Ben Ferencz, 98, was a prosecutor the Nuremberg trials.
What does the last surviving prosecutor at Nuremberg think the trials achieved? Listen to a BBC interview here.
Must read: The Left ascendant
"With his primary election victory last week, Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski -- a Blue Dog and cultural conservative -- won the first major 2018 battle between the Democratic Party's establishment and progressive wings. But don't be confused about what it means. The war is already over, and the establishment lost.
"Even though only two states have actually voted so far this primary election season -- Texas, a red-state redoubt, and Illinois, a blue-state stronghold -- the battle for supremacy this primary season is all but complete. In state after state, the left is proving to be the animating force in Democratic primaries, producing a surge of candidates who are forcefully driving the party toward a more liberal orientation on nearly every issue.
"These candidates are running on an agenda that moves the party beyond its recent comfort zone and toward single-payer health care, stricter gun control, a $15 minimum wage, more expansive LGBT rights and greater protections for immigrants. In the surest sign of the reoriented issue landscape, they're joined by some of the most prominent prospects in the 2020 Democratic presidential field -- Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris among them -- who are embracing the same agenda."
The rest of the story:
Forget about Conor Lamb and Dan Lipinski. The progressive wing has already beaten the establishment in 2018: How the Bernie Wing Won the Democratic Primaries by Charlie Mahtesuian (Politico).
When Algorithms Go Bad
Ask Google almost any question about the U.S population and it will give you an answer that involves "The Foreign-Born Population in the United States."
We do have questions that have nothing to do with immigrantion.
Really.
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.
In 2012, before it descended into wordy 240-character journalistic one-upmanship and tribal warfare, Twitter hosted 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 had 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 bragged it has even inspired some literary criticism.
To get into the spirit of things, and without delving 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 140-character, short story:
Reading list:
✓ Nanoism is an online publication for twitter-fiction: stories of up to 140 characters.
✓ Craig Taylor, Charlotte Mendelson, Louise Doughty, John Niven, Victoria Hislop, Val McDermid...Top writers try their hand at writing a story with only Twitter's 140-character limit to play with (Guardian).
✓ Well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly Cooper – come up with a tweet-length story: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels (Guardian).
✓ 13 Beautiful Pieces of Twitter Fiction Remind Us How Powerful Reading Can Be by Anne Charlton (Mic).
✓ Twitter Fiction: "No Constraints, No Joy" by Isaac Fitzgerald (Buzzfeed).
✓ Twitter Fiction Reveals The Power Of Very, Very Short Stories by Maddie Crum (HuffPost).
✓ Consider Twitter Fiction by Anthony Santulli (The Review Review).
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.
In 2012, before it descended into wordy 240-character journalistic one-upmanship and tribal warfare, Twitter hosted 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 had 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 bragged it has even inspired some literary criticism.
To get into the spirit of things, and without delving 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 140-character, 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.
Reading list:
✓ Nanoism is an online publication for twitter-fiction: stories of up to 140 characters.
✓ Craig Taylor, Charlotte Mendelson, Louise Doughty, John Niven, Victoria Hislop, Val McDermid...Top writers try their hand at writing a story with only Twitter's 140-character limit to play with (Guardian).
✓ Well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly Cooper – come up with a tweet-length story: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels (Guardian).
✓ 13 Beautiful Pieces of Twitter Fiction Remind Us How Powerful Reading Can Be by Anne Charlton (Mic).
✓ Twitter Fiction: "No Constraints, No Joy" by Isaac Fitzgerald (Buzzfeed).
✓ Twitter Fiction Reveals The Power Of Very, Very Short Stories by Maddie Crum (HuffPost).
✓ Consider Twitter Fiction by Anthony Santulli (The Review Review).
Switzerland has a lot of guns.
So why don't they have a lot of shootings?
