September 14, 2012 archive

So here I sit perched on a limb of a tree trying to construct a mobile, tied to a branch with the major challenge of balancing the two sides of the horizontal bamboo using my selected dangling doodads, without falling off. I don’t like making mobiles first and then hanging them.

Now this tree is roughly 220 years old, the same age as our constitution; which happens

to be pruned by caretakers in black robes with life tenure. It’s a coed group today. I

doubt they socialize much. But they’re good bullshitters. I was trained in law too and my classes were also coed.

Now this so called Constitution was conceived by a few, intelligent, semi/appointed/annoited/chosen fans of the Roman Senate who just happened to accidentally omit the Declaration of Independence (that great document that gave the reasons for the great revolution just a few years back)from said new Social Compact that virtually nobody ratified and yet bound all future generations. Really strange when you

think about it.

Now these guys who didn’t have a clue about photosynthesis, molecular biology,

anthropology/evolution, nutrition, childbirth and women generally, etc. multipled by

great stupidity because they couldn’t figure out how to profit from tobacco without

slavery and perfect THEIR union without conquest, got themselves and everybody else

“out on a limb” (thus the inspiration of this short essay).

Now I for one have never been asked to sign up for this social compact; which is kind of weird because I assume I’m a free agent with free will. As far as I can remember, my earliest recollection of any type of political commitment was the requirement to say the pledge in kindergarten. And of course occasionally confronted with things in life like being told to register for the draft and be ready for jury duty (but remember

that the judge decides the rules of evidence and the validity of the law).

Did we really have to wait 10,000 years for the first amendment? Really, Really strange when you think about it.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

September 14 is the 257th day of the year (258th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 108 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this Day in 1901, U.S. President William McKinley dies after being shot by a deranged anarchist during the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

President and Mrs. McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He delivered a speech about his positions on tariffs and foreign trade on September 5, 1901. The following morning, McKinley visited Niagara Falls before returning to the Exposition. That afternoon McKinley had an engagement to greet the public at the Temple of Music. Standing in line, Leon Frank Czolgosz waited with a pistol in his right hand concealed by a handkerchief. At 4:07 p.m. Czolgosz fired twice at the president. The first bullet grazed the president’s shoulder. The second, however, went through McKinley’s stomach, pancreas, and kidney, and finally lodged in the muscles of his back. The president whispered to his secretary, George Cortelyou  “My wife, Cortelyou, be careful how you tell her, oh be careful.” Czolgosz would have fired again, but he was struck by a bystander and then subdued by an enraged crowd. The wounded McKinley even called out “Boys! Don’t let them hurt him!” because the angry crowd beat Czolgosz so severely it looked as if they might kill him on the spot.

One bullet was easily found and extracted, but doctors were unable to locate the second bullet. It was feared that the search for the bullet might cause more harm than good. In addition, McKinley appeared to be recovering, so doctors decided to leave the bullet where it was.

The newly developed x-ray machine was displayed at the fair, but doctors were reluctant to use it on McKinley to search for the bullet because they did not know what side effects it might have on him. The operating room at the exposition’s emergency hospital did not have any electric lighting, even though the exteriors of many of the buildings at the extravagant exposition were covered with thousands of light bulbs. The surgeons were unable to operate by candlelight because of the danger created by the flammable ether used to keep the president unconscious, so doctors were forced to use pans instead to reflect sunlight onto the operating table while they treated McKinley’s wounds.

McKinley’s doctors believed he would recover, and the President convalesced for more than a week in Buffalo at the home of the exposition’s director. On the morning of September 12, he felt strong enough to receive his first food orally since the shooting-toast and a small cup of coffee. However, by afternoon he began to experience discomfort and his condition rapidly worsened. McKinley began to go into shock. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, 1901, eight days after he was shot, he died from gangrene surrounding his wounds. He was 58. His last words were “It is God’s way; His will be done, not ours.” He was originally buried in West Lawn Cemetery in Canton, Ohio, in the receiving vault. His remains were later reinterred in the McKinley Memorial, also in Canton.

Czolgosz was tried and found guilty of murder, and was executed by electric chair at Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The “Good Guys” won one.

Back in January of this year Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges, became the lead complainant in a law suit against the Obama administration after President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act on December 21, 2011:

Hedges asserted that section 1021 (pdf) of the bill, which authorized indefinite military detention for “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces,” left him, as a working journalist, vulnerable to indefinite detention because neither Congress nor the president defined the terms “substantial support,” “associated forces” or “directly supported.” [Emphasis added.]

After several hearings on the whether or not the plaintiffs had standing,on May 16, US District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York Katherine B. Forrest issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of 1021. On September 12, Judge Forrest made that injunction permanent

Wednesday’s 112-page opinion turns the temporary injunction of May into a permanent injunction. The United States appealed on August 6.

The permanent injunction prevents the U.S. government from enforcing a portion of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act’s “Homeland Battlefield” provisions. [..]

“This court does not disagree with the principle that the president has primacy in foreign affairs,” the judge said, but that she was not convinced by government arguments.

“The government has not stated that such conduct – which, by analogy, covers any writing, journalistic and associational activities that involve al Qaeda, the Taliban or whomever is deemed “associated forces” – does not fall within § 1021(b)(2).”

This ruling of course will be appealed. In the meantime, journalists, reporters, humanitarian aid workers are still protected by the Constitution. We owe a hearty “thank you” to Judge Forrest for not abdicating her judicial responsibilities. But most of all the Chris Hedges and the other six members of the “Freedom 7“: Pentagon Papers journalist Daniel Ellsberg; author Noam Chomsky; Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir; Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla; activist Alexa O’Brien, who believes she lost her day job because of McCarthyite suggestions her work with Occupy Wall Street/Day of Rage was somehow connected to Islamic radicals; and Jennifer “Tangerine” Bolen is the founder and Executive Director of RevolutionTruth.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm gave an animated and rousing speech about jobs and the auto industry at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Now that’s energy.

The full transcript can be read here. H/T Real Clear Politics

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Ingredients:

   1 ounce of brandy or cognac

   Juice of half-a-lemon (a real lemon!)

   Two teaspoons of grenadine (again, real is recommended)

Directions:

Stir ingredients with ice. Shaking works, but stirring preserves the clarity, which is aesthetically better when it’s mixed with champagne.

Strain it into your glass.

Top with champagne.