Underwear -- Associated Press

Using passive voice:
Oklahoma man dies from atomic wedgie -- NY Daily News

Putting 'atomic wedgie' in 'quotes' for 'distance':
Police: 'Atomic wedgie' led to man's death -- KOCO
Police: Man Killed Stepfather With ‘Atomic Wedgie’ Days Before Christmas -- CBS Houston
Oklahoman given 'atomic wedgie' died from suffocation, trauma to head -- NewsOK
Oklahoma man charged with 'atomic wedgie' murder of stepfather -- Reuters

Talking it to death:
Atomic Wedgie Murder: Denver St. Clair Choked From Underwear Around His Head; Stepson Brad Lee Davis Charged In Killing [PHOTO] - International Business Times

Going for it:
'This was more than just a fight': Ex-Marine, 33, 'kills stepfather by ATOMIC WEDGIE' -- Daily Mail

En français:
Oklahoma: un homme meurt asphyxié par son propre sous-vêtement -- Le Journal de Québec

All Mart

Search for almost anything today, and your likely to get a link to Wal-Mart. Nuclear accidents? "Nuclear accidents - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better." war machine? "war machine - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better." Hillary Clinton? "Hillary Clinton - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better." Toe cheese? "Toe Cheese - Walmart.com - Save Money. Live better. Shop for Toe Cheese at Walmart.com and save. Buy great products at a great price."

If Obama really wants to look tough, he should break a union.

Is Chris Matthews' mouth disconnected from his brain or is he just not a liberal?: "I think actions speak louder than words. And I got to tell you something. When Reagan broke the PATCO strike and fired them all for breaking their oaths, everybody in the world, including the people in Moscow, got the word…. It's one of the reasons we ended the Cold War, because they knew we had a strong president."

Parenthetically

Secretary of State John Kerry says the US will help Iraq with its Al-Qaeda problem, but not with "boots on the ground."

Because that would be a cliché.

What we don't get with pinpoint accuracy is reporting

When it looked like the US would carry out a military attack on Syria, CNN reporters stepped right into their roles as Pentagon flacks. Anchor Brooke Baldwin declared that US warships "can carry cruise missiles able to strike targets more than 1,000 miles away with pinpoint accuracy" (8/30/13). Correspondent Tom Foreman told viewers: "Cruise missiles are extraordinary weapons. They're very reliable. They have pinpoint accuracy" (9/2/13).

Don't eat anything!

Kale? Juicing? Trouble Ahead by Jennifer Berman (New York Times)

Happy New Year

Attention, voters.

'Over and over again, America's seniors are being
told they must foot the bill for fiscal failures which
have already left them facing a weakened and
tenuous retirement. In Detroit, a bankruptcy judge
has ruled the city can cut pension payments to
thousands of retirees, despite a state law stating
otherwise. In Washington, the latest Congressional
budget deal targets retirees with $12 billion in
pension changes, including cutting pensions for
military personnel who retire in 2015 and requiring
new federal workers to contribute more to their
retirement. All of this couldn't come at a worse time.
Three decades of stagnant middle-class incomes,
disappearing pensions, limited ability to start and
maintain personal savings, and the failure of the
401K experiment lay the foundation for a retirement
crisis that could further threaten millions of older
Americans and their families.' -- Max Richtman,
President and CEO, National Committee to Preserve
Social Security and Medicare Social Security and Medicare

The country is going to pot

Cannabis prohibition has always been absurd, and over many decades it has caused grievous harm to many, many hundreds of thousands of Americans. Now that marijuana is legal, Colorado should move immediately to clear the record of anyone who would not be guilty of a crime under current law. And California, and any other precinct headed for legalization, should include amnesty and clean records in the legislation. In addition to the relief it would bring to many thousands of individual Californians and their families, amnesty would bring to an end the problem of overcrowding in California's prison system.

This is important.

Right wing idiocy is one thing, but when residents of usually fact-based precincts embrace ooga-booga science, it bodes ill for future progress.

Vaccines have had an immeasurable positive impact on our quality of life; here are some of the benefits they have produced.

L.A. Blues Again

What's the goal here?

I expect the planners convince themselves this is about safety: "The city of Los Angeles is cracking down on pedestrians who sneak across streets when the traffic signal says 'don’t walk.' But when you put a price on bad behavior, like being in a public street illegally, you see clearly what a city values. The cheapest parking ticket in Los Angeles is $58, and the one most commonly issued for parking in a prohibited zone is $73. Jaywalking—the term of art for a pedestrian crossing against the light—will cost you $197."