Because, unlike us, they have universal weapons' training from a young age and mandatory universal military service, so everyone is familiar with the proper handling of weapons. All guns are registered and almost all guns require permits. The police conduct background checks and make psychological assessments before issuing permits: by law, anyone who "expresses a violent or dangerous attitude" is not permitted to own a gun and people who've been convicted of a crime or have an alcohol or drug addiction problem aren't allowed to buy guns. A gun owner who wants to carry for "defensive purposes" has to prove s/he knows how to load, unload, and shoot their weapon properly and must pass a test to get a license. Also, though they have a lot of guns compared to most countries, they have about 1/4 the number per capita that we do.
All this before you consider that their social services head off the kind of alienation and desperation so widespread in the US.
Worst Things First
The thing I fear about the anti-gun campaign -- which I support wholeheartedly -- is that it will distort our national priorities. Universal affordable health care would save countless more lives than gun control, for example, as would social programs addressing malnutrition, educational deficiencies, homelessness, joblessness, drug addiction, mental health and suicide (any and all of which also would have positive impacts on gun violence if they were to be addressed). I hope the federal legislature comes to grips with the gun problem. But if they do, we mustn't allow that accomplishment to obscure all that remains to be done.
Headline O' The Day:
"Stormy Daniels says Trump told her 'you remind me of my daughter' after she spanked him with a magazine" -- Business Insider
From the What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong Desk:
Four nuclear waste canisters with a potentially defective design have been loaded with spent fuel and buried in a “concrete monolith” yards from the beach at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. With the seas rising, it shouldn't be long before Southern Californians won't need to rely on the sun to get a tan. (The Orange County Register)
Rhythm and Jews:
"Catholics basically believe the same teachings that Baptists believe. We just do it without the rhythm. But we try. We are not as without rhythm as some of our Jewish brothers and sisters." ~ Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Roman Catholic, speaking ecumenically at a Baptist church in Harlem.
Trump's immigration crackdown was supposed to be good for American workers.
Trump's immigration crackdown was supposed to be good for American workers. But on California farms, it's creating a desperate labor shortage.
Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don’t want the job by Natalie Kitroef and Geoffrey Mohan (Los Angeles Times)
Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don’t want the job by Natalie Kitroef and Geoffrey Mohan (Los Angeles Times)
Don't think we need a radical change in political leadership?
Consider this:
The US House of Representatives voted Thursday afternoon to approve the federal budget for the current fiscal year, including a record $695 billion for the Pentagon, the largest amount ever, and more than half the total. The budget passed by a bipartisan vote of 256-167, with majorities of both Republicans and Democrats supporting it.
Ask not what your country can do for you?
The primary political questions are societal and aspirational; not how high are my taxes going to be or what benefits I can grab. Not, what's in it for me?
But:
What kind of country do I wish to live in?
Certainly not one where millions are imprisoned for petty crimes then denied reentry to society when their penalty has been paid; not one where people are put at a crippling disadvantage for the color of their skin, their beliefs, or the place they came from; not a country where the common wealth of the people is despoiled and pirated so that a fractional minority can prosper.
No, we want to live in a country where no one is forced to live in squalor; where if you work hard you can afford a decent life, where a worker receives a living wage; where no one suffers and dies because there is no affordable health care; where people have a reasonable prospect of advancing their own lives and where the lives of their children can be even better than their own.
The United States has been on the wrong road for forty years. Before our decline is irreversible, we must decide what kind of country we want to be. Freedom is meaningless without opportunity.
But:
What kind of country do I wish to live in?
Certainly not one where millions are imprisoned for petty crimes then denied reentry to society when their penalty has been paid; not one where people are put at a crippling disadvantage for the color of their skin, their beliefs, or the place they came from; not a country where the common wealth of the people is despoiled and pirated so that a fractional minority can prosper.
No, we want to live in a country where no one is forced to live in squalor; where if you work hard you can afford a decent life, where a worker receives a living wage; where no one suffers and dies because there is no affordable health care; where people have a reasonable prospect of advancing their own lives and where the lives of their children can be even better than their own.
The United States has been on the wrong road for forty years. Before our decline is irreversible, we must decide what kind of country we want to be. Freedom is meaningless without opportunity.
