November 29, 2015

Podcast: Le Premier dimanche de l'Avent

Today is the first Sunday of advent and in view of recent tragedies this France Culture broadcast might be of interest. It's a mostly choral performance of 54 minutes recorded this morning at Sainte Croix abbey in Bordeaux, formerly a Benedictine monastery, now a parish church and national monument, at 1:00 am (10:00 am Paris time):

Podcast link: http://www.franceculture.fr/player/reecouter?play=5106881

November 28, 2015

He says it right here:

November 28, 2015

Rosemary: the part you don't know

The part we DO know is the failed lobotomy, the Wisconsin mental institution her mother never visited, the isolation, the tragedy:

But here's the part we don't hear much about: even though Rose never made it to Saint Coletta while Joe Kennedy was alive, Rosemary's brothers and sisters did:



And after Joe died in 1969, Rose went to Wisconsin, collected Rosemary, brought her back to Hyannis, and there she lived until she died, surrounded by her family:









http://www.people.com/article/rosemary-kennedy-never-seen-pictures-forgotten-kennedy

November 26, 2015

Heads up: Sanders apparently did NOT march with MLK Jr. in 1963, or ever.

It turns out that the carefully expressed claim is that he "attended" (Facebook) or "participated in" (NPR) the 1963 March on Washington, or "was in the crowd on the Mall" (Sanders.sentate.gov), meaning that he was somewhere out there in the unverifiable distance:

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/martin-luther-king-jr

But suggesting that Sanders says he marched with King is apparently "swift boating" per post 138 of this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251846817#post138


ps Happy Thanksgiving to all!

November 25, 2015

Sanders himself says he was "way way back there" in the distance.

He also replaces MLK Jr. with himself in this title image which strikes me as odd:

November 24, 2015

After Paris attacks, French leaders reposition for presidential race

Hollande plays father of nation, Sarkozy torn
By: Reuters | Paris | November 18, 2015 12:46 PM

While France mourns the dead in the Paris attacks by Islamic State, President Francois Hollande and his two likely main challengers are calibrating their response with one eye on the 2017 presidential election.

Francois Hollande, 61, a Socialist who is deeply unpopular due to high unemployment and economic stagnation, is using the advantages of incumbency to reinvent himself as a decisive war leader and a compassionate father of the nation.

Nicolas Sarkozy, 60, his centre-right predecessor, is hesitating between statesmanlike support for national unity at a time of crisis in the wake of Paris attacks and the itch to criticise a successor he has always belittled as weak and irresolute.

Paradoxically, hard right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen, 47, initially softened her shrill anti-Islamist, anti-immigration rhetoric after the Paris attacks, apparently convinced that events were turning voters in her direction anyway. It didn’t last long.

In what many have called France’s “9/11 moment”, Hollande won a standing ovation from a rare joint session of parliament on Monday after declaring that France was “at war” with Islamic State militants, and would wage a merciless campaign against them while beefing up its internal security. The respected centre-left daily Le Monde headlined it “Hollande’s security U-turn.”

{SNIP}

SHORT-LIVED BOUNCE

Hollande, whose approval rating had sunk to 13 percent, the lowest in the history of France’s 57-year-old Fifth Republic, enjoyed a brief bounce after his widely praised handling of a previous set of deadly Islamist attacks on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January.

The president led a million-person march with world leaders in support of freedom of speech after overseeing decisive police intervention that saved dozens of lives then, and striking a tone that embodied national dignity and determination.

The upturn did not last long. The Socialists suffered heavy losses in municipal elections in March. The economy has since begun to pick up slowly, and unemployment finally seems to have peaked, but Hollande has drawn scant political benefit.

He has said he will seek re-election in 2017 only if his government has succeeded in reversing the rise in jobless rolls.

In the three-horse presidential race that was shaping up before the Paris attacks, many analysts were predicting the left could be eliminated on the first round, as Socialist Lionel Jospin was in 2002, leaving a run-off between Sarkozy and Le Pen. Her father was beaten in the second round by then-President Jacques Chirac.

Another such outcome no longer looks quite as likely.

“You could expect the extreme-right and the left to benefit from the situation in the first instance – the far-right because the issues are its traditional strengths, and the left because it has finally embraced the issue of security,” said Jean-Daniel Levy, head of politics at pollster Harris Interactive.

The coming weeks will give Hollande more opportunities to display statecraft. He has visits to Washington and Moscow planned for next week, billed as an effort to persuade the two biggest global powers to make common cause against Islamic State.

And by invoking the European Union’s mutual assistance clause and declaring that security spending comes before EU budget rules, Hollande offered something to pro-Europeans, sovereigists and leftists alike.

But voters are ultimately likely to judge him on his economic results, and the Paris attacks could weaken a feeble recovery, making it harder to seriously reduce jobless queues.

“Economic concerns will return to the fore” once the threat of terrorism has receded, said Gael Sliman, president of the Oxoda polling institute.

http://www.financialexpress.com/article/world-news/after-paris-attacks-french-leaders-reposition-for-presidential-race-hollande-plays-father-of-nation-sarkozy-torn/167269/

November 24, 2015

It's a Pope Francis Christmas, Charlie Brown

November 24, 2015

Washington Is Next on François Hollande’s Tour to Press Allies for Anti-ISIS Coalition

Source: New York Times

PARIS — President François Hollande of France heads to Washington on Tuesday as a self-described wartime president, with his political future at stake.

France is pressing hard for its allies and friends to step up their efforts against the Islamic State, so Mr. Hollande has been on an extraordinary global tour this week to win them over. He met here Monday morning with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who promised to press the British Parliament to approve military action in Syria.

After seeing President Obama on Tuesday, Mr. Hollande will be off to Moscow. By Sunday evening he will also have met with the German, Italian, Canadian and Chinese leaders, plus the European Union president, Donald Tusk, and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.

Mr. Hollande is counting on the new reach of the jihadists abroad — massacring 130 civilians in Paris and taking responsibility for bringing down a Russian airliner full of civilians over Egypt — to change assumptions in Washington, Moscow and London and prompt a serious military effort to take down the self-styled caliphate. He is calling on Washington and Moscow to “unite our forces” in a “wide and single” international coalition against the Islamic State.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/world/europe/washington-is-next-on-francois-hollandes-tour-to-press-allies-for-anti-isis-coalition.html

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November 24, 2015

President John F. Kennedy's Civil Rights Address

June 11, 1963:

November 24, 2015

Absolutely, an astonishing, blazing, game-changing speech, and here it is ...

Kennedy's "not a Pax Americana" speech, announcing among other things his nuclear test ban treaty and touching on his favorite theme, "the most important topic on earth, world peace":

This speech gives the lie to the lame claim that Kennedy was ever a cold warrior. Far from it. He ran on peace in 1960 and spent the next three years delivering it. And you might be right, this speech might have sealed his fate, but if he hadn't also acted on his words he'd have probably flown home from Dallas and he probably wouldn't have issued the memo in October that I think did sign his death warrant, NSAM 263, cited by Art-from-Ark above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Action_Memorandum_263

Incidentally I hadn't realized before tonight that the last line hearkens back to his 1960 book, a reminder that among other achievements he kept his campaign promises:






p.s. about the test ban treaty: "On August 5, 1963, representatives of the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere." http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/nuclear-test-ban-treaty