As long as the car is king, Los Angeles will never succeed as a walking and biking town.

In Los Angeles, Walking Illegally Is More Than Twice as Expensive as Parking Illegally by Tim Fernholz (Citylab)

Tidings

"Jingle Fart," a pétomaniacal version of "Jingle Bells" offered for free as a seasonal download on Amazon, is a sacrilege. On the other hand, "The Little Drummer Boy," if similarly arranged, would be no more gaseous than usual.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013)

The guardians of the American empire once labeled this man a terrorist. Take their lamentations at his passing with a pinch of salt.

Photo: © Eli Weinberg

Mandela is seen here burning his passbook on March 28, 1960, in protest of the Sharpeville massacre. As we follow the news coverage about the death of Nelson Mandela at the age of 95, it is important to remember that he was once labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government. As Democracy Now! noted in a 2004 interview with South African activist Father Michael Lapsley, "The dominant view is that the U.S. was on the right side in South Africa, that it opposed apartheid. But nothing could be further from the truth, particularly when [Ronald] Reagan was president. Reagan labeled the African National Congress (ANC) a notorious terrorist organization, while continuing Washington’s support for the apartheid regime."

Zinn Education Project: Nelson Mandela, Madiba.

And if you like to watch ants all day, you know what'll help?

End corporate whining

The campaigns to raise the minimum wage and to organize fast-food and grocery workers deserve support.

America's largest employer, Wal-Mart, for example, pays such low wages that its employees are the largest group of food stamp and Medicaid recipients. A report from Congressman Alan Grayson estimated that Wal-Mart employees receive $1,000/month on average in public assistance payments. Another example of how sorry Wal-Mart's wages are: This week a Wal-Mart in Ohio held a food drive for its own employees.

America's second-largest employer, McDonald's, tried to produce a budget showing how its employees could live on the minimum wage -- and failed. A study this year found that "52% of families of fast food workers receive assistance from a public program."

Don't believe corporate shills whining and puling that these profitable companies can't afford to pay a living wage (Canada, UK, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, France, Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg all have higher minimum wage settings than the US -- some countries, like Sweden and Germany, that don't legislate wage minimums, encourage collective bargaining instead). Elizabeth Warren calculates that if the US minimum wage had kept pace with inflation it would now be $22/hr. The activists campaigning for an increase are asking for a $15/hr minimum. Meanwhile, the White House's embrace of a $9/hr minimum is shameful and pathetic, designed more to head off a meaningful increase than to solve the problem.

Impractical Proposal #2,567,043

If white men over 50 are so angry and bitter about not being employable that they're willing to ruin the country, how about this? 

Draft them into the military and dispatch them to the 700 U.S. military garrisons around the world where they can keep busy shooting at people unlike themselves. 

Bring home the able-bodied youth now in uniform, give them educations, and put them to work. 

Good for everybody. 

Win win.

Faux News

"Having failed electorally and failed in the courts, Republicans are hell-bent on destroying the Affordable Care Act in Americans' minds. A document circulated among House Republicans (revealed in today's NY Times) contains talking points to be repeated continuously: 'Because of Obamacare, I Lost My Insurance.' 'Obamacare Increases Health Care Costs.' 'The Exchanges May Not Be Secure, Putting Personal Information at Risk.' Fox News and right-wing radio amplify them. The mainstream media reports them as news.

"Admittedly, Obama played into their hands by botching the roll-out of the Act. But keep in mind the larger reality: Private for-profit insurers have wrecked the American healthcare system. Ours has been the only system in the world designed to avoid sick people. A single-payer system would have been preferable, and we'll eventually get there. But the Affordable Care Act at least sets minimum standards, requires insurers to take people with preexisting conditions, bars them from dropping coverage of people who get sick, and extends insurance to the poor and working class. These are huge accomplishments relative to where we've been. Initial problems with the website, and cancellations of some policies by insurance companies that can't meet the standards, are small potatoes." -- Robert Reich

Watch the feet not the mouth

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Sen. Brown to Neoliberals

The situation for seniors is only going to get worse, because the assault on pensions and wages is making it more and more difficult for a worker to save for the future. Why are we having a debate over how much we are going to hurt seniors? The debate should be over how we should structure a pension for seniors that will help them. Why would we play on their playing field? Democrats need to play offense here. Force Republicans to say what it is they really want to do. Republicans just don’t like social insurance. -- Senator Sherrod Brown (Washington Post, 2013-11-5)

Correction

The Times, keeping it real: "An earlier version of this post misidentified Boniface VIII as Boniface VII."

