August 24, 2014

And as mind is to body, so is humanity to Earth...

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“Is it not possible that rocks, hills and mountains, and the great physical body of the Earth itself may enjoy a sentience, a form of consciousness which we humans cannot perceive only because of the vastly different time scales involved? For example the mind of a mountain may be as powerful and profound as that of a Buddha, Plato, Spinoza, Whitehead and Einstein. Say that a mountain takes 5,000,000 of our human or solar years to complete a single thought. But what a grand thought that single thought must be. If only we could tune in on it. The classic philosophers of both east and west have tried for 5,000 years more or less to convince us that Mind is the basic reality, maybe the only reality and that our bodies, the Earth and the entire universe is no more than a thought in the mind of God. But consider an alternative hypothesis. That Buddha, Plato, Einstein and we are all thoughts in the minds of mountains, or that humanity is a long, long thought in the mind of the Earth. That we are the means by which the Earth, and perhaps the universe becomes conscious of itself. I tell you that God, if there is a god, may be the end, not the origin of this process. If so, then our relationship to Earth is something like that of our minds to our bodies. They are interdependent. We cannot exploit or abuse our bodies without peril to our mental health and our survival. We have definitely seen some mindless bodies dancing around us, but we have yet to observe a disembodied mind. At least I haven’t seen any. And as mind is to body, so is humanity to Earth. We cannot dishonor one without dishonoring and destroying ourselves.” – Edward Abbey, from his 1975 lecture “In Defense of Wilderness” given at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico and later transcribed and published by Jack Loeffler in his book, Adventures with Ed: A Portrait of Abbey.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/08/24/quote-for-the-day-401/

August 24, 2014

Ferguson's global giant, and those left behind

Emerson employs a lot of less-skilled people to make a lot of different stuff, but not in Ferguson. In Mexico, Central America, South America, Germany, France, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, China, India, Japan, the Philippines and other nations, in 230 manufacturing centers, Emerson employs 130,000 people, including 33,000 at 80 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

...............

In 2009, David Farr, then as now Emerson’s chairman and CEO, told analysts in Chicago that President Barack Obama’s ideas for the environment, health care reform and labor could “destroy” U.S. manufacturing.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Farr asked his audience. “I’m not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving.”

Last year, David Farr was paid $25.3 million, placing him No. 5 on Equilar’s list of America’s best-paid executives.


http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/kevin-horrigan/horrigan-ferguson-s-global-giant-and-those-left-behind/article_54cf78a2-c735-5488-8fcd-c366ee36e132.html

August 24, 2014

Uh Far Side kind of question - but who put that sign there?

August 24, 2014

Get Over It? NEVER.

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Our Supreme Court seems to think that, racism and bigotry, if they still exist, are just minor problems:

The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, stated that “things have changed dramatically” in the South and that the "country has changed" since the Voting Rights Act was passed. The court argued the law had successfully defended against discrimination, but was no longer needed. Racism, the court majority appeared to suggest, was over, and laws created during a time when such hatred was in its heyday served now to place unjust "burdens" on certain states and jurisdictions that wished to pass new voting laws -- laws, of course, that had nothing to do with trying to suppress minority votes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/racism-isnt-dead_n_5232080.html

August 24, 2014

Ferguson protesters chanted, "Hands up, don't shoot!" Darren Wilson supporters replied, "Shoot!"

Sometimes, there are moments so stark that they have the power to encapsulate an ugly truth in a single frame. This is one such moment:

Today in Saint Louis, around 100 people demonstrated in support of Darren Wilson, the officer who gunned down Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The mostly white crowd gathered at a local watering hole popular with police, held signs and raised money for Wilson. Many suggested Wilson was the victim of a rush to judgement, and some insisted the episode had nothing to do with race, but rather with a police officer doing his job, as evidenced by this gem:




Despite the troubling implications of supporting a police officer who gunned down an unarmed teenager with six bullets, all was relatively peaceful.

And then came the moment. A counter protest developed in response to the gathering of Wilson supporters, and many of them began chanting, "Hands up, don't shoot," a reference to the fact that, according to both witnesses and an autopsy, Brown had his hand raised in the air when he was shot.

In response? Wilson's supporters began chanting, "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!"

Here is The Washington Post's Wesley Lowery, who captured the moment on Twitter:



https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/statuses/503362482883538945


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/24/1324173/-Ferguson-protesters-chanted-Hands-up-don-t-shoot-Darren-Wilson-supporters-replied-Shoot

August 23, 2014

“Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!

As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine. We further condemn the United States for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack, and Western states more generally for using their diplomatic muscle to protect Israel from condemnation. Genocide begins with the silence of the world.

