Another restored.  From May 19, 2011.

re-posted from Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 07:00:00 PDT

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re-posted from September 12, 2007 at 05:00:00 PDT.

Time to start making our marks.

We look sharp, time to be sharp.

When I think about blogging as art I see it as halfway between a Magazine and a TV Channel.  You have an audience for the Gilmore Girls and when they tune in they expect to see it.

But also a Community blog is a team effort, the kind of artistry you see on a Baseball Diamond between 9 people who love the game they play.  Sort of a dance, but competitive.

First day of the season.  Home opener.  Score is nothing nothing and anything can happen.

That said I expect we’ll get our asses kicked and be cleaning up the mess for weeks, but I love this game.

It’s a long season, 162 games at least.  I’m not disappointed in the talent, but we’ve never played together before and you can only expect miscommunication and errors.

It’s all good.

As we learn together we will get stronger as a team.  Pretty soon we’ll be turning those double plays and figure out where the bumps in the field are.  We have the pitching to succeed and the bullpen to close.

Now we just have to start scratching out the runs.

A bad print, but hard to find.  Originally posted May 18, 2011.

Chicago Teachers Union On Strike For First Time in 25 Years

By Susie Madrak, Crooks & Liars

September 10, 2012 06:00 AM

All of a sudden, teachers are the enemy of the state. All of a sudden, our public schools are worthless and need to be overhauled by CEOs and people who have never taught a day in their lives (except the shock troops of Teach for America, which is to teaching what McDonald’s is to food). But many, many so-called liberals have been sucked into this argument, enabling what is little more than an elite union-busting, money-making operation.

…

There are a lot of straw men set up in this argument, and desperate parents will grab at any of them if they think it will help their kids. But study after study finds the same thing: For-profit charter schools do not perform better, and in many instances, they perform worse. Yes, well, adding a profit motive to something will do that.

So when the media tries to paint this teacher strike as greedy unions vs. "reform," don’t buy what they’re selling. Read this or this or this instead.

…

Oh, and Rahm? Good luck counting on the teachers unions to get out the vote this year.

How Michelle Rhee Is Taking Over the Democratic Party

By Molly Ball, The Atlantic

Sep 8 2012, 12:31 PM ET

Yet there are signs that Rhee’s persona non grata status in her party is beginning to wane -- starting with the fact that the chairman of the Democratic convention, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, spoke at the movie screening Rhee hosted at the convention earlier this week. Another Democratic star, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, spoke at the cocktails-and-canapes reception afterward. Across the country, Democratic officials from governors like Colorado’s John Hickenlooper to former President Clinton -- buoyed by the well-funded encouragement of the hedge-fund bigwigs behind much of the charter-school movement -- are shifting the party’s consensus away from the union-dictated terms to which it has long been loyal. Instead, they’re moving the party toward a full-fledged embrace of the twin pillars of the reform movement: performance-based incentives for teachers, and increased options, including charter schools, for parents.

The inroads made by the education reformers go all the way to the top -- to President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the “Race to the Top” initiative that required states to make reforms to get federal education funds -- and they amount to a major shift for the Democratic Party on one of its signature issues. “These are some of the most high-profile Democrats out there,” Rhee says, also mentioning Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel, Philadelphia’s Michael Nutter, and her husband, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. “They are taking on the unions. They are fighting for what they believe in. It definitely signals a new day.”

Extradition!

You see, Julian Assange is an evil evil man.

America’s refusal to extradite Bolivia’s ex-president to face genocide charges

Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian

Sunday 9 September 2012 14.22 EDT

Obama justice officials have all but granted asylum to Sánchez de Lozada – a puppet who payrolled key Democratic advisers

In October 2003, the intensely pro-US president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, sent his security forces to suppress growing popular protests against the government’s energy and globalization policies. Using high-powered rifles and machine guns, his military forces killed 67 men, women and children, and injured 400 more, almost all of whom were poor and from the nation’s indigenous Aymara communities. Dozens of protesters had been killed by government forces in the prior months when troops were sent to suppress them.