From the Watch the Feet Not the Mouth Desk:

"In his journey to the White House, Barack Obama made much hay railing against his predecessor’s supposedly go-it-alone mindset and penchant for foreign policy unilateralism. With memories still fresh of the

spectacular rupture between Washington and its traditional European allies over the Iraq war, Obama’s claim to be the 'anti-Bush' garnered him a euphoric welcome in Berlin in July 2008. Speaking before a massive crowd assembled in the 'Tiergarten' (speech text here; video here), he grandly vowed to 'remake the world once again,' this time in a way that allies would 'listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.' A year later, this sort of rhetoric earned him the Nobel peace prize for single-handedly creating 'a new climate in international politics' and restoring multilateral diplomacy to 'a central position.'

The rest of the story:
U.S. Smart Power is Taking a Beating by David J. Karl (Foreign Policy blogs)

For President: D. Warbucks vs S. McDuck

It's ridiculous to limit our choice for president to a handful of rich senators and governors. Independent organizations should be actively recruiting, training and promoting qualified candidates from business, labor, academia, NGOs and anywhere else they may lurk. As the last two presidents have demonstrated, being a governor or senator doesn't in any way assure that you're deserving of a promotion. There ought to be more to running for POTUS than that you have a few bucks and really, really want to.

Eye on Dallas

And then there are the mice

Years of research is going down the drain because readings can't be made in timely fashion. And if you don't approve of lab research involving animals in the first place, this is doubly senseless. "The government shutdown is likely to mean an early death for thousands of mice used in research on diseases such as diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's. Federal research centers including the National Institutes of Health will have to kill some mice to avoid overcrowding, researchers say. Others will die because it is impossible to maintain certain lines of genetically altered mice without constant monitoring by scientists. And most federal scientists have been banned from their own labs since Oct. 1." -- NPR

You can't make this stuff up:

Glenn Beck says he is pondering a move to Canada because of impending U.S. socialism.

Note to @BarackObama and @JohnKerry

Adherance to "international norms" means no more cluster bombs, no more landmines, no more it's-not-napalm, no more kids under arms, no more wars of choice, and no more death penalty.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

Coming out of a classified briefing on Thursday, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) said that she was opposed to a strike on Syria "now more than ever." So much for the administration's "irrefutable" and "overwhelming" case for a bombing campaign.

The Times doesn't like Larry Summers any more than you do

"Mr. Summers has also shown an indifference to the effects of economic decisions on ordinary people — the opposite of what is needed in a Fed leader at a time of high unemployment. He advised the president to support a stimulus that other economists correctly warned was too small. He resisted bankruptcy relief for underwater homeowners that would have forced banks into mortgage modifications — even as the administration spared no expense to bail out the banks. Senators who have endorsed Ms. Yellen would do well to let Mr. Obama know, either publicly or through back channels, that their endorsement translates into a no vote for Mr. Summers."

The rest of the story:
The Federal Reserve Nomination by the New York Times Editorial Board (New York Times).

Good night. And good luck.

Today I was listening to All Things Considered and, as it closed and they read the interesting names of all the producers and editors and writers and engineers and others who make the show happen, I thought how respectful it is of NPR to give these folks the credit they deserve.

Turns out it was the last time. Another courtesy removed from our impoverished culture.

The rest of the story:
NPR And On-Air Credits: The End Of A Thank You by Jim Wildman (NPR)

"Silas Marner" by George Eliot has fallen to #900 on student required-reading lists. Kinda sad. Doesn't bode well for Anthony Trollope.

Managing a scarce resource.

Or gouging citizens with with a hidden and regressive tax?

I'm walking on Ocean Ave this morning. A patron runs out of the Loews Hotel, heads for his car parked across the street. A meterperson (his vehicle blocking the bike path -- unnecessarily, since since no one is parked on either side of the offending car) is writing him a ticket. It's 9:02. No grace period. Just then, two cars blow through the red light at the pedestrian crossing, going fast.

What are the priorities here?

#eternaltruths

Sack dresses seem to be enjoying a revival among teenagers here on the West Coast.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

Away, Segway!

I tweeted the other day: "Why are bicycles hassled on sidewalks but Segways, usually piloted by inexperienced renters w/o a clue, can go anywhere?"

Came this reply: "I'm gonna guess because there's a law against riding a bike on the sidewalk and there aren't any laws about Segways."

