Love it when that happens. Be sure to check out “Chimpanzee” during the first week! Dr. Goodall explains why in the clip!
Tag Archive for recommended reading
One Lifelong Hero, being interviewed by one of my TV Heroes… :)
Category: Tony Recommends.... /
Tags: chimpanzee, jane goodall, jon stewart, recommended reading, the daily show
Can we just stop this stupid drug war now? Please?
It never ceases to amaze me how slow the US can be. How long did it take them to catch on to how the cartels always manage to stay several steps ahead of law enforcement in the money laundering game. The kind of money laundering they're talking about in the LA Times piece below has been going on for YEARS on so many levels, heads would explode.
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Category: Drug War, Politics /
Tags: cartels, crime, drug war, economics, politics, recommended reading, social justice
Impeccable Timing…
Leave it to the recently-departed Christopher Hitchens, to paint the best if not grimmest picture of the state of North Korea in this day and age. Though he wrote this almost two years ago, I can think of no other piece that I've come across that gives us a clearer snapshot of what is going on in this bizarre cult dictatorship. It surely touches on the utter insanity the world is up against. Especially now that it's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il has bought the farm. And his twenty-something son, who is already a four-star general (all by personal achievement I'm sure) is taking the throne. Thanks to the relentless brainwashing, and physical/mental stunting that Hitchens describes so vividly, of an entire population, over several generations, one thing is clear. North Korea is not going to be an easy mess to clean up, and it won't happen anytime soon.
A Nation of Racist Dwarfs
Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought.
By Christopher Hitchens|Posted Monday, Feb. 1, 2010, at 10:01 AM ET
North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he'd heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity. (Read On...)
Category: The World, Tony Recommends.... /
Tags: christopher hitchens, kim jong-il, north korea, recommended reading
When Passion meets Genius…
Christopher Hitchens
I first came across Christopher Hitchens back in the early 1990's, when he was a regular panel guest on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" show. What's interesting about my first impression of someone who eventually became a hero to me, was that he was nothing less than an obnoxious asshole. He was on one of his tirades about Bill Clinton, whom by all accounts he hated vehemently, and spared no words.
As a relative fan of the president of the time, I found myself wondering how anyone could take this loose-cannon limey seriously enough to get him on a national talk-show. Who the hell was this chain-smoking, ranting lunatic? I found myself motivated to find out more about this guy. I was going to find out what he was really all about.
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Category: Journal, Opinion/Commentary /
Tags: christopher hitchens, editorials, heroes, recommended reading, tribute
Hey Kids, here comes Piet!
Here's an interesting piece about a foreigner's take on the "Sinterklaas" tradition in Holland. Which sorry to say, is in SERIOUS need of a cultural update to say the least.
As someone who was married to a Dutchie for more than a decade, I came to know the whole holiday and tradition with more immersion than I ever cared for. While I thought the gag gift-giving and funny poems had its share of entertainment value, that's about as far as it went.
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Category: Opinion/Commentary, Politics, Religion/Atheism /
Tags: christmas, extreme nuttiness, Holland, recommended reading, religion, war on christmas
Well, please allow me to retort…
I came across this op-ed piece by a supposed economics professor named Bradley Schiller this morning. It has been sticking in my craw all day ever since. His piece comically misses the mark on so many points, I honestly didn't know where to start.
After some stewing, I decided to reply to it directly. As if I were debating somebody on a Facebook, Huffpost, or web forum thread. It just seems to be the most appropriate way to respond. So here it goes. His statements are quoted and italicized, followed by my responses, item by item.
By Bradley Schiller
Sun Dec 4 2011 12:00 AM
"The class war is on. It's the 99% of "us" versus the 1% of "them."
In the rhetoric of this war, we are fighting the 1% because they possess most of the nation's wealth, bankroll their handpicked political candidates, control the banks and get million-dollar paychecks and billion-dollar bailouts; yet they don't pay enough taxes or invest their wealth in creating American jobs. They're the "millionaires and billionaires" President Obama has called out as needing to pony up more for progressive reforms of our healthcare, banking, tax and political systems. They are the enemy of "us" — the 99% who toil at low-wage jobs, hold underwater mortgages, face foreclosures, suffer recurrent and protracted job layoffs and plant closings, and yet pay our fair share of taxes."
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Need a clear explanation about that $7.7 trillion thing?
Fine, here you go. Given by none other than Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Yes, an avowed liberal. But someone who always seems to be going for the truth, no matter where it may lie ideology-wise.
I've been reading up a bit on the double-talk being given on both sides of the aisle regarding this whole shitstorm that's been raised since this story broke last week. Needless to say, there's not a lot that pols on either side are willing to say about it. The GOP is particularly mum. To me, that's no suprise. It's clear all involved in this particular scam were simply not counting on this secret ever being exposed. Congress didn't even know about it until last week. What's more, it was almost an accident the way they found out about it. Turns out that the big six banks couldn't really account for the source of the almost $14 billion that they actually PROFITED from the whole scheme.
Considering that these "secret loans", raises the stakes of the terms of the bailout by no less than ONE THOUSAND TIMES, there should be no less that multiple in corresponding outrage. I've got more to post, so while I'm doing that, just check out the video...
Ok, this is bad…
Naomi Wolf, a prominent author/journalist, who herself was arrested during the OWS protests, releases a BEYOND SCATHING piece covering the now obviously-orechestrated crackdowns on the various "Occupy" demonstrations and protests in respective cities. It's not at all surprising why she chose to have it published in the UK paper "The Guardian". Her findings sheds incredible new light and a fairly sickening explanation for the actions of the various police agencies involved. It is very odd to see that the distinctions being made in their behaviors, versus their relative inaction during the various TP demonstrations that have happened nationwide, as I have stated in my previous commentary.
With the findings she cracks open, the upper echelons of the US government have some serious explaining to do. All the way up to and including Obama's desk:
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy
The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality
Naomi Wolf
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 November 2011 12.25 EST
US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
The Tide is Turning…
The upcoming Summit of the Americas in Cartagena will most likely be a pivotal moment in the history of the western hemisphere. For the first time ever, several Latin American leaders will speak in favor of ending the pointless “Drug War”. My only hope is that they knock some sense into President Obama and get him to see the light on this, and soon.
The Observer…
Watershed summit will admit that prohibition has failed, and call for more nuanced and liberalised tactics
A historic meeting of Latin America’s leaders, to be attended by Barack Obama, will hear serving heads of state admit that the war on drugs has been a failure and that alternatives to prohibition must now be found.
The Summit of the Americas, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia is being seen by foreign policy experts as a watershed moment in the redrafting of global drugs policy in favour of a more nuanced and liberalised approach.
Otto Pérez Molina, the president of Guatemala, who as former head of his country’s military intelligence service experienced the power of drug cartels at close hand, is pushing his fellow Latin American leaders to use the summit to endorse a new regional security plan that would see an end to prohibition. In the Observer, Pérez Molina writes: “The prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that global drug markets can be eradicated.”
Pérez Molina concedes that moving beyond prohibition is problematic. “To suggest liberalisation – allowing consumption, production and trafficking of drugs without any restriction whatsoever – would be, in my opinion, profoundly irresponsible. Even more, it is an absurd proposition. If we accept regulations for alcoholic drinks and tobacco consumption and production, why should we allow drugs to be consumed and produced without any restrictions?” READ MORE