We are alarmed by the extreme, racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, which has reached a fever-pitch. In Israel, politicians and pundits in The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post have called openly for genocide of Palestinians and right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.

Furthermore, we are disgusted and outraged by Elie Wiesel’s abuse of our history in these pages to justify the unjustifiable: Israel’s wholesale effort to destroy Gaza and the murder of more than 2,000 Palestinians, including many hundreds of children. Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water.

We must raise our voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. We call for an immediate end to the siege against and blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. “Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!


LETTER HERE:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/25976845@N06/14823525740
MORE HERE:
http://ijsn.net/gaza/survivors_and_descendents-letter/


UPDATE:
Hajo Meyer, the first signatory of the letter, died last night. He was 90.
Source (in Dutch).http://www.anjameulenbelt.nl/weblog/2014/08/23/hajo-meyer-overleden/

August 23, 2014

Not even Cockroach Acres can hide from the future forever.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/08/23/saturday-afternoon-open-thread-4/

August 23, 2014

Ferguson Police Waited 10 Days to Review Michael Brown Incident Report

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AUG 22, 2014 9:07AM ET / MICHAEL BROWN SHOOTING
Ferguson Police Waited 10 Days to Review Michael Brown Incident Report

ASSOCIATED PRESS


Since Michael Brown was shot by Officer Darren Wilson on August 9, reporters have called for the release of the incident report Wilson would have filled out according to proper police procedure. But according to the document released to the ACLU, there is no real report. The incident report the Ferguson Police Department has on file has little more than the who, where and when of the shooting. It doesn't say what happened, it doesn't say how, and it wasn't even reviewed by a supervisor until 10 days after Michael Brown died. The report was given final approval on August 20.

At a press conference last week Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released an incident report related to the robbery Brown was a suspect in, as well as video of the robbery. At the time, Jackson said that he wanted to hold on to the information but was pushed by transparency request, though media organizations actually wanted details of the shooting. Jackson later said that the robbery was unrelated to the shooting — Brown was stopped for walking in the street. Several people considered the selective release of information to be a character assassination, and Capt. Ron Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder expressed their own concerns over the selective release of information.

It's clear now that Ferguson police knew then that they didn't have the incident report they were asked to release. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell argued that Jackson essentially admitted there was no incident report last week when he said "we've pretty much given you every bit of information that we have now — I don't think there's anything else that we have to give out.

the rest:
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/08/ferguson-police-waited-10-days-to-review-michael-brown-incidents-report/378972/

August 23, 2014

2 ?s: Was the political consultant wrong to stop the chain? & Which party do you think he consults?

Robert Reich
2 hours ago

When I crossed the Bay Bridge to San Francisco a few years ago, the toll taker (it still had toll takers then) told me the driver in front of me had paid my toll. So, naturally, I paid for the person behind me. I don’t know how long that “pay it forward” chain continued but I remember how nice it felt, even though each of us still paid the toll we would have anyway. A similar chain ran for nearly two days recently at a Starbucks in Florida, with more than 700 people buying the person behind him a coffee. But (according to ABC News), a part-time political consultant heard about it on the radio and thought it a do-good marketing stunt that should be stopped. So the consultant went to the Starbucks, got in line, let the person in front of him pay for the political consultant’s coffee, and then didn't pay for the person behind him. That stopped the chain.

Two questions:

(1) Was the political consultant wrong to stop the chain?
(2) Which party do you think he consults for?

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf

August 23, 2014

Justice Ginsburg: Ferguson Turmoil Illustrates "Real Racial Problem"+ SCOTUS Has Done Little to help

The turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., and the controversial stop-and-frisk policy in New York City illustrate a “real racial problem” in America, one that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have done little to help, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told The National Law Journal.

The high court was “once a leader in the world” in rooting out racial discrimination,” the justice said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her chambers. “What’s amazing is how things have changed.”
Ginsburg recalled the Burger Court’s unanimous landmark ruling in 1971 in which the justices, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon appointee, embraced the powerful legal tool known as the “disparate impact” framework for uncovering discriminatory policies that are neutral on their face but disproportionately harm minorities.

In that ruling (Griggs v. Duke Power), Burger spoke of “built-in head winds” for minorities, she said. There was then a sensitivity that the requirement of a high school diploma for a janitor’s job, for example, would inevitably screen out black applicants.

“It was a very influential decision and it was picked up in England,” Ginsburg recalled. “That’s where the court was heading in the ’70s.”

MORE plus transcript:
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202667692557/Justice-Ginsburg-Skeptical-of-TwoYear-Law-School-Idea#ixzz3BE465DeP