Our Feckless Democrats
Ten Democrats thwarted the (albeit mild) effort of Sen. Bernie Sanders and his allies to tap the brake on the permanent war machine.
Note that the celebrated Alabama Dem Doug Jones is on this list of shame, so that was a big win. And look what the people of Rhode Island contributed to this defeat. The ten warmongers are
On the other hand, five Republicans voted for the bill -- Collins (Me), Daines (Mont), Lee (Utah), Moran (Ks) and Paul (Ky), so there's that.Menendez (NJ)
Coons (Del.)
Masto (Nev.)
Donnelly (Ind.)
Heitkamp (N.D.)
Manchin (W.V.)
Nelson (Fla.)
Reed (R.I.)
Jones (Ala.)
Whitehouse (R.I.)
quote unquote: Bill Hicks
...All drugs should be legal.
The rich get richer.
The poor get poorer.
Thank you.
I'll be here all week. -- Bill Hicks
What's gonna take to get rational gun control?
This student spoke in front of the Capitol today during the National School Walk Out, slamming Congress for their lack of action on gun control.
"Their right to own an assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live."
"Their right to own an assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live."
Lucy Aharish: Humanity Made Irrelevant
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” ~ Albert Einstein
quote unquote: John Quincy Adams
On the the search for "monsters to destroy."
"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others,
"[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
John Quincy Adams in 1821,
presciently warning against the Long War.
presciently warning against the Long War.
Saturday Catchup 2018-03-03
After a long absence, Saturday Catchup is back!
Social democracy is all the rage in the U.S. (and neoliberalism under assault) since Sen. Bernie Sanders' late run for president. In this video, radical journalist, author and film-maker Paul Mason; Dr. Faiza Shaheen, economist, writer, activist and director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies; writer Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy; economist Dr. Johnna Montgomerie; and Laurie Macfarlane, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation discuss whether radical social democracy offers a way out of the crisis of neoliberalism, and what this means for economic policy over the next decade. The debate is part of a new series of essays by Paul Mason exploring what radical social democracy means during the next decade:
Extra credit:
The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but neoliberal properly names the reigning ideology of our era -- one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human: Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world by Stephen Metcalf (Guardian).
The mission of radical social democracy must be to rekindle hope in a simple idea -- that life in your community will get better: Neoliberalism has destroyed social mobility. Together we must rebuild it by Paul Mason.
I’m not a neoliberal. Maybe you aren’t either. by Laurie Macfarlane (Medium).
Eljeer Hawkins is a community, labor and antiwar organizer, and for 23 years has been a member of Socialist Alternative, the US affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International, a global Trotskyist
Aestheticist Adolph Hitler doesn't care for gentrification:
"The right to be heard is crucially important. But I want to think more generally about how we have learned to look at women who exercise power, or try to; I want to explore the cultural underpinnings of misogyny in politics or the workplace, and its forms (what kind of misogyny, aimed at what or whom, using what words or images, and with what effects); and I want to think harder about how and why the conventional definitions of ‘power’ (or for that matter of ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’) that we carry round in our heads have tended to exclude women." -- Mary Beard, Women in Power.
For the text of this talk, go to Women in Power by Mary Beard (London Review of Books).
The resemblance of zoos to prisons aside: At the Stock Island Detention Center, a jail in Florida, prisoners care for a zoo of their own. Curator Jeanne Selander runs the prison zoo with the inmates, who benefit not only from the responsibility, but also from experiencing reciprocal love and care --often for the first time. Operations like this one shouldn't be news, they should be standard.
Sign up for a weekly email from 60 Second Docs, for videos that are uplifting without recourse to freak accidents or weird animal friendships.
A song-story from country singer-songwriter Paul Overstreet
Finally, in a spirit of resistance not nostalgia, here is the last installment of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, never broadcast at the time. The brothers, Tommy and Dick Smothers, waged a war against network censorship for a couple of years in the late 1960s, a fight they lost when they were fired for inviting comedian David Steinberg back on the show, despite complaints from some viewers over a previous booking. Nancy Wilson and Dan Rowan were also guests.
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