…

But there’s another important aspect of this case that distinguishes it from the standard immunity Washington gifts to itself and its friends. When he ran for president in 2002, Sánchez de Lozada was deeply unpopular among the vast majority of Bolivians as a result of his prior four-year term as president in the 1990s. To find a way to win despite this, he hired the consulting firm owned and operated by three of Washington’s most well-connected Democratic party operatives: James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Bob Shrum. He asked them to import the tactics of American politics into Bolivia to ensure his election victory.

As detailed by a 2006 New York Times review of a film about the Democratic operatives’ involvement in Bolivia’s election, their strategy was two-fold: first, destroy the reputations of his two opponents so as to depress the enthusiasm of Bolivia’s poor for either of them; and then mobilize Sánchez de Lozada’s base of elites to ensure he wins by a tiny margin. That strategy worked, as he was elected with a paltry 22.5% of the popular vote.

…

Then, there are the very revealing parallels between this case and the recent decision by Ecuador to grant asylum to Julian Assange, until his fears of political persecution from being extradited to Sweden are resolved. Remember all those voices who were so deeply outraged at Ecuador’s decision? Given that he faces criminal charges in Sweden, they proclaimed, protecting Assange with asylum constitutes a violent assault on the rule of law.

Do you think any of the people who attacked Ecuador on that ground will raise a peep of protest at what the US did here in shielding this former leader from facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity back in his own country? In contrast to Ecuador – which is fervently seeking an agreement to allow Assange to go to Sweden to face those allegations while simultaneously protecting his political rights – the US has done nothing, and is doing nothing, to ensure that Sánchez de Lozada will ever have to face trial. To the contrary, until Thursday, the US has steadfastly refused even to acknowledge Bolivia’s extradition request, even though the crimes for which they want to try him are plainly within the scope of the two nations’ extradition treaty.

Then there’s the amazing fact that Democrats, who understandably scorn Mitt Romney for piling up massive personal wealth while he advocates policies harmful to the poor, continue in general to revere these types of Clintonites who, arguably to a lesser extent, have done the same. Indeed, Democrats spent all last week wildly praising Bill Clinton, who has made close to $100m in speaking fees alone by traveling the globe, speaking to hedge funds, and advocating globalization and free trade.

In this case, one finds both the prevailing rules and the prevailing orthodoxies of American justice. High-level leaders in the US government and those who serve their interests are exempt from the rule of law (even when accused of heinous acts of terrorism); only leaders who run afoul of US dictates should be held accountable.

Argentine judge orders arrest of Credit Suisse executive

Reuters

Tue Sep 4, 2012

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 3 (Reuters) – A judge in Argentina has ordered the arrest of Credit Suisse executive and former U.S. Treasury Undersecretary David Mulford because he failed to testify over a 2001 Argentine debt swap, the state news agency reported on Monday.

Federal Judge Marcelo Martinez de Giorgi will ask Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant seeking Mulford’s extradition for questioning over the bond exchange carried out by the government in an unsuccessful bid to avoid default.

…

Argentine officials have “made numerous attempts by all possible legal means to achieve David Mulford’s compliance, in this country’s territory as well as through U.S. authorities, and all of these have invariably failed,” the documents stated.

…

Mulford worked at the U.S. Treasury from 1984 to 1992 and was at the center of international economic negotiations under former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

He later served as the U.S. ambassador to India.

D. W. Griffin– Intolerence (1916) (2:57)

Griffith responded to his critics with Intolerance, intended to show the history of prejudiced thought and behavior. The film was not a financial success but was praised by critics.

D. W. Griffin– The Clansman (1915) (3:00)

Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States. The film has been extremely controversial for its negative depiction of African Americans, white Unionists and Reconstruction, and its positive portrayal of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan.

Repression, repression I say, is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.

Poor boy, dumb as a sack of hammers.

Originally appeared here May 17, 2011.  Link updated from IMDB to Wikipedia.

Mitt who?

Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final.