Wrong guess. Beach regulations specifically prohibit motorized vehicles on the bike path -- but they're there. And the CA Vehicle Code section 407.5 defines a motorized scooter as any two-wheeled device that has handle bars, is designed to be stood or sat upon by the operator and is powered by an electric or gas motor. Drivers must be over 16 and wear proper head gear.

Children are put at the controls of Segways routinely in Santa Monica. In general, Segway riders seem to have helmets; pedestrians, skaters and cyclists they endanger, not so much.

More to the point, "Operator shall not operate motorized scooter upon sidewalk." [CVC 21235(g)].

So the real question is, why does the City of Santa Monica, whose police department is targeting bicyclists and chases other types of motor scooter off the bike path, make an exception for Segways? One reason might be as simple as class; Segways are a toy of people with money. Speaking of money, another reason might be that the City makes dough off Segway rentals. Or -- money again -- the City is afraid of a lawsuit by Segway, an aggressive national company, if Segway Inc is inconvenienced. The cops say that the city attorney has redefined Segways as wheelchairs, thus exempting them from vehicle rules, but that legal fig leaf defies common sense and common usage and was adopted only after other bike path users insisted that the motorized vehicle rule be enforced (by the way, Segway Inc. calls its scooters "personal electric balancing transportation," "robotic mobility platforms" and "Personal Transporters" -- no mention of wheelchairs).

Not to make a mountain out of a molehill (oh, heck, why not): there is little argument that police and prosecutors have discretionary authority to selectively enforce laws, to make exceptions in the interest of justice, compassion or public safety; but selective enforcement with regard to entire classes of offenders or offenses is a symptom of tyranny. A government that routinely applies arbitrary standards to the question of who can operate outside the rule of law in one area will soon find it easier to afford the same favor to friends, political allies and anyone with a pile of cash. Even where favoritism doesn't lead to corruption, it undermines respect for law. There are so many ways today in which respect for law is being undermined by selective enforcement big (banksterism, for example) and small (putting your tongue in your cheek and calling a Segway a wheelchair) that citizens must push back where they can.

Segway can make a valuable contribution to traffic gridlock. The vision of a throng of Segways ferrying commuters who have abandoned their cumbrous, polluting, gas guzzlers for the freedom and frugality of scooters is exciting. Factoring cost, size and weight, emissions, and so on, Segways are far cheaper and safer to operate than cars weighing more a ton and in most cases spewing air pollutants (even a Prius weighs 2900 lbs). The City of Santa Monica has banished bikes from sidewalks (arbitrarily, it seems to me -- Los Angeles doesn't do so, and state law doesn't require it), but once you've made the decision that bikes are unsafe on sidewalks, it makes no sense at all not to hold the faster, heavier Segways to the same standards.

quote unquote

Guy sitting next to me at a Santa Monica Starbucks wearing a Dodgers cap with a big "LA" on the front.

Another guy (American, apparently) walking out with coffee: "Cool hat, man. What's that stand for?" Not kidding.

First guy: "Los Angeles."

Coffee guy: "Oh, yeah. Cool."

quote unquote: John Stuart Mill

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." -- John Stuart Mill

quote unquote: Eugene V. Debs

quote unquote: Henry Ford

"What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages -- most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living -- the rate of their wages -- determines the prosperity of the country." -- Henry Ford, born 150 years ago today.

Arab Sprung

Liberals are barely more tolerant of democracy than conservatives. John Kerry didn't screw up in praising the Egyptian military; he spoke the truth. Democracy is okay only in so far as it delivers desired outcomes. Generals and dictators are useful for making sure electorates don't make what their betters regard as wrong choices.

Time to get organized

The major unions should pony up a few dollars to underwrite a new organization, the Union of Unemployed Workers. The UUW would have two functions: to fight for the rights of and improved benefits for citizens who happen to be unemployed or underemployed; and to train a new generation of workers on the history of and reasons for labor organizations, so that eventually, when they return to fulltime employment in crappy jobs in the service sector, they'll be ready, willing and able to organize and join workplace unions.

It's not just Obama.

It's going to be important in 2014 -- in terms of manpower; donations; Green, Peace & Freedom and independent challenges; etc. -- to remember who is responsible for what.

Apparently, House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi influenced Democratic members of whom we can usually expect better, such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Luis Gutierrez (IL), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Steve Israel (NY), Ami Bera (CA), Joaquin Castro (TX), Joe Kennedy (MA), Annie Kuster (NH), Nita Lowey (NY) and Louise Slaughter (NY), to vote to protect NSA's power. If only 12 of them had opposed the program, some spying would have been stopped.

That the vote was close is good news, however: it offers hope that opponents will be encouraged to keep fighting.

How Nancy Pelosi Saved the NSA Surveillance Program: "The obituary of Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to claw back the sweeping powers of the National Security Agency has largely been written as a victory for the White House and NSA chief Keith Alexander, who lobbied the Hill aggressively in the days and hours ahead of Wednesday's shockingly close vote. But Hill sources say most of the credit for the amendment's defeat goes to someone else: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It's an odd turn, considering that Pelosi has been, on many occasions, a vocal surveillance critic...."

The rest of the story: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/25/how_nancy_pelosi_saved_the_nsa_surveillance_program

More on possible congressional resistance to domestic spying: Six Ways Congress May Reform NSA Snooping

1) Raise the standard for what records are considered “relevant.”
2) Require NSA analysts to obtain court approval before searching metadata.
3) Declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions.
4) Change the way Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges are appointed.
5) Appoint a public advocate to argue before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
6) End phone metadata collection on constitutional grounds.

Move along. Nothing to see here,

Don't read too much into the administration's "impatience" with Pres. Karzai. Even if the combat troops are pulled out earlier than the end of next year, "advisers" will stay and you can count on billions of your dollars going to Afghanistan into the distant future, even as our own infrastructure problems continue to fester.

Billions for Kabul; nothing for Detroit.

Harper's Index factoid: Number of U.S. states whose highest paid public employee is a sports coach: 37.

Privacy notes from all over

A government’s first job is to protect its citizens, but it should do that job with the public's informed consent, not demand blind trust; we should thank Edward Snowden for making public the awesome extent of the NSA's surveillance of our electronic communications, because now we can have a proper debate about whether we think a ramped-up level of surveillance is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. But if we decide that we're not willing to trade some of our privacy for security, what do we do about Google and its cohort? If we decide it isn't okay for the government to invade our privacy to make us safe, why would we continue to permit Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, et al to build digital dossiers on us just to sell us stuff?

Tonkin in the Desert

US intelligence now has “high confidence” that 100-150 have been killed in Syria so far by chemical weapons (aka WMDs), thus crossing POTUS' "line in the sand." Ninety-trhree thousand have been killed by other means in the course of the civil war. Surely, it's only coincidental that this finding follows on the heels of Hezbollah's arrival on the scene last week. Welcome to our latest war of choice.

Truth

"From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation and world that we leave to our children." -- President Barack Obama, 2013-05-23

quote unquote Dorothy Parker

In 1939, Dorothy Parker wrote about her social conscience in an essay called "Not Enough." Here's the opening ...

I think I knew first what side I was on when I was about five years old, at which time nobody was safe from buffaloes. It was in a brownstone house in New York, and there was a blizzard, and my rich aunt--a horrible woman then and now--had come to visit. I remember going to the window and seeing the street with the men shoveling snow; their hands were purple on their shovels, and their feet were wrapped with burlap. And my aunt, looking over her shoulder, said, "Now isn't this nice that there's this blizzard. Now all those men have work." And I knew then that it was not nice that men could work for their lives only in desperate weather, that there was no work for them in fair. That was when I became anti-fascist, at the silky tones of my rich and comfortable aunt.

A story with 140 characters

Fiction on Twitter: From short short story to endless stream

It is said that Ernest Hemingway once bet that he could write a complete short story in six words. He was Twitter-ready a half century before anyone conceived of tweeting.

Last week Twitter announced that at the end of November the company will host a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction), “a virtual storytelling celebration held entirely on Twitter,” inviting creative experiments in storytelling from authors around the world.

According to Twitter, it has hosted great experiments in fiction already, from Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” to Teju Cole’s “Small Fates” to Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel. And Twitter notes it has even inspired some literary criticism.

To get into the spirit of things, and without getting into the whole business of streaming and interaction as components of twitter-fiction (working within the limitations of the classic tweet, you could say), I came up with this tweet-length short short story:

On the desiccated, recalescent planet, barren at last, the desolated creature, a cockroach, grief-maddened, devoured the corpse of its mate.

Hemingway won the bet, by the way. As the story goes (and the anecdote itself may be fiction), he scribbled “For sale: baby shoes, never used” to take home the pot.

Unintended consequence #2,475,693

If guns are outlawed, only people with 3D printers will have guns.